16. Chapter 16
Cassius leant against the balustrade, studying the coloured lead plate of the stained-glass arch above the door to Odette’s villa, Sobieski.
On the street below, a coach rattled past, the bits and chains of the horses’ harness clinking the melody of a busy city.
In the park across the road, the afternoon spread green and golden over the lawn and between the trees.
Around the corner, in the little street Odette loved so well, children raced about on scooters that clipped—ratatatat—over the pavers.
The door of the opposite townhouse opened, a shape emerged, then was lost to the afternoon shadows as it closed again.
After rehearsal had finished unexpectedly early for a Saturday, he’d returned to his townhouse to continue sorting the odds and ends of his life into trunks and crates.
Papers and scores he wanted to keep, clothing for the journey, things he would not need until he arrived, things he no longer needed at all.
And then he had remembered one more thing he needed to do before he left. One final loose end.
So he’d hailed a cab and made his way here.
All he had to do now was knock. Knock on the damn door.
Something tapped his leg. Cassius stepped back, startled, but calmed when he found only a grey cat at his feet. The cat bumped his calf again, then arched its body against Cassius’s leg. He knelt and scratched between its ears.
‘I didn’t know Odette owned a cat. Who are you?’
‘I do not own a cat,’ Odette said, sounding slightly out of breath from climbing the stairs.
Heavens be, she was lovely. From her simple—yet somehow still scandalous—violet dress with a thick bow at the waist and a plunging neckline to the light pink flush over her cheeks and her bright eyes…
He could have sworn they lit even bluer when they landed on him.
‘This is Spencer. No one owns him. And at the same time, everyone does.’ She knelt beside the tomcat, then ran a hand along his back.
‘The first time I came to this street, it was to visit my new friend Albert. And when I walked to his door, who was sitting there?’ She tapped the cat’s nose, and he arced to chase a pat.
‘This little cat right here, with his white-tipped tail. He watched me as I knocked, and when I went inside, he followed but kept his distance. Didn’t let me close.
Didn’t let me pat him, although I tried.
He watched me all through our afternoon tea, and then, just as I was getting ready to leave, he leapt onto my lap, turned, and settled there in a fluffy little bundle.
It was like he was trying to make up his mind about me first, and then decided that yes, I could stay.
And when I petted him, I felt something I’d never felt in all my life.
I felt like here, I might belong. That I might be able to make a home on this street. ’
A house could be gifted. But not a home.
Cassius threw another look at the stained glass, and the cat knocked his leg again.
And in her small story, he found the answer to her mystery, the mystery she had let London run wild with and had never corrected.
The archduke had not given her this place.
She had bought it herself. It was entirely, completely, Odette.
‘It is too late to promenade,’ she said. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’
‘Rehearsals are progressing well. The orchestra is almost ready for opening night. Which means—’
‘Soon you are for Vienna,’ she finished for him, her words a little stiff. ‘To your new life.’
She stroked the cat between the ears, and Spencer cocked his head to one side, his purr rumbling.
‘I thought we should come to an understanding of how our courtship ends. In case someone asks questions.’
‘You had better come inside,’ she said, and rose to her feet.
The door opened as she approached it, held wide by Daniel.
From what Cassius had observed over the years, Odette kept a light staff.
While maids and other servants changed between each musicale, Nora and Daniel remained familiar fixtures.
Both had been with Odette almost from the beginning.
Nora had been a costumer once, no longer able to work when a terrible burn from an iron disfigured her hand, and Daniel…
only Odette knew where she had found him.
Something in his stance echoed the military, but Daniel’s attention to his dress and the way he tugged at his cufflinks resembled the aristocracy, whose mannerisms Cassius knew only too well.
In the past, Cassius had scrutinised their interactions for any hint of romance, but he’d never landed on anything certain.
Whatever the precise circumstances of his employment were, Daniel protected Odette like a zealot.
‘Have you had supper?’ she asked.
‘A little.’ Cassius removed his hat and gloves. ‘But I wouldn’t refuse the offer of more.’
Odette whispered something to Daniel, and once Cassius had stepped inside, the man closed the door and left the room.
Odette strode down the hallway, and Cassius followed along the familiar path into the dome room, where she held her famed musicales.
Invariably, she would demand he play the piano during these soirées so she could sing.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he paced the room while she divested herself of her coat and gloves and handed them to Nora, who dutifully appeared as if she existed solely for just that purpose.
He wandered from sculpture to sculpture, enjoying them without the throng of guests and friends who normally crowded her parties.
He craned his neck to study the ceiling, eyes tracing along the mosaic and plasterwork, skirting over the elegant crenelations to the dome, and finally settling on the window to the sky.
Odette tapped his side. She held out a flute of champagne. He took it.
‘Supper,’ she announced.
Cassius huffed a small laugh into his glass, then took a sip. ‘I don’t think I’ve been in here without a crowd before. I didn’t realise how beautiful it is, but also, so… big. What made you buy this place, instead of somewhere smaller?’
She pressed her flute to her cheek, toying with her response.
He’d meant it as a provocation—to see if she made a claim either way as to how she’d come to own her villa, whether she maintained the myth or confessed to a different story.
Her expression cracked into a smile, and she swayed, the perfect coquette.
‘I told you. Spencer invited me to stay.’
‘Does Spencer pay the mortgage?’
The smile erupted into ready laughter. Why had he not taken every chance to make her laugh like that? ‘Lazy, philandering rake that he is. I would be in debtors’ prison if I relied on him.’
‘Why?’ he pushed, desperate to know. ‘Why all this, when a simple townhouse would do?’
‘Why not?’ she flung back, then took another sip from her glass.
‘Tell me, Cassius. Why not? Because I should be practical? Reserved? Modest? All the things a woman should be? I bought this house because I liked it, and because it is like the opera. Extravagant. Opulent. Perfectly crafted. Built for no other purpose than to be beautiful. And in it, I enjoy beautiful things. My sculptures, my paintings, and…’ she turned and held out her glass, almost in a toast to the piano, ‘the music. The acoustics in here are exceptional, are they not?’
‘They are.’ He could not deny it. They were the best of any of the grand houses he had played in, throughout his entire life.
‘Isn’t that enough of a reason? That I would like to enjoy something beautiful?’ She crossed to the piano, flipped the fallboard open, and tapped a scale along the keys. ‘You should enjoy them before you leave.’
‘I told you, I am no longer a pianist. I am a conductor.’
‘Other conductors play. Joseph Joachim never stopped playing the violin. Some stay musicians. Isn’t that where the first conductors came from? The musicians who could keep a beat and terrify the rest of the orchestra into following their lead?’
‘I am not terrifying!’
‘No, terrifying is not a strong enough word for you. I don’t think English has a word for you. Maybe formidolosus, like they say in Latin, is better suited to you.’
Cassius stroked the curved lid. ‘You have plenty of men to play her.’
‘They hurt my ears. No one makes her sing like you can. Come. Open her up. Play her, one last time. Not like there is an audience or an orchestra or princes or a patron. Like it is just you and me. Like before.’
He met her eyes, and the word sat heavy in the empty space between them. Before. Before princes and dukes and payments and accolades, before matrons and madams and countesses and conniving, before they had become playthings in a world of power they could visit but were never permitted to stay in.
‘Like when we were hungry musicians,’ she said, as if their thoughts were connected and she remembered those days with the same burning force as him. ‘Like when we were sitting in the basement, drinking vodka and playing.’
The wood ran warm and smooth beneath his palm as he stroked the piano’s curves. ‘They did not have a lady like this in the basement of that playhouse.’ He set his champagne on the floor, then lifted the piano lid and propped it open. If she was going to sing, she might as well have full lungs.
Cassius sat. He clenched and unclenched his fingers, wriggling them loose and agile. What to play? Mozart, her favourite? Beethoven, who was his? Or one of the parts she’d not been offered, to annoy her?