Chapter 11 #4
Rudyard nodded and caught Lucasta’s eye.
She read relief and a warmth that made her toes curl.
“I will see to it,” he told the child. “I confess you all should have been variolated years ago. Judith and I were, by our mother, after the measles— May we speak of something that does not involve disease?”
Tressie, with the unselfconsciousness of a girl who knows she is loved, seated herself in a chair near Bertie and regarded Lucasta with cool interest. “Jem says I might take music lessons,” she said.
“I must choose my instrument, though, as we cannot clutter up the place with everything that takes my fancy.”
Rudyard winced to hear his words parroted back at him. Lucasta understood his concern, however, with not crowding a space that Judith moved about in.
“With permission, perhaps I can help you decide on an instrument,” she offered. “I am familiar with several.”
Belatedly she realized she was again pushing in.
She guessed that Rudyard had brought her here only to prove that he had not passed the judgment she had accused him of making on Selina or the Sancho family.
Some men would not acknowledge siblings from a different parent, much less a different race. Jem housed and fed his.
He did not speak of them about town, just as he did not speak of Judith.
Yet he had introduced them to Lucasta. Her eyes pricked with tears.
Judith sighed. “I would so love to learn music, but we have been unable to engage a tutor. They all say they can do nothing, since—” She pointed to her unseeing eyes.
“How absurd,” Lucasta said. “There’s a blind violinist in every square of London, playing for coin.
I have heard of an Austrian singer, Maria Theresia von Paradis, who is blind.
She is much admired in Vienna, and she composes and performs on the pianoforte.
Then there is Mélanie de Salignac, who devised a way to read and write using raised print, and she uses it to record and read music as well. ”
“And Mr. Stanley, at the Foundling Hospital, is accomplished on the organ, the harpsichord, and the violin. I told you as much, Jude,” Rudyard added softly.
“And I daresay you would have an advantage in learning music, as your ear seems to be extraordinary,” Lucasta added.
She couldn’t bear to look at Rudyard’s face any longer. His tenderness, concern, hope, and fear for his sister were all writ clearly on his countenance, and the depth of his emotion tapped at that aching place inside her chest.
Lucasta had no siblings, and while she would claim the girls of Miss Gregoire’s as being as close as sisters, and Cici was growing dear to her as well, she had never had a brother to demonstrate such protectiveness and solicitude.
What a marvelous thing it must be to have a man like Jeremiah Falstead so dedicated to one’s well-being.
Judith smiled sadly. “But who would have the patience to teach me?”
“I would,” Lucasta said. “If your brother permits it.”
It was unadvisable to offer such a thing, she realized at once.
Having no command of transportation, how was she to get herself to Little Chelsea for regular instruction?
Rudyard had brought her to meet his family, not insinuate herself into their lives.
But she would find a way, if just to see the joy spreading over Judith’s face.
“And me?” Bertie ventured. “I would adore lessons as well, Miss Lithwick, but my mother is deathly afraid that a male music master would press an advantage. She has heard too much gossip to that effect, I’m afraid.”
“I should leap at the opportunity,” Lucasta said. “If Rudyard does not disapprove.”
Offering to give Bertie lessons was even less wise, for then she would be frequenting Arendale House and risking too much contact with Rudyard, whose power to unsettle her would only grow with each exposure.
Even now her eyes could not stop straying to him, noting that bold-featured face that grew more handsome each time she looked upon it, the leashed strength and grace of his powerful form.
She recognized the tendrils of infatuation taking root and knew she must stand guard against them. She might be in need of funds and self-sufficiency, two problems giving music lessons could remedy, but she could not afford to be a fool.
“That is,” she added belatedly, “if you think I might be of any use as a teacher.”
“Perhaps,” Rudyard said in a seemingly idle tone, looking out the window instead of into the room, “you might entertain us with some music, Miss Lithwick. It would be a treat for the children.”
She recognized his casualness was forced. The man was becoming as easy to read as a musical score.
He wanted to hear her perform. And she wanted him to hear her.
“Are you certain it would be a treat?” Lucasta could not resist teasing him, hoping to poke past that veil of assumed indifference.
“You have not heard me play, Lord Rudyard. In fact you persuaded the governors of the Foundling Hospital to give over their precious concert to a musician whose skill you have never heard tested.”
His eyes glowed with an answering challenge. “Do you think I was sleeping that afternoon at the Hospital, like your maid? I assure you I was listening.”
Judith paused, her head tilted as she listened to the exchange. “Do play for us, Miss Lithwick.”
“And sing,” Rudyard prompted.
There went those bubbles again, rising in her like champagne. “Perhaps a song or two.” Lucasta eagerly approached the spinet tucked in the corner. “This is a Baker Harris,” she said in surprise, glancing at Rudyard. “Did you visit his workshop?”
“Will it do?” Judith sounded anxious.
“It’s a lovely little bentside.” Lucasta pushed back the cover of polished mahogany and ran her fingers over the keyboard.
“Practical for a small space, and very useful to learn on.” She played a quick scale and leaned close to listen to the pitch.
“It’s perfectly tuned. I do love the sound of the spinet.
It’s richer, deeper than the harpsichord. Gloomier, one might say.”
“You prefer gloomy?” Rudyard regarded her with a curious expression.
“I prefer rich and textured,” Lucasta replied.
She shook back her sleeves and warmed her fingers with a few more scales, testing the weight of the keys.
“Shall I play a Welsh song, in honor of Mrs. Cadogan? I know an old love song that a friend at school taught me. It translates to ‘Watching the White Wheat,’ or something like that.”
She launched into the song, a melancholy, resonant tune that suited her range and allowed for full-throated expression.
The rest of the room drifted to the fringes of her awareness.
For the first time that day, she was in her element, no longer plain Lucasta Lithwick but a vibrating chord of sound, a hollow reed for the air to move through.
Mrs. Cadogan sniffled from the doorway when the song ended. “Aye, but I love that air. Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn.” She dabbed her eyes with the hem of her apron. “I haven’t heard that in an age, Miss Lithwick, and never sung so lovely as you did.”
“It’s a sad story, I believe, about a girl who dies of a broken heart when she cannot marry her love,” Lucasta said. “But I quite like the tune.”
“Ann Thomas, the Maid of Cefn Ydfa, and her Wil,” Mrs. Cadogan confirmed. “They’re buried together at Llangynwyd, rest their souls.”
“More,” Starria demanded, inching her chair closer to the spinet. “Don’t stop now, Miss Lithwick.”
Lucasta moved on to some familiar tunes, “Soft Flowing Avon” and “The Trees They Grow So High,” hoping her audience might sing with her, but they appeared content to listen.
“Is there a song we all might sing?” she asked finally, turning about on the stool.
The faces regarding her were rapt, Bertie’s eyes filled with tears, Judith’s face dreamy and far away.
Lucasta regarded the younger children, who stared back at her with wide eyes. “Do you have a favorite nursery tune, or a lullaby?”
“Our nurse will only sing hymns to us,” Hannibal explained. “She’s a Methodist.”
“Jem, I wish you would sing with Miss Lithwick,” Judith said softly. “We rarely hear your voice anymore.”
Rudyard coughed. “I could not possibly do well enough for a voice like Miss Lithwick’s.” His tone sounded lower, rougher than usual.
“I confess I have been longing to hear your brother sing,” Lucasta said to Judith. She wanted to hear his rich baritone put to use, but even that small admission made the tips of her ears burn with embarrassment.
Rudyard cleared his throat. “Jude—”
“Something simple, to please me,” Judith coaxed. “The True Lover’s Farewell?’”
Heat spread down the side of Lucasta’s neck. The song was a lovely, intimate duet. She rarely sang duets; she was never asked. “I know the tune,” she managed.
“I have never heard you sing, Jem,” Bertie said with a curious tone.
“Then you must,” Judith said firmly. “To please me, Jem.”
Lucasta drew in a deep, long breath as Rudyard moved closer.
Heated awareness moved across her shoulders and down her arms as she felt his gaze settle upon her.
She lifted her hands to the keyboard to begin the simple, familiar tune and let her eyes close for a moment as Rudyard began the first notes of the lover’s duet.
“Fare thee well, my own true love, and farewell for a while…”
She blinked back sudden tears. His voice was untrained but steady and clear, with a rich, deep timbre that made her feel like she’d partaken of strong spirits. Her throat closed as she listened to him sing the melancholy words.
“And the rocks may melt and the seas may burn, if I shall not return.”
She felt his eyes on her face, and a wash of heat filled and buoyed her. Lucasta swallowed, consciously relaxed her throat, and lifted her voice in the lover’s reply.
“Oh, do you see that lonesome dove, sitting on an ivy tree?”
It was almost too much to bear, having him so close to her, his attention bent on her so completely, as their voices rose and blended.
The emotions of these ballads that had always seemed so overdrawn and silly suddenly took on a new dimension as she sang.
For the first time she could understand how it might physically hurt to be parted from a beloved, how that longing could feel so intense.
Singing with Jeremiah Falstead was a magic she had never known. Harmonizing with him as they began the final chorus was as intimate as twining their hands in a dance. As intimate as sitting side by side in a carriage. As intimate as a kiss.
“I’m going away, but I’ll be back, if I go ten thousand miles.”
Lucasta let her hands rest on the keyboard as the last note faded away. Then she made the mistake of lifting her head and meeting Rudyard’s eyes.
His brown-gold gaze was a deep well. She might never stop falling. He looked as dazed as she felt.
“I…” Her voice was a whisper. “I believe that’s enough for now.” Carefully she closed the lid of the spinet, grateful to look away from Rudyard’s face.
She might fall as far as she wished, but then what would happen to her? A Lucasta Lithwick did not enchant a Lord Rudyard. Such things were not possible in the world in which she moved.
And she must, at all costs, protect herself from further exposure to him, for heartbreak was inevitable. He had already enchanted her.