A Song Unheard

by Roseanna M. White

  She shook her head. “I can never get it from head to fingers. And I thought I warned you against calling me pretty.”

  “Belle is not pretty. It is beautiful. The Alps compared to . . .” His lips twitched. “To these Welsh hillocks they so optimistically dub mountains.”

  She could imagine Gwen and Daisy huffing at the affront to their beloved landscape. But that was beside the point. “I am not beautiful.”

  “That is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. And I could behold you all day with great joy.” He took her hand in his and lifted it, pressed his lips to her knuckles.

  No flirtatious glance up at her as he did so. Just a seriousness, almost a reverence—though that was absurd.

  “We should get to work.”

  “Oui,” he said. He released her fingers, but rather than stand, he touched her chin once more. “Will you let me kiss you again before you leave today?” Now the grin again, though it was still not exactly flirtatious. Odd, given his words. “Perhaps it will cheer you.”

  A roll of her eyes was absolutely necessary. “Isn’t it laborious to drag that head around all day, being so full of yourself?”

  “Unbearably sometimes.” He stood, holding her gaze all the while. “You did not say no.”

  “I also didn’t say yes.”

  “But you did not say no. This is progress.”

  He was so ridiculous. It shouldn’t make her want to smile. “Focus, Lukas. We both know I’m only here for the sake of the violin.”

  “Mm.” He moved off the two steps it took him to reach the case and then crouched down to open it. “You do realize that when you marry me, it will be half yours? Incentive.”

  “Ha. Incentive to poison you and keep it all to myself?” Now she was ridiculous, playing along. Sort of.

  “Oh, we can come up with a more creative means of getting rid of me than that, if it is your goal.” He straightened with the Stradivarius and bow in hand, eyes twinkling. “Though it will not be, once we marry. I will make you happy.”

  Hand out, she gave him the same look she did Georgie when he pushed too hard against the rules. “Music. Not marriage.”

  “We can have both. Though it may require buying you your own Strad, now that you mention it. So we can play duets.”

  It shone, sparkling in the air like stolen diamonds for as long as it took to blink. Then she shook it away and reached for his instrument. “What happened to your promise that you would not flirt during lessons?”

  “The lesson has not yet begun.” He handed her the violin, though, with a grin. “Now the lesson has begun, and I will cease with such—”

  A knock on the open door cut him off. “Pardon me, Mr. De Wilde. There is a Mr. Guillaume here to see you, quite insistent that you will want to meet with him straightaway.”

  She glanced over her shoulder long enough to verify that it was the clerk at the door.

  Lukas sent his gaze heavenward. “My composer friend—always so impatient. Do you mind, Miss Forsythe?”

  It sounded strange to her ears now, that formality, after nearly two weeks of endearments and the liberty he’d taken of using her first name. Willa offered a tight smile every bit as formal. “Go right ahead, sir.” Perhaps he’d return with an original composition—how lucky would that be?

  “You go ahead and choose what you will play today.” He motioned to the crate of music and followed the clerk from the room.

  She first took a few minutes to tune the Strad, reveling even in those boring notes. Her ears were beginning to grow accustomed to its smooth tones, her fingers to its tension and weight. Her own violin, when she pulled it out in her room at the Davies house, felt light in comparison. Like a child’s toy.

  But as sweet as one too. As full of memories.

  His music selection was ambrosia, each piece she flipped through tempting. She felt a bit like Barclay had looked in that bookstore the week before she left London. With finally a few pounds in his pocket that he could spend on anything he wanted—something new, which was unprecedented for them. He’d spent hours just moving among the shelves, his head tilted to the side so he could read title after title.

  He’d regretted that later, to be sure, whining about the crick it had given him. Whining with such exaggeration that the rest of them had no choice but to laugh.

  She pulled out a few pieces and took them to the stand, going through the first bars of each to see which caught her attention today.

  The first was pretty. Slow, though. Not quite what she was looking for. The second was fast and scattered, bringing to mind leaves dancing on the autumn wind—something she would love to play, but she’d probably make a wreck of it without having studied it first—and especially every time Lukas touched her elbow.

  The third—the third didn’t deserve to be called music. She made a disgusted noise within ten measures.

  Lukas’s laughter grew louder with each step he took into the room, ending at her shoulder. “What—you do not like atonal compositions?”

  “Do you?” She may lose all respect for him if he did. It sounded like nothing but a collection of random notes rammed up against each other like strangers on the tube.

  “I despise it. But I thought I should at least attempt some before dismissing it completely, so I purchased a few selections.” He motioned to the sheet music. And then swept it off the stand and back into its box. “My conclusion was much like yours. That next piece may do though.”

  She played through the first few lines and nodded. May have let loose a satisfied sigh, too, at how blessedly harmonious it sounded in contrast to that jumble of nonsense that had preceded it.

  Setting her eyes back on the beginning, she got into her normal stance—except with a straighter back than usual—and waited. Lukas slid into position behind her and adjusted her bow arm so minutely that she growled. “That is not even a change!”

  “It is. A subtle one.”

  “So subtle as to be a waste of time.”

  “It will make a difference, ma cherie, in the long run. Begin.”

  She began. Though she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to remember to keep her arm a new way when it didn’t even feel new. So she simply played, and managed not to jump when he touched her elbow again halfway through the piece, and managed not to growl when a hand to her shoulder indicated some problem with that near the end.

  “Again.”

  She craned her neck around to look at him instead, where he stood half behind her. “What was I doing wrong with my shoulder?”

  “Nothing, but I was not certain of it at first. You are too thin, ma belle. I could not tell if it was your normal shoulder blade or if you were contorting it.” He slanted a glance at her back.

  Too thin? She was exactly as fat as she could afford to be. “You’ve never noticed before how my shoulder looks?”

  “You have never worn this dress to our lessons before—it drapes differently. I would add that the shade of red is becoming, but that might be too close to flirtation.” He looked as though he wanted to smile but held it back. “Now, again.”

  Her rebellious streak came to the surface, though she’d done a fine job of ignoring it in their lessons overall, she thought. “Did your composer friend have anything new to show you?”

  “Feeling chatty today? All right.” He eased back a step, wearing his amusement like a stylish hat. “No, only a question. He is always wanting the violin to play more notes at once than is reasonable.”

  “Have you anything he’s written here? That hasn’t been performed?”

  Those well-shaped brows of his arched. “Why that has not been performed?”

  She could just tell him about the challenge, leaving out the bit about thieving. And calling Retta a friend rather than a sister—technically true, she supposed. But it didn’t seem quite sporting, so she shrugged. “It would just be fun to play something so few people had.”

  “If you want to do that, mon amour, then perhaps you should write something your
self.”

  “I told you—it won’t come out of my head.”

  “Convince it.” He eased closer again. “Music is like a person, oui? You must make friends. Court it. Listen to it speak, let it find its voice.”

  For someone who claimed not to have it living in his head, he certainly seemed to know a lot about it.

  Willa sighed and turned back to the sheet in front of her. “I listen. But it hides when I do.”

  “Hmm. Hidden treasure is always the most precious—once you lure it out, I think it will be brilliant.”

  Words. Just words. But her soul soaked them up. Even if she couldn’t quite believe him. “Assuming I ever can lure it out.”

  “What is hidden can always be found, mon amour.”

  Found, yes. She raised the bow and focused her gaze on the opening bars. And she was a thief. Once she found a thing, she knew how to take it. It was just a matter of finding it. And maybe . . . maybe she was in the right place to do that.

  Fifteen

  Lukas pulled his coat tight and buttoned it up against the cold wind blowing in off Cardigan Bay. Autumn had descended upon them in full force this morning, making it suddenly apparent that October was well underway.

  Last October he’d been in Louvain, spending a relaxing two weeks with his family through his mother’s birthday. Père had still been alive, laughing one moment and contemplative the next, teasing Mère, devising new “games” for Margot. They hadn’t known then that he would be gone within months. But if they had, they wouldn’t have spent those weeks any differently.

  Now Père was gone. Their house was rubble. Mère and Margot had vanished. What a difference a year made. This time next year, would the war still be dragging on, or would it be over as everyone hoped? Perhaps they would be picking up the pieces and fashioning a new mosaic of a life from them. No father, no house that he’d grown up in, but a family reunited. With, perhaps, a new addition. If he could convince Willa to let him past those walls she had always around herself.

  Jules would say he had just begun to believe his own jest. But it was more than that. Perhaps it had always been more than that.

  He turned down the street, away from the bay and its hotels and holiday houses. He didn’t really fancy going to the rougher part of the small city to meet Cor Akkerman. But he didn’t really fancy the man coming always to the hotel either.

  He craved news in a way he’d never understood Margot doing. Up until now, newspapers he could take or leave. He would glance at the headlines, learn enough to be able to talk sensibly, and then happily return to his music or friends or invitations.

  These days, though, he read the headlines much more intently. He winced at the descriptions given of the Germans running roughshod over his countrymen and prayed with all that was in him that it was exaggeration. Prayed that women and children hadn’t really been treated as cruelly as the journalists reported.

  Prayed somehow, in some newspaper somewhere, he’d find that word to make him take note.

  “Lukas!”

  He took note, but this certainly wasn’t a message from Margot. He turned, brow furrowed. Jules had barely exchanged two words with him in the past week. Those they had exchanged had been distracted, rushed.

  His friend now hurried down the sidewalk, wearing a frown of his own. “What’s the blasted hurry? I’ve been trying to catch up with you for five minutes.”

  “I am feeling the cold.” And it made his shoulder ache anew, though he wasn’t about to whine about it. He’d had his fill of listening to his own complaints. He offered a grin. “You should have shouted sooner.”

  Jules sent his gaze heavenward, to where the wind chased the clouds across the sky like a swift-footed fox. “Where are you going?”

  He actually paused for a moment to consider how much to say. Which just proved how at odds they had been with each other this week. He had never hesitated to share anything, everything with Jules.

  And he wouldn’t begin now. “I have become acquainted with another refugee who is gathering some information for me—where there are camps, newspapers, the like. I am meeting with him.”

  He must have expected Jules to nod and motion him forward again, falling in beside. He must have expected it, because that was what he always would have done before. But today, the man just stood there. Nodding, but absently.

  “Looking for news of your family, I trust? I hope you find them.” Jules shifted, touched Lukas’s arm. “Listen, I have a favor to ask of you. I need you and Miss Forsythe to have supper with Enora and me.”

  He would dismiss the search for Lukas’s family so quickly? So entirely? That wasn’t like Jules. And why? “Enora.” The cause of this new, distracted state apparently. Lukas knew the name was familiar. But for the life of him, he couldn’t place it. Perhaps because he was too busy staring at his friend and trying to pinpoint what had shifted between them.

  One of the clouds from overhead settled on Jules’s face and darkened. “Enora Peeters. We have played in the same orchestra four of the last five years, Lukas. Do not tell me you do not know who she is.”

  It clicked into his memory then, thankfully. Enora Peeters, renowned Flemish flautist—a woman he knew very little about despite moving in the same musical circles. But the image of her round pink cheeks and bouncing curls gave him confidence enough of the face that belonged to the name that he could roll his eyes and try a tease. “Of course I know who she is. It’s just that I never imagined you seeing a woodwind player.”

  And he didn’t want to talk about a potential romance right now; he wanted to talk to his friend about the search for Margot and Mère. Get his advice. Seek his opinions. But that would only make him look more selfish. And he wouldn’t be. If Jules wanted to talk about Enora Peeters, then they would.

  The rigid line of his friend’s shoulders relaxed. A bit. “And I’ll not be seeing her for long if I can’t convince her that I haven’t been unduly influenced by your ways over the years.”

  A slice of guilt . . . though it was followed by simmering frustration. “Did you not just recently rejoice in the fact that you could still pursue those ways, even without me, when I said I was finished with them? You now want to convince a woman that you never did?”

  “What did I ever do but follow behind you, keeping you out of trouble? I was not the one with the endless string of women. I enjoyed the food and wine. Nothing more.” Chafing his hands together—gloves apparently forgotten—Jules eased back a step. “I simply need you to come tonight. Talk of how boring I have always been, perhaps. And demonstrate yourself fully in love with Miss Forsythe—I have been telling Enora how you’ve turned over a new leaf for her.”

  “Not just for her.” But that was beside the point. Lukas sighed. “You know I am happy to help you convince Enora Peeters to give you a chance. But tonight? You think I can actually convince Willa to have supper with us tonight? I can barely cajole her to lessons thrice a week.”

  Jules eased back another step. “You’re Lukas De Wilde. You’ll manage.”

  “Yes, I am. And that’s the problem now for both of us, isn’t it?”

  But Jules chuckled and waved that away. “Convincing women of whatever you wanted them to believe has long been one of your gifts. Employ it now on my behalf, Lukas. That is all I ask.”

  Convincing the flute player that he’d turned over a new leaf would require only the truth. Convincing her Jules had always been the staid one would require only slight exaggeration. Convincing Willa, though, to come with them . . . “I will try. That is all I can promise on such short notice. But she may have plans already with the Misses Davies. If tonight does not suit her, is there another time?”

  “Friday, I suppose. But aim for tonight.”

  He barely had time to mumble out an agreement before Jules had pivoted and strode away.

  Should it hurt that things were changing, when he was the one who had set those changes in motion? Should it sit as heavy as grief that his friend was a step further a
way than he’d been in a decade?

  He turned too, more slowly than Jules had done, and continued on his path. He wanted his friend to be happy. To find a special someone with whom he could make a life. Jules would make a fine family man—be a devoted husband, a doting father. He would travel a bit more and then settle down without a backward glance to a life of lessons and schools.

  Or at least Lukas thought he would. Though at the moment, he didn’t much trust what he knew of his oldest friend.

  The houses he passed grew dingier. Smaller. The shops sported no luxuries in their windows, just necessities and food.

  Mère and Margot. They had to be his top priority.

  He spotted Cor Akkerman through the wide front window of the bakery at which they’d agreed to meet. He sat at a small table, a steaming cup of something before him and a pastry in hand.

  Lukas pulled open the door and rode the gust of wind inside, happy enough to shut it out again. He ordered himself a cup of coffee and took it, black and steaming, to the other chair at the circular table.

  Akkerman barely glanced up to greet him. He rather took another enormous bite from the pastry. Or maybe it wasn’t a pastry—savory scents drifted toward him rather than sweet ones. “Have you tried their sausage rolls? Not bad.”

  Lukas took a sip of his coffee. Winced. “Would that I could say the same for this.” He should have gotten tea, he supposed—the British were masters at that. But he was getting tired of it. He needed a good cup of French coffee. “Have you any news?”

  “Ja.” He didn’t offer it though. Instead, Akkerman took a long draught of his own coffee and another bite of the sausage roll.

  He wouldn’t get irritated. It wouldn’t help. Lukas instead sighed and looked out the window. “I have heard that the Americans have put together a relief organization. That they have sent a ship full of food for our people.”

  Akkerman snorted. “And the Brits will not let it leave their ports again—did you hear that part too?”

  He had, in fact. “They will not hold it for long, surely.” It could make the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of Belgians. Surely Great Britain, which upheld the “plucky Belgians” as a standard to inspire their own boys to enlist, wouldn’t be complicit in their starvation.