J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n arched, blackened window openings rose in a sea of green grass. It was so very lovely, in a wild and ruined way.
When I pulled my gaze away, I found Henry watching me, a look of expectation in his eyes.
“There it is!” Mr. Brandon called next to me. “The ruined abbey!
Come, Miss Worthington! Let us be the first to explore it!” He grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me along, grinning back at me with his wide smile. His hand felt strong and warm wrapped around mine. And I did not mind the feeling at all.
L
Rooks wheeled about in the sky, claiming the highest tower as their own. Their calls were harsh and vulnerable at the same time, their black shapes foreboding above me. The abbey was magnificent. The building it-self was magnificent, but its ruin was magnificent also. I was drawn to the crumbling stone, the roofless walls, and the blank, blackened windows.
After exploring for half an hour, we sat in the shade of one of the towers. Our picnic was placed before us on the blanket we sat on. The sun slipped behind a cloud, and the wind cast a chill over us. It was not just the wind that chilled the outing, though. It was Henry’s silence and his accusing looks whenever I met his gaze. I wanted nothing more than to pull him aside and ask him what he had to accuse me of. And then I wanted Henry my friend back so that I could ask him to grant me my wish and make it possible for me to go to India.
I nibbled on a cucumber sandwich while listening with only half my attention to Mr. Brandon’s exclamations about the glory of the ruins.
He had not left my side during the entire outing. Miss St. Claire had done the same with Henry. Now she sat beside him, and I watched how thoughtfully she treated him. I watched how she noticed the food on his plate and offered him more strawberries and poured his lemonade before the servant had a chance to wait on him. I watched her gaze settle 118
affectionately on his face when he spoke. I watched the elegance of her actions and heard the lilt of her laugh and noted that even the dirt did not seem to want to spoil her white gown.
She was too good. I wanted to hate her, yet to hate her would be a greater condemnation of my own faults than of hers.
I did not want to watch Miss St. Claire and Henry any longer.
Brushing off my hands, I sat up and said, “Henry, tell us about the smugglers here.”
He looked at me. “What about them?”
“Aha! You admit there are smugglers! I have finally caught you!”
He smiled at me. It was the first smile he had given me all day, and the force of it made me catch my breath. “You infer too much,” he said.
“Are there truly smugglers in these parts?” the younger Mr. Brandon asked.
A look of irritation flashed over Henry’s face, and his smile vanished completely. He looked ready to say something curt to Mr. Brandon, but Sylvia spoke up before he could.
“We always hear rumors of smuggling, especially in Robin Hood’s Bay. But there is nothing to worry about now. Mother would never stand for anything inappropriate happening at Blackmoore.”
“I surely hope so,” Miss St. Claire said, her large green eyes opened even wider than usual.
The elder Mr. Brandon nodded his head and offered another sandwich to Sylvia, which she accepted with a bashful smile. Henry said nothing. He only continued to frown at the younger Mr. Brandon, who had just asked me if I would like to explore the ruins some more.
I watched Henry from the corner of my eye as his jaw clenched and he scowled at the rooks wheeling above us. I wondered what about this lovely day had put him in such a foul temper. I stood and brushed the grass from my skirt. “I would like that very much, Mr. Brandon,” I said.
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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n But it was a lie. What I would really have liked was for all of these strangers to go away and leave me here alone with Henry and the ruins and the birds.
L
The walk to the ruined abbey, the exploration of its crumbling form, the picnic, and the return to Blackmoore took the greater part of the afternoon. As pleasant as Mr. Brandon’s company was, I wished the whole time for the company of only Henry and Sylvia. But not Henry and Sylvia as they were behaving today: angry and cold, respectively. I wanted the Henry and Sylvia who had been my dearest friends all my life. What had happened to us? And how had it happened in such a short time?
And then there was the need to speak to Henry alone. I had to ask him for my proposals so that I could be sure of winning my trip to India.
This day, just as much as last night, solidified the rightness of my deci-sion to leave. There was no happy life for me here. Sylvia would marry and move away. Henry would marry Miss St. Claire, and they would live together at Blackmoore, and I would most likely never see him again. And I would be left home, alone, with no prospects and no independence. No.
It was India or a caged life.
But Henry was impossible to speak to alone. At every opportunity when I might have had a quiet word with him, Miss St. Claire was at his side, finding a reason to touch his arm, or smile at him, or find an errant streak of sunlight to illuminate the copper in her hair. She was altogether too pretty, and worse than that, she seemed to know it.
By the time we returned to Blackmoore, it was time to dress for dinner. And dinner was a grand affair with all forty guests in the grand dining room. I was seated next to Herr Spohr, far down the table from Henry and Sylvia. I did not mind, though, as I had something important to ask of him.
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“Herr Spohr, I believe we had some sort of misunderstanding last night. When you took my music away from me.”
I watched him chew a piece of roasted duck. He chewed it for what seemed a long time while I awaited his response. I had to have misunder-stood his intentions last night. Gentlemen did not walk around confiscat-ing the belongings of young ladies. His behavior was so highly irregular.
Surely there was some explanation for it.
He finally swallowed, looked at me briefly, and shook his head. “No.
Mozart is not good for you.”
“But it belongs to me. You cannot just take something that belongs to someone else.”
He speared another piece of duck. “It is for your own good, meine kleine Vogel. Trust me.”
At a loss, I shook my head and would have felt inclined to resent his heavy-handed attitude, were it not for the rather charming combination of his wild hair and his German accent and the term he called me. Little bird. And I did feel rather in awe of him—a real composer. A professional musician. I respected him, despite his unorthodox methods of separating young musicians from their musical geniuses.
“Do you know Faust, Miss Worthington?”
I sat up straight. “What?”
“Faust.” He regarded me steadily, his eyes a deep blue.
My heart lurched in my chest. My gaze darted across the room, to where Henry sat at the head of the table with Miss St. Claire at his right hand. His gaze was down, his dark hair shone in the candlelight, and he occupied that seat of authority with a casual grace that could not be taught, only earned. I looked away and tried not to think of the morning I had first heard of Faust. I nodded. “Yes. A little.”
“What do you know?” Herr Spohr had set down his fork and was regarding me with the unwavering attention of a tutor for his pupil.
“Faust was a brilliant man who yearned for more than he already had.
He struck a bargain with the devil—with Mephistopheles. He bargained 121
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n away his soul in exchange for greater wisdom, greater favors, greater accomplishments.”
“And in the end?” Herr Spohr prompted.
I swallowed. “In the end, he lost his soul.”
Herr Spohr nodded, his hair flopping with the movement. “Yes, Fr?ulein. That is good. You know the important things. The ambition.