The atelier had been so dark and depressing and so drafty and cold that in spite of the comtesse’s and everyone else’s delight at seeing her, and in spite of their warm urging her to come join them, Isobel had left more discouraged than she could remember feeling since coming to London after her mother died.
While teaching French and music to the Duke of Warminster’s lively but musically inept daughters had been nothing compared to her dream of mesmerizing an audience from the stage at Covent Garden, it had offered the advantage of the exquisite surroundings of the music room at Warminster House with its view of the peaceful garden, lovely even in the winter sunshine, the delicately drawn pictures of the muses that graced the walls, and the superbly efficient fireplace both in that room and the schoolroom two floors above it. And the girls, with their energy and exuberance, always looking forward to the next day and the future that lay before them, offered a contrast to the undercurrent of sadness that constantly flowed through the gatherings of the émigrés. Isobel had rebelled against this gentle melancholy all her life, refusing to think in the past, but living in the present with as much energy and enjoyment as possible and working to build a future that was not simply a re-creation of what had been. Teaching in the Duke of Warminster’s household had helped her to expand her horizons and keep this optimistic frame of mind, but she was not sure she could maintain it if she were forced to spend her days with people who conversed about nothing else but days gone by.
Trying not to think about the loss of the exquisite pianoforte and the opportunity for at least two hours of uninterrupted practice every day, Isobel trudged home dispiritedly from the comtesse’s attic workshop. The weather, damp and gray, did nothing to lift her spirits. It was on February days like this one that she most missed the country and her life in the dower house on the Barford estate. Weather there was no less cold and damp, but the air always smelled fresh, and even on the dampest days, brought with it the compensation of the rich aroma of newly turned earth or the tangy scent of cedar. Here in the city, the dampness only made one more aware of the stifling smoke from countless fireplaces.
At first Isobel had been delighted at the thought of moving to London, for their quiet life at Barford had been even quieter after Jane and Emily had left for their Seasons, and the dower house, deprived of Isobel’s mother’s presence, quiet though it had been, felt empty. In reality, London had turned out to be more confining than Buckinghamshire and her life, constricted as it was by the high degree of formality retained by the émigré community, actually offered less freedom and less opportunity to move about in the world than she had had in the country. If she had been a man, of course, it would have been different and there would have been endless opportunities, even for one who was not too plump in the pocket, to enjoy himself.
And now, in a fit of pride, she had narrowed her life even more by depriving herself of the daily escape to Grosvenor Square. Where had her much vaunted practical nature been when she needed it most? A truly practical person would have been properly distressed to hear that the Duke of Warminster could even think that she had noticed his brother, much less had designs on him, and she would have reassured him that his worries were groundless. Instead, Isobel had allowed the lamentable pride of the de Montargises to govern her actions. In doing this she was acting no better than her father, who clung to the reputation of past generations, living off their reflected glory instead of dealing with-the more important issues of life.
She was justly punished now for acting so stupidly, for she had deprived herself of all the advantages of her connection to the Duke of Warminster’s household. She had even put herself one step further away from her dream by distancing herself from someone who could have recommended her to powerful patrons, if not offering to sponsor her himself. Though Lord Christian Hatherleigh had scoffed at the idea of the Duke of Warminster’s furthering any musical career, she might have been able to change all that, but no, she had been too furious at the very idea that someone could suspect her of being anything but completely honorable in her dealings with her employer and his family to think clearly about anything else but hanging on to her pride whatever the cost.
Isobel let out a gusty sigh as she rounded the corner from Duke Street into Manchester Street. She was so wrapped up in her own discouraging thoughts that she did not even notice the tall man making his way purposefully toward her.
“Mademoiselle Isobel.”
With a start she realized that she was being addressed and looked up to see a broad chest encased in a many-caped greatcoat directly in front of her nose. Isobel gasped as she found herself being scrutinized by a pair of gray-green eyes glinting with amusement. “Milord, I did not expect to see you here in this part of town.” She flushed and broke off hastily as she realized that her words made it sound as though she had been looking for him in other parts of town. The fact that she had made her blush even more.
The amusement in Christian’s eyes deepened. “I occasionally have, ah, er, interests that bring me in this direction.”
She glanced up at him suspiciously. “What sort of interests?”
Christian chuckled. The expression in the blue eyes examining him warily was one of patent disbelief. There was no doubt that Mademoiselle Isobel was as perceptive as she was talented. “Very well, since you are unbecomingly suspicious as it is, I shall risk your immediate censure and blurt it right out, I came to see you. However, once I had endured the disapproving scrutiny of the ogress at the door, I lost my nerve and requested an audience with your father.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. One slim gloved hand rose to her lips. “Papa? You spoke to Papa about me? Ah, mon Dieu, what did you say?”
“I told him the truth, that you were extremely talented and I wished to introduce you to someone who could properly appreciate that talent.”
Isobel slowly let out some of the breath she had been holding. “You did not tell him that...”
“That my impossibly overbearing and patronizing brother drove you from his employ? Certainly not. Much as I may deride the concepts of familial pride and duty, I do feel I owe it to our good name to keep such shameful behavior as secret as possible.”
Isobel let out the rest of her breath. “But you spoke to Papa about my singing? What did he say?” The blue eyes were dark with apprehension.
“I did, but he was so intent upon dismissing me, in the most gracious way possible, of course, that the issue of your musical abilities was never properly addressed.”
“Oh yes. Papa is very protective of me. He is rather old-fashioned and I am all that he has. Even now he must be wondering what is keeping me.”
Isobel did not evince the slightest curiosity about the identity of the person he wished to introduce her to. In fact, she seemed purposely to avoid it, but Christian, once committed to a course of action, was not about to give it up easily. “I can understand that, but you are not the sort of person to sacrifice yourself or your ambitions to another’s wishes.”
Isobel was silent. The man was far too acute and she was not at all certain she liked having her character so easily understood.
“But it was not really your father whom I wished to see.”
“Oh.”
She still would not look at him, the minx, but he had known it would not be easy and was prepared for it. “I wanted to tell you that I spoke with Signor Bartoli about you and he is interested in meeting you.” It was not precisely the truth—interested was not a particularly accurate description of the music master’s reaction— but it was not precisely a lie.
“Signor Bartoli? That got her attention and she glanced up at him with some surprise. “How do you know ... ?” Her eyes darkened as the implications of his words dawned on her. “But, my lord, I believe I told you that I did not require any assistance, that I, I...”
“Wished to fulfill your dreams on your own without anyone else’s assistance or interference. I am quite aware of that and, believe me, you shall. Signor Bartoli has n
ot promised to take you on as a pupil. He has merely agreed to listen to you. It took everything I had to convince him to do that. Now it is up to you to prove to him that I have not wasted his time as he claimed I had done.”
“Ah.” She looked thoughtful.
Christian quickly suppressed the smile that rose to his lips. She was weakening. It was just as he had thought it would be. She would never accept help from him, but if he put it to her as a challenge, she would not be able to resist. “I have told him that you will call on him at his house in Saint Martin’s Street. If you do not, he will see it as a lack of resolve on your part and should you try to make a name for yourself after that without having consulted him, he will not take you seriously. And I have it on good authority that if one wishes to become well known in the musical circles to which you aspire, it is absolutely essential to win his good opinion.”
Isobel nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I have heard that. What you say is true, but how did you discover that?”
It was Christian’s turn to look slightly disconcerted. “An, er, ah, an acquaintance told me.”
She looked sharply at him, but said nothing. The fact that he had a chere amie was less interesting to her than that he should be uncomfortable about admitting it. From what she had previously seen of the bold and provocative Lord Christian Hatherleigh, she would have thought that he would not scruple to acknowledge such a thing, even to her. “Very well, I shall call on this Signor Bartoli, but I will tolerate no further interference, my lord. Now I must be going.” She proceeded past him and then stopped to look back. “Ah, thank you.” It almost seemed as though the words were forced out of her rather than spoken.
“You are most welcome.” Christian turned his head to hide the grin that he could not suppress. She was proud as the devil all right—equally proud, in her own way, as that haughty father of hers. The only difference between father and daughter was that his was the pride of birth while hers was the justifiable pride in her own independence and her accomplishments, with which Christian could certainly sympathize.
Christian began to make his way back along Duke Street. He was going to enjoy watching her progress. Once she began her lessons with Signor Bartoli he would know of at least one other place in London where he might encounter her and she was certainly likely to walk down Oxford Street on her way to her lessons. Yes, he would most definitely keep a close eye on Mademoiselle Isobel’s progress. Christian chuckled as he turned into Oxford Street and headed toward Gentleman Jackson’s. He could not remember when he had last enjoyed himself this much. A round or two with the pugilist was just what he needed to top off his morning. He wondered again as he sauntered down Oxford Street and turned into Bond Street if the Duc de Montargis would mention Christian’s visit to his daughter. He rather thought not. While the nobleman had been polite enough, his expression, when speaking to Christian, had been that of a man who had just come across some rare species of insect; he had been more repelled than curious.
Chapter 13
Christian was entirely correct in his supposition. When Isobel stopped by the drawing room on her return from the Comtesse de Sallanches’s, the duc inquired after her health and spoke of the progress he had made that morning on his memoirs, but he made not the slightest reference to a gentleman caller.
Marthe, on the other hand, was somewhat more forthcoming. “Oh, mademoiselle,” she exclaimed as she took her mistress’s pelisse, damp from the long walk in the fog, shook it and hung it to dry by the kitchen fire. “Such a handsome English milord who called upon Monsieur le Duc this morning!”
“An English gentleman calling upon Papa?” Isobel hoped her assumed innocence sounded convincing. Very little escaped the sharp eyes of Marthe, especially where her mistress was concerned. She had cared for Isobel, not to mention the rest of the family, since they had left France when Isobel had been a baby, and there were very few things about the de Montargis that Marthe did not know. “Whatever did the man want?”
“Who can say?” Marthe shrugged.
“Marthe?” Isobel shot her a suspicious glance. If there was very little about the de Montargises that Marthe did not know, there was also very little about Marthe that Isobel did not know, and she was well aware that curiosity was the loyal servant’s besetting sin. Marthe would never have passed up the opportunity to listen at the keyhole, especially where an unexpected visit from a total stranger was concerned.
“Very well.” Marthe did not bother to deny it. “He came to speak .about you and one of his acquaintances who is influential in the music world.”
“Did he now? Well I will have no gentleman interfering in my life, influential musical acquaintance or no influential musical acquaintance.”
“But, mademoiselle, this gentleman had the air of an homme du monde and looked as though he knew what he was about.”
“I am sure he did,” Isobel responded dryly.
“Mademoiselle knows such a man?”
The faintest of blushes warmed Isobel’s cheeks. “From what you say, I imagine it must be Lord Christian Hatherleigh, brother to the Duke of Warminster, whose daughters are my pupils.”
Marthe’s shrewd eyes brightened. Here was a situation indeed! She had not described the visitor so definitively that he could not be one of many Englishmen, but her mistress seemed to have no doubt in her mind as to the identity of the visitor, nor did she, in spite of her efforts to act noncommittal, seem as uninterested in this person as she tried to appear. There was a sparkle in her eyes, a consciousness in her expression that belied her claim that she would not allow any gentleman to involve himself in her life.
“Then Mademoiselle has met this gentleman before?”
The blush deepened. “I did encounter him once at Warminster House,” Isobel admitted.
“Ah.” Marthe’s face and voice registered no expression as she turned to poke the fire into a brighter blaze, but her mind was working furiously. There was more to this business than met the eye. Handsome English milords did not stop by every day with offers of assistance of any sort, especially offers concerning the daughter of the house. To the best of her knowledge, Marthe could not remember Mademoiselle’s ever having blushed at the thought of a man. If the truth were known, the trusted servant had worried over Mademoiselle’s cool dismissal of the entire opposite sex.
While there were not many young men that the Duc de Montargis considered important enough to present to his daughter, there had been some—the Comte de Pontarlier, for one, and his friend the Chevalier d’Entremont, for another—that he deemed worthy of his daughter, but Isobel could not be bothered with either of them, dismissing them both with a disdainful sniff as she later confided to Marthe that she had no use for men who spent more time thinking of their tailors or clever repartee than they did trying to support themselves or their impoverished families. “They remind me of nothing so much as clever monkeys in a menagerie, relying on someone else to feed and clothe them merely because they are amusing and always well dressed,” she had scoffed.
In fact, Marthe’s mistress spent far more time in the company of men her father’s age than she did with young men of hers.
After a particularly lengthy evening at the Comte d’Artois’s establishment in Baker Street, Isobel had confided that “For the most part. Papa’s friends speak of more sensible things. They do not devote their entire effort to impress me, but engage themselves in conversation that is worth my while. These others, bah, they act as though they wish to talk to me, but one can see they are far more interested in speaking of themselves than they are in what I might have to think about or say.” Accustomed to this scornful attitude in her mistress, Marthe was all the more astounded then to see the conscious look in the hastily averted eyes as Isobel had toyed with the gloves she was still clutching. So she did not want Marthe to know what she was thinking about this English milord. This was interesting indeed! The entire situation would bear some watching.
For her part, Isobel was wondering if she should take Mar
the into her confidence. On the one hand, she preferred to keep her singing aspirations as private as possible—even now she could not fathom why she had confided them to Lord Christian. On the other hand, she did need Marthe to take a message to the address that Lord Christian had given her for Signor Bartoli.
In the end, Isobel decided to entrust the errand to a likely looking young lad from a nearby stable whose master allowed him to run an occasional errand for the de Montargises. The very next day she gave the boy a note for Signor Bartoli, instructing him to wait for the answer, and then she went out to put her name in at several agencies that placed governesses in noble households. Not wishing to worry either Marthe or her father, she had not told either of them that she had left the Duke of Warminster’s employ. Until she found another position she planned to leave the house at the time she had normally gone to Grosvenor Square and stay away doing errands or inquiring about positions until she could find employment.
Later that afternoon the lad came back with Signor Bartoli’s reluctant invitation to call on him in Saint Martin’s Street the next morning. Though she would rather have died than admit it to Lord Christian, Isobel was thrilled at the opportunity to test her ability before the noted musician. It was the opportunity she had been hoping for, waiting for, the chance to learn whether or not she had been deluding herself all these years in thinking that she could rise to the level of a Catalani, or even a Grassini.
Signor Bartoli’s reception of her was not promising. He did not bother to rise from his seat at the pianoforte when she was ushered into the music room, but looked at her sharply. “Signorina, do you believe, veramente that you have the necessary skill to make me waste my time listening to you?”
Fighting to control her nervousness, Isobel slowly and deliberately removed her lemon, kid gloves. “Of course that is for you to judge, monsieur, but 1 am musician enough not to wish to subject anyone to bad music.”
My Lady Nightingale Page 10