The Secret Pearl(33)

Fleur closed her eyes briefly. She would have done anything rather than play. Her hands were clammy. But she sat on the stool without looking around and played Bach, compensating as well as she could for the key that stuck.

“It is your turn now, Lady Pamela,” she said when she was finished.

“You are good,” his grace said. “Have you seen the instruments in the drawing room and music room?”

Fleur had seen them during the tour with Mrs. Laycock, though she had not had the temerity to touch either one. The pianoforte in the drawing room was better than the one at Heron House, she suspected, lovely as that one had been—Mama’s precious treasure. The massive grand pianoforte in the music room she had been able to look at only in awe.

“Yes, your grace,” she said. “I saw them on my first day here.”

“Come along, Pamela,” he said, reaching for his daughter’s hand. “We will hear Miss Hamilton in the music room. And we will remember to say ‘please.’ Won’t we?”

“Yes, Papa,” she said.

Fleur followed them numbly from the room and along the upper corridor to the far staircase. And yet there was a feeling of excitement too. She was to be allowed to play that pianoforte!

If only she could be alone, she thought as they entered the room next to the library and she approached the instrument and touched its keys reverently. If only he were not there.

“If you please, Miss Hamilton,” he said quietly, and he disappeared somewhere behind her back with his daughter.

She played Beethoven. It had been so long. Beethoven was not suited to a harpsichord. She played hesitantly at first, until her fingers accustomed themselves to the smooth ivory of the keys and the flow of the music and until her soul was carried beyond itself and she forgot where she was.

Music had always been her great love, her great escape. Cousin Caroline’s barbed tongue, Amelia’s caustic comments, the knowledge that she would never see her parents again, the strict discipline and drab routine of her school years—all had ceased to exist when she touched a keyboard.

She bowed her head over her still hands when she was finished.

“May I go and see Tiny now, Papa?” a voice said from behind her, bringing her soul back inside her body again.

“Yes,” he said. “Ask a footman to go with you. You might remember to say ‘please.’ ”

“That’s silly, Papa,” the child said.

Fleur heard the door open and close again.

“You have great talent,” the Duke of Ridgeway said. “But you are out of practice.”

“Yes, your grace.”

“If you are to teach my daughter,” he said, “you must play faultlessly yourself. Half an hour a day for her lesson, an hour a day for your practice.”

“Where, your grace?” She still had not turned.

“Here, of course,” he said.

She rubbed at a key with one finger. “I am not allowed on this floor, your grace,” she said.

“Are you not?” he said. “By Nanny’s orders?”

“By her grace’s,” she said.

“Given in person?”

“Yes, your grace.”

“You will spend an hour and a half each day in here,” he said, “by my express order. I shall explain to her grace.”

She could not continue to sit there all day with him standing behind her. She drew a steadying breath, got to her feet, and turned to face him. He was standing quite close, so that for a moment she felt again that terror at his largeness.

“You have had access to a pianoforte for most of your life,” he said. It was not a question.

She said nothing.

“You told Houghton that your father died recently in debt,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did he?”

She looked up into his eyes.

“Did he die in debt?”

“Yes.” She was not sure that any volume had come out with the word.

“And your mother?” he asked.

“She died,” she said, “a long time ago.”

“And you have no other family?”

She had never been good at lying, though she had done enough of it in the past few months, heaven knew. She thought of Cousin Caroline and Amelia and Matthew and shook her head quickly.

“What are you frightened of?” he asked. “Just of me?”

“I should be with Lady Pamela,” she said, raising her chin, firming her voice.

“No, you should not,” he said. “My orders take precedence over yours, Miss Hamilton. Pamela is a difficult pupil?”

“She is not used to doing what she does not wish to do, your grace,” she said.

“You have my permission to insist,” he said. “Provided you do not make of her life a dreary business.”