Max blinked at him. “Musicale mystery?”
The doorman rolled his eyes. “All the fine gentlemen are positively a-flutter. The Grenvilles have called off all further musicales and no one knows why.”
Max furrowed his brow. The Grenville musicales were a London institution. Even after the eldest siblings had married, they continued to perform with the family once or twice a Season. They’d done so for years. A sudden turnabout made no sense.
“What happened?” he asked. Vigo would know. A doorman overheard everything.
“Pawnbroker just came into possession of a Stradivarius in pristine condition.” Vigo shook his head in wonder. “One would think a family like the Grenvilles wouldn’t need to pawn their most prized possessions for a bit of ready blunt.”
Max’s lungs tightened.
The heads of the Grenville family did not need to visit pawn shops in order to get their hands on any quantity of coin.
The youngest daughter, however, had no such limitless resources. The purchase of Max’s property must have cost Bryony every spare penny she had ever earned.
“A Stradivarius?” he repeated hoarsely. “He is certain?”
Of course the pawnbroker was certain. It was his job to be certain.
“Handed to him by a Grenville chit herself.” Vigo made his way toward his post at the front of the club. “Don’t be surprised if the end of the Grenville musicales is all anyone speaks of for the next fortnight.”
Max’s stomach twisted. How badly he had misjudged her. Bryony was not trying to be high-handed and imperious.
The opposite.
She had given up her own future in order to better theirs. Had given him her time, her brain, and her body. Sold her most priceless possession in order to give Frances an opportunity, with no guarantee the gesture would even be accepted.
Bryony had gambled. She hadrisked. She had placed everything she had earned and owned, from her investments to her heart, on the table. And then she had handed her highest trump cards to other players.
She was exactly the woman he had always thought she was. He was the one who had taken a beautiful thing and crumbled it to ash.
Max swung his gaze toward his open office door. At the deed lying upon his desk.
She had given it to him because she wished to. Bryony had not wanted the property to be forced from her. She wished to be able to choose for herself if and when to relinquish it. His heart beat so fast he feared it would burst from his chest. She had handed it over still hoping they might continue to manage the club together, if only from the shadows.
He owed his sister a heartfelt apology, and he owed Bryony so much more.
To continue on without her would be to live in a world without color or music. A dark hole he had finally climbed out of, thanks to her light.
And now she was gone.
Because her parents would forbid their marriage, because Bryony was no longer his landlord, because there was no longer any reason for her to share any part of Max’s life.
Unless he gave her one.
He took a deep breath.
The tangles of colored thread upon the pillowcase shone brightly in an office otherwise devoid of color. Everything came to life once Bryony touched it.
With a crooked smile, he remembered her teasing dream of burning down Almack’s assembly room and creating a mixed-gender copy of the Cloven Hoof in its place.
His heart skipped. Perhaps the answer had been in front of them all along.
If the Patronesses could run Almack’s however they wished, why couldn’t he and Bryony run the Cloven Hoof together… and open it to everyone? Why couldn’t they both win?
There would be outcry, of course. Just like when the club first opened and a few high-in-the-instep lords publicly protested the Cloven Hoof for allowing entry to people they felt beneath them.
Women were not beneath men. Frances proved it. Bryony proved it. Her sisters proved it. Any gentleman who couldn’t handle the idea of men and women sharing a common space for gaming and good conversation could just keep walking.
