Cadenza

by Stella Riley

  ‘Not now!’ snapped Tom, sounding at the end of his tether.

  Julian wondered if this moment could get any worse. He muttered, ‘I’m so sorry. If you would excuse me for a moment …?’ And he stepped out of the room to a chorus of voices.

  Eyes brimming with laughter, Louisa warned Max to be silent with a quick shake of her head and shamelessly proceeded to eavesdrop.

  ‘One at a time,’ Julian was saying, desperation threading his tone. ‘Rob?’

  ‘Have they come to take you away?’

  ‘No. They just want to meet me because Miss Belle has been staying with us.’

  ‘Oh. That’s all right, then. So can I practise now?’

  ‘Yes – but shut the door. You’re not at performance level yet.’ He looked down at the owner of the two small hands wrapped around one of his. ‘Ellie?’

  ‘I’m staying with you. I promised Miss Belle I’d take care of you.’

  ‘And you do. But I must speak to our guests now and it would be better if Figgy was … somewhere else. Tom, can you --?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, Figs. You too, Ellie.’

  ‘No.’ She clung stubbornly to Julian’s hand. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  Shoving his free hand through his already disordered hair, he said rapidly, ‘Ellie … nobody is going to hurt me or carry me off so --’

  The door opened fully and Lady Brandon smiled at them. Her smile was so like Arabella’s that for a moment Julian felt slightly dizzy. Then she said, ‘It’s all right, my lord. If she will feel better keeping you under her eye, let her.’ And to the child, ‘It’s Ellie, isn’t it? Arabella wrote all about you in her letters. I am her mama … and this is one of her brothers.’ And over her shoulder, ‘Do stop looming, Max. It’s no wonder Ellie doesn’t want to leave his lordship alone with you. I wouldn’t either, if I were in her place.’

  The uncompromising line of Lord Brandon’s mouth relaxed a little. He said, ‘I am not looming, Mama. I am merely waiting – very politely – to be offered a seat.’

  ‘Of course – please!’ said Julian, with a vague wave of his hand. He looked down at Ellie and said hopefully, ‘Perhaps you might ask Violet to bring tea?’

  ‘And some of the biscuits Miss Beatrice sent yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. Some of those, too.’

  Seemingly reassured, Ellie nodded and ran off.

  Left looking at his unexpected guests, Julian said again, ‘I’m sorry. The last visitor we had was Rockliffe and he took Arabella away with him. It’s left them a bit … un-unsettled.’ He’d very nearly said ‘unhinged’, since that was what the last ten days had felt like. A sudden thought struck him and he said edgily, ‘You do know they aren’t mine?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Max, silkily. ‘We do at least know that.’

  ‘Don’t be tiresome, Max,’ said Louisa. And to Julian, ‘It is we who should apologise to you, Lord Chalfont. It wasn’t fair of us to arrive without warning … but we couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet you on our way south.’

  ‘To meet you and hear exactly what’s been going on here,’ added Max. ‘I can imagine only too easily Belle coming up with this mad escapade and talking Lizzie into it. But doesn’t it bother you that she came here pretending to be her cousin?’

  ‘No. I’m just glad she did,’ replied Julian truthfully. And, colouring slightly, ‘I realise you must be wondering whether I – whether I’ve taken unseemly advantage … but I can assure you that I w-wouldn’t dream of doing so.’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ said Louisa kindly. ‘Neither Max nor I have thought such a thing for a moment.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, Mother,’ said Max. ‘I’d thought it … but can see now how very unlikely it was.’

  The unspoken sub-text of “I doubt you could take advantage of a girl even if she asked you to”, sailed over Julian’s head – but Louisa heard it well enough. Sending her exasperating son another look of reproof, she said, ‘I understand that Rockliffe is arranging for you to give a recital, my lord. You must be finding the prospect rather daunting.’

  Julian stared at her, faintly nonplussed. ‘Daunting? No. Why?’

  ‘The prospect of playing in front of so many people?’

  ‘No. I enjoy performing.’

  ‘You’ve done it before?’ asked Max, faintly surprised and half-disbelieving.

  ‘Yes. And I’m hoping this concert will lead to other professional engagements.’

  Max still looked sceptical. ‘When you say professional engagements … do you mean ones for which you will be paid?’

  ‘Well, of course.’ A glance into the hard grey eyes told Julian that Lord Brandon was still unconvinced and made him say impatiently, ‘I am good enough, you know. Do you want me to prove it?’

  ‘Though I’d love to hear you play, there’s no question of proving anything, Lord Chalfont,’ said Louisa firmly. And as the door opened on Violet with the tea-tray followed by Ellie carefully carrying a plate of biscuits and assorted pastries, ‘Ah tea … excellent. Find out if your brothers want to join us, Ellie – and then come and tell me about your dog. Figgy is a very unusual name.’

  Leaving them to it, Max looked sideways at Julian and said, ‘I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t play. Obviously, you must be able to if --’

  Feeling suddenly thoroughly annoyed, Julian snapped, ‘I don’t just play. I’m not some dilettante trotting out pretty tunes for the ladies. I’m a damned virtuoso. And if I could bring a Viennese audience to its feet, I can certainly make London sit up.’

  If Max’s jaw didn’t quite drop, his expression was as stunned as if the dog had trotted in and recited Shakespeare. It occurred to him that perhaps he’d been premature in his judgement of Lord Chalfont. It further occurred to him that – little though he looked or behaved like one – the fellow was, in fact, an earl.

  Eventually – and suppressing an unhelpful desire to laugh, he said, ‘My apologies. The truth is that I know next to nothing about music.’

  ‘I’d guessed that,’ muttered Julian.

  Max grinned and held out his hand. ‘Perhaps we could start again?’

  ‘Or not.’ But Julian accepted the offered hand and was about to say something further when Tom appeared in the doorway, took one look at his face, then stared Lord Brandon in the eye to say belligerently, ‘Just so as you know, Sir Julian’s the best man in the world. So if you’ve been bullying him, you can leave right now. And if Miss Belle was here, she’d tell you the same.’

  This speech stole Julian’s breath. Fortunately, Max spared him the need to speak by saying pleasantly, ‘Yes, Tom. I know she would. I also know that I was less than fair to his lordship and have apologised.’

  ‘Gentlemen often like to hurl insults at each other before they decide to be friends, Tom,’ offered Louisa. ‘You will be exactly the same yourself one day. Now … have a cake.’

  ‘Do you want cake, Chalfont?’ asked Max in a wicked undertone. ‘Or – since Belle said I was to help – would you prefer to walk me about your land?’

  ‘I’d prefer it to cake,’ replied Julian, making it sound like the lesser of two evils. Then, looking from the contents of the plate to Arabella’s mother, he added, ‘My cook made them – so your ladyship would be wiser sticking to the biscuits.’

  * * *

  Strolling towards the Home Farm, Max asked a half-dozen questions regarding acreages, tenants and livestock and then, at the end of it all, said, ‘How bad are things?’

  ‘Not as bad as when I first got here. The children are more settled and happier, thanks to Arabella.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I’m sure Belle’s presence has helped. But Tom thinks you’re ten feet tall, Ellie adores you and … and if you’re giving the other boy music lessons, it’s presumably because he asked you to – which speaks of a different kind of hero-worship.’ Glancing sideways, he grinned at Julian’s heightened colour and added, ‘Then again, none of it would have happened if you hadn’t brought them under your roof in
the first place.’

  Julian stared down at his feet. ‘What else could I do?’

  ‘What most other men would have done. Shut your eyes to a problem that wasn’t of your making,’ replied Max bluntly. And with a sideways glance, ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I intended to. I even thought I could. Naively, I imagined that – having taken the children in – I could walk away and everything would go on as I’d left it. But finally it began to dawn on me that it wouldn’t; that with neither money nor the presence of the so-called earl, the children would be homeless again as soon as I turned my back.’

  ‘And you couldn’t let that happen.’

  ‘No. It would have been … cruel. Worse than if I’d never taken them in at all.’

  Max was beginning to understand what Arabella saw in this man. He said, ‘So you stayed and continued to support them – even though you scarcely had two shillings to rub together. When, for example, was the last time you had a new coat?’

  Refusing to ask why everyone was so concerned with the state of his wardrobe, Julian said, ‘I’m having one made now. Arabella wrote to my friend, Paul and he dragged me to a tailor in Newark.’ His expression darkened. ‘That wasted half a day and the idiot wanted the damned coat to fit so close on the shoulders I could scarcely lift my arms. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he wanted to put lace ruffles on my shirt-sleeves. How the hell am I supposed to play trussed up like a chicken, with bits of lace flapping about all over the place?’

  ‘With difficulty, I imagine,’ agreed Max, managing not to laugh. ‘The trouble is, people will expect you to look the part.’ And quickly changing the subject, ‘However, aside from the children, what else have you been doing here?’

  ‘Rebuilding the harpsichord. It took months and I – I don’t function well when I can’t play.’ Julian thought for a moment. ‘For the rest, we’ve re-roofed the main barn and planted two of the fields that had been left idle for the last three years. Then the wine money paid some bills and made it possible to lease the corn mill.’

  ‘Wine money? And why did you need to lease a mill? Don’t you have your own?’

  So Julian told him about Arabella’s discovery in the cellar and the even bigger surprise that what his neighbours paid for use of the mill almost covered the cost of renting it. At the end, Max said, ‘You should buy it before somebody else does. In a few years, it will have paid for itself.’ And then, as they toured the Home Farm, ‘Leaving money out of it, what would you say is the worst of your difficulties?’

  ‘Ignorance. There’s no one but Ridley to advise me and he’s an old man who only stayed because he had nowhere else to go. Arabella suggested that I try to get the Home Farm and the tenants to work in unison – planting, shearing, reaping and so on at the same time as each other. But when I talked to Ridley about it, he wasn’t … enthusiastic.’

  ‘Well, that needs to change. The system Belle suggested is similar to the one our great-great-grandfather set up at Brandon Lacey after the Civil War. Actually, his situation was almost identical to your own. He unexpectedly inherited a failing estate but no money to plough into it. Land had been left untended and a good many of his tenants were widows whose menfolk hadn’t come back from the battlefield. So Gabriel turned the estate into a sort of cooperative where the tenants sold their wool to him, after which he paid them to do the spinning and weaving on the estate. We still do it that way because it benefits everyone … and I believe some parts of it could be made to work for you here. But you’re going to need a good land-steward and three or four fellows to work with him. Men who know what they’re doing and can start the process of bringing the land back into full production while you’re giving concerts in London.’ He paused and then added casually, ‘If you like, I can send you those on loan from Brandon Lacey.’

  Julian stopped walking and stared at him.

  ‘I – that’s extremely generous of you,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But I can’t possibly --’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ He grinned. ‘Close your mouth and stop looking so shocked. Belle knows I can help you and will have a lot to say to me if I don’t.’

  ‘Yes. But --’

  ‘Also, the information Rockliffe shared with us from his lawyer’s extremely detailed dossier made it clear that your need is acute.’ He glanced into Julian’s face. ‘Ah. You didn’t know about that?’

  ‘No.’ On an uncharacteristically arid note, he said, ‘I’m surprised you put yourself to the trouble of meeting me.’

  ‘Well, as to that I was hoping we’d arrive on a day when you were giving the village a concert through somebody’s parlour window. Yes. I told you it was thorough, didn’t I?’ This as Julian simply stopped walking to gape at him. Setting him in motion again with a hefty buffet to the shoulder, Max said, ‘Now … did Belle make you sell all of the wine or might you be able to offer me a glass?’

  Lady Brandon and the children were playing a card game which seemed to largely consist of Ellie swooping triumphantly on everyone else’s discards. The second she clapped eyes on Julian she said, ‘Look – Aunt Louisa has taught us a new game and I’m winning!’

  Max looked at his mother. ‘Aunt Louisa? That was fast work.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? Although I didn’t mind Ellie calling me grand-mama, I was less happy hearing it from two strapping young men … so we decided I could be an honorary aunt instead.’ She rose from the table, leaving the children to finish the game. Then, reading her son’s expression while Julian poured wine, she said, ‘It seems the two of you have come to terms with each other. Good.’

  ‘We have discussed a few things,’ agreed Max, ‘principally that I’ll be asking Adam to send Garrett and a handful of other fellows here to start knocking the estate into shape. It’s the quiet time at home, so they can be spared easily enough.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said his mother, a shade dryly. ‘I know Belle asked you to help, but --’

  ‘She didn’t ask so much as order.’ He accepted the glass Julian offered him and nodded his thanks. ‘So I’m helping. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m merely wondering if Lord Chalfont has been given any say in it.’ She raised enquiring brows at Julian. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Not much. But I’m neither too proud nor too stupid to refuse help when it’s offered. I’m just grateful.’

  ‘Make sure you tell Belle that,’ muttered Max. And glancing at the clock, ‘We should be starting back to Newark soon, Mother … so if you want to hear his lordship play, I suggest you ask him now.’

  Louisa looked at Julian. ‘Will you?’

  He surprised her with a shy, sweet and completely beguiling smile.

  ‘It will be a pleasure.’

  Following his mother and the earl to the library, Max listened to a muted conversation going on behind him.

  ‘I hope he doesn’t play the angry music,’ muttered Ellie.

  ‘It’s not angry,’ objected Rob.

  ‘Some of it is. He played it when Miss Belle was leaving and I don’t like it.’

  ‘He won’t play that one.’ Tom’s voice this time. ‘He’s still working on it. You know what he’s like. Perfect’s never good enough.’

  Interesting, thought Max. But perfectionism and skill isn’t all it takes.

  Personally, he wondered how this retiring, uncertain, socially awkward fellow would manage to play before an audience without dissolving into a puddle of nerves. The ruined casing of the harpsichord didn’t inspire confidence either.

  Pulling off his coat, Julian sat down on the bench and, after a moment’s thought, raised his hands to the keyboard. At which point, the retiring, uncertain, socially awkward fellow was replaced by a wholly different person; a confident, commanding and dazzlingly brilliant man with magic in his hands.

  ~ * * ~ * * ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rumours of a confrontation between Philippa Sutherland and the lady who was not Arabella Brandon took less than twenty-four hours to reach the ears of bot
h Rockliffe and Ralph Sherbourne. There were various versions – ranging from a heated exchange of words, to a jealous quarrel about Lord Sherbourne, to actual physical assault. The one that interested both the earl and the duke most was the one that said Sherbourne knew something scandalous about Lady Sutherland which she feared he might make public.

  Rockliffe took Elizabeth to one side and said, ‘I will not ask what Sherbourne has told you or what really took place between you and Lady Sutherland. But I will be eternally grateful if – in the wake of all our other complications – you could attempt not to draw any further attention to yourself. Do you think you might manage that?’

  Flushing hotly, Elizabeth nodded and apologised.

  ‘Thank you. A few days respite will be a relief.’

  Lord Sherbourne caught up with her on the following evening at Lady Wroxton’s ball and with practised expertise drew her into the semi-privacy of an alcove to say, ‘You will forgive my bluntness, I am sure … but precisely what did you say to Philippa Sutherland?’

  Elizabeth swallowed and toyed with her fan so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  ‘I wouldn’t have said anything if she had let me leave instead of spilling poison. But by the time she said you murdered her brother, I was too annoyed to let it pass. So I told her what I thought.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That it wasn’t murder and she knew it perfectly well. And that the reason she’s intent on discrediting you is because you know something damaging about her which she’s afraid you’ll reveal.’ The ensuing silence lasted so long that Elizabeth was forced to look up. The hawk’s eyes held an odd expression that, as usual, she couldn’t interpret. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  He took his time about replying but finally he said, ‘Yes.’

  Elizabeth realised that she hadn’t expected him to answer. The fact that he had done so left her unsure how to respond. Fortunately, Ralph saved her the trouble of deciding.

  ‘What led you to that conclusion? And why did you choose to defend me?’