“It’s loud,” she said wonderingly. “But sweet, too. Like your music. The sounds all go together to say something.”

“Let’s walk home through the park,” Val suggested, offering his arm. “You can hear birds singing, hear the water in the Serpentine, hear the children playing… I never realized how happy the park sounds.”

“There’s so much…” Morgan took a deep breath and fell in step beside him. “I would never go anywhere I didn’t know well, because I could not stop to ask directions. I was confined to those places Anna would take me or that someone else would escort me to. I could not get lost; I could not need assistance.”

“That has changed. You may get lost several times a day, just to hear people give you directions. Are your ears hurting?”

“They are…” Morgan frowned. “Not hurting from the viscount’s treatment but throbbing, it feels like, with sounds. I’m pleased beyond telling to hear your voice, Lord Valentine.”

“Val,” he said easily. “I’d like to hear you say my name.”

“Valentine Windham.” Morgan smiled at him. “Musician and friend to hard-of-hearing chambermaids.”

“Did you ask Fairly if the cure is temporary?”

“It is. If I don’t look after my ears, they can get into the same state, particularly if I let quacks poke at me and bring me more infections and bleeding and scarring. He gave me an ear syringe and his card, should I have questions. However did you meet such a man?”

“Mutual friends,” Val said. “The circumstances were not particularly sanguine.”

“This involves your papa’s meddling?”

“Nanny Fran’s been talking again.” Val rolled his eyes. “She talks all the time. I got much faster at figuring out what is spoken by watching the speaker’s lips around her, and when people don’t think you can hear, they often say things you ought not to overhear.”

“What sorts of things?” Val asked, noticing Morgan’s voice was already increasing in range of pitch, taking on the intonations and inflections of a woman who could hear.

“Footmen are a bawdy lot,” Morgan said. “Nanny Fran and Cook are just as bad.”

“Has anyone been talking out of turn to His Grace?”

“Not that I know of.” Morgan frowned. “Mostly, the staff are very loyal to the earl, as he provided employment when His Grace was letting junior staff go, to hear them tell it. And I can.” Morgan sighed and hung a little on his arm. “I can hear them tell it. I will be on my knees for a long time tonight and every night. I wonder if I will sing again someday?”

“You like to sing?”

“Love to.” Morgan beamed at him. “I used to sing with my mother, and sometimes Anna would join us, but she was an adolescent just as my voice was becoming reliable, and singing was not her greatest talent.”

“So you are related to her?” Val asked, but Morgan’s hand dropped from his arm. “Morgan,” he chided, “Anna brought you into the household with her, she has admitted to Westhaven she knew you when you could hear, and Dev has seen the two of you tête-à-tête over something serious.”

Too late, Morgan realized the trap speaking had sprung on her. Deaf and mute, she could not be questioned; she could not be held accountable for any particular knowledge or intelligence.

Val peered down at her as they approached the park. “Dev says Anna has secrets, and I fear he is right. They are your secrets, too, aren’t they?”

“It’s complicated and not entirely my business to tell,” she said, speaking slowly. “This is part of the reason you must not tell anyone I can hear.”

“I do not like lying, Morgan. Particularly not to my brother, regarding people in his employ.”

“The earl hired me knowing I could not hear or speak,” Morgan pointed out. “He is not cheated when you keep this confidence for me. And if it comforts you to know it, I am not even going to tell Anna I can hear.”

“You think she would begrudge you your hearing?”

“No.” Morgan shook her head then grinned. “I can hear that, when I shake my head.” She did it again then her smile faded. “Back to Anna and me… For the past two years, Anna is all that connected me with a world I had long since stopped hearing. I owe her more than you know, and yet, having me to look after has also meant she’s had to look after herself. Were I not in such great need, Anna might have given up. She might have taken some options for herself that were not at all desirable. In any case, I do not want to disclose I can hear, not until I know it’s going to last.”

“That much I can understand,” Val said. “How long do you think it will take to convince yourself you are back among the hearing?”

“Oh, listen!” Morgan stopped, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s geese, and they are honking. What a wonderful, silly, undignified sound. And there are children, and they are screaming with glee. Oh, Valentine…”

The way she’d said his name, with wonder, and joy and gratitude, it lit the places inside him that had been going dark since his closest brother had died. The music rumbling through him when he watched her hearing the sound of childish laughter was not polite, graceful, or ornamental. It was great, bounding swoops and leaps of joy, and unstoppable, unending gratitude.

Brothers slowly wasted of terrible diseases; they died in asinine duels in provincial taverns; and sometimes, a gifted pianist’s hand hurt unbearably, but Morgan could also hear when the children laughed.

He sat beside her for a long time in the sunshine and fresh air, just listening to the park and the city and to life.

“Gentlemen.” Westhaven addressed his brothers as they ambled back from a morning ride. “I need your help.”