Sin and the Soldier, page 3
Then she went back inside, took care of a little necessary laundry, and sat down at the pianoforte. She was working on the final movement of her symphony. It had been filling her head for days, but now the music would not come. The melody she had been so pleased with sounded trite and vulgar and kept slipping into something else that did not fit the piece. In desperation, she ignored the pianoforte and turned to the harp. Here, in triumph, she found the way to make her melody flow and argue with the piano. If she could get her friend Laurie to play the piano part for her, she could find how to make it work.
She scribbled down the basic notation before she lost it again, then returned to the harp and found the new music occupying her head instead, low, insistent, building to…something. Something, special, something beyond good.
Damn, why can I never stick to one task? Dragging a fresh sheet of music, she hastily jotted down the new notes. And became aware of the rumbling of wheels on the track past the cottage.
In sudden panic, she jumped to her feet and bolted the door. She consulted her father’s old pocket watch and realized she should be changing for the noon concert. But she could not leave her place at the window until whoever was out there had passed.
It was a pony and provision-laden cart, driven by young Rob Renwick. He must have come from the Fenners’ farm. The pony stopped, and Rob waved to her. In relief, she went out to speak to him.
If he noticed the unbolting of the front door, he said nothing.
“Can I take you up to the gardens?” he offered cheerfully.
It was so much her habit to say no, that she almost did. But Captain Gorse had been right. She needed her troops. “If you don’t mind waiting five minutes while I change and fetch some things?”
“No hurry for me.”
She changed quickly into her decent morning gown, which was the most comfortable for playing the harp in daytime and in changeable weather. Then, greatly daring, she took out her carpet bag and loaded it with the symphony music she had completed so far. After a moment’s hesitation, she left what she had been working on over the last couple of days, sure she could remember it well enough. The important thing was to be sure Gerald never laid his hands on anything he could use or sell.
Ron blinked when he saw the carpet bag. “Not leaving us are you, Miss Nat?”
“Hardly.” She placed the bag in the cart and climbed up beside him. She imagined unseen eyes watching her, guessing what was in the bag, following the slow progress of the cart toward the road. And she hated how frayed her nerves had become.
Damn Gerald. Damn him all over again.
Although the back of her neck prickled for the first part of the journey, she forced herself not to keep glancing back over her shoulder.
“Are you stopping at the hotel?” she asked. “I believe I will go there first.”
“Right you are, Miss Nat.”
He drew up eventually outside the kitchens. Even though the cart was quickly swarmed with people fetching much-needed supplies for the hotel and the tearoom, Rob Renwick helped Natalie down and retrieved her bag with a quick smile before seeing to the unloading of the cart.
For a moment, alone in the swarm of business, Natalie hesitated.
What if Captain Gorse had left the hotel? Gone home with the realization that her ridiculous problems were not his?
Then I shall make alternative plans. Determinedly, she walked through the kitchen door. She would not risk an encounter with Gerald in the foyer, not when she carried the precious cargo in her bag. Instead, she used the staff stairs and emerged opposite the captain’s room with butterflies in her stomach, even though the passage was empty of all save the maids chattering as they cleaned farther along.
Taking a deep breath, she marched up to his door and knocked briskly.
To her relief, there was immediate stirring inside, the scraping of a chair on the floor. She stood back, her heart hammering, and the door swung open.
Captain Gorse stood there in his shirt and pantaloons, his hair tousled. For no reason, Natalie flushed from her toes. She had no idea why, except that she had never seen him less than neatly, impeccably turned out, whether in uniform or civilian dress, even the last time she had entered this room. There was a new intimacy in seeing him like this, his hair uncombed, the strong column of his throat rising from the open neck of his shirt, his empty sleeve dangling.
His eyes, blue, wintry, impatient, changed at once, though there was no time to read his expression. He glanced quickly up and down the passage to make sure she was not observed, and then stood back for her to enter.
“Miss Derwent,” he said.
She brushed past him into the room and heard the door close. “I am sorry to disturb you. But I wanted to ask a favor of you before the concert begins. There is no problem if you would rather not. I have other possibilities. But—”
From behind her, his fingers closed around the handles of her bag, and despite the fact that she had been about to give it to him, she resisted, swinging around to face him. He stood too tall and too close, though his fingers at once released the bag.
He straightened, though he did not step back. “I meant only to lay it down for you, so that you might sit.”
“Sorry.” She wished he did not loom over her, and yet he smelled deliciously of warm, clean male, of some spice and lime soap that…intrigued. She dropped the bag at her feet and inhaled his scent before she said, “My fingers seem reluctant to part with it, though I came here to ask you to look after it for me.”
“Of course.”
She couldn’t help her quick smile. “Just of course? Not what is in it? No, how long do you expect me to keep it? Or how much trouble will it bring me?”
His lips might have stretched a little in response, but it was hard to tell when his steady, unblinking gaze held hers captive. His focus flickered downward, to her mouth, and butterflies swished in her stomach.
And then he stepped back. “Perhaps you’ll sit and explain it to me.”
Chapter Three
Gerald Monck was indebted to a pretty little songbird called Amy Laurel for the information that Natalie lived in a cottage across the path from the pleasure gardens.
“Alone?” he asked, steering her off the main path where a man he was sure he recognized from the previous evening was hurrying in their direction.
“Quite alone,” Amy said, as though amused. “Very respectable is our Miss Nat.”
“Is she?” Monck asked, allowing surprise into his voice. “And yet there was some man hanging around her last night. Tall fellow with one arm.”
“Oh him. He doesn’t even speak to her, just comes for the music. Captain, he is, injured in the war. And a lord. Lord Richard Gorse, to be precise.”
“Sounds as if you know him pretty well,” Monck teased, storing away the name to run past his more respectable new acquaintances in town.
She blushed. “Well, I wouldn’t mind. Even with an arm missing and that scar down his face, there’s something about him… And he’s a thorough gentleman. I tried to flirt with him once, but he didn’t even notice me. He doesn’t notice anyone but Natalie.”
“Really? When to most of us, you are younger and prettier.” He smiled alluringly, which made her blush even harder.
“Sir, I have to go. I’m singing at the midday concert, and I have to be there for the start. Come and hear me if you like. Natalie plays before me.”
Does she, by God? “Perhaps I will.”
As the girl skipped off, Monck went in search of his recently acquired henchman, who went by the name of Dan. He found him propped against a tree, gazing rather longingly toward the tables where tea, food, and ices were being served. When Monck gestured peremptorily, the man pushed himself upright with obvious reluctance and sauntered toward him.
“Don’t rush on my account,” Monck said sarcastically.
“It’s a pleasure garden,” Dan retorted. “You start quick marching about the place, people ask themselves why. But if you’ve got the answers—”
“Never mind that,” Monck interrupted. “She lives in a cottage just beyond the pleasure garden. That direction, I would guess from where my informant looked when she told me.”
Dan considered. “There’s a gate up there and a path of sorts that leads to a couple of cottages. Could be one of them.”
“Then let us go and see,” Monck said, “and you can show off your burglary skills.”
“Mind your gab,” Dan muttered.
*
Natalie sat on the sofa in Richard’s sitting room and watched him limp to the desk, where he seemed to have been working, and pull a coat from the back of the chair. He flung the coat about his shoulders, then wrestled his one arm into the sleeve. It was a maneuver that must have taken practice. He didn’t fasten the coat, however—that must have been difficult, too, with one hand—merely picked up his walking stick from beside the desk and came and sat on the sofa beside her.
This disconcerted her, too, although he did not sit too close. She jumped up and dragged the bag toward the sofa before falling back into her place beside him.
“I’ll show you,” she said, opening the bag.
He leaned forward to glance inside. “All music?”
“Apart from a little money at the bottom, which I don’t want him to get his hands on either.” She swallowed, feeling his gaze on her face but keeping her own on the contents of the bag. “This is my symphony. The most ambitious work I have attempted, and I think… I think it might be quite good, and I will not let him claim it or sell it.”
“Good. Does this mean you have decided to stay and fight?”
“For now.” She glanced up to find him regarding her with approval.
“Good.” He sat back. “I gather he has done such things before?”
“All the time,” she said ruefully. “At first, I didn’t notice. I was young and silly, thrilled to be playing so often to larger and larger audiences, intoxicated by the adulation. And he did all the difficult tasks, booking concert halls and negotiating fees, publicizing… It was only gradually that I realized we never saw the fees anymore. The music I wrote vanished, only to turn up published under his name in local shops.”
“Did you confront him?” Captain Gorse asked.
“He said women were not well regarded as composers, that my music sold better under a male name. That he was keeping the money safe for us. I had no reason to doubt him. We were already engaged to be married.” She stopped. She had never told anyone about this before and didn’t want to be doing so now. It made her too ashamed, as well as too angry. And, if she was honest, too frightened.
“And so, he grew more blatant?” Captain Gorse suggested. “Particularly, perhaps, after your mother died?”
“Even before. We traveled a good deal, and our lodgings were basic. But Gerald shared them less and less often. He would stay with some nearby nobleman, carouse all night. I know he gambled for stakes that boggled my mind. He didn’t always pay up, of course, which is one reason we moved so frequently. It was when Miss Dart—my governess—confronted him about his behavior that he persuaded my mother to dismiss her. On the grounds that she had set her cap at him, which was arrant nonsense. She didn’t even like him. When I quarreled with him over it, he said I was ridiculous, that he was looking after me. I told him it was the other way around, that it was my music that was keeping us.”
She broke off and turned her face away. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear all this.”
“I think, perhaps, I do,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m sure you have gathered the important points. He cheats and he steals, and I would rather spend the rest of my life running than allow him one more penny of what I have earned. But you were right. Why should I run from the life I have made?”
He nodded. “I am impressed that you make enough here at Maida to live and even save what you have. But you could earn more.”
“I do earn more,” she confessed. “A friend in town and I write songs together and sell the music. He has a gift for fun and silly words, and I supply the music to match. They have become quite popular.” She wrinkled her nose. “Of course, I have learned. We publish them under his name, but he is a good and honest man.”
The captain’s eyes were unreadable now. “I am glad to hear it. We may need to enlist his help at some point. But fame will earn you more.”
“It has been a difficult balance,” she admitted. “Finding this work at Maida saved my life, because I could play with anonymity and still earn, with little likelihood, or so I thought, of Gerald ever finding me. It has been two years, now. I had almost begun to hope that he was not interested in finding me.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t. He could have come upon you by accident and just decided to shake the tree, as it were, to see what fell into his lap. If you tell me everything you can about him, I’ll take the information to a friend of mine and see what he can dig up.”
“What friend?” she asked in sudden suspicion.
“His name is Ludovic Dunne. He is a solicitor who smells out information like a bloodhound, and he is utterly trustworthy. He was responsible for proving my brother did not commit a crime for which he would have been hanged.”
Her eyes widened, and his lips quirked in response. “We all have skeletons in our cupboards, Miss Derwent. But it seems to me that both you and my brother were more sinned against than sinning. Have I your permission to consult Dunne?”
She nodded, slowly, savoring the experience of being asked and making the decision. “Is he in town?”
“Yes. I’ll go this afternoon, after your concert.”
She felt a flood of warmth because he still wanted to hear her, would still be there. One day, perhaps, she would tell him how much his presence had helped her. For now, she was running out of time.
“I should go.” She rose reluctantly, vaguely surprised that she would have preferred to stay where she was. “Thank you,” she added, nodding toward the bag.
“I could take it to town with me, leave it secure in my father’s safe,” he said. “Though I would suggest we leave it in Renwick’s safe for now. Which reminds me, you should know Renwick is looking out for you. Monck will be closely watched if he returns here.”
Curiously, that warmed her, too. Leaving him to finish dressing, she departed without feeling she had lost her dignity or her worth in the part of her story she had told him. But then, he had been to war. He must understand dignity and suffering and compassion in all their various forms.
It was not the first time she had wondered about his life, both past and present, but the need to keep a lookout for signs of Gerald stopped the speculation from overwhelming her. Instead, she noticed the friendly nods of the hotel staff that she had always taken for mere civility. If they were not close friends, at least they were acquaintances on her side. And friendship was not impossible. She had cut off so much when she had run from Gerald, which meant, in a way, that she had let him win.
The pleasure gardens were filling as she walked across from the hotel in the company of two violinists and a clarinet player. Although not the sunniest day of the year, it was still warm and the clouds light enough not to spill rain. They should have a decent audience.
While the orchestra set up on the stage, she examined her harp, which had been brought out and was waiting in the wings. From there, she could tune the harp to the rest of the orchestra and wait her turn.
Amy Laurel, a budding young soprano who had begun to sing occasionally at the midday concerts, waited with her. They nodded to each other and smiled in greeting, but it struck Natalie that the girl seemed more troubled than usual.
From the wings, she could also see the audience taking their seats, walking through the rose garden, or standing around to chat while they listened. There was no sign of Gerald. Perhaps Captain Gorse had scared him off. Or the combination of the captain, the orchestra, and Renwick. She was no longer alone, friendless, and naïve in a foreign country.
The orchestra played well, as they usually did, and toward the end of their piece, Captain Gorse walked through the gate and came to sit in his usual seat. She was aware of an extra warmth at the sight of him there today because they had spoken at last and would do so again. He had chosen to help her. And if part of her couldn’t help asking cynically, Why?—well, the rest of her was quite happy for it to be so. She seemed to feel as she hadn’t in years, and in spite of Gerald’s reappearance, she felt good, excited about life…
The harp was moved onto the stage for her. She walked on to Amy’s encouraging smile, and the orchestra stood for her. She curtseyed to them, and to the audience, and took her seat at the harp, drawing it to her shoulder before she let her gaze wander over the audience, over Captain Gorse, unsmiling but not haunted today, and then in a short, mercifully fruitless, search for Gerald.
And then the music took over, as it usually did, and the time flew by.
Usually, when she left the stage, she glanced back from the wing and saw that her officer had either vanished already or was on his way to the gate. Today, when she glanced back, he had indeed left his seat, but he was approaching the back of the stage. As, from a different direction, was Bill Renwick.
She descended the few wooden steps, and the three of them met at the foot, while the orchestra welcomed Amy onto the stage.
“Miss Natalie,” Renwick said briskly, with a short bow. “My lord. A quick word.”
My lord? Startled, she glanced at Captain Gorse, who did not seem remotely surprised to be so addressed.
“Shall we walk?” he suggested.
“No one has asked about you at the gate or the pavilion or the hotel,” Renwick said bluntly. “So far as I know, your pursuer is not on the grounds, but not everyone saw him last night, so he might have slipped through. Until we can—er…mark this person’s card properly, I would like you to have an escort whenever you go between the gardens and your cottage. The staff all know to drop what they’re doing when you’re ready to go home. And I’ll send one of my boys to fetch you each morning. And evening when you’re playing at the hotel.”
