Chapter Nineteen
V incent ignored the missives from his cousin. He expected a heartfelt request for forgiveness from Brilliance, but one never came. Not that it would have made any difference. She did not understand how egregious her betrayal. Moreover, she apparently thought a barely uttered apology — while he was too blisteringly furious to listen — had been enough.
She was wrong. He had trusted her! A mistake he would not make again.
“Fool me twice,” he muttered, as he wrote to London in an attempt to get his music recalled. Hopefully, the only copy was the one sent to Brilliance. After all, there couldn’t be much call for an anonymous sonata with an asinine title.
As Vincent discovered, Brilliance had given the publisher his real name and his address. Any questions or royalties were to be directed to him. However, she had not told anyone at Boosey & Co that he was the composer. Still, under Vincent’s authority, the publisher agreed to stop printing more copies, but there was nothing he could do about those already distributed or sold.
Within a week, he tried to put the entire incident behind him ... except now Brilliance was gone. Not only from the southeast of England but from his life. And with each day that passed, he missed her more and began to regret his outburst and the boiling fury that had caused him to say some inexcusable things to her.
In truth, he had been angry at her as much for the betrayals of the past as for what she had inadvertently done. And in his heart, he knew it was he who owed her an apology.
Should he go to Lord and Lady Diamond’s country house in Derby? He had no idea whether Brilliance would wish to see him again after the cruel dressing down he’d given.
Vincent supposed the more important question was whether he could forgive her duplicity enough to take up where they left off. He had been prepared to propose marriage.
Now he wasn’t sure she was any different from Ambrose or worse, Lydia. Or worse again, Ambrose. He could never decide which betrayal cut deeper — that of his ladylove or his best friend — although ultimately, he knew he loved his music more than he had ever cared for Lydia.
And what about Brilliance? He simply never imagined, with her openness and frank speech, she could deceive him as she’d done. It had shaken him to his core.
His heart hardened, and he made his decision. Better to have found out her true nature before he went hat-in-hand to speak with her father.
And better still that he should remain alone rather than tie himself to someone he could not trust, no matter how much he missed and yearned for her.
“She stole my music and sent it to London. I do not know how you can defend her,” he said over dinner with Alethia and the Colonel one evening. Unfortunately, every time he went to their home, he was reminded of Brilliance around every corner.
His cousin had just opined how she thought Lady Brilliance’s intentions were good. At Vincent’s words of reprimand, Alethia sighed and looked to her husband for his opinion. The Colonel tugged his earlobe absently before picking up his knife and fork, saying nothing.
“The lady was bewildered but apologetic when the Colonel and I took her to her parents. It was a long, awkward journey,” Alethia added.
Vincent would probably have forgiven her if he had been in the carriage, and thus, he was glad he hadn’t been. How many times could he be taken for a fool?
“In any case, I do not know how you can still be thinking of her as if it happened yesterday,” his cousin said. “Lady Brilliance seems to still consume your every waking thought. Therefore, either you passionately hate her, or you are madly in love. Which is it?”
Vincent opened his mouth, then shut it. Then he shook his head and rolled his eyes at his cousin’s ridiculous statement.
“Neither,” he groused before taking a large sip of wine. “I am allowed to be outraged, am I not?”
“It has been weeks,” the Colonel reminded him. “Speaking of which, when are we all going back to London? I fancy a little excitement after so much quiet.”
Vincent stopped listening as husband and wife discussed the autumn parties, the year-end festivities, and whether they would stay in the city right through the Christmastide or come back to the country.
He would be in London at week’s end for a parliamentary session and his mother’s birthday. His stepfather always had a large gathering for his beloved Lady Winthrop, and Vincent broke his own staunch rule once a year to perform publicly for her and her guests.
Beyond that, he rarely attended balls or parties unless a good friend was throwing the affair and had promised a bevy of beauties. Also, his friends made sure that two people were never in attendance, Lydia and Ambrose Castern.
Now he would have to avoid Brilliance Diamond, too. Not because of a similar loathing that he felt for the other two, but due to the uncomfortable sensation that he hadn’t behaved well where she was concerned. He had been downright vicious, and the man who had spewed venom at her in his conservatory was not the person he thought he was. It certainly wasn’t the person he intended ever to be again.
Despite still thinking she was absolutely in the wrong for taking his music, he recognized that she had intended no harm. As far as he could tell, not much harm had been done, either.
Except for their tattered friendship.
Brilliance hadn’t expected the swift and terrible end to her romance with Lord Hewitt. Heartbreak was monstrously awful! It was made infinitely worse because she had caused the rift. If only she could have left well enough alone. She’d been wrong about his stage fright, wrong about him being happy to see his own music in print, and wrong about him loving her so entirely that he couldn’t live without her.
She had even been wrong about fruit!
And she was having to accept the fact that she could and would live without the man she loved.
After all, even if he forgave her, she now knew he thought her to be a sapskull, a dunderhead, basically too stupid for him.
But the publisher had assured her, given how she’d provided Vincent’s name at the outset, no one else could take credit. Vincent had made it seem as though she had given his composition away to the world, as if another musician could claim ownership.
How had her best attempt failed, sending her to Weeping Cross? She still wasn’t certain.
In any case, if Vincent’s heart was broken, if he missed her, then he could have written to her. Instead, weeks had passed, and people were starting to return to London. While the latest outbreak had been in the poorer area of Soho, directly east of Mayfair proper, it was close enough that those living in the wealthier neighborhoods were still nervous. Her parents were considering their return in another fortnight after daily scrutiny of the newspapers.
“A water supply at the crossroads of Broad Street and Cambridge Street has been determined as the source of the cholera,” her father read over breakfast. “Consequently, the pump handle has been ordered removed by the eminent physician John Snow.”
“That capable nurse, Miss Nightingale, is treating many patients at Middlesex Hospital,” her mother added.
A miracle , Brilliance thought, that someone had isolated and identified the problem in a city the size of London. Her only hesitation over returning to their Piccadilly home was that Vincent wouldn’t know where she was. What if he came to Oak Grove Hall looking for her?
“Stop moping,” her mother said for the umpteenth time.
“I am not moping,” Brilliance protested. “I am sulking.”
“Then stop sulking. You had a summer romance. You are not the first, nor the last girl to place her hopes in a man who turned out not to appreciate her.”
Brilliance had not told her parents all the details, only that she had inadvertently disappointed and angered Lord Hewitt. Thus, he would not be paying a visit anytime soon. At least when they reached London, she would be nearer to him by many miles and have all her old distractions. The Crystal Palace had reopened, and there were new plays and concerts for the upcoming winter.
And, of course, there were balls. More opportunities to wear her gold ballgown. As so few people had seen it at Lady Twitchard’s home, it was practically new.
After nearly eight weeks in Derby, they moved home, and Brilliance engaged herself in all the activities of the final three months of the year. There was no shortage of entertaining diversions, and she tried her best not only to enjoy her friends but also the gentlemen who paid her attention.
“I am so glad everything is back to normal,” Martine said as they stood together at Lord St. Claire’s ball, having admired each other’s gowns. Nearby, their mothers were busy catching up on their personal news.
Her friend had arrived in London a day after Brilliance. Seeing Martine for the first time since Bexley Hall caused many memories to come flooding back, both pleasant and not. It must have been the same for Martine, who remarked, “Neither of us found a match in the country. Lord Patterson was a scoundrel!”
“How do you mean?” Brilliance asked.
“Because he did not favor me over the other ladies.”
They laughed. That hardly made him a scoundrel, merely a man of dubious taste in women. For Martine was superior to anyone as far as Brilliance was concerned.
“Then you were fortunate,” she said, “because the more we came to know him, the more insufferable he became.”
“How true,” Martine agreed. “I thought, however, given your happy letter to me, that you had made a conquest,” she added, tapping her toe as the musicians warmed up before the first dance.
“A conquest?” Brilliance repeated, her throat suddenly dry. She didn’t wish to discuss Vincent. That had been more of a stunning defeat than anything.
“Yes, with our hostess’s cousin. While I thought Lord Hewitt a bit intense, even severe, he brightened around you. But then your sweet nature makes everything better.”
Brilliance couldn’t help hugging Martine, even as tears welled in her eyes.
“That is very kind of you. I am grateful to have you as my dear friend.”
“Why the emotion?” Martine asked, looking surprised. “You must know what a delight you are and how much you are admired.”
Brilliance could only shake her head, her throat clogged with sentiment. Briefly, she had let Vincent’s harsh words dim her own confidence, but she had quickly rallied. For she was a Diamond and had been comfortable in her own skin, assured of her worth, all her life.
Thus, when the ballroom manager, hired by Lord and Lady St. Claire to handle the occasion, brought two handsome gentlemen over for introductions, Brilliance lifted her chin and prepared to dance. The ball had begun in earnest.
Many hours later, Brilliance fell into bed, happily humming the final tune in her head. While she had never stopped thinking of Vincent, she had, at least, smiled, which she hadn’t done in ages. She had also danced for the first time since the Bexley ball — her last dance being with him — and yet, she had managed to feel a measure of contentment with some of her partners.
Not one had provided the immediate attraction she’d experienced upon first seeing Vincent in Lady Twitchard’s conservatory. Yet she had to accept she might never experience such a swift and definite yearning again.
And she would accept it, for Brilliance still intended to become a wife, and the sooner she stopped mooning over the man she had lost, the better.
Besides, she desired someone who saw her the way Martine did, with admiration and genuine affection. Brilliance snuggled in her bed, deciding she would settle for nothing less — certainly not someone who considered her a dunderhead.
And that made it easier the following day to look through the calling cards and allow a gentleman whom she’d danced with the honor of visiting her.
Lord Redley was the son of a friend of her parents. She had met him once before in the spring. And after they had danced at the St. Claires’ ball, she realized he was a good man. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome in a classic way, with trimmed brown hair and a strong jaw. His brown eyes were not distorted nor obscured behind spectacles.
How she missed those steely spectacles and the mesmerizing gray-green eyes that looked through them!
Seated beside her mother with her suitor opposite, Brilliance said yes to nearly everything Lord Redley asked. Thus, by the time he left precisely fifteen minutes later, she had agreed to a concert at Canterbury Hall two nights later. Just across the Thames in Lambeth, the massive venue seated seven hundred people with multiple musical offerings over the course of an evening.
How coincidental — and even a little uncomfortable when she recalled Vincent’s obvious envy — that one of the performers turned out to be Mr. Ambrose Castern. The pianist was charming. He stood on the edge of the stage and chatted with the audience before playing. He gestured to the box at the upper right of the stage and thanked his devoted wife for always being there. And then he played, captivating every person to the point of absolute silence, where even breathing seemed too loud.
When he began “The Hummingbird,” his best-known work, Brilliance could feel the swell of joy roll across the audience.
For the first time ever, it made her sad. Vincent had played it just as well, and his cousin had said he’d written something like it. Watching the mesmerizing man on the stage, making so many listeners happy, she couldn’t help but think how it could as easily be Lord Vincent Hewitt, using the gift with which he had been born.
Mr. Castern ended his concert with a new work. While clearly in his same style, leaving her in no doubt it was his composition, it had a delightfully romantic tone.
She sighed. Romance made her think of Vincent. As she walked to the carriage between her mother and Lord Redley, Brilliance knew she would have to tame her wayward desires. She was determined to do so, resolute in her intent to get over her summer romance and move on with her life.
Which was all very well and fine until an invitation arrived from a most unexpected hostess.