A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal (31 page)

“I doubt she has ever contemplated the question,”
said Simon. “I confess I never gave it much thought myself after our discussion. Neither I nor my wife pay much attention to these passing salon styles.”

Whatever Simon meant, it looked to be the equivalent of a slap, for the woman reddened and retreated a pace. “Yes, I see your point. My goodness, is that Marconi I spot on the other side of the room? If you’ll forgive me—”

“Oh, we would never keep you,” Simon murmured.

The viscountess turned on her heel and stalked away. Watching her retreat, Nell felt sick. Maybe the champagne was souring in her stomach. “What’s a salon style?”

“A musical term,” said Simon. “That’s all.”

No, it wasn’t. Her husband might as well have been speaking a foreign language with that woman—some cozy, secret talk that Nell couldn’t hope to understand. Like adults around a child, she thought, spelling the words to keep the nipper from catching on.

“You’re some sort of musical expert?” she asked. How important did he account this business?

He shrugged. “I’m considered a reliable critic by circles who don’t know very much about it.”

“But you write music. You play the piano every day.” Those weren’t the signs of a man only mildly engaged by a passion.

“Yes.” A line appeared between his brows. “Does that trouble you?”

She shook her head and looked blindly across the room. Lady Swanby was in close conference with a lady in sapphires, both of them smiling, creamily satisfied with themselves. Her pale blue eyes flashed in the light, finding Nell’s briefly, her smile never faltering as she glanced onward.

What if Simon came to long for somebody with whom he could discuss such matters as—as
tone color
?

“Nell,” he said softly, insistently, until she had no choice but to look at him. “There is no cause on earth to let any woman here trouble you.”

Her throat thickened. Sure and he felt that way now, but in three months, or six, when this current between them dimmed, her ignorance might start to trouble him.

A balding, rotund baron staggered up with three glasses of champagne. “A toast,” he chortled. “A toast to Rushden’s newest find! Ain’t you the clever one, Rush! Should’ve known if anyone would find her, you would.”

Nell took the glass with an effortful smile, the liquid sloshing as people pressed in to join the cheer. Simon lifted his flute, making some joke that set everyone to laughing.

A queer chill ran through her. Simon was a man at a party that had started without him but now revolved entirely around him—Nell herself perhaps only the excuse for what was the natural order of things: people crowding forward to bask in her husband’s attention.

She looked down at her glass, at the bubbles popping and disappearing. He’d told her his reputation was too black to win a more conventional heiress—that fathers wouldn’t approve of him, that people talked poorly of him. She didn’t think he’d been lying to her, but obviously he had been lying to himself.

She wondered what had given him such a black view of his own prospects.

She wondered if that black view explained why he’d looked no higher for a bride than a guttersnipe.

She drowned the wicked thought in a long swig of champagne.

An hour later, the company was still buzzing when a man walked into the room and made directly for the vacant piano, where he flipped out his coattails and took possession of the bench.

“Ah,” said Lady Allenton, returning to Nell’s elbow. “Andreasson has deigned to appear!” She directed a delighted look toward Simon, clearly pleased with her party; were she to glow any more brightly, there’d be no need for all the candles. “Your discovery continues to enchant,” she said to him. “I find his music quite … transcendent!”

Nell sighed. Her spirits had started to lift again—the occasion was too merry, the scene too beautiful, to sulk for long. But if everyone was going to start talking music again, she’d need another few glasses of the bubbly to brace herself.

The pianist picked out a few notes, testing his instrument. A hush descended—gradually, incompletely, stray voices still leaping out here and there. Simon took the opportunity to draw Nell back against the wall, putting a foot or two between themselves and the hostess. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, and with his hand on her arm, she meant it.

He returned her smile with one of his own. “What do you think of the crowd tonight?”

She felt as though she’d been walking through a cloud of butterflies, all of them flapping in her face, angling to be noticed. Mostly harmless. Mostly amusing. “They’re friendly,” she said.
But not because of me
.

A thunderclap of chords split the air. The remaining
chatterers fell silent. Anticipation sharpened the pause that opened. And then Andreasson filled it, slamming his hands onto the keyboard and launching forth a dark, vigorous sort of … marching tune, Nell thought. Violent and jangling. The sort bound to give a girl a headache.

But the crowd seemed to like it. Half of the eyes that had pressed upon her a moment ago now turned toward the piano. Nods of approval spread right and left, looks of appreciation on thoughtful faces.

She bit her lip. Didn’t take Mrs. Hemple to guess that laughing would be rude.

Simon leaned down. “What do you think?”

“I think he can’t play nearly as well as you.”

“You’d be wrong,” he said. “Technique aside, though—he’s quite innovative in his compositions.”

The snooty tone rubbed her wrong. He wasn’t talking to Viscountess Swanby. “I can bang on some tin pots for you,” she offered. “I guess that would be original if I did it in a drawing room.”

He snorted. Heads turned and he smiled down at her. “You’ll ruin my reputation with such talk.”

Now he was teasing. “If this pianist didn’t harm it, I’d say you’re ironclad.”

His smile faded a little, growing softer, more intimate, like the look he’d showed her in bed this morning. “You haven’t learned yet when to lie.” Slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him, he added: “I confess, Nell, I hope you never learn.”

She found herself staring at him. Unsteadying thought: there was something hot in his eyes that wasn’t purely want. It was too tender, too … affectionate.

Under that look, secret places in her fluttered to life.
Look at me that way forever
, she thought. She’d
learn everything there was to know about music as long as he always looked at her so.

A dark thought intruded: he might be looking at her, but if he thought she didn’t know when to lie, then he was watching a woman who only existed in his imagination. Nell could lie through her teeth all the day long.
Sorry, Michael, only fourteen shillings this week. Hannah, the gloves are lovely. Simon, I don’t care what you’ve done with that viscountess; this marriage is only for money, after all. I could leave you and never regret the loss …

The piece segued into another—and Simon’s expression went blank at the same moment she recognized the music: the piece he’d written when heartbroken.

Lady Allenton approached, evidently deciding that the bride and groom had enjoyed enough privacy. “Have you had many opportunities to enjoy Mr. Andreasson, my dear? I hope Lord Rushden is not selfish in sharing his coterie’s talents!”

“Not yet,” said Simon, speaking before she could open her mouth. “But I’ve an artist in mind for our wedding portrait. A very unusual talent. There’s a deceptive simplicity to his palette, but his brushwork is extraordinary. The results are astoundingly rich.”

“You
must
give me his name,” Lady Allenton said.

Nell tried to tune out their banter. The music continued to unroll, aching as a bruise, blue as an autumn twilight. It was too sad for company. Listening to it was a terrible pleasure, like putting a frozen hand too close to the fire after a trek through the bitter cold.

But Lady Allenton wanted more of her attention. Inching closer, she said, “Argos. My favorite piece of his. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Nell said softly.

“Some people say he’s a misanthrope,” the woman continued. “But I fancy there must be some other reason for his seclusion. Illness, perhaps. A man who could write such music—he must have a very large heart, don’t you think? I can’t imagine he would scorn the world.”

“Who?”

“Argos,” Lady Allenton said. “The composer of this piece.”

“But this is—”

“Your taste,” Simon said, shooting Nell a look that made her clap her mouth shut, “is superior, Lady Allenton.”

Lady Allenton preened. “Yes, well, I spend a good deal of the winter in Paris, as you know. In such a city, one receives an incomparable education from a mere willingness to listen.”

Nell gaped at him. He let people think this was someone else’s music? He’d never struck her as a modest man, much less a shy one.

The piece drew to a halt. Stunned silence settled—to be punctured, hesitantly at first and then with building, resounding, enthusiasm, by applause.
Click click click
went the ladies’ fans, tapping against rings and jeweled bracelets. Andreasson stood, making his bows, a scowl still fixed firmly on his brow.

“Oh, have we missed the performance?” came a sweet voice—one that caused Simon to catch hold of Nell’s upper arm as though to keep her upright. She glanced up, startled, and then followed the direction of his grim, instructional nod.

The first thing she saw beyond her hostess’s swiveling head was a tall, string-thin man gaping at her in open horror.

And then she saw the girl beside him, one hand frozen where it had lifted in greeting to Lady Allenton. Lady Katherine’s smile was crumbling from her mouth as she locked eyes with Nell.

“Oh, splendid! I was
hoping
you’d join us,” said Lady Allenton.

S
he was real
. Nell could have watched Katherine Aubyn forever: moving, talking, hands waving, voice a bit shrill as she spoke.

“This can’t be happening,” Lady Katherine said. “What sort of trick is this?” She was kicking up her russet-brown skirts, furiously pacing the carpet in Lady Allenton’s library. The hostess had been creamily solicitous, deliciously glad to offer a private room for their
historical reunion
, as she’d put it.

For her part, Nell stood stiffly beside a chair. She felt as though somebody had brained her with a cast-iron pan. Try as she might she couldn’t muster a coherent thought other than:
she’s real
. Which was stupid. Of course she was real. Had there ever been any doubt?

But a photograph hadn’t captured the vividness of the living woman.

This woman pacing the carpet might have been Nell’s double.

She felt as though she were watching
herself
.

She couldn’t look away, although she was the object of stares of her own: a portly lady, Katherine’s chaperone, gawked; Katherine’s guardian—the balding, nasal-voiced man called Grimston, glared from the corner, where he was exchanging terse words with Simon.

Lady Katherine suddenly pivoted. Her hands were locked together at her waist, an angry grip by the livid color of her fingers. “Who
are
you?” she burst out.

“Katherine,” came the low, oily admonition from the corner. Sir Grimston stepped forward. “Perhaps we should go—”

“No.” Katherine came toward Nell, elegant in a collar of diamonds, her hair piled high, her face pale, her eyes a touch wild. “You can’t—I can’t—” Her hand lifted, trembling, as though to touch Nell’s cheek, but at the last second, her fingers curled away as if from a flame. “You’re …”

“Yes,” Nell managed. “I think so.”

“Enough,” said Grimston. “This is a very clever sham, Kitty, but you mustn’t—”

“A sham,” Katherine whispered, staring at her. “You’re wearing my mother’s bracelet. Her necklace. Are you a sham?”

Nell took a breath and looked down at the emeralds on her wrist, at the pristine white elbow gloves that disguised the hands beneath them, the rough calluses on her palms, the freckles that spotted the backs of her knuckles. “No,” she said softly. She looked up. “I don’t think so.”

Katherine opened her mouth. Shook her head as if the words wouldn’t come.

Nell knew how she felt. She felt the empathy quicken her heartbeat and draw her forward. Her own hand unsteady, she reached out to take Katherine’s.

They stared at each other. It just … didn’t seem possible that they were so much alike. That this gorgeous creature, who’d walked into the drawing room so casually, who faced her now in a fortune of diamonds, whose face had looked down at her rags in Bethnal Green, could be related to her.

Blood.

Her
twin
.

Katherine blinked, tears threatening to fall. “Where have you been all these years? Why didn’t you come back to me?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t remember. I couldn’t.”

“Oh!” A soft, shaky syllable. The hand in Nell’s turned, gripped her fingers hard. “Was she very cruel to you?”

“No,” Nell said softly. “She was … I thought she was my mother.”

Katherine let go, physically recoiled a step. “That monster! Your
mother
!”