“I know it sounds drastic,” he explained. “But I was crushed to learn all my compositions had walked out the door. At the time, it seemed the only way to protect those that remained. After all, the music is still in here.” He tapped his head.
She sighed. “Better it was out here,” she reminded him. “The point of music is not to drive you insane playing over and over inside your head. It is to delight the listener, whether moving us to smiles or to tears.”
“Mrs. Castern said something similar. To excuse her husband’s plagiarism and betrayal.”
Brilliance wanted to confront the woman on Vincent’s behalf. “That is no excuse for stealing.” She recalled the concert. “Mr. Castern paid tribute to her as he has done at each of his concert’s I have seen, which numbers three in the past two years. He always looks up at her in the box and mentions her name and claps along with the audience.”
“I guess he loves her very much,” Vincent said, rising to his feet. “I will make an appointment with a solicitor if you agree to come.”
“Tell me when and where, and I will meet you.”
“With a —”
“With a chaperone,” she promised. “I will behave properly.”
Being an earl’s daughter wouldn’t hurt either, Brilliance mused. And best of all, it seemed she had her friend again.
She only wished, when he had taken his leave, he’d given her some small indication that the events of the past hour would put them back upon the path they had been on before. One in which they gave each other their hearts and decided to live a life together.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brilliance wore a dress of solemn charcoal gray and brought Lord Diamond along to meet with Vincent’s solicitor at Lincoln’s Inn. It was an odd way for her father to meet the man she loved.
“My lord!” Vincent said upon realizing it was the earl who accompanied her. He even bowed.
Brilliance smiled at his discomfiture. She had seen the same reaction all her life when people met Lord Diamond. He was an earl with a formidable presence, tall and quick-witted, while retaining a thick head of dark hair, streaked with a little gray.
Vincent inclined his head, but her father stuck out his hand for a proper handshake.
“I understand you have been robbed.”
“Indeed, I have,” Vincent said. “Although intellectual property is trickier than going to the constable and explaining how my horse was stolen.”
“Was your horse stolen, too?” Brilliance asked.Poor Vincent, he was the unluckiest man.
“No, Lady Brilliance, I was just making a point that the intangible is not usually the purview of the police.”
“Isn’t it?” Brilliance was glad her father had come for she feared she was already starting to lose the thread of Vincent’s explanation.
“Lord Hewitt is correct, but a solicitor should be able to put the fear of God and of lengthy litigation into the perpetrator.”
Walking in front of the two gentlemen, Brilliance let a clerk lead them to the lawyer’s office. In a very few minutes, she was explaining the part she played in allowing Vincent’s music to fall into the hands of Mr. Ambrose Castern.
“I used to admire him greatly. After all, what a pleasant name. Ambrose, I mean. It makes me think of strawberry jelly in a ring mold with chunks of real fruit. I’m sure you know the type,” she said to the solicitor, an older man who was watching her with dark eyes and a slightly open mouth.
“Jelly?” he asked. He looked to Lord Diamond and to Lord Hewitt and back again. “What is the meaning of this?”
Brilliance turned to the earl. “Father, you know what I mean, don’t you? That dessert which Cook makes in June? Although I suppose it could be another type of jelly, such as lemon.” She paused and thought of the nameAmbrose. “No, definitely strawberry jelly, which is very nice with fresh cream on top and a sliver of sponge cake underneath.”
“My daughter is correct. That is one of my favorite desserts, too.”
Brilliance nodded, glad for her father’s assistance. “And Mr. Castern has an equally nice face to go along with his name,” she continued. “Who would ever imagine he could be as bold as Lord Mayor Brass, stepping onto a stage and playing someone else’s music? I can’t imagine doing such a thing, can you?” she asked the solicitor.
When he didn’t answer, she added, “And yet that is precisely what he did. I was at the concert with Lord Redley as my escort.”She glanced at Lord Hewitt, who might have been under the impression she had gone to the concert with her parents.
Did he mind? Did he care?
“Lord Redley is the eldest son of the Earl, Lord Pettigrain,” she explained to the solicitor.
