Prelude for a Lord (15 page)

And then when Lady Fairmont had stalked away, it was as if all the air had blown out of the room. Aunt Ebena had been white and gasping. They had left the ball immediately. Alethea’s last sight had been Dommick’s shocked face.

There was the sound of the front door opening. Alethea ran out of the drawing room, down the stairs to the front entrance hall just as Dodd opened the front door to Aunt Ebena.

She handed her cloak and bonnet to the butler. “Tea, Dodd,” she snapped, and swept past Alethea to stomp up the stairs to the drawing room.

Alethea followed. “I’m sorry, Aunt.”

“If I had not been sitting next to you when you spoke to Tania, I would have thought you had said something inappropriate.”

Thank goodness. Aunt Ebena would have been incessant in her complaints about what she imagined Alethea had said.

“Perhaps she did not see you because she was busy packing for her remove to the country?”

“Is that what you believe?” Aunt Ebena shot at her.

“No.”

Aunt Ebena swept into the drawing room. “I should hope you were not such a simpleton.”

“Lord Dommick sent a note that he would be arriving this morning with his friend, Mr. Quill.”

“Perhaps he knows what happened.” Aunt Ebena dropped into her usual spot on the sofa and frowned at the cold tea tray in front of her. However, Sally immediately entered the room with a newly set tea tray and steaming pot. She removed the cold tea and scurried out.

Her aunt’s ability to frighten the servants was really quite astounding.

“Stop hovering and sit,” she ordered Alethea.

Alethea sat.

Aunt Ebena bit angrily into a scone, then tossed it back down onto her plate. “I shall be sure to give Tania a piece of my mind when next I see her.”

Alethea realized that this entire event had irreparably altered her aunt’s relationship with her friend. “I am sorry to have caused this rift between you.”

“Tania is the one to have caused this rift. If she had explained herself instead of flouncing off . . .”

Alethea didn’t quite get along with her aunt, but she never wished her harm or to isolate her from her friends. Alethea had
few enough friends of her own to want to safeguard those of her aunt. “Would your other friends know why this happened?”

“I shall be lucky if my other friends acknowledge me after this embarrassing—”

She was interrupted by the sound of the door knocker.

“That must be Lord Dommick,” Alethea said.

Aunt Ebena straightened, took a deep breath through her nose, and as she released it, moulded her face into a polite mask.

Three men entered the drawing room—Dommick, Lord Ian, and a small, slender man with an intelligent face. Everything about him was quick, short movements—his steps, the idle gestures of his hands, the turning of his head. He bowed to the ladies. “Josiah Quill at your service.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Quill,” Alethea said. “Won’t you have some tea?”

“Afraid not, milady. I must be off as quickly as possible.”

“Quill has only a few minutes to spare,” Dommick said.

Alethea had taken the precaution of fetching her violin as soon as she’d received Dommick’s note. She retrieved it from the table and handed it to the instrument maker.

He immediately fell to examining it, his nose bare inches from the smooth wood. He touched it with his long, knobby fingers, poked at the F-holes, even smelled the wood. His brow furrowed deeper the longer he studied it, and he made small noises to himself as he moved from the body to the neck to the pegbox. He also picked up the bow and played a scale. Here, his intent face shifted at the sweet tones.

Alethea didn’t realize she’d been digging her nails into the arms of her chair until the pain made her look down at her hands. She relaxed them and her two injured knuckles began to throb.

Mr. Quill handed the violin back to her. “Stradivari. Custom order. Never seen anything like it. One of the tuning pegs was replaced. Good job done on that.”

“In London.” Alethea’s hands curled around the fingerboard, and she felt the strings bite into the skin of her fingertips.

“Have you seen those initials before?” Dommick asked.

Mr. Quill shook his head. “Never seen wood like that either. It’s what gives it that unusual tone.”

“What type of wood is it?”

“Oh, it’s spruce and maple, what you’d expect, but far more solid than anything I’ve seen.”

“How old is it?” Lord Ian asked.

Mr. Quill took a moment to glance at the violin again. “Not one of his early works. Definitely made by Antonio Stradivari and not another one of his family. Seventy or eighty years old. Not more than ninety. Good condition, it doesn’t look as if it has been neglected. It would be an expensive custom order or from a very important person. I’m surprised I’ve never seen any other violin using those woods. Stradivari would have made more violins with them.”

“Would they have been from two trees that were unique?” Alethea asked.

“Maybe. Also, Stradivari wouldn’t have used an entire tree. He’d have had extra wood.”

“Thank you, Quill,” Dommick said.

Mr. Quill nodded to them all and bowed to Aunt Ebena. “Good day to you all.” He left the room so swiftly that Alethea barely caught the back of his coat as he exited.

“I’ll have some of that tea.” Lord Ian dropped into a chair as if he lived there. At her aunt’s bidding, Alethea poured.

“Lord Dommick,” Aunt Ebena said, “I hope your mother is well?”

Alethea did not have the patience for the niceties. “Did you or your mother know why Lady Fairmont responded as she did last night?”

Aunt Ebena shot her a look but did not reprimand her.

“We are baffled,” Dommick said. “Lady Morrish begged me to convey her concern for you.”

“That is most kind of her,” Aunt Ebena said.

“I do not understand what about those initials could have offended her,” Alethea said.

“I have known Tania for many years,” Aunt Ebena said. “When she spoke of her Italian antecedents, she never hinted at any sort of scandal.”

“My mother said the same, although she does not know Lady Fairmont well,” Lord Dommick said.

“I shall speak to our friends,” Aunt Ebena said, but uncertainty radiated from the edges of her eyes.

“If you permit me, I shall ask my mother to do the same with her acquaintances.” Dommick said. “I can assure you of her discretion.”

“Yes, and tell her thank you.” Aunt Ebena’s mood had once again blackened.

Lord Dommick seemed to sense this, for he rose and bowed. “We shan’t keep you any longer.”

“But I haven’t finished my tea,” Lord Ian said.

Dommick glared at him, but he simply grinned before downing his cup in one gulp. However, when Dommick turned toward the door, Lord Ian caught Alethea’s eye and subtly tilted his head toward the door.

Alethea rose. “I shall see you out.”

“Alethea, ring for Brooks before you return.” Aunt Ebena looked tired, which would explain why she wanted her lady’s maid.

“I regret we did not have more information about Lady Fairmont,” Dommick said as they descended the stairs.

“Why should you? This has taken all of us by surprise. My aunt is especially upset because she called on Lady Fairmont this morning and was refused.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Dommick said.

“
I
regret that Mr. Quill did not give us more information on the violin,” Alethea said.

Dommick paused. “He gave us a great deal. I had not considered that if Stradivari had had more of the same wood, he might have made more violins with it. It suggests that the wood was given to him for the custom order and that he hadn’t acquired it by his normal channels.”

“Does that make the violin more valuable, perhaps?”

Dommick and Lord Ian both shook their heads slowly.

Lord Ian said, “There are Stradivari violins much older, which would be more valuable even though this one is unusual.”

“It makes me believe that anyone coveting this violin would value it beyond its monetary worth,” Dommick said.

“So, it is necessary to discover who commissioned this violin,” Alethea said. “Lady Fairmont’s reaction must be a clue as to the original owner.”

Dommick nodded. “I shall continue to look into this.”

Dodd returned the gentlemen’s greatcoats and hats, but as Dommick left the house, Lord Ian held back and turned toward Alethea, shielding with his body the sheaf of papers he slipped to her from beneath his coat. He winked at her, then hurried out after his friend.

There were many sheets, folded vertically down the centre. As the door closed, Alethea opened them and saw a handwritten music manuscript. At the top was written: “Copy of Sonata for two violins, by the Lord Dommick. August 1810.”

Lord Dommick had just finished writing this piece. Below that in the same handwriting:

“A—Take first violin. Expect practice session in one week.—I”

Bayard thought someone might be following him.

He would never have noticed the thin man in grey clothes if he had not caught the man looking at him from across the street. It had been odd the way he looked away—too quickly for it to have been casual eye contact.

Bayard continued walking back toward the Crescent, but then he was spotted by Mr. Oakridge, an old schoolmate from Oxford who was a few years younger than he.

“Dommick! Didn’t know you were in Bath! Staying all winter? M’mother is here with the family until Boxing Day. I daresay you’ve seen m’sister at all the fancy dos. I say, the cattle in Bath are deplorable. Saw the most spindly-shanked nag I’ve ever had the misfortune to behold stumbling down Milsom Street . . .”

As Mr. Oakridge pontificated on his favourite subject, with which he had an astounding memory, Bayard angled himself so he could look over the man’s shoulder at the street.

And that’s when he saw the grey man again.

He wasn’t looking at Bayard this time, but he was staring into a shop window and considerably closer than he had been before.

“Er . . . looking for someone?” Mr. Oakridge asked.

“No, I beg your pardon. I thought I was hailed by someone, but I was mistaken.”

“Of course, of course. I thought I saw Fanewell’s black hunter at a coaching inn the other day, but it wasn’t, the haunch was shorter, harder to tell at a distance, what? And did you see that Mr. Nanstone’s in Bath? Riding the sweetest chestnut I ever did see. I might induce him to sell it to me. He and m’father were friends, so he might be persuaded, don’t you think?”

As Mr. Oakridge paused to draw breath, Bayard interjected, “I’m afraid I must leave you, Oakridge, for my family is expecting me at home.”

“Of course, of course, I won’t keep you. Compliments to your family.” Mr. Oakridge continued down the street.

Bayard walked a few paces, then turned to look behind him. The grey man was following, but he abruptly entered a shop.

Bayard shook his head, then continued up the street. He was not taking heed of his surroundings, however, and he nearly walked into two young women heading in the opposite direction. With a sinking heart, he recognized them as the daughters of one of his mother’s friends.

He nodded to them. “Miss Nanstone, Miss Julia Nanstone.”

“I declare, Lord Dommick, are you looking for someone?” Miss Nanstone had a high, grating voice that never failed to vibrate down Bayard’s spine.

“No, I assure you,” Bayard said.

“Why, but we have seen you since we turned onto the top of the street, and you have looked behind you twenty times at least.” Miss Nanstone giggled.

“I thought I saw someone I knew, but I was mistaken.”

“La, who could that be?” Miss Julia had a lower-pitched voice than her sister, but she also had the habit of batting her eyelashes after every sentence.

Bayard could not immediately think of someone. “Mr. Morrish, my stepfather’s nephew,” he blurted.

The Misses Nanstone gave each other significant looks before saying at the same time, “How interesting.”

“I will not keep you ladies. Good day.”

As Bayard escaped, he overheard a grating voice say, “Goodness, I could hardly credit the rumours, but the ‘Mad Baron’ indeed!”

A tightness settled upon his shoulders and chest, making him feel he was suffocating. He stopped and pretended to look at the prints in a shop window while he forced his lungs to breathe.

The whispers in London this past spring had been incessant and insidious. At first he had ignored them, but then the nightmares frightened some of his servants. Soon the tales were widespread,
helped along by Miss Church-Pratton only months after breaking their engagement. His false friends fell by the wayside, and the isolation began to eat at him. It hadn’t helped that he feared the return of what he had experienced last year—a fear that still followed in his footsteps closer than that grey man ever could.

And then he had witnessed his mother in tears, shunned by supposed friends who chose to believe the rumours about him. He had whisked her out of town immediately, but not before his mother’s heart and spirit were broken. He had vowed to fix this, to ensure that his mother and Clare would not endure the same experience in London the next season.