It was the sound of a piano playing, its notes reaching into the chamber, and before she knew what she was doing, she got off the bed and ran out of the chamber, following the sound that led her to the piano room she knew they had in the manor. But she had never gotten curious enough to go into the room, as she had been too burdened by Rohan’s condition to care about anything else around her.
The double doors to the piano room stood ajar, and pure, sweet Chopin floated out through the crack. Belle pushed the doors open and paused on the threshold at the sight that beheld her inside the room.
Rohan sat at the polished piano, staring at the empty music stand in front of him while he played the instrument without a music book.
His wide shoulders moved as his hands found and played notes, and his bare foot flexed as he worked the damper pedal. Winter sunlight that flowed in from the huge glass windows where the curtains were pulled caught on his dark blue hair. He was wearing a robe and loose black trousers.
He looked as healthy as he had ever looked. There was no paleness to his complexion, and his skin glowed and shimmered against the faint sunlight. It was like he was made of gold and everything expensive. Her Rohan was back—her heart skipped a beat and swelled with warmth.
And the music he was playing wove around her and drew her to him. She walked across the room to the piano as the notes floated around her, loud and sweet. She could bathe in them.
The music made a little run high on the keyboard, then ended with a low chord that used all of Rohan’s gloved fingers. He let his hands stay in place, sinews stretching, as the last undulations died away.
Belle pressed her hands together and clapped. "That was magnificent. I never knew you could play."
Rohan snatched his fingers from the keys. He looked quickly up at Belle as he hadn’t sense her and away, then placed his hands back on the keyboard.
"I learned it when I was... in the womb," he said with a small chuckle and a shake of his head. He had indeed learned it from his mother, as she always played it to him when he was still in her womb. Recalling those moments he had never let bother him in the past after he lost his heart, but now back with his heart inside him, his expression darkened like the gathering clouds of a storm.
Belle noticed it and spoke to change the subject from an undeserving mother, "That’s extraordinary. You are special."
Rohan did not say anything. He remained on the bench of the piano, frowning as though trying to remember something.
Belle thought he wouldn’t say anything again until he looked away from the black and white keys of the instrument and to the window.
A gruff note entered Rohan’s voice as he echoed the man’s timbre as well as his words, and then he chuckled like he found it funny now, because he indeed found it funny and not as hurtful as it had been when it first happened to him.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Married To The Mad Vampire Lord