Read Online The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

could present such a different appearance, unless by some magickal transformation.
    Her song ended, Sophie rested her hands lightly on the keyboard and smiled up at him.
    â€œI thought myself alone in the house,” she said. “Amelia has gone visiting in the carriage and taken Joanna with her, and the Professor is out walking. This is not the sort of music they would approve of, you see.”
    She paused.
    â€œThey do not much like me to sing,” she said.
    Which explained, presumably, why he had never heard her do so before.
    â€œI have not heard that song in—in years,” said Gray. He became vaguely aware that he was staring, and with an effort he turned his gaze to the window. “It is not one my mother approves of, either.”
    â€œSo you know it? How wonderful!” Sophie clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Will you sing it with me, then?”
    In the warm room Gray shivered. “I—I only came in to look for my—my hat—”
    â€œPlease, Gray.” Her tone was quite serious now. “I shall not keep you long from your work. Just once.”
    There is nothing I should like more,
thought Gray—
only I fear the consequences.
    â€œI should be honoured,” he said at last.
    Sophie smiled.
    *   *   *
    Singing with Sophie, Gray discovered, was very different from singing with Jenny or Cecelia.
    To begin with, she was a better musician than either; hearing her play the pretty, capricious music that pleased her father and Amelia, Gray had often pondered how many thousands of hours she must have spent in practising, to attain such consummate skill as made even the most difficult piece sound natural and unstudied. Though they had never before sung together, she followed his lead perfectly and without apparent effort; a glance from her told him to carry the melody, and her clear soprano wove bewitchingly about it, her fingers never stumbling in the rippling accompaniment.
    There was something else, too—some indefinable sense that, despite all Sophie’s protests, this room had magick in it.
    Had we never lov’d sae kindly,
    Had we never lov’d sae blindly,
    Never met—or never parted . . .
    In the middle of the second verse, Gray’s knees went weak and he clutched at the lid of the pianoforte to stop himself from falling. Sophie’s voice faltered, and the instrument fell silent.
    â€œGray?” she said softly. “Gray, are you not well?”
    Gray’s vision blurred, and the room began to turn about him. Gentle hands caught his elbows; an arm round his waist supported him to a sofa, where he sat, head in hands, trying to regain his equilibrium. He was vaguely aware of someone kneeling at his feet.
    â€œOut,” he managed to say. He felt trapped, stifled; blinking desperately in an attempt to clear his vision, he was assailed by a sense of despair, of cold black dread, and he staggered to his feet, frantic for air. “Out—I must get out—please, outside—”
    There was a flurry of movement and the sound of window-sashes flung open. Gray felt a breeze, smelled a hint of trees and sun, and lurched towards the source of these salvifics. Hands on the windowsill, head and shoulders as far out into the air as he could manage, he drew deep, ragged breaths. Slowly the panic receded.
    â€œGray,” Sophie whispered, behind him. “Gray, come back to me.”
    He turned to look down at her. Her face was pale, her eyes large, and—no, it must be his own bleary eyes that made the rest of her look pale as well. “I felt—” he began. Remembering what he had felt, he began to shiver.
    â€œYou are ill,” said Sophie. The gently scolding tone he knew was creeping back into her voice. “Going out without a hat again, as though you knew no better. Very likely you are sunstruck. You ought to be abed. Can you walk, or . . .”
    â€œCertainly