Chapter Twenty
“ A re you certain you want to go to Lord and Lady Winthrop’s home?” Carolyn Diamond asked her daughter.
“Mother, we have been over this. I was invited, and it would be rude to turn down an invitation when I have no excuse.”
“How about not having your heart wounded by seeing their son again?”
Brilliance couldn’t wait to see Vincent at his parents’ home. It was the only reason she wished to attend the birthday party on Davies Street, a stone’s throw from her eldest sister, Clarity’s home, and a slightly longer throw from Purity’s.
So what if it hurt as long as she laid eyes on him once more.
Brilliance wore pink satin trimmed with pale-gray buttons and piping and pale-gray gloves.
“I wonder if he asked his mother to invite you,” Lady Diamond said. “That would bespeak of his continued interest.”
Privately, Brilliance thought it highly doubtful, given the last time she saw him.
“Good evening, my lord,” she greeted Lord Winthrop, Vincent’s stepfather at the entrance to the drawing room.
“Many happy returns of the day,” Brilliance added when meeting Lady Winthrop. She had the same sage-colored eyes as her son. Instantly, Brilliance’s heart tightened painfully in her chest. Maybe her mother had been right.
“How good of you to come,” Lady Winthrop said.
“I was honored to be invited but puzzled.” Brilliance decided she might as well determine why she was there. “I don’t believe we have ever met, nor are you known to my parents.”
“Oh no, I think not,” Lady Winthrop said, while her husband was already greeting the older man behind Brilliance in the receiving line. “My late husband’s niece, Lady Twitchard, said you got along well with my son at her July country party. I hope you don’t mind, but since Vincent is attending, I thought it a nice surprise for him to have one of his own acquaintances amongst all of us older folk. And from how Alethia described you, you do not disappoint.”
Brilliance felt her cheeks grow warm. Now she was certain that Vincent was unaware of her attendance. Most certainly, he would not think it a “nice surprise” and would have told his mother she was not welcome.
Nevertheless, she was there. And he was ... right beside her!
“Mother, I am sorry I’m late.” Vincent leaned in and kissed his mother’s cheek before taking his place beside her. Only then did he turn toward Brilliance.
If she hadn’t been so anxious, she might have laughed at his utterly stunned expression.
“What good timing,” Lady Winthrop said. “I have only just met Lady Brilliance, a friend of yours, I take it.”
Feeling the line of guests pressing at her side, Brilliance ignored how he remained speechless. Nodding to him, she murmured, “Good evening, Lord Hewitt,” before moving along.
If he didn’t ask a footman to show her out, then there would be time later to speak. Or maybe they would ignore one another all evening.
However, she didn’t have long to wait. As they gathered in the Winthrops’ drawing room, with sparkling wine being handed out to toast their hostess’s health, Vincent approached.
“Good evening, Lady Brilliance. You look well.”
“I wasn’t sure you would speak to me,” she said.
“Yet you came anyway,” he pointed out.
“I hoped to see you regardless of whether we conversed.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “I am not a wilting violet, afraid to face someone who might not be thrilled with me. But we were ... friends. And ever since that moment when we were no longer ... friendly, I have missed you.”
He apparently approved of her honesty for he offered a tentative nod. After a brief hesitation, he said, “Then I am glad you came, if only to overcome the last impression I gave you. I was not myself.”
Inside, Brilliance could have wept with the relief that washed through her. Even if they could no longer enjoy the same level of closeness as they once had, she felt better knowing Vincent did not hate her. She wanted to apologize again but was reluctant to bring up the incident and ruin the truce. Thus, instead, she pretended as if they were simply acquaintances on a good footing.
And due to Lady Twitchard, they were dining partners, as well.
“Thank goodness my cousin didn’t mention certain other guests to my mother, such as Lady Georgiana,” Vincent said.
“I am certain you would have behaved as politely as you are with me,” Brilliance said. For he was treating her with extreme politeness, nothing beyond, no references to anything intimate having ever occurred between them.
As the courses rolled on, however, she started to feel melancholy. Maybe it was worse being near him after all, when she had thought it would make her happy. The loss of their friendship was now starkly evident.
“You have gone quiet,” he said after a few minutes of her silence.
Brilliance nearly blurted out Lord Redley’s courtship but stopped herself. Vincent might think she was trying to make him jealous, which she would be. And what could be worse than him not showing an ounce of jealousy?
She also bit back her words praising the concert she’d attended. If it had been any other musician, Vincent might have been interested. But she would seem to be taunting him if she mentioned Ambrose Castern, although she didn’t know the reason.
With her tongue tied, Brilliance maintained her silence except when Vincent asked her a question. And he was as likely not to as to do so, spending half his time speaking with the female on his other side, as a good guest should.
On her left was an older gentleman who was hard of hearing. After a few attempts at conversation, she simply smiled at him. Thus, despite being next to the man she loved at his parents’ dining room table, Brilliance was starting to wish she had not come.
That all changed when his stepfather commanded the table’s attention by raising his glass and tapping its stem with a spoon.
“I thank you all for coming to celebrate my wife’s birthday. Welcome to all our old friends,” he nodded to many, including the somewhat deaf guest beside Brilliance, “and to a few new ones.”
To Brilliance’s amazement, Lord Winthrop nodded at her . Then he toasted to Lady Winthrop’s health, and they all drank. After which, she spoke.
“Thank you, my love, and I, too, wish to thank you all for coming. Tonight, we have our yearly special treat. My son, Lord Hewitt, will give a short concert following the meal.”
Brilliance stifled a gasp, turning to stare at him. He glanced down at her and shrugged.
“I can hardly say no to my mother, can I?”
“Honestly,” she said, “I thought you could say no to anyone.”
He smiled wryly. After the pudding course, they all went into a large salon upstairs. The piano situated sideways was more modest than Lady Twitchard’s or Vincent’s own, but he sat upon the stool, looking quite at home.
Brilliance realized he had probably been playing on this piano his entire life. As she took a seat, she could easily imagine the young child climbing onto the stool and picking out notes for the first time. And then he began, and all her thoughts fell away.
“‘Essence of Brilliance,’” she murmured, recalling how he’d hoped he had captured something of her nature.
“What did you say?” asked the gentleman beside her. He had remained by her side on the short walk from the dining room to the salon and taken the next seat.
“Shh,” she said, feeling rude, but she didn’t want to miss a note. Vincent had said it was unfinished two months earlier, but she recognized the first part. It seemed he had continued to work on the piece. It had three movements, starting deliberate and unhurried with the section she remembered, then speeding up in the middle, before finishing slowly.
He had altered it, making it less light-hearted, more somber. She wished she understood how, but the notes in the middle section left her unsettled and a little sad, while the end was wistful.
Everyone rose to their feet when the final notes died away, and the applause was loud. Vincent’s mother darted forward as he stood and bowed. She grabbed his hands and kissed his cheek.
Brilliance wished she could do the same, although she would aim for his mouth. Regardless, he did glance her way. When their gazes met, she was infused with hope. He looked as he had in the past, relaxed and smiling, and as if he played a private concert every night, instead of once a year.
When he raised an eyebrow over his spectacles, she tried to decipher the message he was sending but couldn’t. His mother thanked him and asked him to continue.
“I shall if you release my hands,” Vincent said.
Everyone laughed, and Lady Winthrop resumed her chair in the front row beside her husband. It might have been the flickering gas lamp, but Brilliance thought Vincent winked at her before he sat once more on the stool.
“Another recent composition,” he said, and then he began to play.
At first, Brilliance simply enjoyed the music, but soon, she knew she’d heard it before. And with awful realization, she knew when, where, and by whom.
Ambrose Castern had ended his concert with this music, his new work.
Brilliance began to feel ill. Maybe it was the large helping of the rich cabinet pudding with raisins and cherries buried under thick creamy custard which she had scoffed during the dessert course. In any case, she wanted to cover her ears.
At its conclusion, the applause was even louder. And then little by little, people rose to their feet and filed through the doorway, invited by Lord and Lady Winthrop to the drawing room for brandy or sherry.
When the room emptied, Vincent was still standing by the piano.
“What did you think?” he asked.
Brilliance took a breath. She was in his parents’ home. She must conduct herself like a polite guest, even as she wanted to rail at him for stealing the piece and going to the trouble to memorize it.
Was “Essence of Brilliance” even truly written by him?
“The music you played for me in your home —”
“The one you inspired,” he interrupted.
“Yes, am I wrong in thinking you have changed it?”
“I told you at the time it wasn’t finished,” he reminded her. “And after what transpired, I realized it was a tad frothy.”
“I see.” He no longer considered her simply a joyful, light-hearted person.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said.
“Not at all. It is your music, isn’t it?”
He smiled slightly. “I actually wrote it for you.”
She bit her lip. Should she remain silent?
“What are you thinking? Some unflattering thoughts, I warrant, by your expression. Am I to understand you did not like it?”
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “And since you wrote it, as you say, you may change it as you wish.”
Vincent frowned at her words. “I suppose I may. What did you think of the second piece?”
Brilliance was wringing her hands, not something she usually did. Dropping them to her sides, she said, “I enjoyed it very much.” Sweet Mary! She couldn’t leave a lie between them. “I liked it the first time I heard it, too.”
“The first time?” His frown deepened. “You couldn’t possibly have heard this before.”
“Yet I have. I heard it at its public debut by its composer.”
He cocked his head with obvious confusion.
“Ambrose Castern,” she added. “He concluded his concert at Canterbury Hall with this piece. He called it ‘An Enchanting Dream.’”
Realizing how that was possible — because of her — a sense of despair rushed through him. He had spent the last few hours during dinner talking himself into believing he could still have a friendship with Brilliance Diamond. More than friendship, if he was honest with himself. What she had done hadn’t been so egregious after all, he’d decided.
Now, however, he knew the ramifications of her publishing his music. And the worst possible outcome had happened. Ambrose! Moreover, no one would ever believe it was not the work of the popular composer and pianist.
“‘An Enchanting Dream,’” he spat out. “A ridiculous name thought up by a ridiculous man.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you playing his music?”
“It is mine!”
“That makes entirely no sense.”
He wondered why she seemed truly angry. She wasn’t the one who had been stolen from.
“You write beautiful, intricate music. So why would you ...” She trailed off, unable to say the words.
“You had best leave. You are calling me a thief! That’s rich, coming from you. And under the roof where I was raised, too.”
Without another word, Brilliance turned and left. Vincent assumed she would first take her leave of his parents because she was a properly raised lady of the ton . By the time he had collected himself and swallowed the worst of his anger, she had departed the residence.
At one time, he had thought she was the one person who would believe in him.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.