“More like a bear and dog fight,” muttered Kendal.
Reid frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He means the Italians are going to tear us to pieces,” said Owen. The fourth member of the group had finally arrived.
“Where the fuck have you been? You are late . . . again. Whoever she is, you need to tell your whore that you have higher priorities than getting your leg over,” snapped Kendal.
Reid just managed to step out of the way as Owen reached out and took Kendal forcibly by the throat. “She is not a whore. Take it back,” said Owen.
Kendal’s arms hung limply by his sides. When he didn’t immediately respond to Owen’s demand, Owen tightened his grip. The purple hue of Kendal’s face was frightening.
A murmur of disapproval came from other nearby guests. Reid caught the look of disgust on the faces of several people of his acquaintance. The whole scene was becoming embarrassing. “Enough. We are in public,” he admonished them.
Owen loosened his hold on Kendal’s throat, but still held him. His jaw was working overtime as he ground his teeth. After giving Kendal one last look of disgust, he violently shoved him away. It took all of Reid’s self-control not to abandon his plans in that moment and make for the front door. He was more than a little over the whole thing.
The Noble Lords were on the verge of imploding.
Kendal held a hand to his bruised throat, his chest heaving. His face slowly regained its natural pale shade.
“We are supposed to be the Noble Lords. I bet the Italians are laughing their arses off watching us behave like fucking schoolboys,” said Callum. He pointed toward the back of the room where Marco and his friends were taking their seats. The rest of the guests were also filing into the room.
Owen continued to glare at Kendal, but no apology was forthcoming from either man. Reid shook his head. Bloody musicians. He was tired of them and their overblown egos. Claiming a love for music seemed to be an all-round excuse for indulging in bad behavior. He might only be a passable singer, but at least he knew how to behave in public.
The little voice inside his head which begged to differ about what actually defined bad behavior was given short shrift. As far as he was concerned, his relationship with Lavinia didn’t count. He had paid for her services. She was no more than the hired help.
You can keep telling yourself that lie, and hope that it sticks, but you know she has you.
The hostess of the evening began to make her way to the front of the room and motioned for Reid to join her. Thankfully, the other members of the Noble Lords had finally given up their squabbling and now made their way to their respective places where they settled over their instruments. At times it appeared that music was the only thing that truly held the group together.
“Now the four of you shall play your pieces first, then the Italian gentlemen will follow. It should be a wonderful display of musical camaraderie,” she said.
The smile on her face, however, confirmed Kendal’s words about it being a bear and dog fight. Reid would be having a word with Eliza once he got home, making it clear to her that no future bookings were to include them battling with the Italians in front of the rest of the haute ton.
“Of course.” With a formal bow, Reid joined his friends.
The performance itself was no different to the others that they had played thus far. The others played their set pieces of music, while Reid sang as a baritone for a few short arias in between. The audience were polite and appreciative in their acknowledgement of the entertainment.
It was only as they finally ended the last piece of a Beethoven sonata that Reid rose once more from his seat and stepped to the front. He heard the murmurs of surprise from his friends but chose to ignore them.
This was his moment and he was going to seize it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have one last performance for you this evening. It is a new rendition of the famous aria Vedro con mio diletto. For this, I will be singing as a tenor. I hope you enjoy it.”
The words “Oh fuck” drifted to his ear from where Kendal sat at the piano. He would deal with the expected blast from the musical genius later. He knew the song well enough to sing it unaccompanied.
To his surprise, the opening strains of the accompanying music soon filled the room. He turned and saw Kendal smiling grimly as he played. His friend was likely going to kill him, but loyalty came first.
The first words of the aria left his mouth. They were a little rough, but he quickly worked his way to the right pitch and held it. A smatter of applause from the audience gave him the encouragement he needed to press on.
Reid managed some of the high points without making too much of a mess and had started to think he had it nailed. Then his gaze drifted and settled on Marco.
The Italian was seated with his eyes closed, a deep frown on his face. Every time Reid reached for a higher note, he held up a finger, and when Reid didn’t quite make it, Marco screwed up his face.
Transfixed by this, Reid soon began to falter. For one whole line of the aria, he missed the intonation so badly that several members of the audience booed.
Like a man trapped on the back of a horse which had bolted, Reid clung on for dear life. But his gaze was locked on Marco. When the Italian dropped his shaking head into his hands, Reid’s throat began to close up.
The final note he sang before the aria petered out was the worst, he had ever heard himself sing.
At the end, he watched in horror as a beaming Marco Calvino got to his feet and slowly applauded. The cool smile which sat on Marco’s lips was a stark contrast to the heat which burned on Reid’s face and neck.
The other members of Marco’s group then joined him. They didn’t even bother attempting to hide their laughter. Reid had failed spectacularly, and in the process, had humiliated himself and his friends.
Marco had won.
Chapter Twenty-Six
With their performance over, Reid made for the exit.
Owen grabbed a hold of his arm and stopped him. “No.” Red-faced and near tears, Reid struggled to gain release. “I have to leave.”
Owen shook his head. Callum and Kendal came and stood alongside him. “Reid, you must stay. You threw the gauntlet down to the Italians, and no matter how much of a fucking cock-up you made of things, we all have to stay and watch their performance,” said Callum.
Reid searched their faces, hoping, seeking for one of them who might falter and support him in his attempt to flee, but he was in no such luck. Owen held his gaze, as did Callum. Kendal stared at the floor but nodded.
With a heavy heart, he followed his friends and took a seat at the back of the room. The very same seats that Marco and the Italians had just vacated.
Eyes facing forward, refusing to look at anyone else in the room, Reid settled in for the second half of the evening’s entertainment. The one person he did focus on was the tall, dark-haired Italian gentleman who stood at the front of the room and sang like an angel.
Every perfect note, every word that Marco sang, was like a knife to the heart of Reid’s pride.
It was at that moment, in the depths of his humiliation, he finally beheld the truth. Lavinia was right about him. While Marco could see the heart of the music, he had barely caught a glimpse. Until he was prepared to offer up his all to the soul of music, he would never succeed.
Marco caressed the aria as if it were a lover, treating it with respect and admiration. Reid felt his wounded heart soar. If he could bring even half the joy to an audience that Marco did, it would be enough for him.
He wanted to feel the same way about the music that Marco so clearly did, but he also wanted something more. His failure tonight had laid bare how empty and meaningless his life was right now. The one time he had felt a spark of warmth in his heart was when he’d held Lavinia in his arms.
He had to find his way back to her.
Owen left the concert as soon as Marco and his group had finished performing. Whoever his secret woma
n was, she had most assuredly captured his heart.
In a move most unlike his usual evening routine, Callum didn’t stay to get drunk. Instead, he went to see his father.
That left Reid and Kendal to travel back to Windmill Street together. Reid couldn’t blame the other two for turning tail and not remaining to bear witness to another of Kendal’s frantic rants. By the time their carriage arrived home, Reid was resigned to his fate. He had made a reckless move and paid for it. They all had.
He would take his punishment like a man.
Once inside, they handed their coats and hats to the attending footmen. Kendal headed toward the ballroom and Reid followed. At the sideboard, Kendal poured two generous glasses of whisky, then strode over to the sofa which sat in front of the fireplace and took a seat.
Reid checked the room. When had a sofa been installed? And the piano had been moved far away from both the window and the fireplace.
Kendal followed his gaze. “The piano tuner suggested I have it moved. Too close to the window and there is the risk of damp, but too close to the fire and the air is dry. Mercy tells me that where I have it now is the perfect place. She is the one who suggested I have the sofa and armchair brought in, so people have somewhere to sit and listen in comfort while I play.”
Recalling how violent Kendal had become the last time Mercy’s name had been mentioned, Reid said nothing. Any moment now, Kendal would likely launch into a passionate tirade about Reid and his reckless disregard for music. There was no point in adding fuel to the flames.
He took a seat in the armchair next to the sofa and accepted the second whisky from Kendal. When the sudden thought of Mercy and Kendal sitting together in front of the fire slipped into his mind, Reid forced it away.
He sat back in the chair, and silently prayed he was out of arm’s reach.
Kendal took a deep breath, and Reid gritted his teeth. Any second now . . .
“About this evening.”
“Yes,” replied Reid.
“While Marco and the Italians were playing, I took the opportunity to consider what possible reason you would have had to undertake such a foolish endeavor without having rehearsed it with us.”
Reid downed his whisky in one gulp, hoping the alcohol would hit his brain before Kendal got too far into ripping shreds off him.
“I came to one conclusion that makes perfect sense to me, and I am hoping that you will tell me I have the right of it.”
“And what is that?” replied Reid, intrigued.
Kendal set his glass down and sat forward on the sofa, hands gently clasped together. He stared into the fireplace. “My father had a full-time music teacher in residence at our country estate when I was a little boy. Every day I sat for hours on end in front of the piano and was made to practice. I hated music lessons with a passion, and as a result, for much of my childhood I also loathed music.” He glanced at Reid and shrugged before going back to staring into the fire. “My music teacher was all about scales and proficiency. Nothing about the actual music. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for him, he had been messing about with some of the downstairs maids and when my father got wind of it, he dismissed him. I cried tears of joy the day that man left Banfield Castle. But my father soon replaced him.” Kendal rose from the sofa and fetched the bottle of whisky before refilling Reid’s glass.
“The next music teacher was a revelation. A man who loved music. He is the reason I became a late-blooming child prodigy, and why I play every day. He showed me the heart of it. So, you are asking yourself, what does this have to do with your almighty cock-up tonight?”
Kendal resumed his seat before turning to face Reid. The look on his face caught Reid by surprise. It was calm, almost kind. There was no sign of the madness Reid had expected to see.
“I watched you as you sang. You were reaching for something, and at times you nearly touched it. Then you started staring at bloody Marco and it all went to shit. But before then, I think you finally got a glimpse of the heart of the music.”
No longer wishing to dull his senses, Reid set his glass of whisky down on the floor.
He had been struggling to put what he felt into words for some time, and it was an odd relief to hear Kendal admit that he too had suffered to understand the truth of music. “I thought I was ready, but I am not. I made a fool of not only myself but all of you tonight, and I am so very sorry for what happened. But you are right; I did feel something. For want of a better term, I would say I became part of the music. But it was nothing like what I felt when Marco sang.”
Kendal chuckled. “Well, Marco has been training his voice all his life. He has had the best Italian opera teachers at his disposal. You have been having singing lessons for a few weeks from a widow in Craven Street.”
Reid fixed him with a look of suspicion. He had never mentioned anything about Lavinia.
“I haven’t lost my army skills for gathering intelligence, plus I have my father’s servants at my disposal. The morning after you mentioned you were having lessons, I had you followed. It didn’t take much to find out the rest. And no, I haven’t told Callum or Owen; they can employ their own spies.”
Of all his former army comrades and friends, Kendal had always been the hardest one for Reid to fathom. Owen was simple enough to understand. He was a womanizer, always intent on finding his next bedmate. Callum was led by the nose when it came to drink, opiates, and hard partying. Only Kendal seemed aware of his own nature and made any effort to rise above such base behavior. Not that he couldn’t be a wild man when the mood suited him, but Reid suspected it was always after a period of careful consideration.
“Her name is Lavinia. Her husband served in the Royal Dragoons under Spencer in Portugal. He was killed at the battle of Fuentes de Onoro five years ago. She is the one who said I was better suited as a tenor.”
“And she is right,” replied Kendal.
The evening was fast becoming one of unexpected revelations, not the least being the fact that he and Kendal were sitting in their rehearsal space having a rational conversation rather than a blazing row.
“But you missed your lesson this morning. Why?”
Reid speared his fingers through his hair. “Because I fucked up. I had a long night of drinking with Callum. When I didn’t arrive for my lesson the following morning, she cancelled our arrangement. She even refused to accept the flowers I sent.”
Kendal reached over and gave Reid a hard pat on the shoulder. “Women are funny about those sorts of things. Flowers are a coward’s way to deal with the problem. You need to man up and go and see her.”
“I did, and she wouldn’t let me in.” Reid still felt ashamed about the last time he had been at Craven Street. He should have accepted her first response with more grace than he did. And kicking over the box of flowers was something a pimple-faced youth would have done, not a grown man.
“And you, Lord Reid Follett, Casanova of the ballroom, could not win her over? I have to meet this Lavinia; she sounds like the sort of woman you should marry. Any lady who can say no to you is of a breed apart,” replied Kendal. Reid couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter. Lavinia had most certainly given him his marching orders.
“So, you are saying I should attempt to speak to her again?” Perhaps Lavinia had calmed down enough to take him back. She had his money; he could argue that he was entitled to the lessons.
But that is not the main reason you want to see her again.
“She has been the one to help you finally see the truth of the music, so yes. Get yourself over there tomorrow morning at the same time that you would normally have had your lesson. Knock on her door. If she sends you away, then you sit outside her apartment for the next hour. If you have to come back the next day and do it all over again, you do so. You have found someone who not only understands the heart of the music, but dare I say, sees right into your soul. Those people are rarer than diamonds; you cannot give up on her,” replied Kendal.
Initially, his words made no
sense. Why would Reid waste his valuable time sitting outside the apartment of a woman who did not want to see him?
He picked up his whisky and went to put it to his lips but stopped. He swirled the glass, watching as the gold liquid spun in a mini whirlpool before finally settling again. “I think I hurt her. She demanded payment, but I think it was either that or slapping my face.”
Kendal gave him a knowing nod. “So, it is not just the music. I thought as much. I had wondered why you were not making merry hell with all the women who have flocked to us since we started as the Noble Lords.”
A tinge of guilt pricked at Reid. After tonight’s debacle, he wondered how many of those women would still make advances on his fellow Noble Lords. “Alright, I will go back to Craven Street tomorrow and see if I can get her to at least talk to me. I’m not holding out any hope for success. She was very angry when I saw her. It may take some time to win her back.”
Kendal reached out and gave him an impressively hard thump on the arm. “Don’t worry about how long it takes. Apparently, we have already had a few cancellations after tonight’s fiasco, so you have bought yourself some time. If by any miracle we do get another booking in the next week, we will just play the musical pieces and tell them you have a throat infection. I don’t think anyone will complain if you don’t sing.”
Reid gave a silent nod at Kendal’s friendly insult.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
At crack on nine o’clock the next morning, Reid knocked on the door of Lavinia’s apartment. She opened it, growled at him, then slammed it shut.
But unlike the previous time when he had been told ‘no,’ Reid didn’t leave number twenty-five Craven Street. For the first ten minutes, he leaned against the door, studying the peeling paint on the wall opposite. Then for a time he sat on his haunches, only standing after his legs began to get pins and needles. Finally, he found a clean spot on the bare wooden floor and took a seat. Studying the peeling paint, however, soon became monotonous and he made a mental note to bring a book for the following day.
Reid Page 13
