Chapter Thirty
V incent paced the front hall of the Diamond home. Eventually, their butler informed him that Lady Brilliance was not at home.
He frowned and looked at Mr. Dunley. “Are you saying she is not at home as in the lady doesn’t wish to see me, or is she truly not here?”
Mr. Dunley’s placid expression did not alter. “Lady Brilliance is truly not here.”
“But she was expecting me,” Vincent pointed out as if that would change matters. He had been ready to beg her forgiveness for every real or perceived flaw in his character as well as for withholding information he ought to have shared.
Mr. Dunley said nothing more. After all, what could the butler do?
Vincent handed him his calling card and left. In that instant, he believed she hadn’t intended to snub him, nor even to perpetrate a flagrant act of incivility, but had simply experienced a change of heart. He would give her a little time to consider that his previous engagement to Lydia meant nothing to him now.
And when next he saw her, he would explain how he had stopped the legal proceedings for her safety, so they could spend time together immediately without fear of reprisal from Ambrose.
It all made perfect sense, except he ought to have told her both those things before she found out for herself. Moreover, he could not guess how she’d found out between the Spencer House conservatory and re-entering the costumed assembly in the Great Room.
At home, he found himself at his piano, tinkering before inevitably playing the “Essence of Brilliance.” It amused him that people would think he considered the piece brilliant.
“What people?” he asked himself. No one heard his work except for Brilliance. Her and the hundreds who attended Ambrose’s concerts over the years. Blast the man! His fingers came down hard upon the keys.
He had let his hopes rise that he might regain his latest piece and with it, some small satisfaction from a judge announcing in a court that the music was his.
For the first time in years, Vincent felt a little ... lost. He had grown to accept the thievery and the betrayal over the past three years and had slowly begun to play again while composing once a year for his mother’s birthday. But now, he was unsure whether to keep composing when so many of his “children” were in Ambrose’s nefarious hands. Even his ‘Il Rinnovo,’ The Renewal , written as he began to let Brilliance enter his heart. Perhaps, he should give up and stop composing altogether.
His butler, who knew not to disturb him in his conservatory unless the house was on fire, tapped gently, pushed open the door, and stuck his sandy-haired head into the room.
“My lord, there is a Lady Brilliance here to see you,” Mr. Chambers said. “She claims to be your betrothed.”
His heart soared as he rose to his feet. Brilliance still considered herself to be his fiancée. Thank God! Vincent had all but convinced himself she regretted everything and would never speak to him again.
“Please show her into the —”
“I am here,” she said, stepping around his tall, thin butler and into the room.
As if nothing unpleasant had occurred, she glanced around the room, taking in his sanctuary with her vivid blue eyes — every detail of its disarray including the abandoned brandy glass from the previous night after she’d left him at the ball, the discarded coat and shoes from his costume, as well as the wretched wig. Finally, she looked directly at him.
Her smile allowed the tightness in his chest to loosen.
“You may leave us, Mr. Chambers. And by the way, this delightful lady will soon be Lady Hewitt.” Then the dread seeped into him again. “Won’t you?” he asked Brilliance.
“Yes,” she replied softly.
“Congratulations, my lord, my lady,” his butler said with an expression that stated having a mistress of the house was of no more consequence to his day than if a bag of apples had been left on the front step. Then he bowed to each. “Will that be all?”
“Yes, Chambers. And we thank you for your exceedingly warm words.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Is the rest of your household so welcoming?” she asked with a touch of irony after he left.
“You know he is merely behaving the part of an unflappable butler, don’t you? At this very minute, Chambers is probably dashing helter-skelter toward the basement to tell as many of his fellow staff about you, regaling them with your warmth, kindness, and beauty.”
“Not to mention my impatient nature and thus my inability to remain in the front hall, as well as my outrageous impropriety in leaving my maid in the foyer.”
“Actually, that will set tongues to wagging. Besides, this room isn’t very comfortable for two. Let’s go into the drawing room.”
Instead of his feet moving forward, however, he drew her to him. She didn’t protest. Cradling her face between his palms, he gazed down, knowing he could dive into the blue seas behind her gaze and never tire of swimming in her goodness.
“May I kiss you?” Vincent asked, hearing his voice catch.
“You may,” she said, although as he lowered his mouth to hers, he noticed she didn’t close her eyes until the last moment. Brilliance wasn’t quite the trusting Lady Persia from the night before, nor the same woman he’d known for half a year.
Yet when their lips fused, they were the same two people who had come to care for one another. For his part, he loved her fiercely. The outside world might batter them as a ship in a storm, but Vincent knew in his heart that they would withstand it.
Tilting his head, he took his fill of her, unable to keep from dropping his hands to her waist and pulling her against him. Her lips parted for him, and he tasted her, sucking her tongue until she curled her hips against him and grabbed his forearms.
When he lifted his head, the words came pouring forth like a well-known melody.
“I love you.”
Her eyes widened, indicating he’d surprised her. In a good way, he hoped. Then in what he assumed was an unmanly fashion, he held his breath for whatever might come next.
Her tongue licked her lips, and his groin tightened.
“I have said it aloud to only one man,” she said, and he was plunged again into despair. “But you didn’t hear me,” Brilliance continued, “because you were walking away, terribly angry at how I’d taken your music from Mirabel.”
Vincent recalled that day. “Did you truly say then that you loved me?”
“I did. Afterward, I put my love into a small reticule in my heart, pulled the strings, and kept it safe while moving on. But I never let it go.”
“Is your love still in that reticule?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I confess it has since escaped and filled my entire heart.”
He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. “I am grateful.”
Then he offered her his arm. “Allow me to show you our drawing room. I would like to give you a tour of the entire house, but even Mr. Chambers might protest such flagrant breaking of the rules.”
She laughed, a sound that rang through him like a glockenspiel. “I wouldn’t wish to get on the wrong foot with him.”
He led her into his drawing room, hoping she liked it. Belinda was perched on the front edge of the sofa. She jumped up.
“I am sorry, my lord, my lady.”
“There is no problem,” he assured her. He turned to Brilliance. “Would you like to have her stay or go to meet my staff?”
“I suppose for the sake of appearances my maid ought to stay.”
“Very well.” Vincent picked up one of the wing chairs, hoping he was impressing his future bride with his show of strength, and carried it to the other end of the room. Setting it down, he offered it with a flourish of his hand to Belinda. Her cheeks reddened, but she sat.
Rejoining Brilliance, who had taken her maid’s place on the gray-and-white striped sofa, he sat beside her.
“The room is pretty,” she declared, “if a little sparse.”
He glanced at it with fresh eyes. There were no bric-a-brac on the mantel or on the low table in front of the sofa. No tall plants, nor vases of flowers, adorned the room, either. He’d seen all those things in other peoples’ homes and appreciated them.
“Will you be interested in bringing a feminine touch and some pretty décor to our home?”
“Yes, I think I can do that. But I’m surprised that Mrs. Castern didn’t do that when she was your fiancée.”
“That would have been inappropriate. She was never once in this house.”
“Was it only in the country when you and Mr. Castern were together, composing and playing duets, with Mrs. Castern lounging around, enjoying the spectacle? It sounded almost as though such entertainment went on in an endless daily and nightly party. Not unlike when Mrs. Shelley wrote her famed story in the company of her husband and Lord Byron during their Swiss summer. That, too, sounded like a constant state of amusement.”
Vincent was flummoxed. “I have no idea to what you are referring. Who told you this?”
Brilliance appeared dumbfounded. “I assure you it is quite common knowledge. I even know that Lord Byron’s physician was there. And I have read Frankenstein twice.”
He barked out a laugh at her misunderstanding. “I meant, who told you that Ambrose and I composed together with Lydia, before she became his wife, lounging in our company?”
“ She did. In the ladies’ retiring room last night.”
“What she told you is blatantly untrue. I compose alone. I assume Ambrose, if he ever writes anything of his own, does the same.”
“Then she was not stating facts. She was lying to hurt me,” Brilliance mused.
“I promise you that she was. When we were at Harrow, Ambrose and I occasionally met to practice piano in the common music room, and when he visited my country estate, which he often did because I had no idea what a snake he was, we often enjoyed playing for one another. But Lydia was never there.”
Vincent suddenly recalled a singular event.
“Wait a moment. I want to be entirely truthful. There was one time when Mrs. Castern, at the time Miss Lydia Drummond, was staying with my cousin. We were engaged, and she visited me at Joyden’s Wood.”
Brilliance visibly stiffened.
“I swear it was not like when you came. Lydia had her mother as chaperone, and Lady Twitchard and the Colonel were there, too. And so was Ambrose. I think that was the second time they had run into each other, for I first introduced them in London. In any case, he and I did some silly duet, and she was in the room. We both came up with a solo part and then made everyone laugh as we managed to play them at each end of the scale at the same time.”
Brilliance nodded. “That would certainly be memorable, but hardly what she described, which seems to have been a gross exaggeration.”
Glancing down at her lap, Vincent noticed she was wringing her hands, and he took hold of them.
“What more do you wish to know?”
“How did they become close?”
He was surprised to experience not even a twinge of discomfort as he considered their betrayal. What he felt was relief at having escaped marriage with Lydia so that he was free to be with Brilliance.
“After that evening, I remained at Joyden’s Wood. A few days later, Lydia returned to London. I believe they took up with one another at that time. I had met her the year prior and asked her to be my wife after ... I believe it was six months. Yet only a month after we became engaged, she announced she’d fallen in love with him. It was befuddling and vexing.”
Brilliance smiled again.
“Why does that make you smile?”
“Because of how long it took for you to ask her to marry you. We were close to an engagement after only two weeks in the country.”
His beautiful betrothed was correct. Ignoring the maid, he dropped a kiss on her lips. “You are nothing like her. From the start, your helpful, sweet nature shone through. And I saw it clearly as soon as I stopped being afraid of opening my heart. Loving you is as easy as playing the scales.”
“I don’t find that to be easy.”
“For me, it is child’s play,” he assured her, bringing one of her hands to his lips for a nuzzling kiss.
But her happy mood seemed to dissipate as quickly as it had come.
“Did Mrs. Castern also lie when she said you were stopping the lawsuit?”
Vincent took a deep breath. “No. And if her disclosure had cost me your good regard, it would have been ironic, indeed. I withdrew my suit because I didn’t want to wait for us to be together. I have no doubt that Ambrose would have dragged your name through the dirt to protect his income and his own good reputation.”
Brilliance appeared thoughtful, then her eyes filled with tears.
“You gave up your music ... for me?”
Brilliance was touched by his devotion and his desire to protect her. But in that instant, she knew she would do whatever she could to help him if only there was a way.
Vincent shook his head. “The music will always be mine.”
“You know what I mean. The world should know that those notes came out of your brain.” She reached out and tapped his head. “It is hard to believe we are engaged. I imagined, given my own limited intellect, that I would end up with a kind, but somewhat doltish, husband. Instead, it seems I am to have a smart one with a memory like a hunter’s trap and a brilliant musician on top of that.”
“Don’t forget handsome,” Vincent said, pushing his spectacles up his nose.
“I could never forget handsome,” she agreed, leaning forward, letting his spicy cologne tickle her nostrils.
“Your maid,” he reminded her.
“Is very discreet,” she said.
“More than her mistress apparently,” he quipped before soundly kissing her again until her toes curled, and low in her body that mysterious throbbing began.
When he drew back, Vincent appeared serious. “Your intellect is not limited,” he said. “You operate more on your instincts, but there is nothing doltish about you. I adore the way you speak the truth regardless of the consequences. Such as telling Lady Georgiana she sang like a tomcat screeching during a fight.”
She laughed, then shook her head. “I vow I never said that.”
“Perhaps not, but we were all thinking it, and only you spoke the appalling truth. Or the way you stood up in the theater and denounced Ambrose. No one but you would think it acceptable, yet alone actually do such a thing. I will have the smartest, fiercest, most brilliant wife in London.”
Brilliance liked that description very much. “Even if I am absolutely rubbish at riddles?”
“Even so,” he said.
“Should we go speak with my father?”
Vincent’s expression appeared sheepish. “I already did, last night before the ball.”
She felt her mouth open and snapped it shut. “How forward-thinking of you. I am assuming he gave you his permission.”
“He did, in fact.”
“I knew he would,” Brilliance said. “Still, you may wish to have a private chat with my mother at your earliest convenience.”
“I understand. If your mother is anything like mine, then she would appreciate knowing before anyone else in the family.”
“Oh dear!” Brilliance thought about having spoken with her sister and sister-in-law earlier that day. “Then I had better go quickly home and tell her.”
As she said her goodbyes to Vincent on his doorstep, a carriage drew up behind her father’s.
“Here she is, your defender in petticoats,” said Ambrose Castern, a moment after he alighted from a cab.