“Again, no.”
Brilliance hesitated. “Please send in Mr. CasternandBelinda, if you would be so kind.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Brilliance began wringing her hands with nervousness but managed to stop herself by putting them behind her back. Her fingers met over the top of her bell-shaped skirts.
Mr. Dunley returned, and with a flourish of his hand, he presented Mr. Castern, who was holding his hat in his hand. He bowed deferentially as soon as he saw her.
“Good day, Mr. Castern.” Brilliance had already decided to be civil, but she would not offer him tea.
“Good day, my lady.” He looked around at his surroundings with interest. “My, my, what a home you have.”
“Thank you.” She waited. Mr. Castern sighed, and a most put-upon expression came over his boyish face. Yet for a long moment, he still said nothing more.
“Will you sit?” she asked, still wondering how one treated a man in one’s home who was neither a suitor nor even invited.
“How kind of you,” he said. “And I would love a cup of tea, dear lady. I’m quite parched.”
Dear lady! Hm. She glanced at Mr. Dunley who had awaited her next request. “Please bring in the tea service.”
“Yes, my lady. Belinda will be in momentarily,” he added. Then the loyal Diamond butler sent a sharp glance toward her unexpected visitor before departing while leaving the drawing-room door open.
“I cannot imagine living your existence,” Mr. Castern said.
“Really?” Brilliance wondered. “Which part of it and why?” Intrigued, she took her favorite seat.
Surprisingly, he sat at the opposite end of the same sofa, so she had to turn to converse with him.
“My lady, I only mean it must be a different world when you are born to such wealth and luxury. You know only comfort, warmth, and a full stomach. Without a care.”
“Whereas you are implying that you haven’t known any of that, sir?”
“I didn’t whilst growing up. I do now, of course. Regardless of what anyone has told you,” he said, then paused meaningfully before continuing, “I have had to struggle and work hard all my life. Now, due to my musical talent, I have earned a comfortable home, and abundance of food, and —”
Belinda came in, and Brilliance, confounded by Mr. Castern’s tale, waved her toward the other end of the room.
“Go on,” she urged him.
“In short, I amnota monster,” Ambrose Castern said emphatically. “I am a hard-working pianist who does not deserve this persistent harassment and cruel defamation.”
“Defamation?” she mused. “You may not be a monster, sir, and I never said you were, but you are a plagiarist, are you not?”
He shook his head, looking disappointed. “Lady Brilliance, I know you have been influenced by Lord Hewitt, my long-time acquaintance. We were very close at one time.”
“Before you stole his music.”
Just then, when he looked as though he might become annoyed, a footman came in with the tea service.
“I shall pour,” she told him and sent him away. After she’d handed Mr. Castern a full cup and saucer, she said, “You could hardly expect to remain close after what you did.”
“My lady, we were as brothers. We worked alongside one another when in the dormitories of Harrow. And we attended Trinity together. After graduation, when he could spare the time from Parliament, at his townhouse here in London and even at his home in Joyden’s Wood, we continued to share a passion for music.”
He sipped the tea and added, “We never went to my mean, little house, for Hewitt lives like you, with all the ease of a titled, wealthy nobleman. If you can imagine the two of us humming, writing down notes, taking turns at the piano ...” He shrugged. “I don’t believe we knew in the end who wrote what or wheremycomposition began andhisended.”
“I see. You decided to take the music, since you were in the room when he’d composed it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Not at all. Who is to say who composed which piece of music?”
