Rhapsody for Two Read online

  He felt as gawky and pleased as a boy, her touch firing his nerves. For too long, probably, he stood like a statue, only staring at Rowena. She was clad today in a rust-colored gown that made her look like a burnished musical instrument, and his mind flooded with all sorts of dreadful, hopeful puns about wanting to play her.

  A throat cleared, snapping them from their mutual reverie. When Simon turned toward the source of the sound, it was to see Lady Edith sporting a knowing smile. “Excellent cakes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Thorn. Will you show me this mesmerizing sign you’ve brought?”

  He did so. As Edith scrutinized the scripted card, she said, “My brother, Foster, saw you at the Mallery Lane Theater, I think? You were slipping cartes de visite into all the violin players’ cases.”

  “Oh, no,” replied Simon. “Not the violins. All the string players. Well, most of them. I should have asked, Rowena, can you work on harps too?”

  Rowena looked offended. “Of course I can work on harps. And lutes, and mandolins, and guitars. If it has strings, I can repair it.”

  “Kites?” he asked. “Tasseled rugs?”

  Edith covered a smile, then handed back the card.

  “I’m insulted by your doubt.” Rowena adopted a tone of haughtiness over laughter.

  “I can make a kite sing. Or I could, if I ever tried it.”

  “Good woman. I admire your confidence. And Lady Edith, should your brother attend Covent Garden tonight, he will find me haranguing the orchestra there. I’ve also enlisted my fellow horn player from Vauxhall, Botts, to send all the fiddles this way if they need work done.”

  Edith turned to her friend. “All repairs, Ro? You’re not building any instruments?”

  “I’m not even doing as many repairs as I’d like,” Rowena replied. “Everyone seems to have bought a pianoforte in the last year, and they all went out of tune after winter cold and spring rain.”

  “I’ve taken three new bookings in the past hour,” Edith told Simon. “I’ve been playing clerk while she works.”

  “Three new bookings at the higher rate?” When Edith nodded, Simon whistled. “Well done. That’s the most lucrative task. But, Rowena, you don’t look pleased.”

  She hesitated. “I’m never pleased to tune a pianoforte, though I’m grateful for the work. It’s just—”

  The shop door’s bell jingled.

  “I’ll see to it.” Edith slid from the worktable, casting a regretful glance at the remaining cream cakes, then strode into the small front room.

  Rowena turned her attention to the violin she’d been delicately taking to bits, so Simon accepted her silence and went to work in the shop window. He was able to arrange a curtain in the window to afford the workshop its privacy while also displaying his “How to Ruin a Violin” sign—without the little story Rowena had laughingly protested.

  Piece by piece, he placed in the parts of the violin Rowena handed him, then stood the neck on end and topped it with a second card. “How to Repair a Violin: Consult Fairweather’s.” He was aware of curious passersby peering at him as he worked. Good.

  Simon clambered from the window area, careful not to disarrange the new display, just as Edith re-entered the room.

  “This violin needs a new saddle, so says the man who deposited it into Fairweather’s care.” Edith brandished a small instrument with an uncommonly red varnish. “Did you know violins had saddles, Mr. Thorn? How equestrian.”

  Rowena indicated a place for her friend to set the instrument. “You booked the job at the higher rate? The new rate?”

  “Of course.” Edith winked. “Maybe even a bit more than you told me to charge. He was happy enough to agree, and he left half the fee in advance. You can get this done within a week, can’t you?”

  “Of course,” Rowena echoed. She looked around the workshop, clearly counting up the tasks that lay before her. “That one’s ready for varnish...that one needs a sound post...the Rugeri needs to be returned...the fingerboard there...oh, and now the three pianofortes. Yes. A week will be fine.”

  She didn’t appear to be at ease, and Simon guessed at the end of the sentence she’d been about to utter when the shop bell interrupted. “But it’s not enough.”

  Slowly, Rowena shook her head. “I can’t do enough work, and quickly enough, to secure the lease. Not at one hundred fifty guineas per year.”

  This time when they looked at each other, there was no crystalline flirtation. This shared glance was knowing and heavy. Without a windfall, she wouldn’t keep her shop—and he wouldn’t gather money enough to help Howard.

  No. That wasn’t an option. “I’ll think of something else,” he promised. “Something that will help you in time.”

  “Is this experience, or arrogance?” asked Edith.

  “Experience.” He hoped. “I’ve always thought of something in the past, so there’s every reason to assume I will again. Just as it’s experience, not arrogance, for Miss Fairweather to say she can fix that violin within a week. She’s done it before and knows what to do.”

  “People are not instruments,” Edith pointed out.

  “I could draw you a poetic comparison,” Simon replied. “About how we all feel in harmony with certain parts of life, and some things set us to vibrating like a gut string. But I’ll just offer you another cake.”

  “I take it back,” said Edith. “People are instruments, and you know how to play them. I can be entirely won over by cakes.”

  “And you, Rowena?”

  “I’m not won over by cakes,” she replied.

  “What are you won by?”

  She looked at him with a touch of bleak amusement, and he knew his own answer. He was won by a pair of frank blue eyes. Had been won, maybe, the instant he entered the shop on a whim, hoping the luthier would have a tool that could swiftly unstop his horn.

  “Well,” Edith broke in. “I see that I must be getting on my way. Rowena, are you ready to relinquish How to Ruin a Duke?”

  Rowena tapped her nose. “‘Ready to relinquish’? Alliteration again. It’s everywhere.”

  “Your attempt at distraction won’t work. Hand it over, won’t you? You’ve had it for a week already.”

  “Nanny keeps taking it! I’m not finished yet.”

  “I won’t have time to read it before our turn is up,” Edith protested.

  “Frankenstein,” Rowena reminded her. “Nightmare Abbey. Remember those? I had hardly any time with them.”

  Edith rolled her eyes. “I was nearer the circulating library. It only made sense for me to pick them up and read them first. But here, look what I have.” She rummaged in her bag. Simon watched curiously as she pulled out two bound volumes.

  Edith squinted at the spines. “Glenarvon. You’ve read that.” She stuffed that volume back into the bag, then extended the other book to Rowena. “Northanger Abbey.”

  Rowena folded her arms, rejecting the book. “I want Nightmare Abbey.”

  “This one’s also good,” Edith wheedled. “It talks about all sorts of wonderfully horrid novels. Though it’s not quite a real Gothic. The heroine imagines all sorts of horrors, but nothing bad ever comes to pass.”

  Rowena pulled a face. “What fun is that?”

  Simon laughed. “Eat a cream cake, then explain to me why you like Gothic novels so much.”

  “If I must.” Rowena plucked a pastry from its packaging—now Simon’s thoughts were alliterating too—and considered as she bit into it. Simon tried not to become utterly spellbound by her expression as she savored sweet cream and delicate crumb, but such a look of bliss was difficult to ignore.

  “I think,” Rowena said once she’d eaten the cake, “Gothic novels are simply the best of all sorts of stories. In what other book could there be skeletons, brooding gentlemen, family secrets, and dark lightning-struck towers?”

  “Sounds like Twelfth Night with the Prince Regent,” muttered Simon, causing Rowena to splutter.

  “But if you’re wondering why I like all those sorts
of things,” Rowena added, “maybe it’s because they have little to do with my ordinary life. Like How to Ruin a Duke. It’s merely entertaining.”

  “And adventure?”

  “And peril, and heroines solving it.” She took up the rejected copy of Northanger Abbey, then flipped through it. “I dearly love the idea of sorting out one’s particular type of peril.”

  He could certainly understand that. And yet. “It doesn’t always work out well for the heroine,” Simon pointed out. “Think of ‘The Vampyre’—published last month in New Monthly Magazine. It ends in the tragic death of Aubrey’s sister, drained of blood on her wedding night.”

  Both women stared fiercely at Simon as if he’d just suggested juggling Cotton. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “We haven’t read it yet!” Edith exclaimed.

  “You are a monster.” Rowena pointed at Simon. “You’re worse than the Duke of Amorous. He puts notes inside violins, but you—you talk about the endings of books!”

  This was befuddling. “But you love Gothics. I thought you’d have read it.”

  “No!” Rowena howled. “And now I know the heroine dies? What sort of story is that?”

  “Quite a horrid one,” Simon said tentatively. “Sorry. I just—I thought we were talking about books.”

  Edith jumped in, thank the Lord. “I would love to read more books of practical advice. Rather than How to Ruin a Duke, I’d like to know How to Solve Anything. How to Answer any Question.”

  Rowena relented, though her movements as she straightened tools were still choppy. “You’re writing that book already. I’d like to know How to Make Money Appear from the Ether.”

  “Are we suggesting titles?” Simon asked. “How to Get Two Ladies to Forget You Told Them the Ending to a Story. That’s the book I need.”

  Rowena waggled a metal file at him. “That’d be a short book. One can’t get people to forget, but to forgive.”

  “Ah. How to Gain Forgiveness. That’d be a worthy title too.”

  If he had that book, he would read it every day. He’d have read it for thirteen years. And maybe, if it really existed and if its methods worked, someday Howard would forgive him.

  “Indeed it would,” said Edith, a hollow note in her voice. She bade the two of them good-bye, leaving the copy of Northanger Abbey behind on the worktable. “Thank you for the cakes, Mr. Thorn. I shall tell my brother to watch for your cards at the theater.”

  When she was gone in a whisper of velvet curtain and a jingle of silver door bell, Simon apologized to Rowena. “Not only about ‘The Vampyre,’ but...well, I wanted to help you make your fortune. I’ve a little skill at a lot of things, but not enough at any one of them to be any use.”

  “Good heavens! I forgive you for telling me about the poor woman’s demise. It is only a story, after all. And you have a skill that I admire very much.”

  Admire? She admired something about him? He tried to drawl the question, “Oh? What is that?” rather than sounding eager as a pup.

  He probably didn’t succeed.

  But Rowena didn’t seem to mind. “You persist,” she explained. “You don’t give up. You try something, and then something else, until it all works out.”

  Did he? That sounded quite a bit better than being a come-and-go fellow who never settled to anything. “Why do you think so?”

  “You tried to work with me, and then you tried a different way, and eventually I agreed. If you can win over a stubborn luthier, you can win over the people of London. So. What are we going to try next?”

  What wouldn’t they try next? He had many ideas, none of them related to the shop. Grandiose ideas, romantic ideas...steady and rooted ideas. Ideas about staying, about making a home. Trying to deserve it, with his whole heart.

  Rowena was still awaiting his reply. He cleared his throat. “Well. I have a suggestion that isn’t strictly business-related.”

  “All right.” She picked up the violin that was missing a saddle.

  “In fact, it’s not at all business-related.”

  Her cheeks took on a faint color. She set the violin down at once. “You intrigue me.”

  “Oh, good. You see, I would like to kiss you. Would that be all right?”

  Her smile was sweet and slow, spreading like sunrise over hills. “Yes, please. Finally.”

  And she took his face in her hands. Looked him in the eye. Caught up every stray bit of his soul that might be revealed, reflected it back, made it whole.

  “You asked what I was won by,” she told him. “It’s this. I’m won over by this. Just you, and the questions you ask, and your trust in my reply.”

  This woman, this wonderful woman. He was drowning and he was saved.

  She still didn’t know who he’d once been, but she knew who he was now. Thank God, she would allow him to kiss her, because knowing her was a startling pleasure—but simply knowing her without touching her, tasting her, taking her in his arms, was nowhere close to closeness enough.

  A simple kiss, a single kiss, was enough to fill his heart. The brush of lips on his, cake-sweet and laughing, held more pleasure and promise than any passionate interlude had before.

  Now he was becoming alliterative again, which proved how deeply she’d wound herself into his mind. How long had he known her? Always, he thought. He’d just been waiting to meet her.

  He knew, even as he held her in his arms, that it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to go.

  Yet already he knew he’d never want to leave her, and that one kiss would never satisfy.

  Chapter Five

  “The Duke of Amorous is a man of infinite resources and infinite leisure. Alas for him, he lacks the infinite charm of manner that would allow him to take the greatest pleasure in his good fortune!”

  How to Ruin a Duke

  WHEN ROWENA DREW NEAR the town house of the Duke of Emory, she wondered whether she ought to go to the servants entrance or the front door. She wasn’t quite a lady, with her case of piano-tuning tools and the freedom to walk alone in public.

  But she had been invited to the household, albeit for a task. Two days before, the duke’s footman had brought piano-tuning request number four—and before the day was out, she’d added numbers five and six to her schedule for the week.

  To the devil with it. She was a busy woman. Rowena marched up the marble steps and rapped at the front door.

  When the elderly butler opened it to her, she announced, “I’m from Fairweather’s, here to tune the duchess’s pianoforte.”

  “Yes, Miss Fairweather,” intoned the old servant, as stuffily as if he hadn’t seen her take tea with Edith here in past years when Edith had served as the duchess’s companion. “But Her Grace has always had the pianoforte tuned by Mr. Fairweather.”

  Rowena lifted her chin. “As Mr. Fairweather passed away nearly a year ago, I doubt Her Grace would find his skills adequate. And if my father was the last to tune the duchess’s pianoforte, the instrument must be sadly jangled by this time. You will be fortunate if I do not raise my rates.”

  He eyed her gloved hands clasping the handle of her case of tools. “I doubt whether you will serve the purpose.”

  He began to shut the door.

  Rowena’s thoughts whirled. What would Simon Thorn do or say? He wouldn’t give up. He’d press from a different angle.

  So she shot out a foot, catching the door against the toe of her boot. “If you refer to my unmatched set of hands,” she said crisply, “I assure you they are less relevant than my experience and skill. And if you again refer to my sex, well, Her Grace is no doubt aware how much better a woman has to be than a man to get even a fraction of the respect he’s afforded.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Now, will you allow me to enter and complete the task Her Grace’s emissary engaged me for? Or must I explain to the duchess that her pianoforte remains out of tune because you are too limited to respect female knowledge?”

  The butler appeared extremely displeased, yet he drew asid
e and admitted Rowena to the foyer. “Wait here.”

  She was grateful for the reprieve, her heart pounding and cheeks hot, as if she’d just done battle. And she had, hadn’t she? What the ducal butler had seen as weaknesses, she’d asserted as irrelevancies or strengths.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she calmed herself, then inspected her surroundings. She’d been here before as Edith’s guest, though not for some time. The Duke of Emory’s London town house, where he lived with his widowed mother and younger brother, was an elegant but unusual building. The spacious octagonal foyer communicated ducal power in its every inch, from the mosaic of the family crest on the floor, to the sweeping grandeur of the central staircase that vined upward.

  Rowena was surrounded by the scents of wealth, too, of lemony cleaning oil and the flinty smell of air trapped between marble floors and plastered ceilings. She preferred the familiar surroundings of her workshop: the fresh smell of cut wood; the sweet-scented, resinous copal and the astringent shellacs that she used to make her varnishes.

  No matter. Tuning pianofortes paid the bills, and if she was very creative and persuasive, perhaps even the lease. She’d have to speak to Mr. Lifford, her landlord, about offering quarterly payments rather than one annual outlay. It was a possibility that had occurred to her recently.

  “I’ll show her to the music room.” A rumbling masculine voice floated down the grand staircase.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” came the reply in the butler’s vinegary tone.

  So. The old butler had tattled on her to the duke, and the duke was allowing her in. She experienced a flash of triumph, then of curiosity when she realized she’d get another look at the man who inspired How to Ruin a Duke.

  The Duke of Emory rounded the curve of the staircase with heavy footfalls. His Grace was a large man, a little too rough for male beauty, with a strong jaw and weary eyes.

  Rowena curtseyed to him. He nodded a greeting. When he reached the foyer, he said, “My mother and brother are gallivanting around Town, while I find myself short of invitations. You will know why, I am sure.”