Gabriel was nervous, Jessica knew. For he had agreed to play the pianoforte for the “impromptu” concert that would begin later in the evening. He had agreed to play the Bach piece he had performed at Elizabeth and Colin’s party and one or two other pieces.
“The thing is,” he had explained to her, “that whenever I have played for other people in the past, it really has been an impromptu thing. I have never had to stare the ordeal in the face for days ahead of time and wonder if I was going to make an utter ass of myself.”
“You will not,” she had said. “Allow yourself to disappear into the world of your music, Gabriel.”
He had given her a hard look. “Youdounderstand,” he had said.
“Yes, I do,” she had assured him.
“And another thing,” he had said, refusing to be fully reassured. “When I play the Bach piece, Jessie, it will be nothing like it was last time. When people use written music, they can more or less guarantee that what they play now will be identical or at least very similar to what they played in the past and what they will play in the future.”
“Yours will be just as lovely this time as it was last, even if not identical,” she had told him. “Better even. Because it will not be music that has been frozen onto a sheet of parchment but music that is living and breathing inside you.”
He had laughed. Though he was no less nervous tonight than he had been since Aunt Matilda asked him during that garden party where he had kissed Jessica for the first time. How could he be nervous over something like this when he had lived through a nightmare of a week, starting with that moment in Hyde Park when he had come so close to being shot in the back and killed?
Jessica would have nightmares about that for the rest of her life.
Everything had been settled. There had been enough witnesses—and illustrious ones at that—to swear that Manley Rochford had been about to shoot an unarmed Gabriel in the back and had been stopped in the nick of time in the only way possible. His motive was perfectly clear to everyone who needed to be convinced. He had been deprived of the title he had so long coveted, and he was fearful that he would be charged with rape and murder. He had compounded the danger of that happening by attempting to kill the man who stood between him and what he had believed rightfully his until the night before. Mr. Ginsberg, though he had a definite motive for killing Manley Rochford, could not rightfully be accused of murdering him. He had shot to save the life of an innocent man, who, moreover, had had his back to his would-be killer.
No one had asked Mr. Ginsberg what his intention had been when he followed Manley to the park. He had returned home. So had Mrs. Rochford and her son, returning to their home and not Brierley. They took the body of Manley with them for burial.
Jessica and Anna had called upon Mrs. Rochford before she left. They had not been at all sure they would be received, but they were. Mrs. Rochford had been wan but gracious. She wasnotsorry, she had assured them, that she was not after all to be the Countess of Lyndale. She had never wanted the title. She had implied, though she had certainly not said it, that she was not sorry either that her husband was gone. She had family of her own, she had told them—brothers and a sister who all lived close by and would support her.Notfinancially, she had added, but in every way that mattered. And she had her son, who she claimed was good at heart and would grow stronger under the influence of his uncles. She had thanked them for calling.
Gabriel had called upon her too—and been received. But she would take nothing from him, he had reported. He owed her nothing. Quite the contrary. She and her son would manage. She would be able to live frugally now that they would be on their own—a statement that had spoken volumes about how Manley had lived. She had thanked him for his offer of help and sent him on his way.
“I am expecting Anthony to return at any moment,” she had explained to him. “I would rather he not find you here, Gabriel.”
Mary had also returned home. They had wanted her to stay until they were ready to go themselves, but she had explained to them that she was no longer needed here and was missing her home and her animals and her garden quite dreadfully.
Gabriel was sending Mr. Norton back to Brierley with Mary to take over as estate manager from the man Manley Rochford had put in place. Mr. Norton had much to do to start sorting out the mess of fired servants and the ones who had been brought in instead of them. All must somehow be found employment, Gabriel had instructed Mr. Norton, since it would be grossly unfair to make servants suffer for the perfidy of their employer. Mr. Norton had been confident that he could settle all to his lordship’s satisfaction. A number of the servants could simply be sent back to Mrs. Rochford’s home, for example. She would surely have need of at least some of them.
Mr. Norton and Mary returned in a carriage that was far more comfortable than the one they had come in. And, despite Mary’s protests, Ruth had been dispatched with her. Jessica could manage perfectly well without her maid until she reached Brierley herself, she had assured Mary not quite truthfully. And it was unthinkable for Mary to travel alone, with only a man for company—though she had done it on the way to London, of course.
Jessica and Gabriel were to leave tomorrow. All their belongings were packed. Tonight was a farewell with the family, though Jessica did not doubt that at least a few of them would turn up at the hotel tomorrow morning to wave them on their way.
The thought of leaving, of being far away in a place she had never seen before, a place moreover that had a rather sad history as far as Gabriel was concerned, brought a lump to her throat. But she swallowed it away determinedly and smiled as she greeted her relatives and the other guests at the soiree.
She was, after all, Jessica Thorne, Countess of Lyndale.
Aunt Matilda would be very pleased with her soiree, she thought later in the evening. Her drawing room was crowded, though not packed to the point of discomfort, and it seemed that all her guests, family and friends alike, were in unusually high spirits. The past week had been a good one for the family despite the stress. They had come together, as they always did, to deal with a crisis that threatened one of their own, and they had prevailed. Jessica had married well, her husband had assumed his title, and the two of them were about to set off for the earl’s home and estate and the beginning of a new life together.
“And as is perfectly clear to us all, Jessica and Gabriel,” Aunt Matilda said to them at one point in the evening, “you have followed the Westcott family tradition and made a love match.Weheard about the scene in the tearoom, did we not, Elizabeth? Mama told me even before Charles read it aloud to me from the morning paper the day after.”
“And Colin and I heard it from a dozen people who thought we might be interested to know,” Elizabeth said, looking from one to the other of them with her usual twinkling smile. “I only wish I had been there to see it for myself. What a romantic moment it must have been. It drew cheers.”
Jessica felt herself blushing. Not so much over the reminder of that scene in the tearoom, but because Gabriel was at her side, hearing Aunt Matilda assume that theirs was a love match. She had no idea if it was true and she tried not to think of it. They were indeed embarking upon a new life, and it would be challenge enough, though not nearly as great a one as Gabriel had feared when he had chosen her as his bride. Her specifically. Not because he had loved her, but because he had judged that she had the connections and character and education and experience and demeanor to do an adequate job as his countess.
Those guests who were not family seemed as happy to be at the soiree as everyone else. The new Earl of Lyndale and his countess had achieved a great deal of fame since the masquerade ball, and they were obviously the main attraction this evening. None of which did anything to allay Gabriel’s fraught nerves, Jessica suspected.
One of the guests, a thin, pale young lady who was there with her mother, opened the impromptu concert with three songs to her mother’s accompaniment on the harp. She had a sweet, untrained soprano voice, which did not at all seem to go with her unremarkable appearance. She was someone else, Jessica thought, who held great beauty inside herself until it was time to release it as music.
“She sings like an angel,” Grandmama said loudly enough to be heard by almost everyone after the applause had died down.
Yes, she did.
She was followed by the very young son of Viscount Dirkson’s elder daughter. He played some sort of jig on his violin and got everyone’s toes tapping, even though he paused a few times, breaking the rhythm, while his little fingers felt around for the note he needed in order to proceed. He favored the audience with a gap-toothed grin when they applauded, and when someone suggested an encore, he played it all over again, pauses and all, before setting his instrument down with a clatter and dashing for his grandpapa, who scooped him up and let him hide his face against his broad shoulder.
Viscount Dirkson was also Katy and Seth’s grandpapa, Jessica thought suddenly—Abby and Gil’s children, that was. And she felt a sudden melancholy at the thought that her cousin and best friend was so far away and soon would be farther. When would they see each other again? But that was the nature of life when one grew up, and she could not honestly say she wished she was going to stay here, close to her family. Not when that would mean letting Gabriel leave without her.
