She sat back in her chair and gave him a curiously pleased grin.
“You see,” he repeated. “There’s nothing strange about it.”
“Consider it done,” she said. She raised the piece of jewelry in the air. “And give Lady Patsworth my compliments, if you please.”
MARY DID NOT OFTEN MOURN the loss of her gowns. But a week after she and John had made their plans, as she dressed for the dinner party, she wished she still had one of her finest. Her blue silk, for instance. She was, after all, preparing for battle. The right gown could serve as both sword and shield.
She’d contemplated her Sunday best, but the dove-gray gown had no pockets. If everything went well tonight, she might never return to this room. And if she was going to be restricted to the contents of her pockets, she wanted those pockets to be as large as possible.
The practical took most of the space available: a comb, a toothbrush, a sliver of hard soap, and a small hand towel—she’d learned in her last desperate flight from home that a lady should never be without a towel.
Aside from that…
She’d been carting around the damning pages she’d sliced from her father’s account book for too long. She couldn’t leave them here to be discovered by Sir Walter; after all she’d gone through to keep her father’s secret, there was no point betraying his shame to her worst enemy.
But she didn’t want to keep those words near her heart any longer. His note had all the sentimental value of a bludgeon. It was time to let the words go.
Sighing, she lit a candle and fed the pages into the flame. But as the edge blackened and smoked, her eye was caught by the numbers on the reverse of his final message—not blank, of course; it was an account book. She’d seen those numbers a hundred times without thinking about what they meant.
The last entries were not surprising or strange. But they’d never before set in motion the cascade of possibilities that rushed through her now. She’d been so used to seeing those words as a chain, holding her in place, that she’d not recognized that they could be something else entirely. She’d seen only what her father had taken—those thousands of pounds, spent on her behalf. She hadn’t thought about what he’d left behind.
The paper caught fire right at that moment, a thin lick of orange darting up. Mary dropped it on the desk and beat her fist into the flame, smothering it before it could consume the future she’d glimpsed.
She brushed away ash and the charred edges of cracked paper before unfolding the pages and surveying the damage.
The numbers were still there, unburnt.
When John talked of thousands of pounds missing, she’d thought of the money her father had spent. But the way he spoke, he made it sound as if nothing had remained. Her father had taken thousands, but he’d husbanded his ill-gotten gains. The other partners should have recovered quite a bit.
If John thought they hadn’t…
Mary reached out and picked up the paper again. She folded it—this time, not for the words he’d written in front, but for the ones she’d never thought about on the back. And then, for the first time in a long while, she laughed.
Now she was ready to take on Sir Walter.
Chapter Ten
BY THE TIME THE dinner guests adjourned to the back room, Mary felt too wracked by her nerves to speak. She’d scarcely touched her food; she hadn’t dared look at Lady Patsworth, lest her questioning gaze give everything away to her husband.
The closer they came to success, the sicker Mary felt. Luckily, as a mere companion, there was no need for her to join in the conversation. She let it swirl around her, and she waited.
The salon was grandly appointed. The walls were a mix of moss-green and gold, clever carved moldings around the edge telling a story about a nymph and a harp. Windows looked out over the night-shrouded valley, dotted by little flashes of lamplight where there were settlements.
Easier to look out the window than to focus on what stood before it: a pianoforte. That would be Mary’s contribution this evening. She’d never been nervous about performing before. This crowd—just Lord and Lady Northword, John, the Beauregards, Sir Walter and his wife, and two other families—would hardly have flustered her a few years ago. Then again, she’d never had a performance this important.
“Miss Chartley,” the viscountess said, “you keep looking at the pianoforte. Do you play?”
It had begun. The evening was so carefully scripted; Mary had only to do her part, and the rest of it would happen.
“A little,” Mary said, looking down.
“A little?” John, a few feet away, made a sound of disbelief. “That’s balderdash, if you’ll excuse the expression. Miss Chartley is utterly brilliant.”
“A bit of exaggeration, I’m afraid.” Mary put her head down in a pretense of modesty.
“But…” Sir Walter looked up, frowning. “Mr. Mason, I thought you didn’t know Miss Chartley. How would you know that she plays?”
John met Mary’s eyes and gave her a melting look; Mary looked away. They’d decided it would do best to have Mary pretend embarrassment—to have Sir Walter believe that she’d been caught out in misbehavior. Mary didn’t have to pretend at all; a slight pink flush rose on her cheeks unbidden.
“Well,” John said, “I had to find out.”
Sir Walter let out a soft hiss. “But you…”
Mary looked up. It wasn’t difficult to meet John’s eyes. And she wasn’t pretending when everyone else in the room seemed to fall away. There was only his smile, only the light dancing in his eyes.
“Hmph,” Sir Walter said. He gave her a dark look, one that said, Don’t you dare speak to that man.
“Well, Miss Chartley, perhaps you could play for us a little.” Lady Northword spoke as if she hadn’t seen that interchange.
“Of course.” Mary blushed and glanced at John again. “And perhaps, Mr. Mason, you might turn my pages.”
“Miss Chartley,” Sir Walter whispered in harsh tones. “This behavior is most unbecoming!”
But Mary stood anyway and moved to the instrument. Sir Walter glared as she thumbed through the available music. His arms were folded across his chest; his chin promised retribution.
John came to stand by her. His simple presence assured her that she was not alone. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t say anything as she flipped, unseeing, through sheets of music. He was just there, steady and honest and trustworthy.
It wasn’t hard for Mary to turn to John and give him the largest, most scintillating smile she could muster. She was supposed to be doing it to rivet Sir Walter’s attention. But she had only to look at the man who’d kissed her every night for the last week, and she felt herself burst into bloom. It wasn’t just a smile she gave him; it was her heart, writ large across her face. Her nervousness faded. Her breath eased. The whole room seemed to fade to an indistinct blur—everything except him. He was the only solid thing in a shifting world.
“You know,” he said, leaning down and whispering in her ear. “There’s one flaw with this plan. I don’t know how I will turn your pages. I can’t read music.”
“Don’t worry,” she murmured back. “I’ll play from memory. Just count to twenty-five and turn, and nobody will be the wiser.”
She took out a sheaf of music and set it in front of her and set her hands on the keys.
It had been so long since she’d touched an instrument. She had worried that she might have forgotten how. But the ivory, cool under her fingers, woke memories that went deeper than a few years’ hiatus. Her muscles still knew what to do. The first sprightly notes came out precise and clear, exactly as she remembered them.
She had always loved Beethoven’s Diabelli variations, in part because the individual pieces were so…various. They were not minor alterations in key and structure, but complete transformations. Chords were taken from one variation and built into a new melody in the next. The notes of the original waltz were still present if you knew what to listen for—they were just given an
entirely different meaning. It was music tied to a common heart but made without limitation.
Her fingers faltered at first. But the joy of a variation was that it was all too easy to cover a mistake. Those first missteps she converted into alterations of her own—little ones, at first, and then trills that she added on purpose.
Herr Rieger had told her—and Mary suspected the tale was apocryphal—that Beethoven had composed the music on a dare from a friend: Take the most mediocre waltz you can find, someone had taunted the composer, and see if you can make it magnificent.
That’s what Beethoven had done, thirty-three times over.
She glanced up at John, standing behind her, and smiled again. She’d had her run of mediocre waltzes. Now it was time to make what she had—what they had—magnificent. The music didn’t carry her; she carried it, from chord to breathless chord, from variation to variation.
She didn’t do all of them. She hadn’t the time or the strength in her fingers. But she played until her fingers began to ache with the unaccustomed exercise. She played long enough to see Lady Northword tap Lady Patsworth on the shoulder out of the corner of her vision. She played with John’s hand hovering mere inches from her shoulder and Sir Walter glaring at her, promising dire retribution.
When her hands began to falter, she skipped to the final variation and ended.
The handful of guests clapped vigorously—all but Sir Walter. The applause died into a moment of silence. Then the windows rattled, and the house shook with the booming roll of real thunder. Even the weather itself applauded her. Mary smiled and ducked her head.
“Miss Chartley,” said Lady Northword. “Mr. Mason was right. You are more than proficient. You are magnificent. I see that I shall have to ask you to visit far more often.”
“Unfortunately,” Sir Walter said, “that will not be possible. You see, my wife…” He stopped and looked about him and abruptly shot to his feet. “Where is my wife?”
There was a moment of absolute silence—the kind of moment that performers dreamed of. Mary was not yet off the stage. She stood, collecting the piano music into some semblance of order.
“Why,” Lady Northword said, “she is talking with her brother.”
“Her brother.” Sir Walter took a step toward the door. “Why is her brother here?”
The back door to the salon opened. “Because I am leaving with him,” Lady Patsworth said.
There was a long pause. “Leaving,” Sir Walter said. “On a visit? Think of your health, my dear.”
“Leaving. For good.”
Those words settled in the room.
“Come now.” Sir Walter was beginning to turn red in the face, but his words were still smooth. “You’re overset. Surely there’s no need to draw these people into whatever trifle it is that has you angered.” He drew in a deep breath and addressed the rest of the crowd. “My wife—she’s not well, you see. If she were, surely she would know how absurd it is to suggest that she might leave her lawfully wedded husband. There’s no need to involve these people, Lady Patsworth. You know what a magistrate will say.” He took a step toward her and held out his hand.
Lady Patsworth did not shrink. In fact, she stepped up to him and set her finger against his chest. “And I was so sure you’d seen the paper. A week ago, the Queen gave her assent to the new Matrimonial Causes Act. Come next January, I will testify before all of England about every milkmaid that you’ve taken. I’ll tell the world how you kept me prisoner in my own home. How you sent my brother away at gunpoint, telling him I never wanted to speak with him.” Her voice was as smooth as his. “I don’t need Parliament to grant me a divorce. I am free, and you can’t hold me any longer.”
“I still have that gun,” Sir Walter growled.
“Mary threw it in the well,” Lady Patsworth returned. “Yesterday evening.” She smiled grimly. “You remember, don’t you? I had a spasm, and you had to take me to my room. For my health.”
Sir Walter did not say anything. His gaze flicked from his wife to her brother, and then across Lord and Lady Northword to settle on Mary.
“You,” he said. “You arranged this. You sent for her brother.”
Mary didn’t shrink from him. “Yes. I did.”
“You’re sacked.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll be having my back wages, then.”
He cast her a sullen glance. “What back wages?”
“That would be the sixty pounds you owe her,” Lady Patsworth said. “If I’ve heard you say it once, I’ve heard you say it a hundred times, how you were keeping the money safe.”
“And paying me interest on the principle,” Mary added. “That is what people do when they hold your money, is it not?”
While Sir Walter was sputtering, Lord Northword came up behind him. “As it happens, I can advance you the amount you need right now,” he said quietly. “Around here, we don’t like to see employees used badly.” He looked round at the other landowners, who were watching in confusion. “Do we, gentlemen?”
Sir Walter looked around, his nostrils flaring, as his neighbors shook their heads.
Lord Northword set his hand on Sir Walter’s shoulder. “So we won’t have to see it,” he said jovially. “You’ll come with me and write me a note, and I’ll give Miss Chartley her money immediately. Now, if you please.”
For a moment, it looked as if Sir Walter would actually strike Lord Northword. But he looked around—at the other guests, at the footmen in the corner, at John Mason not so far away. He remembered that Northword was a viscount and his landlord, and he was a mere Sir.
His hands curled in frustration, but he left with the other man.
THERE WAS QUITE A BIT of confusion in the thirty minutes that followed Sir Walter’s exposure, and John’s work was not yet done.
No matter how Sir Walter grimaced and gesticulated, he could not change matters. He’d been exposed on all fronts—and coward that he was, he hadn’t the ability to bluster himself into disagreeing with Lord Northword. Northword sent for a secretary, who arrived very slowly and was told he should write out a note of promise to cover Mary’s wages. They disappeared to a back room to sign the thing.
John took the time to bundle Lady Patsworth and her brother onto horses, sending them on their way before Sir Walter had the chance to stop them.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and the horses rolled their eyes uneasily.
“West Aubry is fifteen minutes on horseback across the fields. You should just make the evening train. Leave the horses at the Wayfarer’s Pigeon.”
Lady Patsworth nodded. “But won’t he know we’re going to West Aubry?”
“Of course he will.” John smiled. “But we’ll be putting the carriage out in the next five minutes. Your husband will think you’re going by road—and that’s a two-hour journey. Let him chase after that. By the time he realizes you’re not there, you’ll be en route to London.”
“Thank you.” She took his hand. “And thank Mary, when you have the chance.”
“Off with you now.” He didn’t bother to watch them go.
It was going to be a hellish ride for them. Thunder rumbled again, and he felt a drop of rain against his cheek. It took another five minutes to get the carriage on the road—and not a moment too soon. No sooner had it turned the bend than Sir Walter raced out into the night.
“Wait!” he called, running after the conveyance. “Stop!”
Of course, it did nothing of the sort. He followed it as long as he could—about twenty yards, before he doubled over, trying to catch his breath. He caught sight of John just as he stood and turned.
“It’s no use,” he sneered. “It might take me half an hour to fetch a horse from my own stables, but I’ll catch them on the road. And then we’ll see about that so-called divorce.”
“Don’t go out, Sir Walter,” John suggested. “It’s beginning to rain.”
“Ha,” was his only reply. The man set his hat on his head and turned to jog back in the directi
on of his own stables.
John withdrew into the entry. Lord Northword was standing there, watching Sir Walter go.
“A better man, I think, would not be so amused at the futile nature of Sir Walter’s quest,” John said.
“You’re wrong,” Lord Northword said. “I’m old enough to be confident that I’m at least as good as you, and I think it’s damned funny.”
John grinned and then turned around. “Where’s Ma—Miss Chartley?”
“With Lady Northword.”
He nodded, but at that moment Lady Northword came into the entry. “No, she’s not. I thought she was with you.”
A beat of panic entered John’s breast. Sir Walter hadn’t taken her—he knew that; he’d just seen the man. Wherever she was, she was safe.
But Lady Northword was already inquiring of a passing footman, who went to seek news. The man came back. “She left, my lady. Not five minutes past.”
Thunder boomed again. There was no rain—not yet—but there would be. Mary was out there? What was she doing? She would not have returned to Doyle’s Grange and Sir Walter.
“She said, what with the rain coming on, she had better get started to Up Aubry where she could get a room in the Lost Sock.”
They hadn’t talked about what she would do afterward. He’d assumed, what with the kisses—all those kisses—and the walks hand-in-hand, that she was contemplating a future with him. Why would she set off on her own at a time like this?
John looked out the window. A flash of lightning illuminated the valley, briefly capturing a glimpse of high summer grasses, waving furiously in the wind of the oncoming storm.
“You’d better go after her,” Lady Northword said. “Bring her back—Miss Chartley can surely stay here until her future has been settled. If she’s going to walk half an hour to West Aubry, she’ll be soaked.”
“The stables are dry,” Lord Northword added. “Deserted, too, at this time of night. If you wanted to take her somewhere.”
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