He played a unique version of “Sleepers Awake,” a bold choice for a solo violin. It was a credit to his proficiency that I never missed the violas, basses or horns. I sat, amazed. He must have played it before, that much was certain, and yet I had not seen a violin in his rooms.
The piece rose and fell in arching phrases, by turns sweet and soaring. I heard Jane’s breath catch and I glanced at Portia, unblinking beside me. The duke was still snoring gently, but it did not matter. The music was enchanting. It felt true and pure and I gaped at Brisbane. He was a genius. Why had I not realized it before? Surely talent like that must leave its mark on the face? In the eyes?
I was still gaping when he brought the piece to its high, triumphant close. I moved to clap, but before I could bring my hands together, Brisbane—whose attention had been fixed upon his instrument—threw a look at his uncle. The old gentleman, intent upon his snores, missed it entirely, but it made my blood run cold. There was a chill in that look, a malevolence that I would never have credited had I not seen it. It vanished quickly, replaced by his usual cool mask, but I wondered at the antipathy between them—at least, I wondered until Brisbane began to play.
From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard before. This was no church piece. It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it—it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been—and its presence was something out of myth. It was apart from Brisbane, this melody he created, spun from dreams and darkness.
I dragged my eyes from him and realized that I was not the only one so affected. Jane was sitting with her mouth agape, her handkerchief in shreds under her nails. Portia was squirming in her chair, and both of them were blushing and moist as June roses. I did not dare look at Aunt Hermia.
I told myself I was disgusted by them. A fine pair of Sapphic lovers they were, getting themselves pink and panting over a man and his violin. But in truth, I was the worst. My palms were damp, my face hotly red, and I found myself staring at those long, nimble fingers, thinking very unsuitable things. I told myself it was natural. I had been a widow for a year, had not known the affectionate touch of a man for much longer. It was expected that I would find an attraction to a handsome gentleman of my acquaintance.
But I was not interested in pragmatism. I was too busily engaged with fragrant fantasies stretched out on red velvet. I dug my nails into my palms, but my gloves prevented any real pain. Instead I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted the metallic salty redness of my own blood.
If Brisbane sensed anything of his audience’s reaction, he did not betray it. He played on, or perhaps the music played him, for he performed as one possessed. The music arced and twisted, tightening and coiling upon itself, rising faster and faster, almost shrieking with pitched emotion, until—at the very height of its ecstasy—a string snapped with a mandrake scream. The violin itself seemed to sob at the echo of the sound, which had the report of a gunshot. Brisbane remained perfectly still, his bow poised until the echo died away. Then he turned coolly and laid the injured instrument down upon the piano.
“My apologies, my lady,” he murmured to Aunt Hermia. “I shall of course make arrangements for the repair.”
She replied, something suitable I am sure, as she patted herself discreetly with her handkerchief. Conversation was roused and people began to stir. I heard my father complimenting the performance, and Brisbane’s quiet reply. Father must have been sincere, for he introduced Brisbane to Crab, a singular honour. Portia shot me a speaking look, and Jane was moving toward Brisbane to add her accolades. I acknowledged none of it, taking a moment instead to regain my composure and waiting for my knees to stop trembling.
I rose after a moment and decided to fetch myself a glass of champagne. Brisbane waylaid me.
“Ah, Mr. Brisbane. You are a virtuoso. You should have warned me. You must think us frightfully unsophisticated in our little family entertainments.”
His look was impenetrable. I could not tell if he were pleased or embarrassed or merely bored. “Not at all. I play only rarely these days, and never for so appreciative an audience.”
He leaned near, ostensibly to reach past me to pick up a glass of champagne. But as his sleeve brushed my arm, he said softly, “I must see you tomorrow. Mordecai has news.”
My eyes flared with interest, then dropped demurely. “When?”
“Five o’clock. My rooms.”
He pressed the glass into my hands and I smiled my acceptance, giving him a single short nod. He moved away then, approaching Aunt Hermia. I watched him for a moment, thinking that this was a man whose depths I would never begin to plumb.
And for some reason, my gaze fell, quite by accident upon the duke. He, too, was watching Brisbane, but his expression was not one of admiration. He had awakened during his great-nephew’s performance, his features twisted with irritation at having his nap disturbed. But now they betrayed more than mere annoyance. There was frustration there, and something worse—something that looked frighteningly like hatred. I would not forget that look for a very long time.
Much later, as I lay awake, late into the night, I heard the faint scrape of footsteps on the stair. There was a long pause and then the unmistakable slither of stocking feet on a polished floor. Valerius had stopped to remove his shoes before moving past my door to his room. I put my hand to my dressing gown. I meant to rise, to go to him and demand an explanation for bloodied shirts and despoiled graves.
But I thought again of what Magda had told me and what I had deduced for myself, and I lay back down, too cowardly to do what must be done. Soon, I promised myself. Soon I would go to him and lay out what I knew, and tell him what must be done. But not just yet. It would mean disgrace for Val and banishment from the family. And in spite of our troubles, I could not bear to lose him yet. He was still my youngest brother, still the tiny, squalling infant who had been left motherless so many years ago, in need of his family’s protection. So I would protect him, I decided, staring sightlessly into the dark. I would say nothing, and I would keep him as long as I could.
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER
Our fears do make us traitors.
—William Shakespeare
Macbeth
Idid not sleep well that night. I remembered the hateful look that Brisbane had cast his great-uncle, and the vicious one he had received in turn later. I wondered, late into the darkness, why malevolence in the elderly should be so much more frightening than in the young. Is it because they were supposed to be wiser? Nobler? Or simply because we liked to believe they were past such passions? It was comforting to think that the sharper emotions could simply dull with time, taking the worst of our suffering with them.
But the duke did not seem dulled, I thought with a shiver. Between his salaciousness and his inexplicable malice toward Brisbane, he seemed as ripe as a youth of eighteen. Even if he did resemble the desiccated husk of an old fruit, I thought with a snicker. I had heard once that age stamps character on the face, that one’s passions were slowly etched over time, limning both experience and desire upon the features. If this were true, the duke’s face told a rather alarming tale, especially when compared to Father’s. Where the duke’s visage was a memoir of thwarted passion, Father’s was a love letter, creased and soft with much appreciation. There was good humour in Father’s eyes, while the duke’s bore the slightest sinister cast. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, I hoped to see more of the old gentleman—and not the least because he was Brisbane’s kinsman. If the affection between them was interesting, the antipathy was much more so.
Yet even the puzzling old Duke of Aberdour could not dampen my spirits the next morning. I rose as soon as Morag appeared with my tea tray, surprising her as well as myself. I hummed a little as she drew my bath and instructed her to lay out one of my new costumes—a striking striped ensemble of black-and-white silk, fixed with discreet, ruby-set buttons. There was a new hat as well, all black ribbon and red taffeta roses, with pure white ostrich plumes waving above. I was more than a little in love with that hat. But it was the new scarlet stockings that drove Morag to question me, her long rabbity nose quivering with curiosity.
“Are you feeling quite well, my lady?”
I smiled broadly at her. “Quite. Put out Madame de Bellefleur’s rose salve, will you? I shall dress after luncheon. I am going out this afternoon.”
She did so, eyeing me the way a nervous rider will a skittish horse. She was waiting for me to bite or bolt. I continued to smile at her as she brushed my hair. She stripped out the fallen hair from the brush and shoved it into the hair receiver.
