How profoundly selfish,Sophie thought.
More performances: Robbie and Freddie, the Aeolian Club. Sophie managed to resist the urge to chew her nails down to the quick. And when she stretched her hands for the hundredth time, trying to keep them busy, she realized: she hadn’t actually thought about Mr. Verrinder in weeks.
She’d been too occupied practicing her waltz, kissing Maddie Crewe, and plotting to defraud Mr. Giles. Only one of those was truly virtuous, but they’d all been enjoyable. More than enjoyable—they’d made her feel like the strongest and truest version of herself.
Maybe this was what healing felt like.
One final quartet finished playing, and carried their instruments away. The piano was once again alone out there, shining like a torch in the candlelight.
Maddie Crewe leaned forward in her seat, roses blooming in her cheeks.
She had woven the silk programs; she had known the order of performances. She knew Sophie would be up next. The finale, the last great spectacle of the night.
Maddie was eager for it, the curve of her lips evident even at this distance.
Sophie gazed at the woman she loved more than she’d ever thought possible, and like her mother so many years before, she knew she was doing all this tonight for one reason and one reason only: to enthrall and enchant one particular audience member. In the hope she could steal Maddie’s heart so thoroughly they would spend the rest of their lives tangled up together.
And she realized: this was what Mrs. Roseingrave had talked about. This was one of those perfect moments that happened only so often in the course of a musician’s career.
There was nothing to do but give it everything she had.
Sophie strode into the light and curtsied to all of Carrisford. She sat on the bench and smoothed out her skirts so her feet could reach the pedals unimpeded.
The waltz unfurled in her mind like a map to the next ten minutes.
She felt Maddie’s gaze on her, warm with approval.
She breathed in deep, raised her hands, and began to play.
Maddie had suspected it, but now she was sure: Sophie Roseingrave was a musical genius.
She’d heard “The Hellion’s Waltz” once before, so she ought to have been prepared. But it was one thing to hear it played in a close and intimate setting, for an audience of one—it was quite another to be sitting in a throng as Sophie’s incredible hands pulled note after note out of the piano shining under the lights. The audience was rapt, utterly entranced by the skill of the composer and the performer, the air thick with the peculiar tension that happens only when hundreds upon hundreds of people are all holding their breath with wonder.
It was such a shame they wouldn’t get to hear the ending.
As the third and final section started up—the two melodies singing together, harmony ringing out honey-sweet in the Moot Hall—Mrs. Money made her move.
Maddie had watched her closely the whole night, sitting beside their victim. Mr. Giles had tapped his foot impatiently through every performance in such a way as to make Maddie reconsider the wisdom of murdering him and throwing his body in the river. And now, as the final movement of the final piece rang out, and everyone’s attention was fixed upon the small figure on stage, the evening’s real performance began.
Mrs. Money took a few folded sheets of paper out of her purse, wrapped them quickly in her silk souvenir program, and handed it to Mr. Giles. He, in turn, passed her a small purse, with a cord she quickly looped over her wrist.
Then Mrs. Money rose and crept to the side, ready to make her way out of the hall.
Mr. Giles tried to tuck the silk-wrapped bundle in his coat, but it was just large enough to be awkward. He fought with it. Mr. Roseingrave noticed the gesture, and from across the aisle Maddie could just hear him say: “Oh! Oh, dear. Your program is badly creased, Mr. Giles—do let me offer you a fresh one.”
And he plucked the silk from Mr. Giles’s hand.
Maddie’s every muscle tensed.
“Give that back, sir!” Mr. Giles hissed—too loudly. People from the second and third row shushed him, frowning at the unmelodious interruption.
Mr. Roseingrave had already cast his eye upon the paper, enough to read what little was written there. Maddie’s hands clenched, as the piano maker’s eyes flicked up again, narrowed in offense. His tone was a shade louder than before, as if he had briefly forgotten he was at a concert. “I beg your pardon, sir, but this is not a gambling hall.”
“What?”
Mr. Giles’s exclamation rippled through a quarter of the audience. More heads turned, and an irritated whisper rose from the crowd.
On stage, Sophie’s hand slipped, and the first wrong note marred the waltz.
