Guilty Series (49 page)

And he was a bad lot. He was obsessed, and by only one thing. He was ruthless, temperamental, and wholly selfish. He went in for the lusts of the flesh, and he enjoyed them. He made no secret of his nature—flaunted it, in fact. Yet it seemed to be his destiny to have yet another female giving him that look, wanting something from him that he could not give.

Isabel was his daughter. If any person in the world should matter to him, it should be his own child. What was wrong with him?

Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. God, his daughter's eyes, so like his in appearance and so unlike him in the emotions they reflected—eyes that were innocent, vulnerable, and full of faith, eyes that made him want nothing more than to get away. He was no good at living up to expectations. They smothered him.

You do not even know what love is.

Grace was wrong. He did know what love was, he just didn't have enough of it to go around. Music took it all. There never seemed to be enough left for another person.

Had not Michaela herself rejected him for that reason?

I would always be second in your life, Dylan. I do not want to be second. I want to be first.

His daughter, looking at him, wanting to be first.

Impossible. No one could ever be first. Not even his own little girl, a precocious eight-year-old with a scowl like thunder and eyes that had too much hope in them.

Mr. Ault brought him out of his reverie with a little cough. Dylan looked at the dry, precise little man who sat behind the desk. “Excellent work, Mr. Ault. Exactly what I wanted, thank you.”

“We hope to always give the best of service to you and all your family, sir.” The solicitor held the quill out to him.

No matter what expectations his little girl had of him, it did not alter his responsibility. He took the quill from the solicitor's hand, dipped the point in the inkwell on the desk, and scrawled his name on each page where his signature was required.

When he finished, he handed back the quill and rose to his feet.

Mr. Ault also stood up. “I shall send any documents pertaining to your income from the family estate to your elder brother for his signature.”

“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ault. Good day.”

The little man bowed, and so did he. Putting on his hat, Dylan left the solicitor's office and stepped out into the street, drawing in deep breaths of air. The deed was done, officially declaring Isabel his daughter. He wished he felt like a father.

 

That evening after dinner with Molly and Isabel in the nursery, Grace left the child in the nanny's care and went into the library to practice her violin while the little girl had her bath. She did not want to be angry about Dylan, worry about Isabel, or think about the emotional scene earlier in the day. Her employer was a complicated man, and her pupil was exhausting, and all Grace wanted right now was some quiet time to herself. She shut the door, shut out the world, and lost herself in her favorite pastime.

When she returned to her room an hour later, she found a surprise waiting on her dressing table, a bouquet of half a dozen early pink tulips from the park outside. They were tied with a white silk ribbon, and with them was a note. The slip of paper was small and had only one line of words written on it, words in a round, upright handwriting that was very familiar to her by now.

Grace touched her fingertip to one of the opening flower buds in the vase and smiled. That child was a trial, true enough, but she also did the most unexpectedly sweet things. An encouraging sign, Grace thought, and she wanted to show Isabel how much she appreciated the child's thoughtful gesture.

Struck by an idea, Grace rummaged in her valise and found her scrapbook. She pulled it out, along with a wooden box where she kept keepsakes until she could put them in the book. Then she picked up her bouquet of tulips and went in search of a footman. Twenty minutes later, she went to the music room.

Isabel was sitting at Dylan's Broadwood Grand, just as Grace had expected. Her hair was loose and still damp from her bath, and she was already dressed in her nightgown. She sat plucking the keys, but there was no sheet music on the stand. She did not seem to be composing, for she had no paper and no quill. She looked up as Grace entered the room. A footman came in behind her, carrying the wooden crate she had filled with the items necessary to her project.

“Put them over there, Weston, please,” Grace said as she gestured to one corner of the room. “Then you may go.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Isabel let her hands slide away from the keys in front of her. “What are you doing?”

“Putting some things in my scrapbook.” Grace lifted the bouquet of tulips in her hand. “Thank you for these.”

Isabel shifted on the bench, looking rather embarrassed, clearly hoping Grace wasn't going to fuss and get soppy about it. “Molly helped me,” she mumbled. “We went out to the park and picked them earlier.” She glanced at Weston as he circled the grand piano toward the doors and departed, then she looked back at Grace, puzzled. “You have a scrapbook?”

“Yes. These tulips are so beautiful that I want to keep them forever,” Grace explained. “So I'm going to press them. I also have some other things to put in my book. Would you like to help me?”

Isabel's gaze followed her as she walked over to the table, pulled one of the chairs out of the way, and began to arrange the items the footman had laid out. It did not take long for the little girl to come over and have a look at what she was doing.

“You are going to press them with those?”

Grace looked up as Isabel pointed toward the four heavy marble slabs on the table. “I am,” she answered and reached for the tulips. “First, we have to make sure the flowers are not wet.”

After untying the bow, Grace laid the tulips out in a row on the white tablecloth, then she examined them one by one, using a scissors to snip off all but two inches of each stem. “Then,” she went on as she laid sheets of blotting paper over two of the four slabs, “we have to arrange them so that they will look nice when they are flat. We put blotting paper over them, and put the two other slabs on top.”

She suited her actions to her words. “There. In two weeks, we can take them out and put them in the book.”

“Is there room?” Isabel asked, eyeing the fat volume with a grin.

“Probably not. I think I shall start a new book with these flowers. That is appropriate, since coming here is rather a new chapter in my life.” Grace moved around the table to a spot where she had more room to work, and she pulled out a chair. “But I have some other things to put in this book first, so I thought I would do that tonight.”

As Grace sat down, Isabel moved to stand beside her chair. “What things?”

“It has been so long since I have worked on my scrapbook, I can't even remember. Let's have a look.” Grace reached for the wooden box she had brought down from her room, lifted the lid, and turned the contents out onto the table.

“Why do you keep these things?” Isabel asked, staring at the various items spilled across the white tablecloth.

Grace did not answer. Her gaze was caught on an old, worn paintbrush amid the motley assortment, a brush as thin as the stem of a quill. She stared at it, and she was astonished to discover that the sight of it brought no pain, only the sweet, faded pleasure of a memory from long ago that no longer had the power to hurt.

“Why do you keep these things?” Isabel asked again. “I mean, they don't seem valuable or anything like that.”

“They have value to me. Each of these things has some special meaning for me.” Grace looked at the child. “Don't you have a scrapbook?”

Isabel shook her head, surprised. “No, I never keep anything. Except my music, of course. I never throw any of that away.”

“Why don't you keep things?”

The girl gave a shrug. “I don't have anything to keep.”

Grace found that statement infinitely sad, but she did not show it. Instead, she smiled. “You might want to start a scrapbook, for now you will have things to put in it.”

“What things?”

“I don't know. A lock of your father's hair perhaps. Or a bit of crimson silk to remind you of the dress your governess wouldn't let you buy.”

“But why should I want to keep something like that?”

Grace laughed at Isabel's genuine bewilderment. Like her father, there was nothing of the sentimentalist about this child. “Believe it or not, Isabel, someday you might look at that crimson scrap of fabric, remember that first day we went shopping, and laugh about it, wondering why on earth you ever wanted a pet lizard. Lots of things happen to us that don't seem significant at the time, but then, when we look back, we are glad they happened, and remembering them makes us happy.”

Isabel pointed to the items on the table. “Do these make you happy?”

“Some of them do.” Grace reached for a gold tassel from the pile and lifted it in her fingers. “This is from a dress I wore to a ball at Schönbrunn Palace.” She laughed, remembering that night. “I danced every waltz.”

“You waltzed at Schönbrunn Palace?” Isabel demanded. “With who?”

“My husband. Appalling, everyone said, for a married couple to dance all the waltzes together. We did not care. We rather enjoyed scandalizing the aristocrats.”

“You truly have a husband? You didn't make him up?”

A bit surprised, Grace tilted her head to one side, studying the little girl. “I had a husband, yes. He died two years ago. Why would you think I made him up?”

“Some women don't have husbands, but they say they do so people will think they are respectable.”

“Isabel!” Grace cried, not knowing whether to laugh or reprove the child for such a remark. She knew the most unexpected things about life.

As usual, the reproof slid off Isabel like water off a duck. “You've never said anything about your husband, and I just wondered about him, that's all. I'm sorry he died.” She lowered her head, staring at the items on the table. “Do you—” She stopped.

“Do I what?” Grace prompted, wondering what the child wanted to ask.

“Do you ever get lonely, Mrs. Cheval?”

Lonely? Grace closed her eyes, a heavy tightness in her chest. “Sometimes.”

“Me, too.”

Grace opened her eyes and looked at the child. Isabel was still standing with her head bent, hair falling over her face, shoulders slumped forward. She reached out and pushed the hair out of the child's eyes. “Everyone gets lonely, Isabel.”

“I know.” The little girl paused, then said in a hushed, confiding sort of murmur, “I didn't mean it, you know, what I said.” Seeing Grace's puzzled look, she added, “I don't hate you.”

“I'm glad, because I did mean what I said. I like you very much.”

“You do?” Isabel grinned at her suddenly, showing one of those mercurial changes of mood so like her father. “Then you won't make me do embroidery any more, will you?”

“No,” Grace answered at once, “if you stop complaining about having to learn German.”

Isabel made a face, then capitulated, her expression brightening. “I suppose it would help me understand Weber's operas better, wouldn't it?”

“Yes, it would,” Grace agreed, laughing, wishing she'd thought to point that out at the beginning. “Very true.”

Isabel pointed to a blue velvet sack on the table. “What's that?”

“Ah.” Grace put aside the gold tassel and picked up the sack. She untied the drawstring and pulled out a man's white glove, holding it out to Isabel. “This glove belonged to Franz Liszt.”

“No, it didn't!” Isabel said, but she took the glove. “You're just teasing me.”

“I'm not. I acquired it last year when he gave some concerts in Paris. He lives there, you know.”

“Did he tear off the glove like they say he does before he plays?”

“Yes, he did. I was playing in the orchestra, and I saw him do it.”

“You played with Liszt? Truly?”

“Yes. Three times.”

That impressed Isabel, Grace could tell.

“I saw a portrait of him once,” Isabel said. “Is he as handsome as he looks?”

“Yes, quite handsome. Probably the handsomest man I have ever met.”

“Liszt is
not
more handsome than Papa!”

“That's my loyal girl!”

The sound of Dylan's voice caused both Grace and Isabel to look up as he walked through the open doors of the music room, surprising both of them with his unexpected appearance.

“You're back,” Isabel said, but this time, she did not go running to him. Instead, she turned her back on him and sat down at the table, arms folded. “You said you weren't coming back until late.”

“I changed my mind.” His gaze slid away from his daughter, and Grace saw something in his countenance she would never have expected to see. A hint of guilt. She began to smile.

He caught that smile, and he did not like it. He frowned back at her, looking quite defensive all of a sudden. “My appointments finished earlier than I expected,” he told her. “That's all.”

Grace wanted to point out that neither she nor Isabel had asked him for an explanation. “Of course,” she said, her smile widening. “Perfectly understandable.”

He did not like being teased about this, Grace could tell. He turned away and pulled off his coat, tossing it over a chair. He moved to the piano and stood leaning over the keys, scanning the sheets of his music that were scattered across the polished walnut surface.

She was not, she told herself, the sort of woman who ogled men. But that did not stop her from taking a moment to indulge in a long, slow perusal down the length of his body, appreciating the view. His white linen shirt, black-and-gold striped waistcoat, and black trousers only served to emphasize his powerful physique. She let her gaze linger on the tight fit of those trousers. A woman would have to be blind not to appreciate a view like that.