Prelude for a Lord (25 page)

Alethea scurried into Dommick’s carriage rather awkwardly since she had the violin in a case hidden under her cloak and it banged against her knees. Once she was inside, she set it on the seat next to her. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might be seen against her dress bodice.

Across from her, Clare grinned. “How exciting this all is!”

Dommick scowled at her. “I would not have included you, brat, if propriety had not necessitated it.”

“No one knows Alethea is transporting her violin, so why should there be any danger?”

“No one in your household saw you with the violin?”

Alethea shook her head. “I keep it in my bedchamber, and I hid it under my cloak while inside.”

She did not like exposing the violin in this way. But her aunt’s drawing room, filled with tables and chairs, did not have the spaciousness of Lord Ravenhurst’s music room, which was necessary to accommodate both violinists and a violoncello player.

At the marquess’s house, she thought she would need to keep her cloak until she reached the music room, which would look exceedingly odd, but as the carriage pulled up, Lord Ian met them outside. He opened the carriage door, smoothly took her violin case, and carried it into the house under his greatcoat. As the butler and maids removed their outer garments, Lord Ian casually handled the violin case as though it were his own.

“Such subterfuge,” Clare said to Alethea as they headed toward the music room.

“I would prefer it were not necessary,” she said.

“But think, we should not have met had you not needed Bayard’s expertise.”

“How do you know that Lady Alethea’s existence has been enriched by your acquaintance and not the opposite?” Lord Ian asked Clare.

Clare glared at him.

“I assure you, your acquaintance has been a delight to me,” Alethea said while shooting Lord Ian an exasperated look. He grinned at her.

At the music room door, Clare said, “I must attend to Mama, so Lucy will sit with you. I shall return later to hear you play.” She headed toward the drawing room.

As she entered the music room, Alethea saw Lucy, for propriety’s sake, seated in a corner with some mending. Her sister gave her a quick smile, then returned to her work.

The music room had been set up with three chairs and three
music stands ranged around the magnificent Broadwood pianoforte. Lord Ian handed her violin to her, and it was both strange and exhilarating when he held out her chair for her, which was not at the pianoforte.

He procured that seat for himself with a sigh. “I miss David exceedingly. Pianoforte is not my forte.”

Lord Ravenhurst grunted as he took up his violoncello, a beautiful instrument with a deep golden glow in the wood. “If David were here, you would not be playing at all. I much prefer Lady Alethea to your ugly mug.”

“Alethea, please take second violin.” There was a speculative gleam in Dommick’s eyes as he handed her the music manuscript, and her stomach tensed. In the concert, they would play the pieces she had already been practicing with Ian, but today they would play something new that he had just finished composing. She opened the manuscript.

The breath eased out of her chest as she looked it over. It was beautiful and challenging, but not extraordinarily difficult, even with her two injured fingers, which she had stretched earlier. She massaged them to warm them.

“Are you injured?” Dommick’s brows lowered.

“An old injury. It is nothing.” She was almost grateful to her cousin for forcing her to Bath, for only here could she have found a physician to help her regain the use of her left fingers.

She began her normal warm-up on her violin, exercises to stretch the stiff tendons in the last two fingers of her left hand, build finger speed, and increase the flexibility of her bow hand. She ran through some intonation and vibrato exercises, then skimmed through Dommick’s music to finger passages that might be tricky.

She finished as the other men completed their own warm-ups. She flipped to the first page.

“We shall take the first page at a decreased tempo,” Bayard said.

Lord Ian interrupted him. “Let us do a straight run-through instead.”

Dommick frowned, and Alethea thought he might have glanced quickly to her.

“Try it and see,” Lord Ian said cryptically.

After a moment’s hesitation, Dommick nodded. “Then, from the beginning.” He set the time with his bow, and with a firm nod, indicated for them to begin.

The music blasted into existence like a choir of angels, grabbing her heart and squeezing tightly. She had never before played with more than one other musician. The sound roared through her in powerful waves, chords and runs in unison that echoed from the high ceiling of the room.

The piece diverged as each instrument carried the primary melodic line in turn, weaving from one to the other in a tapestry more colourful than any hangings on the walls of Trittonstone Park. The complexity fascinated and excited her, and she eagerly played, barely aware of herself as she gloried in the rich sounds produced.

Then the music softened like the stillness of early morning on the downs, and each instrument became a bird welcoming the day, a rabbit rising up to sniff new scents on the air, the hawk soaring on the high winds above the world.

The music built like a storm, first with the pitter of raindrops, then the blustering wind, then the crashing thunder and blistering sheets of water flattening the grass. The instruments again wove into each other, one at the forefront and then the other, each carrying a storyline of the music until they all converged into a climax of nature’s fury. The piece ended as if on a sigh.

Alethea was breathing heavily as she lowered her bow. Her heart felt filled with simmering emotions that spilled over—awe, sadness, tenderness, ecstasy. She closed her eyes, trying to recapture the rush of euphoria of those last measures.

“I told you,” Lord Ian said in a smug voice.

She opened her eyes to find Dommick staring at her in complete astonishment. “Good Lord,” he said.

She didn’t know what he was referring to. The potency of his gaze made her anxiety begin to rise. “What is it?” Her voice was weaker than normal, and she cleared her throat. “What is wrong?” she demanded in a stronger tone.

“You are . . . magnificent.” Dommick’s voice was filled with wonder, and the yearning in his eyes was suddenly all she could see. And she knew he could see the fullness of her heart, the fragility exposed whenever she played because she played with all her being.

Dommick had heard brief strains from her violin, but unlike Lord Ian and Lord Ravenhurst, he had not seen her perform before now.

“Lady Alethea, you see Bayard flabbergasted,” Lord Ian said. “I do believe you are even better than I on the violin.”

“I never doubted your ability, but I had never seen you challenged.” Dommick broke eye contact and looked at his music, but Alethea saw the faint flush of colour at his jawline. It was endearing to see him embarrassed.

Alethea glanced at Lucy. Her sister gave her a wink and a smile as if to say, “Well done, you have bested them.” It buoyed her spirits as she returned her attention to the men.

“Now that we are aware that Lady Alethea can outplay all of us, shall we continue?” Lord Ravenhurst said.

It was the most enjoyable two hours she had spent in many years. Alethea forgot about Lucy, sitting in the corner as her chaperone. Dommick had the ability to write music that sounded elaborate, yet was straightforward to master. Lord Ravenhurst had uncanny intuition about tweaking passages to create more emotional impact. Lord Ian suggested changes that enhanced the strengths of the individual instruments.

Clare and Lady Morrish entered the music room to sit and listen to the final product of their practice session. Lady Morrish expressed pleasure at the piece, but Clare sat immobile for a full minute after they had finished, her mouth in an O and her eyes darting at the musicians, landing most often upon Alethea. Finally she gasped, “Bayard, that piece is your most commanding composition yet. And, Alethea, your talent is . . . staggering.”

“Yes, she is brilliant,” Lord Ian agreed.

“I thank you.” Their praise should have made Alethea feel vindicated after her interest in the violin had been denigrated by so many people. Yet she felt uncomfortable. She did not want to stand out from the other musicians—she realized she wanted to belong to them. They never made her feel like an intruder to their circle, but she nonetheless was not quite one of them. And she longed to be. She longed to call them her intimate friends.

“I should return to my aunt,” Alethea said reluctantly.

“We shall see you and your aunt tonight at Mrs. Pollwitton’s rout?” Lady Morrish asked.

“Of course.”

Alethea replaced the violin in its case and gave it to Lord Ian to carry downstairs for her. Lucy had gathered her mending and waited to follow them all out, but Alethea held back to reach for her hand.

“I have never heard you play so well,” Lucy said.

“I am glad you were here.” Alethea left the room and Clare fell in beside her.

“I knew you would be remarkable. The entire household could hear all of you practicing and it sounded wonderful,” Clare said.

Something about Clare’s comment caused a tickle of unease in her stomach, but it was forgotten as she retrieved her coat and bonnet from the butler. This time Lord Ian joined them on the drive back to Queen Square.

Dommick said, “For our next practice—”

There was the sudden
crack!
of a gunshot. Alethea’s heart tried to shoot out of her chest.

“What—” Lord Ian looked out the window, then was flung backward as the carriage jerked forward.

They rattled along the cobblestones as the horses raced down the street. Alethea heard cries as people darted out of the way of the runaway horses. The street was short, and as the horses skidded and tried to turn, the carriage slid and flipped onto its side.

The sound of wood crashing and sliding along the pebbles filled the carriage. Clare landed atop Alethea, and she grabbed the girl and held on tightly, curling them both into a ball. A gentleman bounced atop her legs.

Then the carriage stopped moving. The frantic cries of the horses filtered through the fuzziness in Alethea’s brain, along with screams and the babbling of bystanders. She cast an eye upward where the window of the carriage opened to the sky.

A shadow passed through the light, and then the carriage door was wrenched open. The face of the cadaverous man peered inside.

Alethea screamed.

His grey eyes darted around the carriage, and he reached in to grab the violin case. Dommick kicked at him and hurled himself out of the overturned carriage at the man, and they disappeared from sight. Ian clambered out after him.

Alethea smoothed the dark hair from Clare’s pale face. “Are you injured? Are you in pain?”

“I am well,” she said in a squeak.

Alethea struggled to a sitting position, but her heavy woolen skirts hampered her. She pulled herself upright by grasping the edges of the carriage door and peered outside.

The cadaverous man was fleeing, jostling through the crowd. Dommick gave chase, but Lord Ian turned back to them. He reached
for Alethea’s arms and helped her out of the carriage. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

He assisted Clare, wrapping his arm around her waist to carry her out of the carriage and set her upon her feet. He then went to help the coachman with the panicked horses. After they had unhitched them from the broken carriage shafts, he helped the coachman sit down on the side of the street, for there was blood running from a gash on his head.

Alethea lent him her handkerchief to staunch the worst of it. “What happened?”

The coachman nodded in the direction the cadaverous man had taken. “He was at the side of the street on horseback, and he shot a pistol right near the horses. They bolted.”

“He followed the runaway coach?”

“Must have. Next thing I know, I sees him opening the carriage. That’s his horse, methinks.” The coachman pointed to where a saddled horse stood with trailing reins, unable to do more than circle nervously because of the crowd.

Ian was holding the carriage horses, so Alethea grabbed the lone horse to calm it before it trampled someone. It looked to be a hired hack.

Dommick returned soon, breathing heavily. Strangely, he hesitated before he took the bridle from Alethea. “Is Clare unharmed?”

“Yes.”

“Whose horse is this?”

“The coachman believes it belonged to the cadaverous man.”

Dommick’s face was white and angry. “How could he have known you had the violin? You didn’t know until this morning that we had a practice session, and none of the servants saw you carrying it.”

Alethea remembered Clare’s remark, and now understood why
it had caused a feeling of misgiving. “The servants heard us playing. Lord Ian walked into the house carrying it, and I was in the music room with you all. It could not be difficult to hazard a guess that the violin was mine and I was playing it.”

Tension radiated from Dommick, which began to affect the horse. Alethea reached out to pat its neck and speak soothingly, and it quieted.

Dommick turned to her with burning eyes. “There is a spy in my household.”

CHAPTER TWELVE