by Mary Balogh
Her prospects of marrying were not bountiful. She would be foolish not to encourage him. She enjoyed teaching, and her salary was sufficient to cover all her most basic needs. The school provided her with a home and friendship. But she was only twenty-three years old, and her life had once been very different. She could not pretend to herself that she would be perfectly happy to remain as she was for the rest of her life.
She had needs, basic human needs that were very hard to ignore.
Mr. Blake might be her only chance of attracting a decent husband. Of course, matters were not quite that simple. There would be details from her past to explain to him, some of them not reflecting well on her. He might not be at all willing to pursue his interest in her once all had been told. On the other hand, perhaps he might. She would not know if she did not put the matter to the test.
She blew out her candle when she was ready for bed, drew back the curtains as she always did, and lay on her back, staring out into the darkness and picking out a few stars.
She had wept when she had learned that she was not with child. Tears of relief—of course!—and tears of sadness.
In three months she had not fully recovered her spirits. It was because she had lain with him, she told herself, because she had given him her virginity. Of course it was difficult to recover, to forget him. It would be strange if it were not.
But when she was being strictly truthful with herself, she knew that it was more than that. Most of the time when she remembered Lucius Marshall, it was as much other things about him she recalled as it was that. She thought of him peeling potatoes and shoveling snow and drying dishes and lifting his jug-eared snowman’s head onto the hollowed-out shoulders and waltzing and . . . Well, of course, her thoughts always did come back to what had followed that waltz.
She even remembered him angry and contemptuous and arrogant and standing toe-to-toe with her on a snowy road after hauling her unceremoniously out of her carriage.
Staring out at one particular star and wondering how many thousands or millions of miles away it was, she admitted to herself that if it were not for Lucius Marshall she would be able to see her way more clearly in this matter of Mr. Blake—and of course there would be less to confess. But she was all too painfully aware of the differences between the two men and—more to the point—the differences in her reactions to them.
With Mr. Blake there was no magic.
But then Mr. Blake was a steady, dependable man who could perhaps offer her a decent future. And she did not know for certain that there would never be any magic if he should choose to court her, did she?
She should encourage him, she decided, closing her eyes.
She would encourage him, in fact.
She was going to start being more sensible.
Her eyes opened again and focused on the star.
“Lucius,” she whispered, “you might as well be as far away as that star for all the good pining for you has done me. But this is the end. I am not going to think about you ever again.”
It was an eminently sensible decision.
Frances lay awake half the night contemplating it.
9
It was Miss Martin herself rather than Keeble who came to Frances’s room the following evening five minutes before Mr. Blake was due, to inform her that he had already arrived.
“Fortunately,” Frances said while Miss Martin looked her over, “I have so few chances to wear the ivory silk that not many people would know it is several years old.”
“And it is of such a classic design,” Miss Martin said, looking assessingly at its high waistline and short sleeves and modestly scooped neckline, “that it does not look out of fashion at all. It will do. So will your hair, though you have dressed it as severely as ever. There is no way, of course, that you can hide your great beauty. If I were given to personal vanity, I would be mortally envious. No, jealous.”
Frances laughed and reached for her brown cloak.
“No, no,” Miss Martin said, “you must wear my paisley shawl, Frances. That is why I am carrying it over my arm. And one more thing before you go. I was not serious last evening. Of course, I would hate to lose any of my teachers. We are a good team and I have grown inordinately fond of the three of you who live at the school with me. But if you should really develop an attachment to Mr. Blake—”
“Oh, Claudia,” Frances said, laughing again and catching her up in a quick hug, “what a goose you are. He is accompanying me to a party at which I am not even a full-fledged guest. That is all.”
“Hmm,” Miss Martin said. “You have not yet seen the look in his eye this evening, Frances.”
But Frances did see it a few minutes later when she went downstairs and found him pacing the hall while a darkly frowning Keeble stood guarding his domain with his habitual suspicion for the whole of the male world once it stepped over the threshold. Mr. Blake looked very distinguished indeed in his black evening cloak with his black silk hat in one hand. And when he looked up to watch her descend the stairs, there was a gleam of approval and something more in his eyes.
“As always, Miss Allard,” he said, “you look remarkably elegant.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He had a carriage waiting at the door, and within a very short time they had arrived at the Reynolds house on Queen Anne Square. It felt strange to Frances after so long to be going to a party again. She was once more very thankful for the escort of Mr. Blake. The house seemed already to be filled with guests for all that Bath was reputed to be no longer the fashionable place to be. Mrs. Reynolds was very proudly letting each arriving guest know that the Earl of Edgecombe was in attendance with his two grandchildren.
They must be in the card room, Frances concluded after she had been in the drawing room for a short while. There seemed to be no one in here grand enough to invite bowing and scraping from the other guests. More to the point, there was no one she recognized apart from a few Bath acquaintances—and therefore no one to recognize her. She had felt a little anxiety lest she be seen and recognized by some of her former London acquaintances. She would far prefer that no one from that former life of hers ever discover where she had gone.
So far no one had.
The musical entertainment began soon after Frances’s arrival, and she took her seat beside Mr. Blake to enjoy the other performances, though she did assist with the first item on the program, an étude on the pianoforte played by Betsy Reynolds, the thirteen-year-old daughter of the house, who was also a day pupil at Miss Martin’s. Frances was her music teacher and helped her position her music and murmured encouragement to her until the girl’s nerves were sufficiently under control that she could begin.
The recital went well, if not brilliantly, and Frances smiled warmly at Betsy when she had finished, and got to her feet to hug her before Betsy was sent off to bed.
Frances’s own turn came almost an hour after that. She was, in fact, the final performer of the evening. Supper would be served after she had finished.
“I daresay, Miss Allard,” Mr. Blake whispered, leaning closer to her as Mrs. Reynolds was getting to her feet to announce her, “you have been kept until last because it is expected that you will also be the best.”
Mr. Blake had not heard her sing. Neither had anyone else in the room except Mr. Huckerby, the school’s dancing master, who was to accompany her. But Frances smiled her gratitude anyway. The familiar butterflies were fluttering in her stomach.
She had chosen an ambitious and perhaps not quite appropriate piece for the occasion, but “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” from Handel’s Messiah had always been a great favorite of hers, and Mrs. Reynolds had given her free rein in her choice of music.
Frances stood to a polite smattering of applause and took her place in the middle of the drawing room beside the pianoforte. She took her time, preparing her breath with a number of slow inhalations and exhalations, closing her eyes for a few moments while she thought her way into the music.
Then she nodded to Mr. Huckerby, listened to the opening bars of music, and began to sing.
As soon as she did so, all her nervousness fled and along with it most of her awareness of her audience, her surroundings, and her very self.
The music took on an existence of its own.
Having settled Amy in the drawing room with Mrs. Abbotsford and her daughter, both of whom had welcomed her warmly into their midst, Lucius had spent most of the evening in the card room, though he had sat in for only a hand or two himself. For the rest of the time he had stood watching his grandfather play, conversing with fellow guests who had wandered in from the other room, and trying not to dwell upon how excruciatingly bored he was.
He would have gone into the drawing room when the musical entertainment began since he was partial to music even if that provided at a Bath soiree was sure to be insipid at best. But Mr. Reynolds managed to corner him first and launched into a lengthy, prosy discourse on the virtues of hunting as a thoroughly English and aristocratic sport and the evil natures of those who opposed it, whom Lucius gathered must be deemed unnatural traitors to their very country. He watched his grandfather for signs of weariness and half hoped that he would see some. Although his London self would be nothing short of horrified at the prospect of having to return home so early in the evening, his Bath self could only think longingly of sitting with his feet up in the sitting room on Brock Street, reading a book.
Reading a book, for the love of God!
Of course Amy would be bitterly disappointed if such a thing actually happened.
The Earl of Edgecombe, however, appeared to be happily absorbed in the play. His winnings and losses were about evenly balanced. Not that the stakes were high anyway. They rarely were in Bath, where the Masters of Ceremonies had always frowned upon heavy gambling.
The music was clearly audible. It began with a rather plodding étude on the pianoforte, which Reynolds explained was being performed by his daughter, though he made no move to go into the other room to play the role of proud parent—or even to stop talking in order to listen. There followed a violin sonata, a tenor solo, a string quartet, and another recital on the pianoforte, performed by someone with a surer and more skilled touch than Miss Reynolds had displayed.
Lucius gave the music as much of his attention as he could. Fortunately, he realized within a couple of minutes that he needed to bend only half an ear to Reynolds without danger of missing anything significant in what the man had to say.
And then a soprano began to sing. At first—for just a very few moments—Lucius was prepared to turn much of his attention away from her performance. The female soprano voice was not his favorite, its tendency being all too often to shrillness. And this soprano had made the mistake of choosing a sacred piece for a very secular party.
However, in those same few moments he realized that this soprano was very far superior to the norm. And within a few moments more he had focused all of his attention on her and her song, leaving Reynolds to address the air about him.
“I know that my Redeemer liveth,” she sang, “and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”
Indeed, very soon a number of the other guests in the card room, and even a few of the players lifted their heads and listened. Conversation did not stop entirely, but it decreased considerably in volume.
But all this Lucius did not even notice. The voice had captured his whole being.
It was rich and powerful without being overbearing. It had the full quality of a contralto voice but could soar to the highest notes without effort or even a suggestion of shrillness or strain. It was a voice that was as pure as a bell, and yet it resonated with human passion.
“Yet in my flesh shall I see God.”
It was without all doubt the most glorious voice he had ever heard.
He closed his eyes, a frown of almost pained concentration creasing his brow. And finally Reynolds, perhaps realizing that he had lost his audience, fell silent.
“For now is Christ risen from the dead,” the voice sang on, joyful and triumphant now, carrying Lucius’s soul with it.
He swallowed.
“The first fruits of them that sleep.”
He felt a touch on his sleeve and opened his eyes to see his grandfather beside him. Without exchanging a word, they moved together toward the drawing room.
“For now is Christ risen.” The voice gathered itself for the soaring climax. “For now is Christ ri-sen, from the dead.”
They arrived in the doorway and stood side by side, looking in.
She stood in the middle of the room, tall and dark and slender and majestic, her arms at her sides, her head lifted, classically beautiful but using only her voice with which to captivate her audience.
“The first fruits—” she held the high note, let its sound and triumphant acclamation linger and begin to die away, “of th-em that sleep.”
She stood with lifted head and closed eyes while the pianoforte played the closing measures, and not a person in the audience moved a muscle.
There was a brief silence.
And then enthusiastic applause.
“Dear God,” the earl murmured, joining in.
But Lucius could only gaze as if transfixed.
My God! My God!
Frances Allard.
She opened her eyes, smiled, and inclined her head in acknowledgment of the applause, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing, her smooth, dark hair gleaming in the light cast down upon it from the chandelier overhead. Her eyes moved over the audience until they reached the doorway and . . .
And locked upon Lucius standing there gazing back.
Her smile did not falter. Rather, it froze in place.
In that fraction of a moment it seemed that the whole world must have stopped spinning.
And then her eyes moved onward until her smiling face had thanked the whole audience. She then made her way toward an empty chair on the far side of the room, close to where Amy sat with her hands clasped to her bosom. A gentleman rose as Frances approached, bowed to her, and repositioned the chair before she sat down on it. He bent his head close to hers to make some remark to her.
“That was quite, quite splendid, Miss Allard,” Mrs. Reynolds was saying with hearty joviality. “I was well advised to position you last on the program. My dear Betsy was quite right when she said you sing superbly. But I am sure that after sitting for a whole hour everyone must be ready for supper. It will be served immediately in the dining room.”
“Lucius,” his grandfather said, setting a hand on his shoulder as everyone stirred and the room filled with the buzz of conversation, “I have rarely if ever heard a voice that so moved me. Whoever is she? If she is someone famous, I do not recognize the name. Miss Allen, is it?”
“Allard,” Lucius said.
“Let us go and pay our compliments to Miss Allard,” the earl said. “We must invite her to sit with us for supper.”
She was on her feet again. Several of the other guests were crowding about her to speak with her. She had a bright, fixed smile on her face. She was determinedly not looking their way, Lucius saw. Mrs. Reynolds, smiling graciously, had made her way to her side and saw them coming.
“Ah, Lord Edgecombe,” she said in the sort of voice that made everyone else stand back to give them room, “may I have the pleasure of presenting Miss Allard to you? Does she not sing divinely? She teaches music at Miss Martin’s school. It is a very superior academy. We send Betsy there.”
Frances fixed her eyes on the earl and curtsied.
“My lord,” she murmured.
“I have the honor, Miss Allard,” Mrs. Reynolds continued, clearly puffed up with the pride of having such illustrious guests in her own home, “of making known to you the Earl of Edgecombe and his grandson, Viscount Sinclair. And his granddaughter, Miss Amy Marshall.”
Amy had stepped up beside him, Lucius realized, and taken his arm.
Frances turned to him then and her eyes met his once more.
/>
“My lord,” she said.
“Miss Allard.” He bowed to her.
Her eyes moved on to Amy. “Miss Marshall?”
“You brought tears to my eyes, Miss Allard,” Amy said. “I wish I could sing like that.”
Lucius felt as if someone had dealt him a blow to the lower abdomen.
But one thing was perfectly clear. Whatever her feelings toward him might be, she certainly had not forgotten him.
“Miss Martin’s may be a superior school,” his grandfather was saying, “but what on earth are you doing teaching there, Miss Allard, when you should be enthralling the world with your singing voice?”
The color deepened in her cheeks as she turned back to him.
“It is very kind of you to say so, my lord,” she said, “but teaching is my chosen profession. It gives me great satisfaction.”
“It would give me great satisfaction,” the earl said, smiling kindly at her, “if you would take supper with Amy and Sinclair and me, Miss Allard.”
She hesitated for just a moment.
“Thank you,” she said. “That is very obliging of you, but I have already agreed to sit with Mr. Blake and a few of his acquaintances.”
“But, Miss Allard,” Mrs. Reynolds protested, sounding horrified, “I am quite sure Mr. Blake would be more than willing to relinquish your company to the Earl of Edgecombe for half an hour. Would you not, sir?”
The gentleman she addressed frowned but inclined his head to his hostess in an obvious preliminary to agreeing with her demand. However, Frances spoke first.
“But I am unwilling to relinquish his,” she said.
“And quite right too, my dear,” the earl said with a low chuckle. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Perhaps you would do me the honor of taking tea with me tomorrow in Brock Street. My grandson will be delighted to come and fetch you in the carriage, will you not, Lucius?”
Lucius, who had been standing there staring like a dumb block or a moonstruck halfling, inclined his head. It was, he realized, far too late for either him or Frances to do the sensible thing and admit to a previous acquaintance.