She had always been able to look at her admirers—and there had been more than a few—with a cold eye. They had meant nothing to her. Less than nothing. An annoyance at most. Now she could not stop being aware of him. It was as if a flame was burning deep inside her. Rather, she thought wryly, like a case of indigestion.
She realized that Tante Héloise was still waiting for a response. “No,” she said. “We don’t know when I will be playing or where or how much I will be able to earn. It is best to stay here. Now that I know we will be able to leave, it will be easier. I can feel like a guest, not a beggar.” And I can meet Lord Edward with my head high.
“You and Delphine have always been invited guests. Horace and I, on the other hand…”
“Don’t be foolish. How could I manage Delphine without you?”
“You would do as you always do. You would find a way. But now, at least, the way ahead is clear.”
Marguerite watched as Tante Héloise bustled off to write her letters. Now that she had said they would stay here, she was having second thoughts. It was infuriating—she did not think she had ever been so uncertain in her life.
Should she move them all to Weimar after all? It would be difficult. She had been there years go, when she was still a child and her father was playing there. That did not mean she was familiar with the city. Nor did she know anyone there, except Liszt, and she did not even know if he was in Weimar at the moment. He was giving master classes there, but he was often in Budapest or Rome. Besides, she could hardly ask Franz Liszt to find a house or apartment for her. One did not ask the king to wash the dishes.
Then there was the question of money. She quite simply did not know how much she had. Her father had accounts in various cities, but she did not know where. Those accounts could be found, but she did not know whom to ask. Papa’s attorney would straighten it all out eventually, but he was not a particularly courageous man. If delays would please the comte de Louvois, he would not be in any haste. In the meantime, she had to remain in uncertainty.
Her piano. She had forgotten all about the difficulty of moving her piano. If all was well, and she was doubtless foolish to hope that anything was well, her piano was being housed at the Paris Conservatory. Their old apartment had been right across the street, so moving it there had not been too difficult. But she was not in Paris, and had not been for many months. Who knew what might have happened?
No. She would trust that all was well with her Pleyel. Even so, suppose she moved it to Weimar and then they decided they did not want to remain there? She would have to move it again.
That would be foolhardy. She could not drag her beautiful Pleyel piano all over Europe. There was always the danger that it could be damaged, and she could not risk that. Not when it had been her parents’ gift, tangible evidence of their belief in her and in her talent. It would be difficult enough to move it once, so she must wait until they decided on their permanent location. If she played the violin, like her father, or better yet the flute, it would be easy to wander. A pianist needed a permanent home.
In one way it might be sensible to move to Weimar immediately. That would put some distance between herself and Lord Edward. She could concentrate on her music then with no distractions.
That was a lie, of course. It would not matter how much distance she put between herself and Lord Edward—she would be unable to banish him from her mind. She did not even want to. That was the problem.
Marry him. What a preposterous notion. Even if his family had no objections—and no matter what he said, she could not imagine a marquis having no objection to his son’s marrying a professional musician. Her own mother had been disowned for doing so by her family, and they ranked much lower than a marquis.
But even if his parents had no objection, how could she marry him? He would expect her to stay at home, running the household, caring for the children. Her parents had had Tante Héloise to take care of those things so that they were not distracted. Without a Tante Héloise, there would be no time for music.
Even if Tante Héloise remained with her, what about concerts? What aristocrat would be willing to allow his wife to go traveling around Europe giving concerts?
And how could she bear the notion that someone could allow or not allow her to do what she wanted to do—what she had to do?
It was impossible.
What she needed to do now was assert herself, to make him see that she was not merely someone who needed to be protected. If she was not yet someone of importance, she would be in the future. Liszt himself thought she had talent.
She went over to the cheval mirror to take a good look at herself. She knew that black was a becoming color for her—she always wore it when she played—but not this bombazine she had on now. The finish was so dull that it drained all color from her face. Or maybe it was not just the fabric. The worry of the past months had not helped.
She was thinner than she had been. Lord Edward had been right when he said she played with her food instead of eating it. During the siege, she had thought that she would give anything for a full plate of food, but since Papa’s death, her stomach had been tied up in knots. This dress hung on her. She needed to look at her old concert gowns. One or two of them had been too snug for comfort. They might fit now.
And her hair. She had been wearing it pulled back tightly into a bun. It made her look like a nun, an angry nun. She could not dress it herself as elaborately as a good lady’s maid could, but she could manage something better than this.
Yes. She would stop trying to vanish into the shadows of this chateau. She was not some helpless creature in need of protection anymore. Admittedly she had had some moments of doubt, but no longer. She was fully capable of protecting herself and those who depended on her.
Tonight she would go down to dinner with her head high, and Lord Edward would see what Marguerite Benda was really like.
Ned leaned back in the tub, letting the steam rise around him. He probably should have asked for a cold bath, but even if he had the heat from his body might have been enough to set the water boiling.
He had demanded a bath, rather to Clivers’ surprise, because he needed to think, and the bathing tub was the one place he could be certain of no interruptions. He had long ago convinced his valet that he did not need anyone to help him bathe. Although now that he thought about it…
No. That was not what he needed to think about. Not just now, at least. He needed to try to understand what she would need from him before she would agree to marriage.
It was a bit humbling to have her dismiss his proposal so easily. He had never thought of himself as particularly vain, but most of the women he met considered him a matrimonial prize. He might not be the heir to the marquisate, but he was the son of a marquis and wealthy enough in his own right. Families frequently pushed their daughters in his direction.
But those were families in the upper reaches of English society. If she married him, Marguerite would have entrée to that society. Unfortunately for him, that did not appear to be a society that appealed to her. And also unfortunately for him, he had no connections, no influence in the musical world that mattered to her.
What could he offer her?
He paused in his ablutions, sponge in hand. Offer her? Was he really thinking that way? As if he was planning a purchase? He leaned back and slipped under the water. He was an idiot. Did he have anything she wanted?
Passion. He remembered that kiss. Her response had been as overwhelming as his. Passion was something they shared equally.
Shared. He rolled the word around in his mind. Was that the clue he sought? Was the idea not that he should offer her his life or that she should let him share her life but that they could share a new life? One that had room for the things they both valued?
The water was cooling, so he got out of the tub but wrapped himself in a towel and sat down on the stool. He needed to think in a new way.
What was there about his current life that he would not wish to ch
ange?
He had rooms in London, near the British Museum, though they were mainly for convenience. He spent a good bit of time in the Reading Room, but he also traveled around to various libraries and collections. Now that he thought about it, he probably spent most of his time at Penworth Castle, where he could study and write undisturbed.
He realized that it did not really matter where he lived. If Marguerite wanted to live in France or Italy instead of England, he would have no objection. He could study and write anywhere. Books were easily transported. And aside from making their home any place she liked, he could accompany her whenever she was on tour, giving concerts.
That could be done. It sounded odd, put that way. It was not the kind of life he had ever imagined for himself, but it could be managed. Now that he thought about it, such a life sounded appealing. Traveling around the world—how could anyone object to that?
Now he needed to convince Marguerite.
Chapter Twenty
Ned couldn’t move. All he could do was stare as Marguerite made her entrance into the drawing room with Mme. d’Hivers hovering behind her. Tony had been expressing delight that his digestion had finally recovered—he was turning into a caricature of a Frenchman, obsessed with his digestive system—and Ned had been listening. He had even been listening attentively—really he had—until Marguerite appeared.
Her beauty was enough to strike any man dumb. He had caught a glimpse of it when she’d fallen asleep by the fireside, but that had been only a hint of this glory.
She had changed. Her hair seemed softer. She glowed, where he could have sworn she used to drain the light from the room. Yes, she was still dressed in black—he understood that. She was still in mourning, and he could not ask her to deny her loss. But this evening her gown was of some sort of silken fabric that gleamed in the candlelight and rustled as she walked. It no longer made her melt into the shadows.
Even her walk seemed different. The tension seemed to have left her—or some of the tension, at least. She was no longer a warrior on guard. There was still a challenge in her stance, but it was the challenge of a woman to a man. A challenge to him.
Now there was a challenge he longed to accept. He could feel his body rising to the occasion and was grateful that his trousers were not too snugly fitted.
Walking away while Tony was switching to his usual lecture on the shortsightedness of those who failed to see the superiority of the Siemens-Martin method for producing steel, Ned moved to her side. Anyone who was watching him might have said he prowled toward her. He certainly felt like a lion, not stalking his prey but affirming his claim to his mate.
“Good evening, Marguerite.” His words came out somewhere between a purr and a growl. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips.
She tilted her head at an arrogant angle and reclaimed her hand. “Good evening, my lord.”
Her determined formality made him smile. “I think we know each other well enough for you to call me by name. If you find Ned too difficult to pronounce, I do not mind being called Edward.”
She did not answer, but neither did she refuse when he offered his arm to lead her in to dinner. He seated her in her usual place, but did not sit next to her. Instead, he chose the seat opposite, where he was free to look at her.
Delphine sat beside him, exuberant as usual. Her nonsensical chatter required no more than the occasional murmured response, leaving him free to concentrate on Marguerite. He was pleased to see that she was actually eating her dinner this evening, not just playing with her food. Her restored appetite probably had more to do with the assurance that she would be able to support her little family than with him. Still, he was pleased to see that every time he caught her eye, the color rose in her face.
He could look at her forever, and he had every intention of doing so.
He had just lifted his glass to take a sip of wine when he realized that Delphine had asked him a question. Possibly more than once, since her tone had shifted from playful to impatient.
“I apologize. I seem to have been woolgathering. What did you ask?”
She blinked, then changed the motion to a fluttering of her eyelids. “It was nothing important.” But then her eyes narrowed as her glance shifted to Marguerite. Ned was startled to see something like malevolence in that look.
Marguerite could feel his eyes on her as she ate her meal. She tried to concentrate on the food in front of her and ate almost mechanically. It did not help. She tried to converse with Antoine, but he was distracted by his food. The tournedos Rossini, complete with shavings of truffle, were certainly worth eating. Antoine, freed at last from his diet of boiled fish, seemed ecstatic to indulge in rich cuisine.
No matter what she did, she was only too aware of Lord Edward. Even when she kept her face turned away so she did not meet his gaze, she could feel him looking at her. It was a physical sensation, almost like a caress on her cheek, on her shoulders—she might as well have been naked, the way she could feel his look on her body.
This was not good. The heat rising in her body was not good. She could not afford any involvement like this. Certainly not with a man who was making her feel things she did not dare feel.
She had thought that her concert gown would serve as a sort of armor, making her feel more like her old self, in command of the situation.
Ha!
She had been lying to herself. What she had wanted was to show Lord Edward that she was not the dowdy crow Delphine proclaimed her to be. She wanted to impress him, fool that she was, and that was the last thing she should want.
He should be the kind of man she thought he was when she first met him—a bland and brainless aristocrat, kind and courteous enough, but one who cared about nothing but the cut of his coat and saw nothing that did not contribute to his own pleasures. That’s what he was supposed to be. A pleasant dinner companion at most. Such a man would have been no problem at all. Even a man as tall and handsome as this one. She could have admired his fine features the way one admires a fine painting.
Instead he was a problem.
She caught his eye and could feel the color rising in her cheeks. He saw too much. How had she ever been fool enough to think those blue eyes of his were innocent and guileless? He did not see everything because he did not know everything, at least not yet. But he saw far too much for her comfort.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to distract herself by mentally going over the tricky fingering in the Bach F major fugue. It was a piece that always seemed to soothe the vicomte. The prelude was easy enough for the listener, but the simplicity of the fugue section was misleading. Keeping her hands in her lap, she went over the fingering. And then went over it again.
When she was calm enough to look up, she saw that Delphine had managed to distract him. Good. But then Delphine looked across the table at her. The fury in the girl’s look knocked her back in her chair. Why? What had happened to infuriate Delphine so? She quickly ran through the usual causes of temper, but there had been no reason to deny any of the girl’s requests lately. No one had even insisted that she help in the dusty business of searching for the treasure.
Marguerite gave a mental shrug. She would doubtless find out soon enough.
As it turned out, she found out as soon as the ladies reached the drawing room after leaving the gentlemen to their port.
With a toss of her head, Delphine sneered at Marguerite. “You are a fool if you think you can take him from me. He may dally with you, but that is all.”
“Take him from you? What are you talking about?” Marguerite could scarcely believe it. Surely the child wasn’t still indulging in the fantasy that she was going to marry Lord Edward.
“Oh, I will permit that he have his little affairs. He is a man, after all.” Delphine was in her grand lady mode at the moment. “I am not the sort of bourgeoise who would expect fidelity from her husband. But I would expect you to have better taste than to throw yourself at my betrothed.”
“Your…? Delphine, sto
p this. You are not betrothed to anyone. Certainly not to Lord Edward.” Marguerite was getting worried. Delphine’s fantasies did not usually last this long.
“If you choose to think so. But you do not know everything.” Delphine had a sly smile on her face.
“I know that you are talking nonsense,” Mme. d’Hivers said firmly. “You must calm yourself.”
“Marguerite should be practical. If she is going to be someone’s mistress, she would do far better to accept the comte de Louvois’ offer.” Delphine ignored the gasp that her statement drew from Marguerite.
“Delphine!” Mme. d’Hivers spoke sharply. “You are overexcited and overtired. You had best go to bed.”
“And you, old woman. You know nothing!” Delphine sneered and snapped her fingers.
Mme. d’Hivers caught the girl’s hand and forced Delphine to look at her. “To bed,” she said in a low voice.
Delphine stuck out a rebellious lower lip but slowly collapsed in surrender to the older woman’s command and departed in a flurry of ruffles.
With a shake of her head and a deep sigh Mme. d’Hivers turned to Marguerite. “She is right, you know. A blind man could have seen that there is something between you and the Englishman. The air positively crackled between you. What is going on?”
Marguerite’s throat suddenly felt dry. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”
“But something is?” Mme. d’Hivers’ eyes grew wide. “My God, have you lost your mind? He’s an aristocrat.”
Marguerite raised her hands in a helpless gesture.
“You cannot… Marguerite, child, you know that nothing good can come of involvement with such a man. You will lose everything you have worked for.”
“I know.” Marguerite could barely get the words out.
Mme. d’Hivers covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. “There is nothing I can say that you do not already know. I will go take care of Delphine.”
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