“I’m sweating through my clothes,” St. John said. “I’ve never been so nervous in my life.”
He was pacing behind the curtain on the stage of the ballroom in The Grand Palace on the Thames. Delacorte had poked his head through the curtain to see if they were ready to start the recital. They were not.
“You should be,” Delacorte told him sympathetically. “I’ve heard you play.”
“I’ve gotten better!” St. John said, panicked.
“Perhaps when you’re evicted the blokes who run the livery stables will let you sleep there until Barking Road clears,” Delacorte said kindly. “Unless you can swim. Though St. Leger knows a fellow with a little boat. And you’ll need hip waders for the rest of the journey into town.”
St. John made a growling sound.
Delacorte removed his face from the curtain and went to join the little audience, which was all atwitter with anticipation. Angelique and Delilah sat in the first row, like a pair of Caesars ready to deliver a thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict.
Otto and Hans and Friedreich paced like worried parents.
“Not too much bow, St. John!” Otto reminded him, gesturing. “More bow on the low notes! Remember, more bow on the low note!”
“Right. Right right right right,” St. John muttered.
It had been an alarming revelation to him that one didn’t just saw away at a cello. There was a lot of subtlety and actual technique involved.
“Keep your elbow up, McDonald. Keep your hand straight, McDonald! Watch Frau Pariseau!” Friedreich admonished.
Mrs. Pariseau beamed with the universal pleasure of being the star pupil.
The German boys had proven to be strict and very good teachers. They’d been personally offended any time careless squawking noises emerged from their instruments.
Gratifyingly, none of their pupils were hapless.
And all of them, when they finally strung notes together by dragging bows across strings, had lit up with the magic of creation. Even St. John.
“I’ve never had to do anything for myshelterbefore,” St. John fretted.
“Is daily life of musician!” Otto told St. John sternly. “Be brave!”
For the mornings following what was to be their final game of Spillikins, two mornings, Daphne had spooned the sugar into Lorcan’s cup, and then poured his coffee.
For two mornings, he had cut her scone into little pieces with a sharp knife.
They were as careful of each other as they would have been with grenades or rare crystal, solicitous and kind.
He had made a grand, reckless gesture, and she had refused it.
She had thrown herself into his arms, and he had shown her the stars.
For two days after that, she’d seen very little of him.
“I will be gone for most of the day on matters of business. Meeting with my banker. My solicitor. And then I’ll need to see about provisioning my ship.”
He’d told her so she’d know he wasn’t deliberately avoiding her. So that she wouldn’t feel abandoned or misused, after riding him and begging him for pleasure while half-naked in his arms. She understood this.
And yet she knew the distance was wise. That even if they didn’t speak, the silence was loud. That in not speaking, they were tacitly admitting to something that neither dared name, and to Daphne seemed nearly as indistinguishable from joy as it was from terror. And would end only in grief.
In the sitting room at night, she joined in card games or knitting with the ladies, while Lorcan exchanged bawdy witticisms with the Germans or chatted with Delacorte and Lord Bolt and Captain Hardy, with what to Daphne seemed improved civility. Last night everyone had gathered around to hear the German trio brilliantly play Bach, and Daphne welcomed the camouflage of achingbeauty, because her eyes were not the only ones shining with tears. Lorcan’s face had been taut.
And then he was off to the smoking room to presumably curse and smoke and whatever the men there did, and she went up to their suite without him.
She would not sleep until she heard him return. But she was in bed behind a closed door when he did.
