Work. The piano was all the evidence she needed to assume he’d been working.
He was about to respond with a sharp tone—though he had no idea what he’d say—when a needle of rational thought pierced the fog in his brain.
At the very least, he needed to be civil to Clara Whitmore if he wanted to learn more about her uncle’s projects.
Or perhaps he should be more than civil. Women had always responded to his attentions. Even if now those attentions were corroded with neglect, Miss Whitmore didn’t appear the sort who had much to judge them—or him—by.
“Would you care for a currant muffin?” She opened the basket. “I thought I’d better bring something to eat since I don’t know how long Tom and I will be here. I’ve also got apples and shortbread…”
She kept talking. He stopped listening.
Instead he stared at the curve of her cheek, the graceful slope of her neck, revealed by her half-turned head. He watched the movement of her lips—a lovely, full mouth she had—and the way her thick eyelashes swept like feathers to her cheekbones.
She looked up to find him watching her. The hint of a flush spread across her pale skin. With a sudden desire to see that flush darken, Sebastian let his gaze wander from her slender throat down across the curves of her body, her tapered waist, the flare of her hips beneath her full skirt. Then he followed the path back to her face.
There. Color bloomed on her cheeks. Her teeth sank into her lush lower lip. Consternation glinted in her lavender eyes. He wondered what she’d look like with her hair unpinned, if it would be long and tangled and thick.
“I… er… I should get to work,” Clara went on, ducking her head. “Tom will be in momentarily, and there’s a great deal to do. Please, take a muffin, if you’d like.”
Sebastian rolled his shoulders back. A cracking noise split through his neck as he stretched. He realized for the first time that day he’d almost forgotten the headache pressing against his skull.
“Thank you.” Again he experienced that wicked urge to provoke a reaction. “I’m not hungry. Not for food.”
Her lips parted on a silent little gasp, as if she wasn’t certain whether to be offended by his suggestive tone or to ignore it altogether. Expressing offense, of course, meant she’d have to reveal that she had recognized the implications of his words.
She gave a nonchalant shrug and shifted, then held Millicent’s head out to him. “If you please, sir—”
“I please, Miss Whitmore.” His voice dropped an octave. “Often and well.”
He was drunk. Or recently had been.
That didn’t explain why Clara’s heart beat like an overworked clock, or why the rough undercurrent of Mr. Hall’s words heated her skin, but at least it explained him.
She tried to breathe evenly. She couldn’t recall ever having had this reaction to him. She remembered him leaning over her shoulder as he demonstrated the position of his fingers on the piano keys. She remembered the assured tone of his voice as he spoke of quarter notes and major scales… but he’d been distant then, a brilliant pianist, a dashing young man who attracted beautiful women, who would keep company with kings and emperors.
Now the distance had closed. He stood before her close enough to touch. He had aged, diminished somehow. Had he… fallen?
A tiny ache pierced Clara’s heart. Sebastian Hall had always been disheveled, but in a rather appealing fashion suited to his artistic profession.
I’ve no time to fuss, his manner had proclaimed. I’ve got magic to weave.
And he had, with kaleidoscope threads and fairy-dust needles. At dinner parties and concerts, Mr. Hall spun music through the air and made Clara’s blood echo with notes that had never before moved her.
Not until Sebastian Hall had brought them to life. Sleeves pushed up to his elbows, hair tumbling across his forehead, he’d played the piano with a restless energy that could in no way be contained by the polish of formality.
But now? Now he was just… messy. At least three days’ worth of whiskers roughened his jaw, and his clothes looked as if he’d slept in them for even longer than that. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He appeared hollowed out, like a gourd long past Allhallows Eve.
Clara tilted her head and frowned. Although Mr. Hall’s eyes were bloodshot, they contained a sharpness that overindulgence would have blunted. And his movements—they were tense, restless, none of his edges