Beauty: an Everland Ever After Tale (7 page)

“I do, Mrs. Mayor. I do. I wasn’t always blind. And I remember beauty
very
clearly. Every day.”

Oh dear
, the bitterness she heard in his gravelly voice made her feel lower than a worm, to think that she’d insulted him like that. She hadn’t meant to offend him, but surely someone like him wouldn’t know what it was like, to watch one’s beauty—one’s worth—slip away with each passing year.

“I’m sorry,
Signore
. But I’m afraid that we all have history that isn’t easy to overcome.”

He snorted. “I’m well aware of that.”

His tone told her that he’d accepted her apology. “Perhaps, on one of your visits, I might show you the garden?” It was a peace offering, one that hopefully he could tell was important.

“Even the honeysuckle?”

She studied his face—what little she could see between his beard and his blindfold. He didn’t think beauty was worthy, but that made sense, looking the way he did. She supposed that he’d had to believe that. “Even the honeysuckle,
Signore.
”

“Vincenzo, please.”

She took a deep breath. This man, who broke Rule Number One every day, who knew all about keeping up appearances…he was asking her to break Rule Number Two. To call him by his given name would be highly improper, but did that really matter? She hadn’t always been proper; hadn’t always been concerned with appearances. There was a time, when she’d been beautiful, that she threw caution to the wind and did what she wanted, when she wanted.

Arabella straightened her shoulders. She wasn’t the carefree girl she’d been years ago, but Milton was gone, and there was no one here to see her slight rebellion. “Vincenzo.”

“Have you rosined and tightened your bowstrings?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you been practicing at home?”

“Yes, sir. Every afternoon before supper.”

“Are your fingers sore?”

“
Very
, sir.”

Vincenzo didn’t dare smile at the boy’s tone, but it was hard. “Good. That means that you’re not just practicing, you’re improving.” It was the fib his teacher had told him long ago.

“If you say so, sir.”

“What do you think?” Vincenzo unclasped his hands from behind his back and stepped towards the boy, who stood in the middle of the music room. “Do you think you’re getting better?” He walked in a slow circle, concentrating on Eddie’s breathing, until he stood behind the boy. Placing one hand on Eddie’s shoulder, he leaned down just a bit. “Do you notice any improvement?”

“Well…” The boy tried to shrug, but Vincenzo kept pressure on his shoulder. It was important that Eddie learn to not make unnecessary movements. “Mother says that I don’t sound like a dying duck anymore.”

You sound like a sick cat.
How many times had Jane teased him with those words, in his early years learning the instrument? Vincenzo pushed the memory aside, and gently squeezed Eddie’s shoulder. “Your mother is correct. She has a good ear for ill poultry, I’d say.” The boy snorted with laughter, and Vincenzo tried not to think about Mrs. Mayor’s ears, or any other part of her. “But how about you? Do
you
notice any sign of improvement? Do you enjoy practicing at home in between our lessons, or is it a chore?”

Eddie went still, and Vincenzo knew he was deciding how to answer. “The truth, please. I can hear you lie.”

“I’ve never lied to you, sir.”

“Don’t start now, then. You have a good ear for the notes, Eddie, and you’re an eager student. You don’t have to answer me right now, but I’d like to know how you
feel
about playing. Does it move you, or is it a chore? You can think about it.”

After a moment, he felt the boy nod. “Thank you, sir.”

Vincenzo patted Eddie’s shoulder. “Very well. Get into position, and let me check.” After weeks of these private lessons, the boy was used to the routine. He brought the violin up under his chin, and stood with the bow just over the strings. Vincenzo stood behind him, and flicked his fingers over the instrument and the boy’s hands, making minor adjustments here and there. As always, Eddie’s right elbow was too low, but a light tap was all the reminder he needed to get it into place. As he touched the boy’s left fingertips, ensuring that they were cocked gracefully over the strings the way Vincenzo had learned all those years ago, he grinned. “You’re getting calluses here, you know. That means you
are
practicing hard.”

“I like it. That’s your answer. I like playing. It helps me think.”

From the windowsill, Rajah
meowed
in response to the boy’s firm claim. Vincenzo rarely allowed the cat into his music room—rarely allowed anyone in. Since he had it set the way he wanted, any small shift in his instruments or furniture could have disastrous results. But the big cat had taken an immediate liking to Vincenzo’s only student, and the boy took a liking to him, as well. That first day, to his mother’s embarrassment, Eddie had sat right down on the carpet of the parlor, stroked the big cat gently, and insisted on knowing the serval’s story. An immediate bond had been formed, and now Rajah insisted on being in the room with Eddie during lessons.

So Vincenzo smiled wider. “My pet seems to approve of your answer.”

Eddie nodded. “That’s because he’s smart.”

“And you’ve told me the truth, I can tell.”

“Yes. I like playing my father’s instrument.”

Vincenzo ran his fingers up the violin’s strings, reveling at the way the slightest shiver of music trailed his touch. “It’s a good instrument, Eddie. A fine violin. Your father must have taken good care of it, to save it for you.”

“Yes, sir. Mother said he was saving it for me, even though he didn’t know about me when he died.”

Unbidden, the vision of Mrs. Mayor in another man’s arms crawled through his mind. Since the moment he’d touched her, right here in this room, he’d wanted to touch her again. Why? She was just a woman, too obsessed with appearances and propriety. But the open way she’d cried told him that she was more; that deep down, there was a truth to Mrs. Mayor that could be unlocked with passion and music and sensuality. She’d been married twice. Surely that meant she’d experienced passion. Surely that meant she’d spent time naked, entwined with a man’s limbs, her fingers digging into his back as he heaved and stroked and caressed and—

Abruptly, Vincenzo dropped his hand and stepped away from Eddie. This was not a healthy line of thought. Mrs. Mayor was just a neighbor. A friend, perhaps. The mother of his first and only student, but no more. Even if she were the type to overlook his appearance, she could never be more than a friend. He couldn’t let her; he’d long ago forfeited any chance at a Happily Ever After, and he knew it.

Clearing his throat, he moved towards where he knew the table stood, and nodded. “Very well, Eddie. Let’s hear what you’ve been practicing.”

The boy was right. He
did
sound better than a dying duck. And Rajah only joined in once, yowling along to the boy’s rendition of Mozart’
s
 
Ah! vous dirai-je, maman
variations
.

Later, after Eddie’s lesson, the two of them talked about how his steamship model was progressing, and Vincenzo answered the boy’s questions about the propeller shafts on board while Eddie petted Rajah. It was gratifying to hear Eddie’s enthusiasm for knowledge, especially when it came to mechanisms and engineering. Here was a boy after his own heart.

Mrs. Mayor had been smart to arrange for violin lessons. It was obvious that the boy was interested—he absorbed information like a dry towel—and he’d already learned to tune his father’s instrument. The first time Eddie handed it to Vincenzo, a shock of nostalgia had gone through him. A lifetime ago, he’d left his childhood instrument with Jane, before letting her go. In a different world, this could’ve been his. All of it.

And now the music room was silent, Eddie having taken his father’s violin back home. Their next lesson was in three days, but Vincenzo would visit with the boy tomorrow evening, when he visited Eddie’s mother’s bookstore.

Ahhh
, Mrs. Mayor. Vincenzo sat forward in his chair, pulled the silk scarf from his eyes, and rubbed at his temples. Rajah’s throaty
purr
increased when he rubbed against Vincenzo’s leg, and then batted at the material that dangled from his left hand. Sighing, he threw the blindfold on the floor, listening to the big cat playfully pouncing on it.

Mrs. Mayor.
Now there was a confused woman. She put so much stock in appearances, in propriety… but underneath, he could feel, could hear her passion for life. A life, he suspected, that had passed her by.

From her comments, especially during that first appointment, he knew that she tied appearances to worth, and wondered what she thought of him. Did she think he lacked worth, because he was… Vincenzo passed his fingertips over the skin covering his eye sockets.
Hideous
? Hideous didn’t even come close. He was beastly.

But this was no surprise. He’d lived with this pain—as the physical pain lessoned, another had begun—for over a decade. He’d known that it was a miracle he was still alive, still breathing and able to make music. But from the moment he’d woken from the morphine enough to know where he was—who he’d been—he’d known that he was a beast. He couldn’t do that to Jane; better that she remember him as he was. He’d become someone else, instead.

And not a day had gone by, in those ten years, that he hadn’t thought of her, wondered how she remembered him. If he’d been a stronger man, a braver man, he might’ve visited her again, or at least hired Pinkertons to check on her. But he’d stood by the decision he’d made all those years ago in that hospital—he’d had nothing but time back then, while he waited to heal—to leave her be. To let her live. Without the beast he’d become.

Wishing he had a brandy, Vincenzo fumbled for the drawer in the little table beside him, and ignored Rajah’s irritated mewl. He pulled out the velvet-wrapped bundle and peeled away the material. Inside was his most prized possession, although he doubted even Gordy knew about it. The small silver frame he’d bought after his first performance in London held a photograph of his wife.

He ran his fingers over the glass, remembering what she looked like, and knowing that the memory had to be enough. All those years ago, not five minutes before the explosion that killed so many and melted his face, he’d been looking at this photograph. It was fitting, somehow, that right before condemning himself to a lifetime of darkness, he’d been staring at her beauty. His beautiful,
beautiful
wife… who was lost to him, now.

If he could cry, he would right now. As it was, he could feel the pressure building behind his temples, and knew that he had to put Jane aside. Had to wish her well. He gently placed the frame on the table beside him, his fingers lingering reverently over her face one last time.

Jane was part of his past. But he’d found a place where maybe,
maybe
, he could make a future. Despite his best efforts at hiding himself away, he had a student—a talented student. And he had lively conversation and thrice-weekly book readings with a spirited and multi-faceted neighbor. Friend? A friend who put too much stock in appearances, and who valued perfection and propriety.

A friend whose hidden self was passionate and curious. A friend whom he very much wanted to get to know better, but knew it would be a bad idea. In her eyes—her perfect, working eyes—he was a monster, without worth. It would’ve been better for him to have stuck to his plan of staying a recluse, to not tease himself with something he couldn’t have.

But he was lost now. Lost to the temptation of her smooth voice and delightful laughter and lovely bookstore. He brushed a hand over his face and knew that he’d do anything to stay in her life.

Arabella paced in the garden. Although she’d invited Vincenzo to visit her garden several weeks before, he hadn’t taken her up on the offer. Tonight, though, she’d sent Eddie to his lesson with a note for Gordon, asking him to come to the house through the back. She found herself unable to sit still, and wondered if it was excitement that made her palms itch and her feet long to take wider strides. She felt like a caged cat, trapped in her garden, waiting for something she couldn’t name.

This was
her
place. For all of his love of botany, Milton didn’t care to get his hands dirty; said that it was beneath him. He was happy to fiddle with his seeds in his workshop, or pour over recent publications, but it was Arabella who’d knelt in the dirt and felt the richness of life as it bloomed every spring. She’d planted what he’d said to plant, where he said to plant it, but the garden was still hers. And before his death, she hadn’t discussed her love of growing things with anyone else, because he declared it improper.

But this garden was as much her place as the bookstore. Here, behind this wooden fence, she could wear her oldest gown, tie her hair back in a simple braid, walk tall and be strong and sweat and produce. Milton forbade her from being seen, when she was in such disarray, but she didn’t mind. Sometimes Eddie helped her, and they laughed loud and long over silly things. This was the place where her memories were made, and now she was going to share it with someone else.