Chapter Four #3
“Who among your traveling party would you leave behind to make it more adventurous?” Catherine asks casually.
“My father,” Lady Rosalie replies immediately. Her eyes widen a fraction and she glances at Catherine.
“Oh? I would have thought him very adventurous,” Catherine admits, glancing back at the lively pair of Tisends still greeting
guests at the door. The earl seems most affable.
“You haven’t seen him at a museum,” Lady Rosalie mutters.
Catherine stifles a surprised giggle. “My father’s much the same.”
That makes Lady Rosalie smile. They turn together and look out at the room.
Catherine feels a prickle of anxiety work its way up the back of her neck.
She has to perform in front of all of these people.
By the way Lady Rosalie stiffens beside her, Catherine figures she’s thinking the same.
Catherine decides to try to poke her again, get her smiling.
Or, rather, put her off-kilter so she doesn’t play as well, she thinks, spotting her mother and father making their way up the center aisle toward them.
Behind them, a woman and a man, both dressed rather ostentatiously with a lot of gold trim, walk with their noses in the air.
“Who are they?” Catherine asks.
Lady Rosalie doesn’t need to look at her to know. “Mr. and Mrs. Fairwinter.”
Catherine watches Lady Rosalie’s reaction, the way her jaw tightens, as though she might like to laugh at their haughty looks.
“I bet he could make a stuffed woolly mammoth long for death with a lecture on ancient trees.”
Lady Rosalie lets out a loud snort. Catherine can’t help but grin as people turn to look at them. Lady Rosalie coughs into
the crook of her elbow, shrugging politely at the onlookers before looking over at Catherine, eyes narrowed.
“What? He could!” Catherine insists.
Lady Rosalie’s frowning at her, but her eyes are alight with mirth.
Lady Tisend appears at their side, followed by Lady Rosalie’s friends Miss Henrietta Raught and the taller, sharper Miss Amalie
Linet. Lady Rosalie’s cheeky regard vanishes, and Catherine watches, impressed, as her shoulders roll back, and all at once
she’s Lady Rosalie, imperious and in control once more.
Mr. Dean and Mr. Sholle are at the back of the group, and Catherine wonders for a moment if she should try to find a way to—
But Lady Rosalie’s already guiding Catherine far down the row to her waiting parents.
Catherine sits carefully beside her mother, watching in frustrated amusement as Lady Rosalie directs her friends the same way.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Sholle ends up on Catherine’s left, with Miss Raught, Miss Linet, Mr. Fortes, and Mr. Rile seated between Catherine and Lady Rosalie.
She’s even put Mr. Dean on her other side, as if Catherine could somehow reach him through five other people.
Catherine would be more upset, but she realizes her mother is sitting ramrod straight beside her.
“How are you?” Catherine whispers.
Mother glances at her for a moment, eyes a little wide and harried. “I am perfectly well,” she says stiffly.
“That Sir Walter Jones has such stories,” Father says, leaning around Mother with a grin. “We’ll have to have them over for
tea.”
“Sir Walter Jones?” Catherine asks.
“Lord Tisend’s brother-in-law. Just arrived with Tisend’s younger sister for the rest of the season. Lady Jones is a laugh
and a half,” he adds at a whisper. “Isn’t she?”
Mother doesn’t say anything, just jerks her head. The musicians are assembling on the dais in front of them, and everyone
around them has sat down.
Catherine glances down the row, noting Miss Raught and Miss Linet speaking animatedly to their beaus, while Lady Rosalie and
Mr. Dean sit facing the musicians, not talking.
Lady Rosalie glances over at her and Catherine sits back quickly as the musicians take the stage and begin their performance.
Mr. Dean is squandering the moment. Catherine’s not sure now if stealing him away would be a triumph, or if she’d ultimately be doing Lady Rosalie a favor. Lady Rosalie is as dazzling as the soprano on stage. Mr. Dean is simply . . . mortal, in every way.
All too soon, the professional performance comes to a close. The musicians and singers sumptuously dressed in powdered wigs
and Georgian gowns take their bows. Then Monsieur Claude and a porter are moving the pianoforte up to the front of the little
stage.
Mother swallows audibly beside her and Catherine grabs her hand for support.
Lady Tisend rises and moves to the front of the dais. “We are so thrilled all of you could join us tonight for such a wonderful
performance,” she says, her voice commanding yet somehow still soft. Everyone has to lean in to hear her. “But we couldn’t
let tonight just be a sparkling concert! Lady Rosalie and I had planned to perform for you, but then a dear old friend returned
to town.”
Mother stiffens beside Catherine, her hand like a vise.
“I couldn’t dare to deprive you of her talents, and that of her lovely daughter. So, what better way to reintroduce herself
to Bath than for you all to hear the brilliant talents of my friend Mrs. Pine?” Lady Tisend says, smiling over at Mother.
She gestures to them and for a horrible, halting moment, it seems Mother can’t make herself stand up. How dare Lady Tisend
do it like this, frame it like this? As if she isn’t the reason Mother is returning to Bath in the first place.
Father discreetly moves his hand to Mother’s upper back. Catherine looks toward Lady Rosalie. Is she in on this? Does she
know what happened?
But then Mother stands up. Her face settles into a blithe mask and she walks toward Lady Tisend with a broad smile. Only Catherine
and Father would notice the way her shoulders are just slightly too far back.
Catherine slides over to sit next to Father, taking his hand, her own heart in her throat as Mother takes her place at the pianoforte.
She adjusts the seat and sits for a moment, staring at the keys.
Time stretches and Catherine’s chest grows tight, eyes prickling.
If her mother should falter here, she’ll never forgive herself.
To have returned to Bath only to be humiliated—
And then Mother begins to play. What was halting and fumbling in their sitting room becomes the most fluid, exciting, propulsive
piece of music Catherine thinks she’s ever heard. Mother is stunning there at the pianoforte, her mouth set in a relaxed smile,
her posture tall, her fingers flying perfectly and effortlessly over the keys.
She soars through the piece, and when she hits the final note and looks up and out into the audience, the crowd erupts with
applause. Catherine watches her mother’s eyes sparkle, her face breaking into a humble smile. She’s never seen her mother
look so luminous, so excited, and so relieved in all her life.
Catherine needs to secure their place in society, heal whatever hurt lurks in her mother’s heart, and wash away the ugly past,
so her mother always looks this radiant. She should never fear the ton. They should fear her, just as they do Lady Tisend.
Catherine will start by winning Mr. Dean’s hand.