Let it be Me (Blue Raven) (18 page)

“That’s what your Mr. Merrick gave me this for. It’s his best one.” She held up the shirt. Her nose wrinkled slightly. “At least, the best of what’s been laundered recently.”

Molly tied the sleeves of Bridget’s dress around her waist as snugly as she could. The dress was in no peril of sliding down, as it was still fitted to the smallest point of her waist. Rather, it functioned solely as a skirt now, and with Oliver’s shirt on, buttoned up to her neck, it was the best possible solution, albeit an oddly disheveled one.

Molly took a step back and surveyed her work. “The shirt is too large. It’s practically a nightdress,” she grumbled. “We will have to tie it at the waist somehow . . . aha!” Molly’s eyes fell on a bit of string that had fallen off one of the circus performers’ costumes, weeks ago now. “I hope this came from a shoe and not a corset,” Molly replied, her voice stinging with censure, her eyes sliding to beyond the screen.

“Is everything all right?” came Oliver’s kind, yet worried voice.

“Ah . . . nearly ready,” Bridget answered back.

As Molly tied the string around her waist, she whispered in Bridget’s ear. “I’ll sit in the room today, if you please, miss,” she said, her eyes meeting Bridget’s.

Suddenly, Bridget could tell that underneath her practical demeanor, Molly was worried about her, too. Not about propriety, not about the rules. About
her
. And tears began to sting her eyes.

“That’s . . . that’s all right, Molly. I’d rather have as few witnesses as possible to my humiliation today.” While Molly had never been the cause of one of Bridget’s panics on the stage, today seemed to be hard enough without tempting fate. “Besides, Mr. Merrick will be here.”

Molly gave a short nod. “You’re in good hands with that one, miss. He’ll look after you. Regardless of his hand-kissing ways. But if it’s all the same, I’ll not be sitting in the kitchens today. I’ll sit with Frederico, just beyond the door.” And with a squeeze of assurance on her arm, Molly turned and exited the small space behind the screen, giving Bridget little choice but to follow.

Stepping out from behind the screen, Bridget knew she looked a mess. She was not a wholly vain creature, as her sister Sarah could be, but she did consider it important to look presentable.

This . . . this was not presentable. Even with her waist tied with the string, the shirt was so large and voluminous it gave her no shape whatsoever. She looked as if she were buttoned up to her chin in a puff of cream, her fingertips barely finding their way out from beyond the sleeves.

No, it was not presentable. But it was serviceable, and it would have to do.

“Thank you, Molly,” Oliver said, dismissing the maid. Bridget met Molly’s eyes, and the practical maid gave a curt nod, letting Bridget know that she would, indeed, be just beyond the door.

“Er . . . may I?” Oliver’s melodious voice intruded on her thoughts. His gaze was directed at her oversized sleeves. He approached her with caution, and kindness. Gently, reverently, he began rolling up the sleeves of the shirt. Again, Bridget could not be more struck by the differences between him and his half brother! It was enough to make one start tearing up again.

“I am sorry about the size of the shirt—the shoulders sit practically at your elbows.” He gave a small laugh, trying to encourage her to join in. But her eyes were too wet, her nose too stung with withheld tears, that she couldn’t laugh lest they fall. “We will endeavor to find something better suited to you, I promise,” he continued, his eyes still on her sleeves.

“No, don’t,” she replied softly, her voice betraying her wateriness. “I like it.”

He looked up at her then, his lips pressing into a grim line. “This will not be easy, Bridget.” Her name sounded like such a balm, coming from him. “You do not have to do it—you are under no obligation to us. To him.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper.

“Then I will tell you a secret,” he said, his voice equally low. He dropped her second sleeve, now rolled, and leaned into her ear. His hand fell gently at the back of her neck as he pulled her to him, her skin incredibly aware of his touch.

“I have never, in all my life, heard anyone play the way you play.”

Her head came back, and her eyes met his.

“If you let him teach you—if you master this—it will be the making of you.”

Bridget could feel all the air leave her body. Those hazel eyes, golden green, kind as they were, found a way to bore into her very self and burn there.

“If you are ready,” came Carpenini’s sharp tones, breaking into their solitary sphere, “can we play then, yes?”

Bridget’s eyes stayed with Oliver’s for one more moment. And again, words entered her head that did not leave his lips, but they were somehow said, all the same.

You can do
it.

“Yes, Signore,” Bridget said clearly, straightening her spine and turning with the grace borne of a Forrester lady. “I am ready.”

Thirteen

O
NCE
Miss Forrester had left for the day
, Vincenzo used the spare hour he had while Oliver escorted the lady back to her hotel to brace himself for what was to come next.

“What the bloody hell do you think you were doing today?!” Oliver thundered back into the music room, forcing Vincenzo to lift his hands from the keys.

Of course Oliver came thundering back into the music room. This was Oliver’s new pattern. Look like he was being strangled all through rehearsal, escort Miss Forrester home, and stomp back into the music room, full of recriminations. At least it was better now—during the week that he was barred from walking Miss Forrester home, Oliver had been mournful in his spite. Vincenzo would have laughed at him, cajoled him into humor, had he himself not been the target of Oliver’s wrath.

“I was teaching today,” Vincenzo replied, happy to switch back to his mellifluous Italian. Years ago, as he had taught Oliver Italian, Oliver had in turn taught him English. The past few weeks with Miss Forrester (and Oliver falling back into his native language more and more) had strengthened his English, but it still was a little rough on his tongue. Italian flowed from him. The way music flowed from his fingers and out the pianoforte. Italian was like . . . Vincenzo tried to translate that thought into a little tune, playing a new phrase from the top of his head. Hmm . . . not quite right, but nearly there.

“Would you stop that?” Oliver ground out.

“You want me to
stop
composing?” Vincenzo replied coolly, purposefully teasing his brother. “Consider, it’s been so long since I’ve done so successfully.”

“I want you to stop berating Bri—Miss Forrester. I want you to stop trying to break her down. She is doing you an enormous favor.”

Vincenzo withheld a withering glance. Really, the way Oliver was wearing his heart on his sleeve bordered on pathetic. “If she wants to play this piece, she
needs
to be broken down. She needs to relearn her fingering. And taken from some perspectives, it is I who is doing her the favor, not the other way around.”

Oliver took two gigantic strides (really, it was amazing how oversized and intimidating he could become when he let go of politeness) and hovered above him. Vincenzo kept his fingers on the keys, kept trying to find his way through that not-quite-right musical phrase. What would it become? A melody for an oratorio? Perhaps it would work best as a secondary harmony on something larger . . .

But, of course, there was that looming figure above him. So he sighed, and he did Oliver the favor of taking his fingers off the keys.

“You are talking about a girl who has such stage fright, she barely got past being able to play for
us
. Playing for the Marchese is going to be a hundred times more daunting. You really think criticizing every little thing is going to get her to play better? She needs her confidence built up!”

“No, she needs her skills built up!” Vincenzo retorted. “You forget that I am the teacher, not you! And if the competition were held today, not only would she lose, but she would be laughed out of the room. The Number Twenty-three takes stamina, it takes
passion
, but most of all it takes knowledge. And you are too calf-eyed around the girl to realize I am trying to do what’s best for her!”

“How is tearing off her clothes in the middle of a lesson any good for her?” Oliver spat back.

“Oh, that?”

“Yes,
that
.”

“She did need to move her arms,” Vincenzo shrugged. “Besides, it had the added benefit of proving you wrong.”

Oliver flinched back. “Proving me wrong? About what?”

“That girl is not in love with me,” Vincenzo responded, unable to keep away any longer and letting the tune that was tempting him flow again. “Whether she thinks it or not. If she were, she would not have jumped up in fright at the sensation of my fingers on her back.”

“You are used to dealing with actresses and whores, Vincenzo. A young lady of quality, who is pure and good, could only react as she did.”

The seething anger came off Oliver in waves—enough so that if Vincenzo hadn’t already walked so far down this road, he would begin to feel a little fear. But as it was, he could only prod that little bit further, and smile knowingly as he did so.

“Well, then perhaps my doing so will help awaken the passion she needs to play the Number Twenty-three.”

He saw the fist before he felt it. A fraction of a second in between—not enough time to do more than widen his eyes in surprise. It landed just below his temple, on his cheekbone, cracking with force.

Damn, he had forgotten that Oliver knew how to box.

He stumbled to the floor, out of his seat at the pianoforte. He tried to orient himself, but the rising panic brought on by the exploding pain in his cheek didn’t allow for it. He had never been hit before, no matter how many people wanted to—and likely there were many. And he had certainly never provoked someone of such even temper like Oliver to violence.

But then again, nothing about Oliver had been the same since the arrival of Bridget Forrester.

Vincenzo finally found his feet. And when he did rise, and managed to focus his vision, he saw Oliver with his hands down at his sides.

“I . . . I apologize,” Oliver said hoarsely. “If you wish to hit me, I would understand.”

“Are you mad?” Vincenzo grumbled. “I am not risking my hands.” Turning to the pianoforte, he began to busy himself with gathering up his pencils, his papers—those lined sheets that had sat devoid of music for far too long.

“If you really must fall on your sword for finally expressing your feelings,” he said, trying to keep the shaking out of his voice, “you can allow me to teach Miss Forrester the way she needs to be taught.”

“But her stage fright—”

“Will disappear when she knows the music like it’s a part of her body,” Vincenzo returned. “But if you insist on it, work on curing her of her anxieties. It will keep her occupied.”
And you, too
, he thought, but kept it to himself. Yes, it would keep Oliver occupied, and in the only place where he seemed comfortable of late—Miss Forrester’s presence. “I have other work to do.”

Oliver seemed to consider this compromise, even if he knew full well that it was no compromise at all—it would let Oliver do what he wanted to do so badly but couldn’t see. And it would let Vincenzo do what he needed to do.

“I will let you teach her,” Oliver finally decided. “But I will be damned if I let you assault her again.”

Vincenzo merely bowed in acquiescence, which seemed to placate Oliver, because after an acknowledging nod, there was little else for the man to do but turn on his heel and leave Vincenzo alone in the music room.

Which was exactly where he needed to be.

Because the one thing he had learned today was that he needed a new plan.

The selection of Beethoven as the music for the competition had taught him that much. It was a slap in the face, a direct hit, harder and more insidious than the one that was leaving a swelling bruise on his cheek.

The Marchese didn’t want him to win. He favored Klein. He favored the new. And therefore Vincenzo might as well no longer exist in the city of his birth.

Klein. He had likely learned the No. 23 from Beethoven himself.
His
sheet music was probably filled with little pencil marks in the deaf old maestro’s hand, telling him where to hit harder, where to crescendo, proper fingering, and when to apply a half pedal. Oh, of course, Vincenzo’s sheet music had all of those signatures, too, but they were printed from a Berlin press. Nuance was lost to printed sheet music. Whomever Klein was teaching to be his protégé at the competition had Klein’s knowledge as an advantage.

It wasn’t that Vincenzo didn’t like Beethoven. Far from it. The man seemed to combine a sense of romanticism and narrative strength that so many other composers couldn’t master. But it wasn’t
his
music. It was not from his world. And it was very much from Klein’s. And Vincenzo had to admit, it had been years since he had tried the piece—not since he’d last been in Vienna. His memory of its strengths and movements was fuzzier than he could let on in front of Oliver and the girl.

Oh, Vincenzo would still teach Miss Forrester. He still had to present someone, something to the Marchese—and Vincenzo had to admit the girl had some talent. But it was not going to be enough.

Had she been born a man, she would have been allowed the musical education that would have placed her firmly on the stage, playing concerts for audiences across Europe, the way Vincenzo himself had. But she was a woman, and so her education was sorely lacking, part of her brain filled up with such fluff and nonsense as society, propriety, and shame.

Ridiculous things that simply got in his way.

Another thing that was getting in his way was Oliver. His brows came down in an angry line at the thought. Oliver, who was usually so tractable, so easily pleased with the marvels of Venice that he could be talked into anything. Now, he was already three-quarters in love with Miss Forrester. And that swayed the rhythm of their friendship so that Vincenzo was having trouble keeping time.

It grated against Vincenzo that Oliver would so abandon him—now in his hour of need! And after he had promised him a symphony (or an opera, or a concerto) to stage. Now he was stepping further and further away from Vincenzo, from his own flesh and blood . . .

Well, that was fine. Vincenzo didn’t need him. He had never needed anyone. Not the mother who had chosen her English son over her Italian one, not the grandparent who had paid for his music lessons with money she sent and their drink with the rest, and not even the Marchese—he had made his own name and written his own work well before meeting him or his tempting daughter Antonia.

All he needed was the music . . . and for people to love him for it again.

Therefore he needed to write. When he presented Miss Forrester to the Marchese—whether she played well or not—he had to have something held in reserve, something to give to the people who had once loved his music, and would again.

He needed to compose, and that need was coming back to him like a burning fever. Maybe it was this tune he had been fiddling with—still not quite right, but he would find a way for it to get there. Because the most important thing to Vincenzo Carpenini was not his brother’s feelings, or the girl, his student, succeeding.

It was that he could not, would not, fail again.

No matter what.