Читать книгу Miss Marianne's Disgrace - Georgie Lee - Страница 11

Chapter Four

Marianne played the section again and frowned. The last note wasn’t right. She tried the C instead of the D, then nodded. Taking up her pen, she dipped the nib in the inkwell next to the stand and drew a quarter note on the staff. She played the section again, smiling as the stanza fell into place, the first half of her composition nearly complete. Reaching the end of it, she held her foot down on the pedal, allowing the chords to resonate off into the air.

Lady Ellington’s Broadwood was a gorgeous instrument, but not as grand as Sir Warren’s Érard. She wondered how rich and full the piece would sound on his instrument.

Excellent, I’m sure. She picked up the pen and changed the half note at the end to a whole one. She wasn’t likely to play at Priorton Abbey again. Her skin prickled beneath the netting of the fichu covering her chest as the memory of Sir Warren listening to her story about Madame de Badeau came rushing back. She shouldn’t have confided in him. She’d been in a panic for days over her mistake, waiting for any hint of the truth of her parentage to make the rounds. There’d been nothing but silence on the matter. The only gossip she’d heard had concerned Lord Malvern’s near indiscretion with a maid at Lord Cartwright’s hunting party.

She replayed the stanza, holding the end longer to reflect her correction, contemplating Sir Warren’s silence more than her music. With no word from anyone at Priorton since their visit, it was plain the incidents from two weeks ago had been forgotten. It irritated her as much as a missed note, even though she should be glad. She’d allowed his kindness to trick her into revealing her ugly secret. Heaven knew what other mistakes, or deeper weakness, might have been revealed if she’d had the chance to know Sir Warren better.

‘Beautiful, as always, my dear.’ Lady Ellington applauded as Marianne ended the piece. The pianoforte didn’t face the window at Welton Place as it did at Priorton Abbey, preventing the blooming roses in the garden from distracting Marianne while she worked. ‘It’s a shame I’m the only one who ever gets to hear it.’

Marianne closed the red composition book, leaving it on the stand. ‘You’re not the only one. Lady St Onge used to listen to me play before she decided to return to London for the winter.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She sat down on the bench beside her. ‘A letter from Theresa arrived for you.’

Marianne took the missive and flicked the edge with her fingernail, in no mood to read about her friend’s happiness. It only made her lack of it more obvious. Theresa was at Hallington Hall, the estate on the other side of Falconbridge Manor, with her young son, husband and his family. It wasn’t far to travel yet Marianne had barely seen her this summer. She shouldn’t have stayed away. As much as she loved Lady Ellington’s she’d been restless lately for no good reason. The shortening days and cooler weather and the isolation of Welton Place added to her disquiet.

‘This also came for you.’ Lady Ellington handed her a package wrapped in brown paper. A prong holding a diamond in place on one of her rings snagged the securing twine before she freed it. ‘It’s from Priorton Abbey.’

Marianne gripped the package tight, crinkling the smooth paper. He hasn’t forgotten about me. She eased her hold on the slender package, refusing to get her hopes up about Sir Warren’s interest in her or to pine after a man. Her mother had obsessed about Lord Falconbridge and look how that had ended. ‘It must be from Mrs Stevens. Sir Warren wouldn’t send me anything.’

‘Perhaps you charmed him with your playing.’

‘It would be a change from what my presence usually inspires in people.’ The knot came loose and she tugged off the twine.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. You inspire more than gossip in many people.’ She squeezed Marianne’s arm. ‘Now open it. I want to see what it is.’

Marianne tore off the paper to reveal the back of a journal. She turned it over and read the handwritten title on the white cover plate. ‘Lady Matilda’s Trials, by Sir Warren Stevens.’

She opened the front cover and a note slipped out from between the pages. She plucked it off the rug then unfolded the card and read aloud the words printed on the thick paper.

Dear Miss Domville,

Enclosed is a copy of my latest manuscript. Your lovely piano-playing was invaluable to the creation of this story. I hope it’s to your liking and I would very much appreciate your thoughts on it before I send it to my publisher.

Your faithful scribe,

Sir Warren

‘My goodness.’ Lady Ellington laid one sparkling hand on her ample bosom, rainbows from her diamonds spraying out over her dark blue dress. ‘I didn’t think the two of you were so well acquainted.’

‘We aren’t. I spent more time with his Érard than I did with him when we visited.’ The spine cracked as she opened the journal. She tapped her toes against the floor, as puzzled as she was flattered by his gift.

Lady Ellington rose. ‘Hurry and read it so you can give him your thoughts on it when we visit them tomorrow.’

Marianne brought her toes down hard against the parquet, leery of another meeting with him. ‘Can’t I simply send him a note?’

‘Not for something like this.’ A wicked twinkle lit up her pale blue eyes before she strode to the door. ‘You’ll have to play for him again and see what else you might inspire.’

Marianne frowned, not quite as amused by the situation as Lady Ellington, but certainly intrigued. She ran her finger over the title on the front of the journal, the one written by Sir Warren. He was asking her, a person he barely knew, to critique his work. It would be like her giving him one of her compositions to play. For all the flowers and stupid poems Lord Bolton had sent her, none had touched her as much as Sir Warren’s simple request.

Leaving the pianoforte, Marianne wandered through the double French doors overlooking the garden, past where the aged gardener, Walker, knelt in front of the rose beds. The heady scent of the summer blooms no longer hung in the air. It had been replaced by the crisp chill of autumn and wet dirt. She strolled along the gravel path, passing the fountain in the middle of Zeus and a nymph in an evocative embrace.

Too evocative. The same could be said about most of the statues scattered throughout the garden. Marianne passed by them without a second look. The peculiarities of Lady Ellington’s brother, the prior Marquess of Falconbridge, and his taste in statuary, didn’t interest her. Instead, with the journal clutched to her chest, she wondered if maybe Lady Ellington was right and it was time to stop hiding away from the world at Welton Place. If a famous man like Sir Warren could see the value in an acquaintance with her, perhaps some other gentlemen who weren’t Lord Bolton might do the same. It was almost enough to convince her to accept Lady Ellington’s offer of a Season in London, but not quite.

She reached the far side of the garden and followed the path winding up through the copse of trees to the brick orangery hidden among the oaks. Arched and latticed windows marked the front-left side while those to the right had been bricked in. She stepped through the double doors and into the comfortably furnished garden building. Sets of bergère chairs with generous cushions all done in the Louis XV style dominated the window side of the room. A tall screen embroidered with a mythic scene of Apollo seducing Calliope, as shocking in its depiction of love as the garden statuary, shielded a wide sofa situated in the darker half. The gaudy gilding reminded Marianne more of her mother’s boudoir than it did an outbuilding. Like the garden, the orangery owed its decorations to the old Marquess, a bachelor rake she’d heard so much about from Madame de Badeau she’d often wondered if the woman hadn’t bedded him too.

The orangery, despite its gaudy and erotic decorations, was, for Marianne, a small retreat from the dower house and a good place to be alone. She’d come here after more than one afternoon party to fume over the whisperings of Miss Cartwright or Lady Astley.

She chose a comfortable chair near a window and settled in to read Sir Warren’s note again. His handwriting was bold, each letter crafted from slashing lines and thick strokes. It was a stark contrast to the small flourishes and graceful twirls which filled her composition book.

She read it a third time, but nothing about the words changed. Like the Smiths’ daughter, who used to pore over each ‘good morning’ from the farmer’s son hoping there was more to the salutation, Marianne was looking for a deeper meaning which wasn’t there. It was silly of her to do so. She’d learned long ago at Madame de Badeau’s that when a man said something it was what he meant and little more. If Sir Warren was thanking her for inspiration, then he was thanking her. It didn’t mean she’d sent him into raptures. She stuffed the note in the back cover, glad not to arouse a grand passion in a man. Other people’s passions had already caused her no end of troubles.

She set to reading, focusing on Sir Warren’s work instead of him, determined to be worthy of his faith in her. However, with each turn of the page, each paragraph outlining Lady Matilda’s story, disbelief and dismay began to undermine the peace of the orangery. By the time she reached the end of the manuscript, Marianne wanted to toss the journal in the fountain at the bottom of the hill and watch the thing turn soggy and sink. She couldn’t. It was too good a story. Too bad it was hers.

* * *

‘I didn’t work so hard to gain Priorton to sell it off piece by piece the moment things get difficult,’ Warren insisted, his boots coming down hard on the stone of the cloistered walk in the garden. Lancelot trotted beside him, panting lightly. The garden ran wild in the current fashion, leading from the back of Priorton to the tree line beyond. In the centre of it, weathered stone statues lounged between the beds of dying summer plants and wildflowers.

‘Then you must let some of the field labourers go,’ Mr Reed, Warren’s bespectacled man of affairs warned, on Warren’s heels as they returned to the house after surveying the fields. The harvest had been good this year, but not nearly as profitable as either of them had hoped, or counted on.

‘No, not with winter coming. I won’t see families suffer because of my mistakes.’ He, his mother and Leticia had suffered because of his father’s financial mistakes. His father had been a good man, but he’d been careless in the management of his school, never charging enough or collecting what was due and leaving his family near destitute when he died. After refusing to apply for relief in the very parish where his father had preached, they’d been forced to rely on Warren’s reluctant bachelor uncle for support. It had been his uncle’s brilliant idea for Warren to enlist and save the time and money required by a lengthy apprenticeship. At sixteen, the clean, comfortable life Warren had known had been ripped from him and replaced with gore and filth, and the need to support his sister and mother. He still hated the old salt for forcing Warren into it and resented his father for failing to leave his family with means. He wouldn’t visit the same misery on other families, especially those under his care.