The Tutor's Daughter (23 page)

The sonata was not to Henry's taste, but he knew he was no great judge of music. He glanced over and noticed Mrs. Penberthy exchange a suitably impressed glance with Lady Weston. Her opinion being all that mattered, Henry sat back to endure the rest of the performance.

After Julian finished and accepted their applause, Lady Weston suggested, “Perhaps now Miss Penberthy will favor us with a piece?”

“If you like,” Tressa said, rising. “Though I fear I play very ill compared to young Mr. Weston there.”

Julian smiled thinly at the compliment wrapped in a remark about his age.

“Perhaps Phillip will be so good as to turn the pages for Miss Penberthy?” Lady Weston looked significantly at Phillip, who reddened but rose dutifully.

Julian said, “I shall do it, Mamma. For I am right here already and am far more familiar with music than Phillip is.”

Lady Weston's smile tightened. “No doubt, Julian. But oblige me and allow Phillip to assist Miss Penberthy.”

Julian scowled and flopped into a nearby chair, crossing his arms over his narrow chest.

Miss Penberthy played, and very accomplished she was. Henry did notice one slightly off-key note and told himself they ought to get the old thing tuned one of these days.

When Miss Penberthy finished her piece, he joined the others in polite applause.

“Well”—Mrs. Penberthy rose—“this has been quite a pleasant visit. Tressa and I thank you all for your kind hospitality, but I am afraid we must excuse ourselves to prepare for our departure.”

Lady Weston rose as well. “So soon? How quickly the time has flown. But isn't that always the way it is when friends meet? You and I were already friends, and I hope the same may be said of our children, now that other bonds of . . . affection . . . have been formed.”

Henry noticed Mrs. Penberthy did not quite meet Lady Weston's eager gaze when she replied, “Well, of course we are all now better acquainted.”

Lady Weston smiled. “And hopefully you will both visit us again soon?”

As the women spoke about vague future pleasantries, the others began rising and funneling from the room through its double doors. Henry followed suit and brought up the rear of the party.

Suddenly from behind him came the sound of a key being struck, once, twice, three times. The same key. Henry turned and saw with dismay that Adam now sat at the pianoforte, head bent, hitting that single off-tune key. C, C, C. . . . C, C, C. . . .

Where in the world had he come from? Henry had not heard the rear door open. Had he been hiding in the room all along? Henry hoped, for his stepmother's sake, that the Penberthy women would exit the music room and be on their way without hearing or investigating this latest “musician.”

But Miss Penberthy turned in the threshold, looked at Adam, then to Phillip expectantly, waiting for an explanation or introduction. Phillip reddened once more and smiled inanely as though he did not understand her meaningful look.

Mrs. Penberthy, perhaps not finding her daughter at her side, stepped back into the music room.

Henry groaned.
Thunder and
turf. . . .

“My dear, we must be going. . . .” Mrs. Penberthy hesitated at seeing the young man at the pianoforte. “Who is that, pray?” she asked, chuckling uncertainly at the repetitive note, as though it were some sort of joke.

Lady Weston stepped to her side, stiffening at the sight of Adam. She sent a thunderous look toward Henry, then smiled benignly at her friend. “Come, my dear. You don't want to be late in departing. You have a long journey ahead.”

“Yes, I know. But who is that young man?”

Henry stood where he was, ready to introduce his brother, waiting for a sign from Lady Weston as to how she wanted to handle the situation. Surely she would not lie directly to her friend and deny knowledge of who Adam was. Claim he was a servant or some such. Watching Violet Weston's face, he thought he detected a parade of possible explanations passing behind her eyes.

Finally she settled on one. “Oh, that is a relative of my husband's. Staying with us for a few days. He doesn't like company or I would have introduced him.”

“Oh? Who . . . ?”

“Come, come, my dear,” Lady Weston insisted, taking her friend's arm. “I hear the carriage outside. Come, Tressa, your mother was most adamant about an on-time departure, and I won't be blamed for any delays.”

Violet Weston shepherded her friend from the room with a firm tone and a firm grip. The others followed, as did Miss Penberthy, but Henry did not miss the suspicious glance over her shoulder as she quit the room.

Crisis
averted,
Henry thought dryly. He crossed the room to
where Adam was still tonking away at that single note. “Where did you come from, Adam?”

Adam tilted his head, listening intently as the note reverberated through the instrument.

Henry said, “I didn't see you here when we all came in.”

“I hid.”

“Where?”

Adam glanced over to a long-skirted table against the nearby wall, upon which a row of marble busts was lined.

“I see.” Henry winced at the increasingly irritating repetition of the off-key middle C. He asked gently, “It's out of tune—is that it?”

Adam nodded and struck the key again, ear bent near.

“You have a good ear, Adam,” Henry said. “I shall ask Mr. Davies about arranging for a piano tuner, shall I?”

Suddenly Lady Weston's voice slapped the air. “Well. That was the outside of enough.”

Henry turned, steeling himself and telling himself to remain calm.

She stood inside the door, hands on her hips, in high dudgeon. “I asked you to keep him out of sight for two days. Two days. And you cannot even manage that.” She looked past Henry toward the pianoforte. “Where has he got to now?”

Henry looked at the empty bench, then glanced at the skirted table. The curtain ruffled slightly, but he made no comment.

Lady Weston pointed an angry finger at Henry. “Tell me you did not arrange this little drama to vex me—to scare away Miss Penberthy. The most eligible young woman any of you are likely to meet.”

“I did not.”

“It was bad enough last night with that infernal crying and banging. Fortunately I had arranged to put the Penberthys as far from that room as possible. And though I feared otherwise, they both assured me they enjoyed an undisturbed night's sleep. You see, when I manage something, it is done and done correctly.”

Henry gritted his teeth.

“I told you we ought to have locked his door,” she continued.
“For all our sakes. That way there would have been no chance of our . . . inconvenient . . . secret coming to light, today of all days.”

Righteous indignation boiled through Henry's veins. “He is not some dirty little secret, Lady Weston—not an unwashed stocking to be kicked under the bed when polite company arrives. He is a human being. And he has done nothing wrong nor hurt anybody. I will not stand by while you speak of locking him up as though he were a criminal. Do you understand me? Adam is my brother. My
brother.
”

Sir Giles strode into the room, followed by Phillip.

“I say, what's all this, then?” his father asked, looking from his wife to Henry.

Henry inhaled through flared nostrils. “Lady Weston is upset because her precious friend got a glimpse of Adam. She had hoped to keep him hidden until after the vows were said.”

“Vows? What vows?”

“Aren't you keeping up, Father? Lady Weston plans for Phillip or me—it doesn't really matter which—to marry Miss Penberthy. And only after it is too late will the poor girl learn that we all have deceived her by keeping this particular member of our family secret.”

Phillip, still standing in the threshold, said nothing, but with a glance over his shoulder, he discreetly shut the door.

Lady Weston lifted her chin. “Why does she ever need know? You've never told any other young lady you admired, I don't imagine. Why should now be any different?”

“Because I didn't
know
before. That's why.”

Lady Weston barely blinked. “Once he is installed with a replacement guardian, all shall be as it has been for the last twenty years. Why should things change now?”

Sir Giles must have seen the dangerous fire in Henry's eyes, for he wisely steered the conversation to safer ground. “My dear. Henry. Let us not be at one another's throats. Please do remember, Henry, that Lady Weston deserves a respectful tone from you, even when the two of you disagree.” He laid a hand on Henry's shoulder. “Your mother and I did what we thought was best for you. For everyone.”

“For me? It's my fault somehow?”

“Don't be ridiculous. Of course it's not your fault. You were only a child. But we were worried about you—and Phillip. How living with such a . . . different . . . boy might affect your development, your intelligence and learning. And we feared keeping him here would put you both in danger. He was so changeable. His fits, so violent.”

“So it was all for us.” Henry could not keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Not to avoid embarrassment on your part?”

“Of course we were embarrassed,” Sir Giles snapped. “Our firstborn son. Not right. How we thanked God when you showed no signs of the same. How we prayed for you.”

“Did you pray for him too?” Henry challenged.

Sir Giles frowned. “Why are you so angry, Henry? I might understand if Adam resented us, but why should you feel this so personally, so intensely?”

“Because you sent him away. Let me believe he died.”

Sir Giles raised a finger. “I never said he died.”

“‘Gone' was the euphemism you used, Gone and not coming back. What else was I supposed to think? I was too young to press you. Too young to doubt my own father.”

“That's right—you were young,” Lady Weston interjected. “Too young to remember.”

Henry clenched one fist but kept his gaze trained on his father. “I remember I had a big brother.” He clapped his other hand to his chest. “Not clearly. But enough to know I have missed someone all my life.”

“You're thinking of your mother, surely.”

“I miss her, too, of course. But no, it was Adam I've missed all these years.” Henry shook his head. “All these years thinking he was dead, and there he was, living not twenty miles away from us the whole time.”

“Oh, come now.” Lady Weston huffed, gesturing emphatically. “You were only—what?—four at the time? You no doubt forgot all about him until you read that letter.”

Henry's voice quivered in anger. “Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not remember, madam.”

She continued undeterred, “I still don't understand what you were doing poking about the estate ledgers in the first place, not to mention reading your father's correspondence.”

Phillip sent him a beseeching look, but Henry ignored it. “What I was doing, madam,” he ground out, “was trying to make sense out of this family's precarious financial situation.”

“I did ask him to take it in hand, my dear,” Sir Giles swiftly added. “The tangle was beyond me, and he agreed to do so, when he no doubt had plans of his own that had to be set aside.”

She sniffed. “Be that as it may, I still maintain Henry is making too much of this. Why could he not leave well enough alone?”

“Well enough? Well enough!” Henry's voice rose. “Adam's guardian dead, left in that damp cottage all alone . . . If I had not gone and fetched him when I did, who knows where he would be by now?”

“Anywhere but here would have been preferable these last two days.”

“The workhouse would be preferable?” Henry thundered. “For Father's eldest son?”

Lady Weston shook her head. “I don't mean the workhouse, of course. But he does not belong here, as I—”

From under the skirted table rose a muted litany, “No, no, no. . . .”

What a fool
I am,
Henry chastised himself. He'd forgotten about the very person he'd been trying to defend. Of course harsh words and arguing would upset him. A very real storm in the room he occupied as unwilling witness.

Henry hurried to the table, lowering himself to his haunches. He drew the curtain aside, revealing Adam in a fetal position, cradling his ears, and repeating his chant of distress.

Lady Weston took one look at him and threw up her hands. “Oh yes. Ready to meet the queen, he is.” She stalked past Phillip and out of the room.

Henry turned back to Adam. “Sorry about that. We are all through arguing. All done.” He heard his father's footsteps retreat as well.

Henry ignored the sting of rejection and continued, “All is well. Shhh . . . You are not in any trouble. You're all right,” he said, grimly determined to make certain that was true.

Phillip followed along as Henry escorted Adam upstairs to his room a few minutes later. When they reached the north wing, Phillip preceded them down the corridor and opened the door for them.

Inside, Henry led Adam to his favorite chair while Phillip stepped to the washstand and poured a glass of water. When Adam was seated, Henry laid a lap robe over his knees and Phillip handed him the glass of water.

“Thank you,” Adam whispered, his chin still quivering.

Henry noticed Phillip staring at his eldest brother. A person he had never seen in his life before returning from Oxford.

“I still can't quite get over it,” Phillip said. “That there is another Weston. Another son of our mother and father.”

Henry nodded. “I know.”

Phillip's gaze remained on Adam. “His features are so familiar. His eyes are like mine, are they not?”

Apparently aware of their scrutiny, Adam's innocent blue gaze skittered from one to the other before landing on a book on the side table. He picked it up and placed it in his lap, running his hands over the cover again and again as though drawing comfort from its texture, its familiarity.