Simply Unforgettable (25 page)

He crossed the room with long strides, not looking at her. But he paused with his hand on the doorknob.

“If you ask it of me when I return,” he said, “or even now, I will take you home to Portman Street. I will find some excuse to make to the guests in the music room. I am endlessly inventive when I need to be.”

He waited, as if for her answer, but she made none. He let himself quietly out of the room and closed the door behind him.

It was a miracle beyond hoping for, Frances supposed, that there would be no one in the music room and ballroom who would recognize her. Strangely, the realization made her feel almost calm—resigned to her fate. There was nothing she could do about it now. She could leave the house, of course—she could do it without even waiting for Lucius's return. But she knew she would not do that.

The Earl of Edgecombe would be disappointed.

Her great-aunts would be upset and humiliated.

And somewhere deep within her there was a more selfish reason for staying.

A lifelong dream was being painfully reborn.

He had not answered her question about the size of the audience. But he had not needed to. She knew that it must be large. Why else would the panels between the music room and the ballroom have been removed? Even the music room itself was a fair-sized room and must be capable of seating a few dozen people. But it was not large enough for tonight's audience.

And one member of that large audience was to be Lord Heath. How proud her father would be if he could know that!

The artist in her, the performer who had grown up dreaming of singing in public, yearned to sing tonight regardless of the consequences.

A painter, after all, did not paint a canvas and then cover it with a sheet so that no one would see it. A writer did not write a book and set it on a shelf beneath other books so that no one would ever read it. A householder, as the biblical story would have it, did not light a lamp and set it beneath a basket so that it would give no light to those within the house.

She had not even realized fully during her years of teaching how much she had repressed her natural instinct to sing so that others would hear.

He taught me to reach for the stars and settle for nothing less.

Papa!

Well, tonight she would sing, both for him and for herself.

And tomorrow she would make arrangements to return to Bath.

 

Lucius's intention when he left the music room was to creep off to his own room to sulk in private for twenty minutes—or to storm at the four walls in righteous fury. But he had the niggling suspicion that his thoughts would be more than a little disturbing if he went somewhere where he would have nothing else to do but allow them to rattle about in his head and clamor accusingly at him.

A meddler.

A tyrant.

A bully.

You do not manipulate someone you care for or go out of your way to make her miserable.

Damnation!

His next instinct was to stalk off to the music room and shoo everyone out of the house. There must be a dozen and one other entertainments for them to take themselves off to, after all—there always were during the Season. But though he was frequently impulsive and even reckless, he was almost never bad-mannered—not on such a colossal scale, anyway. Besides, this was not his house. And his grandfather had looked forward so much to this evening.

What he actually ended up doing was going to the music room to see who had come and to make himself agreeable. And it looked, he thought as soon as he walked into the room, as if everyone he had asked had come—and that was actually a vast number of people. The music room was crowded. So was the ballroom, though admittedly many people had not yet taken their seats but were milling about making a great deal of noise.

He greeted Baron Heath and his wife and showed them to the seats in the front row that had been reserved for them. He exchanged pleasantries with a number of friends and acquaintances. He made a point of welcoming Lady Lyle and assured her that she was going to particularly enjoy the concert. When she looked slightly mystified, he smiled at her and told her that she would see what he meant soon enough.

He made his way toward Portia Hunt and the Balderstons and realized with something of a grimace that this was the first time he had given them a thought all evening. The Marquess of Godsworthy, he noticed, was in conversation with his grandfather.

“This is very pleasant,” Lady Balderston said. “A concert at Marshall House is an unusual treat.”

“It will be the
best
treat, ma'am,” Lucius assured her.

“Caroline told me that the schoolteacher from Bath is to sing,” Portia said. “Is it wise, Lucius? The audience here is likely to be far superior in taste to what she is accustomed to.”

“Miss Allard was not
born
a schoolteacher, Portia,” he told her. “Nor was she born in Bath. She grew up here in London as a matter of fact and had the best of singing masters.”

“One can only hope,” she said, “that those seated at the back will be able to hear her. Forgive me, Lucius, but your mama is busy with the guests. Is she aware that Amy is here?”

“There is not much concerning her daughters of which my mother is unaware,” he said. “Amy is a member of this family, and this is a family evening that has been opened up to our friends.”

He nodded amiably and walked away before he could start feeling irritable again. He already felt a number of negative things without adding irritability to the list.

The other entertainers had already arrived, and more and more of the members of the audience were taking their seats. There was nothing worse than concerts that started late. It was time to fetch Frances.

She would have his head on a platter when she saw the size of the audience, he thought as he made his way back up to the drawing room. For some reason that escaped his understanding she had given up her dream three years ago and was more than reluctant to take it up again.

A meddler. A tyrant. A bully.

Well, he was guilty as charged, he supposed. Better to be a meddler than a milksop. He had always met life head-on. He was not likely to change at this late date.

She was standing by the window, her back to the room, looking out into the heavy dusk. She looked very straight-backed, but when she turned at the sound of the door, he could see that her face and general demeanor were calm and composed.

He was, he realized, in the presence of the consummate professional. She had been taken by surprise and she had not liked it one bit, but she was now ready to sing.

“Shall we go?” he asked.

She crossed the room without a word and took his offered arm.

It was perhaps, he thought, the last time he would walk anywhere with Frances Allard. She did not want him—or rather she would not have him. And it was time he gave up the pursuit. After tonight she would have a clear choice—he was convinced of that. She could return to Bath or she could put herself into Heath's hands and forge a new and glorious career.

At least he had arranged matters so that she would have that choice. But he would meddle no more.

If proving his love for her meant letting her go, then he would do it.

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done, though. Passivity did not come naturally to him.

Frances paused when they reached the doorway into the music room and her hand tightened slightly on his sleeve.

“Ah,” she said softly, “so this is what
some friends
look like.”

There was no question in her words. He did not offer any answer but led her to the empty seat between her great-aunts in the front row.

“Is this not a delightful surprise, dearest?” Miss Driscoll asked her as she seated herself.

“You are not too dreadfully nervous, my love?” Mrs. Melford asked.

Lucius moved away to take his own place on the other side of the center aisle. But everyone was seated, he had seen. And a near hush had fallen at his appearance. He stood again, welcomed everyone, and introduced the first performer of the evening, a violinist of his acquaintance who had been enjoying some success in Vienna and other parts of the Continent during the past year.

His performance was flawless and well received by the audience. So was that of the pianist who followed him and that of the harpist who followed her. But it was hard for Lucius to concentrate. Frances's turn was next.

Had he made a dreadful error in judgment?

He did not doubt that she would acquit herself well, but . . . Would she ever forgive him?

But, devil take it,
someone
had to shake her out of her torpor.

He got to his feet to introduce her.

“My grandfather and my youngest sister and I attended a soiree in Bath several weeks ago,” he said, “at which there was musical entertainment. It was there, as part of that entertainment, that we heard for the first time a voice my grandfather still describes as the most glorious soprano voice he has heard in almost eighty years of listening. It was a voice we felt both honored and privileged to hear. Tonight we will hear it again, as will you. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Frances Allard.”

There was polite applause as Frances got to her feet and Caroline took her place at the pianoforte and spread out sheets of music on the stand.

Frances looked slightly pale but as composed as she had been in the drawing room. She looked calmly at the audience and then lowered her head and even closed her eyes for a few moments. She was, Lucius could see while a hush fell in the combined rooms, filling her lungs slowly with air and then releasing it.

Then she opened her eyes and nodded to Caroline.

She had chosen “Let the Bright Seraphim” from Handel's
Sampson,
an ambitious piece for trumpet and soprano. There was no trumpet, of course, only the pianoforte and her voice.

And so her voice became the trumpet, soaring through the intricate runs and trills of the music, filling both rooms with pure sound, which was never shrill, which never overpowered the space or overwhelmed the listeners. Voice, music, space—all were one glorious, perfect blend.

“Let the bright Seraphim in burning row, their loud, uplifted angel trumpets blow.”

She looked at the audience as she sang. She sang to them and for them, involving them all in the triumph of the lyrics and the brilliance of the music. And yet it was clear that this was no mere performance to her. This time—and for the first time—Lucius could
see
her as she sang, and it was clear to him that she was deep in the world of the music, creating it anew with every note she sang.

He was in that world with her.

So immersed was he, in fact, that he started with surprise when a loud and prolonged applause followed the song. Belatedly he joined in, his throat and chest constricted with what could only be unshed tears.

To say that he was proud of her would be an imposition. He had no
right
to claim any such feelings. What he felt was . . . joy. Joy in the music, joy for her, joy for himself that he was part of the experience.

And then, even more belatedly, he realized that he should have stood and made some comment and asked for another song. But it was unnecessary to do so. The applause had died away, to be succeeded by a few shushing noises as Caroline spread out another sheet of music and awaited the signal to begin playing.

Frances sang “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.”

What had been pure brilliance in the first piece became sheer raw emotion in the second. Before she had finished Lucius was blinking back tears, totally unaware of the ignominy of weeping in public at a mere musical performance. She sang it better than she had the last time, if that was possible. But the last time, of course, he had had to fight distractions in order to hear her.

He was on his feet even before the final note had died away, though he did not immediately applaud. He watched her, tall and regal and beautiful, stay in the world of the music until the last echo of sound had died away.

During the timeless moment between the last bar of music and the first sounds of applause, Lucius knew beyond all doubt that Frances Allard was the woman he would love deep in his soul for the rest of his life even if he never saw her again after tonight. And, despite everything, despite all she had accused him of earlier in the drawing room, he was not sorry for what he had done.

By God, he was not sorry. He would do it all again.

And
she
would never be sorry. She could surely never
ever
regret tonight.

Finally she smiled and turned to indicate Caroline, who really had done a superb job at the pianoforte. Both of them bowed, and Lucius stood beaming at both, happier than he could ever remember feeling in his life.

It was impossible in that moment not to believe in happy endings.

21

Frances was happy. Consciously, gloriously happy.

She was where she belonged—she knew that. And she was doing what she knew she had been born to do.

She was filled to the brim and overflowing with happiness.

And instinctively, without thought, she turned as the applause gradually died down to smile at Lucius, standing in the front row, beaming back at her with what she could not avoid seeing was pride and an answering happiness.

And surely more than that.

How foolish she had been! From almost the first moment of their acquaintance she had been given the chance to reach for the stars, to risk all for the vividness of life—for passion and for love itself. And then for music too.

She had chosen not to take the risk.

And so he had taken it for her.

She felt a rush of love so intense that it fairly robbed her of breath.

But the Earl of Edgecombe was making his way toward her. He took her right hand there in front of everyone, bowed over it, and raised it to his lips.

“Miss Frances Allard,” he said, addressing the audience. “Remem-ber the name, my friends. One day soon you will boast of having heard her here before she became famous.”

The concert was over then, and there was the buzz of conversation as some people rose from their places and a line of footmen appeared at the ballroom doors, bearing trays of food and drink to set on the white-clothed tables at the back.

But Frances was not left unattended even though the earl turned away to speak with her great-aunts. Viscount Sinclair stepped up to take his place. He was looking wary again.

“There are no words, Frances,” he said. “There simply are no words.”

She wanted to weep then. But his mother had come forward too, and she actually hugged Frances.

“Miss Allard,” she said. “I have been to heaven and back this evening. My father-in-law and Lucius and Amy did not exaggerate when they spoke so glowingly of your talent. Thank you for coming here to sing to us.”

Lord Tait bowed and Lady Tait beamed and said she could not agree more with her mama. Emily Marshall linked an arm through Caroline's and then smiled at Frances.

“I heard you, Caroline,” she said, “and you did superlatively well. But Grandpapa was right. One day I will be able to boast that
my sister
accompanied Miss Allard during her first concert in London.”

Amy, sparkling with enthusiasm, hugged Frances too.

“And
I
shall be able to boast to everyone I know that you were my special friend before I was even out,” she said.

Frances laughed. It did not escape her notice that she was surrounded by Lucius's family, and that they were all looking on her with approval. It was a precious moment that she knew she would look back upon with pleasure.

And then they all stepped aside as another lady and gentleman came forward. Lord Sinclair performed the introductions. But Frances had seen the gentleman before. He was Lord Heath. She curtsied to him and Lady Heath.

“Miss Allard,” he said, “I hold one concert each year around Christmas time, as perhaps you know, at which I gather together for the delight of my friends and carefully chosen guests the very best musical talent I can attract from all over England and the Continent. I wish you will allow me to make an exception to my usual rule and arrange an additional musical evening now, during the Season, with you as the sole performer. I do assure you that everyone who has heard you tonight will wish to do so again. And word will spread like the proverbial wildfire. There will not be enough room in my house for those who will wish to attend.”

“Perhaps, then, Roderick,” Lady Heath said, laying a hand on his sleeve and looking at Frances with smiling eyes, “you should consider hiring a concert hall for the occasion.”

“Brilliant, Fanny!” he said. “It shall be done. Miss Allard, I need only your word of agreement. I can make you great in no time at all. No, let me correct that ridiculous assertion. You do not need me for that—you already
are
great. But I can make you the most sought-after soprano in Europe, I make bold to claim, if you will put yourself into my hands. I must enjoy this feeling of slight power while I may, though. It will not last long. Very soon you will not need either my patronage or anyone else's.”

His words served up with them a healthy dose of reality.

It was too much to bear. Too much light had come flooding into her life in too short a time. She felt a desperate need to take a step back, to hold up a staying hand, to
think
. She would have given anything at that moment, she felt, to have seen the calm, sensible face of Claudia Martin in the crowd nearby. She longed for Anne and Susanna.

She was aware at the same time of Viscount Sinclair beside her, silent and tense, his eyes burning into her.

“Thank you, Lord Heath,” she said. “I am deeply honored. But I am a teacher. I teach music among other subjects at a girls' school in Bath. It is my chosen career, and even now I long to get back to my pupils, who need me, and to my fellow teachers, who are my dearest friends. I love singing for my own satisfaction. Occasionally I enjoy singing for an audience, even one as large as this. But I do not wish to make a career of it.”

There was certainly truth in what she said. Not the whole truth, perhaps, but . . .

“I am sorry to hear it, ma'am,” Lord Heath said. “
Very
sorry indeed. I am afraid I misunderstood, though. When Sinclair invited me here tonight, I thought it was at your request. I thought you wished to be promoted. If you do not, I understand. I have a stepson with an extraordinarily sweet voice, but my wife keeps a very firm rein on my ambitions for him. Quite rightly so—he is a child. I respect your decision, but if you should ever change your mind, you may call upon me at any time. I have been exceedingly well blessed to have heard the purest of boy soprano voices and now the most glorious of female soprano voices all within five months.”

Frances looked up at Lord Sinclair after they had moved away.

“I may yet find myself shaking you until your teeth rattle, Frances,” he said.

“Because I do not share your ambitions for me?” she asked him.

“Because you
do,
” he retorted. “But I am not going to argue with you anymore. I am not going to manipulate or bully you ever again, you will be delighted to know. After tonight you will be free of me.”

She would have reached out and set a hand on his sleeve then, though with what motive she did not know, but other people crowded about, wishing to talk with her, congratulate her, and praise her performance. Frances smiled and tried to give herself up to the mere pleasure of the moment.

And there
was
pleasure. There was no point in denying it. There was something warm and wonderful about knowing that what one did, what one
loved
doing, had entertained other people and more than entertained them in a number of cases. Several people told her that her singing had moved them, even to tears.

And then some of her pleasure was dashed as Viscount Sinclair presented her to Lord and Lady Balderston and the young lady with them.

“Miss Portia Hunt,” he said.

Ah.

She was exquisitely lovely, with the perfect type of English rose beauty that Frances had always envied when she was growing up until she realized that she could never be like it herself. And in addition to her loveliness, Miss Hunt displayed an excellent taste in clothing and a perfect poise and dignity of manner.

How could any man look at her and not love her?

How could
Lucius
. . .

Miss Hunt's smile was gracious and refined.

“That was a very commendable performance, Miss Allard,” she said. “The headmistress and teachers at your school must be proud indeed of you. Your pupils are fortunate to have you as their teacher.”

She spoke with well-mannered condescension—that latter fact was immediately apparent.

“Thank you,” Frances said. “I am honored to have the opportunity to shape the minds and talents of the young.”

“Lucius,” Miss Hunt said, turning to him, “I shall take the liberty of accompanying Amy upstairs to her room now that the concert has ended.”

Lucius. She called him
Lucius
. And clearly she was familiar with the family and with Marshall House. She was going to
marry
him, after all. He might deny it, clinging to the strict truth of the fact that he was not betrothed to her yet, but here was reality right before Frances's eyes.

And did it matter?

“You must not trouble yourself, Portia,” he told her. “My mother will send her to bed when she thinks the time appropriate.”

Miss Hunt smiled again before turning away to join her parents, who were now talking with Lady Sinclair. But the smile, Frances noticed, did not quite reach her eyes.

Frances turned to Lord Sinclair to find him looking back at her with one eyebrow cocked.

“One of those excruciating moments sprung to life from one's worst nightmare,” he said. “But behold me still alive and standing at the end of it.”

He was speaking, she supposed, of the fact that she and Miss Hunt had come face-to-face.

“She is lovely,” she said.

“She is
perfect
.” His other eyebrow rose to join the first. “But the trouble is, Frances, that I am not and have never wanted to be. Perfection is an infernal thing.
You
are far from perfect.”

She laughed despite herself and would have turned away then to join her great-aunts, but two more people were approaching, and she turned to them, still smiling.

Ah!

The gentleman, who was ahead of the lady, still looked boyishly handsome with his baby-blond hair and blue eyes and rather round face. He also looked somewhat pale, his eyes slightly wounded.

“Françoise,” he said with eyes only for her. “Françoise Halard.”

She had known before she entered the music room on Lord Sinclair's arm that something like this might happen. She even remembered thinking that it would be a minor miracle if it did not. But from the moment she had started singing until now she had forgotten her fears—and her knowledge that she ought not to be here.

But here was the very person she had most wished to avoid seeing—unless that honor fell to the woman behind him.

“Charles,” she said and extended one hand to him. He took it and bowed over it, but he did not carry it to his lips or retain it in his own.

“You know the Earl of Fontbridge, then?” Lord Sinclair asked as Frances felt that she was looking down a long, dark tunnel at the man she had once loved and come close to marrying over three years ago. “And the countess, his mother?”

She turned her eyes on the woman standing behind him. The Countess of Fontbridge was as large and as formidable as ever, almost dwarfing her son, though more by her girth and the force of her presence than by her height.

“Lady Fontbridge,” she said.

“Mademoiselle Halard.” The countess did not even try to hide the hostility from her face or the harshness from her voice. “I see you have returned to London. When you decide to give a concert in future, Sinclair, you may wish to divulge the identity of those persons who are to perform for your guests so that they may make an informed decision about whether it is worth attending or not. Though on this occasion it is altogether possible that my son and I would not have understood that Miss Frances Allard was the same person as the Mademoiselle Françoise Halard with whom we once had an unfortunate acquaintance.”

“Françoise,” the earl said, gazing at her as if he had not even heard what his mother had just said, “where have you
been
? Did your disappearance have something to do with—”

But his mother had laid a firm hand on his arm. “Come, Charles,” she said. “We are expected elsewhere. Good evening to you, Sinclair.”

She pointedly ignored Frances.

Charles bent one lingering, wounded look upon Frances before submitting to being led away by the countess, whose hair plumes nodded indignantly above her head as she swept from the room without looking to left or right.

“Your own excruciating little moment sprung to life from nightmare, Frances?” Viscount Sinclair asked. “Or should I say
Françoise
? I take it Fontbridge is a discarded lover from your past?”

“I had better leave,” she said. “I daresay my aunts are ready to go. It has been a busy evening for them.”

“Ah, yes, run away,” he said. “It is what you do best, Frances. But first perhaps I can cheer you up a little. Let me take you to Lady Lyle.”

“
She
is here?” Frances actually found herself laughing. All she needed to complete the disaster of the evening now was to find that George Ralston was here too.

“I thought that she would like to hear you,” he said. “And that you would like to see her once more. I invited her to come.”