A Beautiful Dare
Page 6
People gathered to watch the performance, and Evelyn heard someone whisper, ‘It seems that both brothers have found their match.’
Evelyn started to play and she could see both her mother and Charlie basking in the reflected glory of her voice singing that the rest of life faded in the face of love. But it didn’t. No, as of tonight, life had suddenly become more vivid, a beautiful fan unfurling fold after fold of brightly coloured possibilities that she could pursue, if only she dared.
The whiskey, combined with the champagne from dinner, had made her head spin and her vision blur. Suddenly, everything she’d been holding in, all the fears about Charlie and the ridiculous idea she’d discussed with Thomas, threatened to spill over. She stopped singing, recklessly shifted her hands and tried to pick out the tune to ‘Hot Lips’, a jazz recording she’d covertly purchased and only listened to at low volume when her mother was out of the house. It took her a couple of bars to get it right, and then she started to play it louder, the rhythm completely unlike anything usually played in a Concord drawing room.
Her mother rushed over, as the guests stared at Evelyn’s musical outburst, and hissed, ‘What are you doing?’
Charlie had stopped smiling too. His friends were laughing, probably at her, the provincial girl who didn’t know how to give a decorous after-dinner recital. Evelyn remembered what Viola had read to her that morning from the Ladies’ Home Journal, about the sensuous stimulation of the abominable jazz orchestra. Everyone in the room could do with a bit of sensuous stimulation. But Charlie’s hand was moving down to close the lid of the piano and cut off Evelyn’s song.
‘You’re right. We could do with something livelier now that dinner’s over. Would you help me choose something for the phonograph?’ It was Thomas. He’d stepped in front of Charlie and her mother and was offering to sweep her away from their censure.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered as she joined him at the phonograph. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I’m upsetting everyone, having conversations I shouldn’t, drinking whiskey, playing jazz.’
‘Is that really so bad?’ Thomas asked, but before she could reply he left her speechless by saying, ‘Besides, your voice is beautiful, Evie.’
A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester
available from 26 April
Copyright
First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2016
by Hachette Australia
(an imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)
Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
www.hachette.com.au
A Beautiful Dare © Natasha Lester 2016
A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald © Natasha Lester 2016
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication data available from the National Library of Australia
ISBN: 978 0 7336 3590 8
A Beautiful Dare cover design by Nathan Grice
A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald cover design by Nada Backovic, images courtesy of Arcangel Images