Lady Barbara's Dilemma (15 page)

“Hmmm. A good sign on your side. I’m not sure if it is on his, however,” teased Judith.

“But there is something else, Judith, which I am ashamed to even tell you about.”

“And what is that?”

“There was a fiddler at the midsummer celebrations.”

“Yes?”

“A Scotsman who is the most talented musician I have ever heard.”

“But what does he have to do with you and Wardour?”

“I felt a kind of joy in his presence that I have not felt in a long time, not even with Peter.”

“Most probably it was only the music. You are always responsive to anyone with talent.”

“I think that is part of it. But it also has something to do with his twinkling blue eyes and sense of humor. And his legs.”

“His legs! When did you see his legs, may I ask?”

Barbara giggled. “He wore a kilt, my dear, and he had bonnie strong legs covered with the same auburn hair as he has on his head. Do you not think one should be able to ask to see one’s intended husband’s legs, to make sure they can compete with another’s?”

Judith looked over at Barbara and they both began to laugh helplessly.

“You are shameless, Barbara.”

“Well, it is amusing, and then again it is not. I met him, quite by chance, the morning after the fair. And then, out of the blue, there he was at Arundel. Peter hired him to play. We played together, Judith.”

Barbara’s voice had become quite serious and Judith felt a pang of uneasiness.

“You have played with others before,” she responded evenly, not showing her concern.

“But never with someone who was so talented. The music flowed and blended in a way I cannot describe. And he can go from Mozart to a reel with ease.”

“But he is only a hired musician, Barbara,” Judith reminded her gently. “Not someone you will ever see again.”

“I know. I did a foolish thing, though,” admitted Barbara.

“You didn’t let him kiss you!”

“No. Although I wanted him to desperately. Even more than I ever wanted Peter to kiss me.”

“Well, it is quite possible to be attracted to an inappropriate person, as we both know. But what did you do?”

“I referred him to David Treves as a possible patron. I did it without thinking, but now I am sure I did it so I would at least have some news of him.”

“Well, he may never make his way to London at all.”

“That is true. But you see, Judith, I don’t know if then I would be more relieved or disappointed.”

“From everything you have told me, my dear, everything you want and need you will find with Wardour. Do not torture yourself wondering whether it is ‘true love.’ That is something two people create together after marriage.”

“You are no doubt right, Judith. With Peter I will have everything I could want.” Except music and joy, she thought to herself.

While Barbara was renewing her friendship with Judith, Alec was making his way slowly to London. August was harvest time, and there were plenty of harvest-home celebrations at which he could take in a generous amount.

After fiddling late into the evening, he would often treat himself to a glass of cider or ale at the local tavern, and if he was lucky, after playing a few soft airs, fiddle his way to a bed or a place in the barn, which saved him from sleeping outside.

On this particular evening, in the White Horse Tavern, it was clear he was unlikely to fiddle his way anywhere, since there was another busker there before him. But he had made enough in the past few days to pay for a room on his own, so he decided to keep his own instrument out of sight and sit back and enjoy someone else for a change.

The fiddler was an older man, likely in his late fifties, and much the worse for wear and alcohol, if the veins on his nose and his reddening eyes were anything to go by. His hands shook as he pulled out his fiddle, but as soon as he drew the bow across the strings, they were as steady as Alec’s own.

He played a few old songs and a slow air and then began to sing. His voice was rough but true, and although he often stopped to wet his throat, the ale just sweetened his music. As he got drunker, the songs got bawdier. Alec thought to himself that there was much more fun in the bawdiness found in taverns than in the debaucheries of the upper class.

Just as the man finished a particularly amusing ditty, the barkeep announced closing time. “Ye know if ye don’t get home soon, Tom, your old woman will be here to drag ye there herself.”

“Just one more, and this one of my own making,” said Tom, winking at Alec, who grinned back. “This one’s for me wife.”

Alec expected another bawdy song, and was surprised to realize that Tom had written a love song. A rough song in which he humorously insulted his wife, but
a
moving one despite that. Or perhaps because of it, thought Alec as he listened to the chorus, He must have had too much ale, he thought, if he had tears coming to his eyes at such a song, but it was long-lasting love that the old man was singing about. Unbidden, the image of Lady Barbara came to mind, a woman as unlike the old woman in the song as could be found, and he smiled to himself. Imagine singing such a song to her. But he
could
imagine it. He could easily imagine himself inviting her to sit herself down upon his knee, feeling the joy in their closeness, just as he felt joy in his music. For what had brought tears to his eyes was a yearning for a lifelong partner in a woman who meant as much to him as his music. The song had made it clear to him that he wanted Barbara Stanley, that he knew they could have joined their lives as easily and as equally as they had joined their instruments.

But to her he was only a wandering Scotsman. And she was to marry the marquess in the fall…

The barkeep was tapping him on the shoulder, jolting him out of his reverie. “It is closing time, but surely no reason for looking that sad,” he joked.

“Have you got a bed for the night?”

“Show me your money and I have.”

Alec handed him a few shillings for the ale and for the room, and the man pointed in the direction of the stairs.

“Up there and second door to your right. Ye’ll find it is clean enough.”

Alec lifted his pack and carried it up to the small bedroom. It was clean and surprisingly comfortable. Although any bed would be more comfortable than a hayloft or a hillside, he thought. I’ll be glad to get to London and have regular baths and clean sheets. I must call on this Sir David Treves, he decided as he drifted off. I have to survive two months in London, and it will surely be easier with a patron. And perhaps I’ll get to see ma’ braw bonnie lassie again.

Perhaps it was the bawdy songs, but Alec spent the night dreaming of a very different Barbara than the one he had come to know. A Barbara who sat herself down on his knees and ran her hand down his leg, discovering his skean dhu, and then ran her hand up under his kilt to see if he had any other hidden weapons. He woke several times during the night, mad with frustrated desire. “I will no be able to stand it, lass, if ye keep torturing me like this,” he said to her in one dream, just as Barbara kissed him full on the lips. “Ah, no, my dear,” his dream Barbara said with the sweetest smile, “for don’t you know I mean no harm to you? I love you most of all.”

By the time Alec got to London, it was mid-September and he only had five weeks to go until he won his wager and presented himself at his grandfather’s door. The duke could be in town, but there was no chance at all of their meeting. Even were he to be hired to play for a ball or musicale, his grandfather was unlikely to be present, since he attended as few social functions as he could, leaving them to his son and daughter-in-law the years that they came with him. This year, Alec knew, his father was remaining in Scotland.

Alec arrived in London late in the afternoon and was turned away from a few places because of his appearance before he found decent lodgings. He paid for a week in advance and then counted his money. He had decided to invest in one good suit of clothes, which would leave him with only enough to eat sparsely for a week. But it was a necessary investment, for in London he needed to hire himself out rather than work the streets. And, he had to confess, he was getting tired of busking. In the country, in warm weather, it was delightful to travel willy-nilly, following fairs, sleeping outdoors, waking to the gurgle of a brook and the sounds of birds. In London, performing on the street meant leaving comfortable, clean lodgings and being wakened by flea bites, not bird song.

During his first day, he therefore visited a tailor and shoemaker. The fit of the suit hardly rivaled Weston’s, but at least it would look better than what he had. And any shoes would be better than his worn out silver-buckled brogues. He inquired casually about Sir David Treves, assuming that as a member of the
ton,
he would be known for
something,
scandalous or otherwise. He drew blanks at a few coffeehouses and rude stares when he ventured into Mayfair to knock at back entrances and question the servants. Finally one cook, who was from Scotland, was able to tell him that there was a Joshua Treves, a Jew, who owned a shipping business and whose office was by the docks. She knew this, she said, because her brother was a docksman, and when she visited him, she had noticed the name. Alec thanked her for her information and for the scones she insisted on feeding him at the kitchen table.

He decided to go straight to the docks, and found the office without too much trouble. He asked the front-room clerk if he might find Sir David Treves here.

The clerk looked him up and down, and Alec gripped his bonnet in his hands, as though holding tightly onto that would help him keep his temper.

“And what business would you have with Sir David, may I ask?”

“I was recommended to him by a friend of his. He won’t recognize me by name, but if you tell him that Lady Barbara Stanley sent me, I am sure he will see me.”

The clerk was suitably impressed by the Stanley name, and asked Alec to wait a minute. He emerged from the rear a few minutes later with a tall, dark young man whose exquisitely tailored bottle-green coat and fawn trousers made Alec feel like a wild Highlander in his patched kilt.

Sir David, for so he assumed it was, looked at him inquiringly. “You know Lady Barbara Stanley?”

Alec inclined his head. “Yes, Sir David. We met at Ashurst and then again at Arundel. I am a musician, you see, and she said you were a music lover and something of a patron. I was hoping I might find employment during the Little Season.”

David smiled. “If Lady Barbara recommended you, then you must be good. But I fear there are not too many places in London where they demand Scottish reels. I don’t think I can help you. I am sorry.”

“But there are places for a violinist to play Bach and Mozart for private entertainments, and waltzes and country dances at a ball, are there not? Could you recommend me?”

“That depends, Mr…?”

“Gower. Alec Gower. From Scotland.”

“So I gathered,” said David, with another smile and a glance down at the kilt.

“Ach, aye, weel, ma new suit of clothes was juist no ready yet,” replied Alec with a grin.

“You have a very flexible accent, Mr. Gower.”

“Aye, and my music is just as flexible, I assure you. I brought my instrument with me. I will play a little, if you like. I know I would not feel comfortable recommending anyone without hearing him.”

“All right. Come back to my office, Mr. Gower, and I will hear a little Mozart.”

Alec followed him and drew out his violin. “I will give you Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, even though it is daytime,” he joked, and played the first movement. Although it was only one part, the Scotsman played so well that David hardly missed the rest of the orchestra. He was good, and David was filled with admiration and envy.

“That was excellent, Mr. Gower. Now why don’t you play me a country tune so I can hear your other voice.”

Alec played him a lilting waltz, and then the lament he had played for Barbara.

David was silent for a moment or two after the last notes faded. “I am ashamed to confess I have tears in my eyes from that last tune, Mr. Gower. It reminds me of some of our more melancholy Ladino songs.”

“Aye, it is a lament. And it is not surprising that the music of one dispossessed people should resemble another.”

David’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Well,” Alec explained, “many a Highlander has been forced into exile by the clearances. And both our tongue and our plaids have been forbidden us at one time or another.”

“That is true. I had forgotten. But it is rare to find such sympathy and understanding.”

“I would like to hear some of your music, Sir David. That is, if you are content to hire me or recommend me.”

“Oh, I think I can find you work,” said David. “It is only the Little Season, but I will be holding a few musical evenings myself, and I have enough contacts in the
ton
that my name will mean something at a few doors. And once a door or two is opened to you, the word will spread.”

“I am very grateful, Sir David.”

“No need to be. I am the one who should thank Lady Barbara for sending you my way. Did you have a chance to hear her play?”

“As a matter of fact, we played together at Arundel.”

“Now, that must have been a rare treat for both you and the audience.”

“Aye, it was indeed,” said Alec quietly.

“She will be in Town for part of the Season until her wedding. Perhaps you will have a chance to play together again.”

“Perhaps,” replied Alec noncommittally.

“Here is my card, Mr. Gower. Come and see me at my home in a few days’ time, and I should have several engagements set up for you.”

The clerk looked up in surprise and distaste as Sir David shook hands with the Scotsman at the door. Sir David was somewhat eccentric, he thought, when it came to music, and he went back to his accounts with a sigh of disapproval.

David had taken Deborah out for several short drives after their outing to Kew Gardens, but Sarah’s presence made any sort of intimacy impossible, a fact that both were paradoxically grateful for and frustrated by. David was beginning to feel that his presence was pointless. If his motive was only a charitable one, he could just send his groom. And if he was motivated by desire, then being with Deborah only made him realize his desire could never be satisfied.