Let it be Me (Blue Raven) (3 page)

Of course, she was not to be sent to Signor Carpenini. She knew this immediately. He was going to Italy the next day, after all, and Bridget was but fourteen. And no girl, especially not one of aristocratic birth, would be allowed to travel to Italy alone to study music.

But she had been so
proud
when he had said it. Practically glowing with it, her mother commented to her later. So full of . . . confidence.

It had been a long time since Bridget had felt such confidence. To know that
she
was the one, for that briefest moment in time, standing at the center of the universe and succeeding at the task in front of her.

But again, that was more than five years ago.

“Of course I remember the Signore,” Bridget answered her sister. “But he apparently doesn’t remember me. My name is not Brittany,” she murmured, on a frown.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “He certainly remembers your playing! Who else could he mean, silly?” She snatched the letter back, before Bridget could stop her. “You’re the only one of us he heard play—and besides, you’re the only one who could have ‘great raw skill’ . . . Sarah and I are abysmal.”

“He thinks my skill raw,” Bridget said dully. Then a terrible thought wretched through her. “Oh Lord—does that mean he thinks I play
poorly
? As if I am too unformed a player to have any true talent?”

Amanda blinked at her twice before shaking her head. “How is it possible that you heard only that one word? Instead of
great
and
skill
?”

Instead of answering, Bridget snatched the letter back. “Hold on. I have to read it again. I have to make certain—”

“Make certain of what? Yes, you play excellent pianoforte. Yes, he wants to tutor you. Yes, yes, yes!” Amanda cried, grabbing Bridget by the shoulders and giving her a small shake. “And most importantly, yes, you have to tell Mother that you rifled the mail without her knowledge.”

“Oh, hang that!” Bridget said, her heartbeat finally catching up with her shock as excitement coursed through her body. “You tell her
you
rifled the mail, and then I’ll tell her I am about to become a student of the great composer Signor Carpenini!”

Lady Forrester was duly annoyed at her youngest daughter and duly enthusiastic for her middle child upon hearing about the letter.

“Of course we will receive him when he comes, darling!” Lady Forrester cried. “He doesn’t list a date of arrival, does he? Hmm . . . well, for now I suppose there is little to be done but wait.”

And so they waited. Bridget practiced and practiced while she waited. She went to boring teas and dances where she was rarely asked to partner anyone. But now, it was actually tolerable. Because she had this shining, glowing ball of light inside her. A secret, better than anything anyone had ever had happen to them.

Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it, that such a shining glowing secret could not stay secret for long.

It happened casually. Some first-Season debutante, her mother hovering gently in the background with Lady Forrester, asking Bridget in the awkward silence of polite small talk if she played music.

“Oh, yes,” Bridget replied smartly. “I’ve played forever.”

“Oh, as have I,” the debutante—a Miss Parrish, who had in a few short weeks in the Little Season gained a reputation as a silly girl with as voracious an appetite for gossip as her mother had for food—said on a very dramatic sigh. “I absolutely loathed it as a girl. All those lessons, and music masters forcing me to spend hours on a hard bench, bored to tears—why, it was only when I pointed out to my mother how ugly and curled my hands were becoming that I was permitted to stop!” She finished on a laugh and glanced pointedly at Bridget’s hands.

Bridget stretched out her gloved fingers. They were long and elegant, nothing cramped or ugly about them. Granted, they were a little smaller than ideal—she could barely span an octave, no matter how much she stretched her hands—and the constant practice kept her nails blunt, but out of everything that could possibly be wrong with Bridget, her hands were certainly not one of them.

“Actually, I’ve found that constant practice keeps my fingers dexterous and nimble. Perhaps your music master had you positioning yours incorrectly,” Bridget replied, unable to keep a hint of archness out of her voice. Then she let her gaze slide to Miss Parrish’s hands, which were so plump, they looked like sausages in her gloves.

“Oh, so you still take lessons?” Miss Parrish continued, seemingly ignorant of any askance looks on Bridget’s part. “One would think that such instruction would have ended with the schoolroom. But if you require extra lessons . . .”

“Oh I wouldn’t call them a requirement,” Bridget responded, her reaction to the smugness in Miss Parrish’s voice strong and swift. Her own voice rose in volume, ever so slightly. “But when Signor Carpenini asks to take one on as a student, the extra instruction seems worthwhile.”

“Signor Carpenini?” Miss Parrish repeated, blinking in surprise. Mrs. Parrish, who had suspended her conversation with Bridget’s mother and taken a half step closer to them, blinked, too.

“Yes,” Lady Forrester said, jumping into the fray. “When the man returns to London, Bridget is to be one of his pupils.”

“You must be incredibly accomplished, Miss Forrester,” Mrs. Parrish replied.

“Er, yes,” Miss Parrish added, after a pointed look from her mother. “Perhaps you should put on a musicale, Miss Forrester. Show everyone your talent.”

“Perhaps we shall,” Lady Forrester replied. “But most likely in the regular Season. Bridget darling, I see your father calling us.”

And with that curtsies were made, and Lady Forrester excused them from the Parrishes.

“Mrs. Parrish grew her daughter’s penchant for gossip,” Lady Forrester muttered, taking Bridget’s arm while pulling her silk shawl tighter about herself. It was remarkably cold for a ballroom full of people, but the winter so far had no intentions of being mild. “It will be all over before tomorrow. I told you, we should keep this to ourselves for now.”

Bridget grimaced as her mother’s fingers unwittingly bit deeper into her arm. “I know, Mother, I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop myself.” Then she looked up, as if raising her eyes to the heavens. “Surely it isn’t a terrible thing to have known. After all, he
is
coming back, and I
will
be his pupil.”

“I know, my dear, I know.” Lady Forrester squeezed her hand as they threaded through the crowd. “But it invites trouble to brag about future accomplishments. I simply do not wish to put the cart before the horse. Do you take my meaning?”

Bridget grasped her mother’s meaning—but she did not understand the full measure of her social mistake until a week or so later. Yes, indeed, Miss Parrish and her mother had managed to work Bridget’s stunning news into every conversation they had. For a few days, it actually had a positive effect on Bridget’s popularity. She was asked to dance once at a public ball, and twice at small soirees. Granted, both times there was a scarcity of other partners to be had, but Bridget was strictly admonished to “not look a gift horse in the mouth.” (Her mother’s recent overuse of horses in metaphors merited some attention, however.)

But the most unfortunate surprise was when Lady Worth, a leading society matron and a dear friend of her sister Sarah—and a lady whose very voice set Bridget’s teeth on edge—asked Bridget to play the pianoforte.

“My dear, you simply must!” Phillippa, Lady Worth, said, as they milled around her alarmingly pink drawing room, waiting for dinner to be rung. Lady Worth’s dinner parties, as with all of Lady Worth’s activities, were the height of fashion. Therefore one could expect to be served fashionably late. “After we dine, I should love to hear what you’ve been working on!” Then she turned to Lady Chatsworth, a woman of Mrs. Parrish’s social circle who seemed appropriately cowed to have been invited to a party by Phillippa Worth. “Of course, I’ve heard Miss Forrester play many times when I have visited her home, and she is so talented. But she so rarely accepts invitations to play publicly!”

A trickle of fear ran down Bridget’s spine. Yes, since coming out, she rarely accepted invitations to play in public, with good reason.

“I find it so odd that you would not wish to play in public, Miss Forrester,” Lady Chatsworth was saying, a glint of suspicion in her eye. “Especially considering the status of tutor your playing apparently attracts.”

Bridget blinked twice, hesitating. Luckily Lady Worth was there to fill the void.

“Precisely why she does not! Indeed, I think we should be thanking her,” Phillippa smiled easily. “Think of how all the other young ladies, like your own Henrietta, who practice their scales and trills and whatnot, would have felt having to play after someone of such refined skill?”

“Yes . . . well . . .” Lady Chatsworth said, her cheeks becoming florid. “Henrietta’s playing was proficient enough to win her a fine fiancé. Without the help of fancy Italian tutors.”

“I would never say otherwise!” Phillippa cried. “Indeed, I am all astonishment that you would think so! I should never say something so rude about one of my guests. As I know, neither would you.” Steel had laced her sweet words, and Lady Chatsworth was smart enough to concede to the more socially influential lady in the room.

Perhaps Lady Worth’s voice was not so grating after all, Bridget had to admit to herself.

“You simply have to play for us after supper,” Lady Worth said graciously, turning back to Bridget. But her smile was firm and insistent.

Dread. Cold, pure dread started in the base of her stomach. But no, she would turn it away. Force it into submission. It was ridiculous, and more to the point, utterly vain to be nervous about playing. Thus she forced a smile that matched Lady Worth’s, and replied, “With pleasure, ma’am.”

As the eavesdropping vultures moved off from their little circle, Lady Worth turned her full attention to Bridget. “You are suddenly quite alarming pale, Miss Forrester,” she assessed, keeping her smile for appearances’ sake. “Dare I assume you suffer from a touch of nerves?”

Heat flushed across Bridget’s face. She
hated
being so transparent. Especially to someone like Lady Worth, whose manipulations were partially to blame for Sarah’s success the previous Season. Bridget had resented the highly polished woman for her interference, no matter that Sarah had flourished under it. And Lady Worth had tended to regard her—at least in Bridget’s estimation—as little more than a bothersome fly.

Although why she would concern herself with how Bridget felt now, she had no idea.

“I do not think my playing is a good idea, Lady Worth. I have nothing prepared . . .” Bridget began to demur, but Lady Worth cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You sister tells me you have hundreds of pieces memorized. And your mother tells me you play hours every day, so one must assume you have something in your repertoire.”

Bridget’s mind looped back over the course of the past week. The occasional dances, the gushing from one lady who said she was
sooo
lucky to have such a tutor, the pointed glances, and then her mother insisting on fitting this dinner party into their incredibly empty schedule. Bridget sought the eyes of her mother across the room and found her suspicions confirmed in Lady Forrester’s guilty look.

“You mean . . . did you throw this dinner party so I would have a stage upon which to exhibit?” Bridget asked, her entire body freezing in fear.

“Of course not,” Phillippa replied. “Although it is the only reason I would invite Lady Chatsworth. She is the most musically inclined of her little group. And it is why I invited Lord Merrick, of course.”

“Lord Merrick?” Bridget asked. The name was incredibly familiar.

“Yes—the father of Mr. Oliver Merrick, Signor Carpenini’s friend. The one who wrote you. Heavens, child, you mean you have not been introduced? That will be remedied shortly. You are seated next to him at dinner. To my knowledge, he is not particularly musical, but his late wife was,” Lady Worth continued. “So you should be able to impress him with your knowledge.”

Bridget was going to demur further, try to talk her way out of this situation that had put a hole in her stomach, but Lady Worth took her by the elbow and steered her to a more private corner of the room, where her smile instantly dropped.

“My dear Miss Bridget, if you are to convince the populace that you have what it takes to be a student of Signor Carpenini, you
must
play. There is simply no other way around it. Now, if you are as good as I assume you to be, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Spoken like someone who had never worried about anything, Bridget thought, her mind a huff. Never worried about how she was being perceived, about how people were
judging
, looking, peering closely to see if the cracks lined up as they should.

Bridget was a marvelous player. She never had loved anything like she loved music, and never would. But at some point, early in her first Season . . . music had failed her.

She had stood up to play at her first party—certain that this would be the thing to make her shine, the thing to make her stand out from a crowded field of young debutantes of refinement. She had smiled as she sat at the beautiful, expensive showpiece of a pianoforte, and . . .