Cora (Virtue & Vice #4)

Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

GIDEON

S omething wasn’t right. Dread sank leaden in Gideon’s belly. Whatever Leopold had said to Cora had gotten under her skin. The very first thing he was going to do after this concert was murder that prince with his bare hands.

No. Not murder. Just shy of it, though. Leopold wasn’t enough to risk getting himself hanged, not when Gideon had finally won over his wife. After tonight, he wouldn’t make the mistake of being high-handed with her ever again.

“What ails you?” Reggie asked.

“Cora was upset before the performance. I should have told her that even if she played dreadfully, it wouldn’t matter.” To his mother, perhaps, but never to him. He had sworn never to fawn over a woman in public, but was there any greater display of his love for a woman than creating an entire evening for her to showcase her talents?

How low he had fallen. Gideon couldn’t stop thinking about how her eyes had been like those on her wedding day. Cold. Distant. Beautiful.

She took her place at the piano. His heart skipped. She looked so perfect seated at the instrument that had been both her solace and her destruction. What power music held over the human soul.

Then she began to play, and he basked in the sounds flowing from her fingertips. Even after eleven years of dormancy, it had only taken a few weeks to revive her incredible talent. Cora’s musical skill was like a desert flower, waiting for the rain to come before blooming. He had been that rain. He’d made her blossom. Granted, he had also been the desert, drying up her talent in the first place, but they were past that now.

Cora Wentworth was everything he had ever imagined her to be. His perfect wife. His lady, celebrated by the highest echelons of Society, and his match in every way between the sheets. Even his own mother, who had never been pleased about any woman in his life, radiated triumph at Cora’s performance.

His sense of doom slowly receded. He’d been nervous, that was all. He liked to take big risks, and this one had been very risky indeed. Satisfaction flickered like the glow of a candle within him.

Gideon had always possessed a special talent for finding an underrated investment and bringing it to its full potential. Just as he’d done with Wilder’s bank, even if the man only grudgingly appreciated his efforts. None of their interpersonal rancor mattered in light of how rich they would all be in a few years.

Everything had turned out even better than he’d planned.

After three excellent songs, Cora turned to the crowd and smiled with the brilliance of a thousand diamonds.

“I have one final tune to offer you this evening.” Her smile turned catlike. Knowing. “If you recognize it, I hope you’ll sing along.”

She launched into a brisk, bright tune. A guffaw from somewhere behind him sparked astonished laughter from the crowd. His mother’s expression tightened so furiously that he could see the cracking of her facade from the periphery of his vision. He sat there, stunned, his hands frozen mid-clap.

No.

How could she?

After all the work she and his mother had put into making Cora the most envied hostess in London this Season, she went and ruined everything by playing a popular street song? No one came to The Royal Albert Hall for a ditty they could hear on every corner of London. Cold realization dawned.

Once, he had ruined her.

Now his wife was returning the favor.

“Come, now, don’t look so scandalized. We are all adults here. If you know the words, sing with me!” she called out.

One by one, the crowd joined in. Even Cora belted out the words in a clear, angelic alto utterly unsuited to the bawdy tune, Contented Wife.

Worse, she made it even bawdier than it already was.

You married and you single folks attention give awhile,

This interesting ditty, cannot fail to make you smile;

Pass my days right merrily, free from all care and strife

With a virtuous female partner, a sweet contented wife.

“Come now, sing the chorus with me!” called out Cora, and the shocked crowd obliged. Gideon exchanged glances with his mother, whose complexion had turned ashen. Her eyes were wide with disbelief.

Your days you will pass merrily, and lead a happy life,

With a virtuous female partner, a sweet contented wife.

When a married man from labour, in the eve returns home,

His parlour is his castle, and he has no cause to roam,

His supper is in readiness, his children are all fed,

And his wife will take the candle for to light him up to bed

To society a single man, can be of little use,

He moves about like an owl,

No vitals for him ready, while a married man at case,

Sits down to dine in comfort on whatever dish he please

A married man too happy be, at home can never fail,

A single man is like an ape, or dog without a tail,

No one to console him, or to comfort him through life,

Young men don’t rest but do your best to choose a loving wife.

You ladies mark you carefully, what I will now unfold.

King Solomon says a virtuous wife, is worth her weight in gold;

When Adam lived in paradise, he committed sin,

He ne’er knew old Eve his wife to pawn her clothes for gin.

In sorrow pain and poverty in sickness sore oppressed,

None like a faithful woman, that can share in man’s life,

She’ll nourish him & cherish him, and comfort him thro

There is nothing in this world like a faithful loving wife.

That man that would ill-use a wife I’d hang him to a tree

For in this world I do declare, he is not fit to be,

Some men are never satisfied, abroad or at home,

They can always see a woman’s fault, but will not see

their own

As the last chord vibrated into silence, Cora rose from the piano, bowed, kissed two outstretched fingers of each hand and raised them high in a salute. Her mirthless, triumphant eyes found his. “It has been a pleasure.” She bowed. “But now I must go.”

The audience erupted into furious applause.

Gideon lurched out of his seat, stopped by his mother’s grip on his arm.

“This will destroy us,” she hissed. “Do something.”

He yanked his arm free. “Stay out of this for once, Mother. Let me handle my wife.”

Then he was pushing past people’s knees, shoving his way down the narrow lane to the already-crowded aisle.