Let It Be Me

Fifteen

IF Bridget had hoped to have her head cleared by putting her “Ode to Venice” on paper, it was not to be. At least, it was not to be that day. Or the next. Or the next.

Bridget did manage to get ahead of the beat and attack the notes as she had been struggling to do for the last few days, even earning a few of those rare, “si, si”s from her instructor.

But once she had defeated these old dragons, a new one reared its ugly head.

“Signorina, how many times do I have to tell you—appassionata! With the heart, the fever! Build with the crescendo!”

Oliver observed from his usual perch on the worn, faded velvet settee. He was always there, always listening. Most people would find sitting through other people’s lessons boring, but he found it surprisingly compelling. He had never watched Carpenini teach anyone before—at least not this in-depth. And he had also never been privy to a student with the same talent as Bridget Forrester.

He could watch her hands move on the keys for hours. The way her brow came down as she pushed through a long, complicated run. That stray curl coming undone from her coiffure, and the way her tongue slipped out and pressed against her upper lip when she was concentrating.

Yes, watching Bridget Forrester was certainly the most interesting way to pass the time.

And watching over Bridget Forrester, the best.

Oliver knew he wasn’t wholly useless in his current position, because both Bridget and Vincenzo would look to him as the objective auditory party.

“That crescendo doesn’t start until here!” Bridget exclaimed, pointing to the music.

“Si, but is better if you start before, and slow down the build. It is in the gut, the liver. I am right, Oliver, yes?”

It amazed Oliver how Vincenzo’s Italian would suddenly get worse when he was trying to win a point. Not that his English was perfect by any means, but five years with Oliver and as many weeks with an English-only student had made him infinitely more understandable than in the past.

“I think it sounds strong either way,” Oliver said diplomatically. There was absolutely no way he was going to enter the fray between Vincenzo and Bridget—at least not when it came to music.

He could do that for her, he decided—as much as he itched to jump to her defense, to argue with Vincenzo in a way that five years of friendship had taught him would work. Instead, he let Bridget fight her own battles.

And the amazing thing was, she had begun to. She had begun to trust her own ear, and judgment, and began to play the way the piece spoke to her. It was only here and there at first, during phrases one could tell she truly enjoyed, but the fact that her confidence was building was undeniable.

“No, no, Signorina! It is weak, tired! It does not have the appassionata!”

What was also undeniable was the fact that Bridget was having a harder time than before beheading this particular dragon.

“Signore, I am putting as much feeling into the piece as possible,” she began, her voice rising with her ire.

“Then you do not have the right kind of feeling!” Vincenzo retaliated. “It is about making love. Falling out of love. Pain! Greatness!”

“What a marvelous number of adjectives that mean very little strung together,” Bridget replied sardonically, and Oliver could barely suppress a laugh. When Vincenzo tended toward dramatics, they were rather . . . dramatic.

He managed to catch Bridget’s eye and saw that she was hiding her own smile, too.

He would have to make a note of today’s display, to imitate on their walk home. He supposed he should feel a little guilty about making his half brother—and Bridget’s renowned instructor—the butt of a joke, but it just seemed to him that the more human Vincenzo was to Bridget, the more she would be able to relax in his presence, and the better she would play. And hopefully, the more she would enjoy the process, too. She took it, and herself, so seriously! And of course, it was worthy of being taken seriously, but not at the expense of her health or her sense of self-worth. Balance had to be met. If Vincenzo was harsh, rigorous study, then Oliver would be the counterpoint.

Thus Oliver considered it his duty to earn smiles from her. Even if it had to be at Vincenzo’s expense. He was certain that had Vincenzo known about their little jokes, he would forgive him. Especially if it helped Bridget play.

But Oliver did not know if he would be able to forgive Vincenzo for what happened next.

“How can I explain this to someone such as you!” Vincenzo threw up his hands, and then buried his head in them. Dramatically, it went without mentioning.

“Why do you not show me, instead,” Bridget replied patiently, indicating the keys in front of them.

Vincenzo’s head came up from his hands, as if struck by a light. “Si, you are right. One cannot explain passion to a virgin. One must show her!”

And with that, Vincenzo turned Bridget Forrester in her seat, held fast to her shoulders, and kissed her hard on the lips.

Oliver was out of his seat before he knew what was happening. But before he made it two steps, Vincenzo broke off the kiss.

“Now, Signorina, start the crescendo earlier—and play that feeling as you do,” Vincenzo commanded in a self-satisfied manner.

Bridget looked around the room, blinking, as if in a trance. Oliver desperately tried to meet her eyes, but their usual unspoken communication during her lessons was in no way adequate.

“Miss Forrester—Bridget,” he ventured, his voice coming out strangled.

“I . . . I’m fine,” she reassured him, and then, refocusing on the music before her, she began to play, but whether she played the crescendo as Vincenzo wanted, Oliver could not hear.

Because his blood was thrumming in his ears, and his mind rushed with words that formed thoughts he couldn’t fully comprehend.

Are you all right? he wanted to ask. Are you safe? pulsed through his system. But underneath all that was a darker thrumming, an anger that could not be laughed away.

Mine, it said. She is mine.





It could be a surprise to no one that both Bridget and Oliver were uncommonly silent on their walk home. And remarkably slow of foot, too.

“Miss, do you mind if I walk ahead?” Molly said, breaking into the awkward quiet that covered them. “It is your mother’s day to receive callers, and the hotel’s girls don’t know their stoneware from bone china.”

“Of course, Molly,” Bridget replied. “I apologize, we should not dawdle today.”

“Do not trouble yourself, miss, I’ll just move ahead if you don’t mind.”

And with that, Molly gave a short curtsy and, elbows tucked to her sides, began to dart through the afternoon crowd.

Leaving Oliver alone with Bridget.

Either Molly was immensely sensitive to the thoughts of her employers, Oliver thought, or she was uncommonly obtuse to them and lived in a world of happy coincidence. But given the look she slid to Oliver on her way past him, he rather suspected the former.

And he was given to believe that the practical, Methodist maid was, strangely, on his side.

“Well,” Oliver began, not one to let awkwardness detract from opportunity. “That was an interesting day.”

“Yes,” Bridget mused, her eyes still on her feet, although it seemed she was not truly watching where she was going. She seemed to lag, to stumble over cobblestones, her mind clearly elsewhere.

Oliver could guess where.

“Did you feel that the lesson today was . . . useful?” His voice strangled the last word.

“Yes,” she replied, by rote. Then her head came up; her feet came to a stop. “No.”

“No?”

“No. It wasn’t useful. I don’t understand what he wants.” She slumped mournfully. “I don’t think I ever will.”

Oliver took a half step toward her but, mindfully, kept his arms at his sides. “What don’t you understand?” He tried to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

“This . . . this appassionata!” she exclaimed. “This inflamed gut—which, by the by, sounds like a disease”—Oliver could not help smiling at that, as she continued—“try and I try, and he still does not like the run. And then he kissed me, and I play the same run again, and it sounded no different!”

“Bridget—” Oliver began, his voice taking on those proper tones that made him sound like her father, not her friend. He quashed said tones immediately. “What are you getting at?”

“What does Carpenini want?” she asked breathlessly, turning her green-eyed gaze directly at him. “What does he want me to feel—to understand? Do you have any idea?”

Oliver felt every muscle in his body tense in awareness. He could count his heartbeats as he weighed his response.

“Perhaps I do,” he replied finally, his eyes never leaving Bridget’s face.

“What is it? Can you . . . translate for me? As you did with the buckets of water—er, slop.”

“No,” he replied, considering. Her face fell, an adorable plaintive look. “It cannot be explained. Not with words.”

“Oh,” she replied, her brow coming down in confusion.

“But perhaps I can show you,” he offered. Careful to keep his hands behind his back. Careful not to touch her. Not yet.

“Would you, please?” Bridget’s face lit up like she’d just been offered an invitation to a private box at the opera. One that she didn’t have to share with her sisters.

“It’s . . . a physical feeling, converted into music. That is what he’s after,” he warned her. He wanted her to have a chance to walk away. Even though it would kill him if she did.

“Is it like a touch? A . . . a caress?”

She reached out her hand and touched his arm, at the elbow, pulling his hand free from behind his back. As electric as the feeling of her hand on his coat—the gentle pressure she placed there, barely more than a bird’s weight—he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Not quite. That’s a good place to start, though.” He looked around them. “This lesson cannot be taught in the middle of a footbridge, however. Come.”

He held out his hand, and she hesitantly slipped her smaller one into it. They were in the middle of Venice, in the middle of a busy day on a busy street, where everyone could see them. Granted, most of the people who saw them would not care beyond how they blocked their path, but he did not wish to disgrace her to that small percentage that would care very much.

He pulled her down a side street and into a quiet, unpopulated alley.

“This is that alley,” she said, her voice a whisper—which the environment seemed to call for.

“What alley?”

“They one you first showed me. With sunlight on the cobblestones and impatient windows.”

He glanced around them. “So it is,” he murmured. An appropriate enough place. After all, it was just about here that the itch—that itch he was about to take the opportunity to scratch—came into being.

He dropped her hand but remained close at her side. He wanted to instruct her properly, and that meant . . . anticipation.

“So . . .” she asked, unable to come up with the rest of the sentence.

“So.” He exhaled slowly and closed the meager distance between them. “The feeling that Carpenini wants is internal. It’s a blooming feeling of love. Of lust.”

“Well, I know that,” she said, exasperated.

“Do you?” A single eyebrow flew up skeptically.

“Well, yes.” Her hands went to her hips, a defiant stance. “I’m not completely ignorant. I’ve been trying to think about that . . . emotion, while I’m playing, but it just falls short.”

He cocked his head to one side. He leaned in, ever closer, still holding himself just that barest distance apart, still holding his hands at his sides, no matter how much they ached to come up and rest on the skin at her wrists, her throat, her cheek.

“What are you thinking of, specifically, when you are playing?” His voice was little more than breath.

Bridget looked sideways, seemingly loathing to admit. “A crush,” she mumbled.

“Pardon me?” Oliver’s voice went up in pitch, his heart skipping a beat.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, this is so embarrassing. I used to have a bit of a . . . a crush, on my sister’s now-husband. Before they were married,” she hastened to add. “I try to think of what it felt like to have a crush on him. A crush on anyone, really.”

“Well, then, that’s the difficulty.” He smiled at her, his lips shockingly close to hers. “You are not meant to think of anything at all. You are simply supposed to need.”

Her eyes were nearly black, with a feeling she could not yet know how to comprehend. But she would.

“Need what?” she asked.

And then . . . his lips met hers.

There was no sensation in the world quite like this. This first of all kisses, this first time when their hearts and breath would mingle, and the need to touch overwhelmed.

Oliver finally gave in to that need to touch and gently let his fingers rest at the back of her neck, threading through her dark curls. He might not be her instructor, he might not have Carpenini’s refined ear for music, but he could teach her this.

Gently, his thumb danced along her jaw, the slightest pressure urging her mouth to open, to let him in. She did, a small shudder of surprise moving down her spine. Feeling it through their contact only made Oliver want to bring her closer. And so, with his other hand, he reached around to the back of her waist, pressing her body into his, holding her in a stunning, needful embrace. He deepened the kiss, their dance. His hand fisted in the back of her dress.

And then, he felt it. The tentative touch against his coat. The slide of her arms up to his shoulder, her fingers threading through the dark hairs at his neck, her embrace a copy of his.

“Good,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re learning.”

“I was always a good student,” she whispered back, a little shakily.

“Ready for something more advanced?” He did not wait for a reply, of course. Instead, he let his lips fall away from hers and moved them to the tantalizing line of her throat.

She gasped in surprise. In pleasure. He grinned against her neck.

He took a step forward; she moved with him. Suddenly her back was against the wall of the alley. He sought relief to the hard ache that had grown in his cock, pressing himself, through their clothes, against her softness.

She sighed, an echo of want in that empty Venetian street, with only the cobblestones and the impatient windows to hear.

He wanted to explore. He wanted to roam across her skin and find all the spots that would make her sigh like that. But some small, still-intact part of his brain made him resist the impulse. Made him stay right there, in the alley, in the here and now. Made him pull back and meet her eyes.

Normally bright green and probing, those eyes were now hooded, glazed with passion. Her breaths were coming in short, hard bursts, much like his own.

“That is what the music is supposed to feel like,” he said, unable to keep his hands from framing her face, from feeling her. “That wanting. That need.”

“I think . . .” she said after a moment, unable to tear her eyes away, “I understand now.”

Oliver found himself straightening. Had he gone too far? Was she dismissing him? Doubts began to creep in, but he forced them away. He would not allow anything, especially his own conscience, to rob him of the joy of what had just transpired. Of what he felt.

And whether she recognized it or not, he knew she’d felt it, too.

“I have to go,” she said suddenly, clearing her voice, setting him back on his heels.

“Oh . . . of course,” he replied, forcing himself back into the English Gentleman character he had let slip for a few brief precious moments. Although his body, still coursing with lust, was not as receptive to the idea. He began to pace, to move, trying to settle himself down. “Give me a moment, and I’ll escort you.”

She looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes traveled lower on his body, leaving a trail of innocent heat in their wake.

“Bridget, staring doesn’t help.”

She blushed the deepest crimson before shooting her gaze away at the evidence of his baseness.

“Oh!” she cried. “No, do not . . . trouble yourself. I’m . . . I have to go.”

And before he could stop her, before he could get his body under control, she shot out of the alley like a ball from a cannon, taking those few short blocks back to the hotel with impossible speed.

Leaving Oliver standing in the middle of an empty, sunlit alleyway, his body still coursing with need, his mind muddled by a thousand thoughts. But one thought managed to find its way through the fog to the front of his mind.

She had just run away from him.





Bridget burst into the hotel, her only goal the piano. Oh, she knew it was forbidden, she knew that she was not permitted to practice at home, lest prying ears overhear, but she could not bend to the Signore’s overly worrisome whims just now. Because right now, she had to get to a piano. She had to play that run again and put what she had just felt into the keys.

She had never been kissed before. Never really wanted to be. It was the unfortunate circumstance of limiting one’s emotional curiosity to music. In music, especially opera, if a lady is kissed, she is likely dead by the time the curtain falls. To equate the press of a man’s lips to hers with death hardly promoted romanticism. But to be kissed twice in one day, by two entirely different men—and to have two such different reactions to them!

It was actually a bit untrue that she had never really wanted to be kissed. Of late, she had been thinking about it quite a bit. She had lied slightly to Oliver. With her now-defunct crush on her now-brother-in-law Jackson, lips hadn’t figured into her fantasies—that was really more about getting someone to notice her who had only noticed her sister. But for the past several weeks, spending every day in the presence of the great Carpenini, his passions becoming hers, his voice filling her head, it was only natural that her mind would turn to wondering about his touch.

She considered a slight crush on Carpenini logical. Even if he proved severely trying.

But when that touch had actually happened . . . well, to say Carpenini’s kiss was a disappointment was akin to saying that the tower in Pisa was only slightly off center. She had been shocked more than anything, and then sort of felt bruised by the whole thing—as if she had been hit across the face with a piece of raw meat. It would get one’s attention, certainly, but it would hardly inspire passion.

And to think, this was the man whose dark eyes burned into her, his voice a mesmerization—so much more so than his brother’s! Strange as it was, Carpenini, who had brought her to Venice, who had seen in her a spark of something special, who had brought a circus into the music room for her . . .

Wait.

She came to an abrupt stop on the main stairs in the foyer of the Hotel Cortile, oblivious to any servants or guests who might have been around her.

Had it been Carpenini who had brought the circus into the music room? If he was so unloved in the Venetian music scene, would any of those performers have leaped to his call? Besides, from what she’d gathered by her time spent in the house—by the fact that Oliver had to pay his bills for paper for his compositions—Carpenini was without enough funds to pay for such a circus act. It was Oliver who had the connections to the theatre, Oliver who could make such a thing possible. It was Oliver who had done so for her.

Oliver, who made her laugh. Oliver, who was a steady calm in the sea of volatility that was Carpenini’s world. Whom she could talk to and enjoy time with. Whom she could ask to help her understand what she couldn’t before.

And it was Oliver whose kiss had run through her blood and rattled her senses.

Little pieces of the puzzle that was Bridget’s life for the past several weeks began to fall into place, like the shapes of city blocks on a Venetian map.

But she couldn’t think about that now. No—right now, she had to play.

Bridget made her way to the Forrester rooms, occupying the entirety of the second floor. She remembered fleetingly that Molly had said this was the day her mother was receiving callers—and therefore had to avoid the woman like the plague, lest she get roped into visiting with whatever friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend happened to be touring through Venice that week.

She only prayed that her mother was using the east parlor, which was smaller but far more comfortable in the afternoon, rather than the west, which was larger and held the pianoforte.

She ducked her head into the west parlor and breathed a sigh of relief. It was empty.

Bridget quickly put down her portfolio and pulled out her sheet music for the No. 23. Turning to the appropriate page, she set herself at the keys.

She played it once through—just the few bars she was focused on. Despite the old instrument’s need for a good tuning, it sounded the same to her ears. Then she stopped. Decided to back up to the beginning of the movement. To allow for something—want? need?—to build.

This time, when she began with andante con moto, she did not think of anything as she was playing, as Oliver had said. She did not think of the cross-hand chords that were coming up in sixteen measures, or the way Carpenini had played the run, trying to imitate him. Instead, she let herself feel.

She could feel the way Oliver’s warm breath felt against her cheek as he whispered in her ear. Felt his hand on the back of her neck. She could practically see the light in his eyes when he bent his head down to hers. And then suddenly her heart was beating fast, and pinpricks of awareness rolled across her body.

Her vision lost focus on the music, clouding over with memories unbidden but welcomed. A rush of excitement, of surprise. Her back hitting the wall of the alley. Not knowing what would come next, but wanting that knowledge, needing it breathlessly.

And then she heard it. Heard the need in the music, as if it had always been there, and always been so perfect. It was the sound of getting lost in sensation. The anticipation built with the crescendo—starting earlier, as Carpenini had kept insisting, and the notes rushing into one another. Each wanting their turn, each needing to be savored.

She took her hands off the keys in wonder. It was all there. Everything that Oliver had shown her, everything that Carpenini had been insisting go into the music, had just flown from her heart straight onto the keys.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cheer. She settled for clapping her hands, allowing herself applause at this small triumph, only one thought going through her head:

She couldn’t wait to play it tomorrow.

But not for Carpenini.

For Oliver.





In the east parlor, Lady Forrester was in the process of receiving the tea tray from Signor Zinni, who had deigned to bring it up himself. Whether this was a testament to his respect for the formidable Lady Forrester or the elevated stature of her guests, she didn’t care. What she did care about was that as soon as the tea tray was set down, they were rudely interrupted again, this time by music coming from across the hall.

“Signor Zinni!” she cried. “I thought none but my family and guests were permitted to the second floor. Who is that playing?”

“Si, Signora, but I believe that is your daughter, Signorina Bridget.”

“Bridget?” Lady Forrester’s annoyance at her errant daughter’s not coming into visit with their guests warred with her astonishment. That was Bridget? That complicated, passionate piece came from her daughter? It had been so long since she had heard her daughter play . . . she had always been very good, but she did not recall her daughter being able to play like that.

A small, impressed smile played across her features, but she swallowed it and retained her composure. “Yes, of course, how silly of me. I simply did not expect her home this early.” She took the teapot in hand and made to pour. “Would you care for tea, Herr Klein?”

“Please. No sugar,” was the man’s stiff answer. If possible, he had grown even stiffer in the past few moments.

“I’m sure Bridget will be very pleased to meet you—she is, after all, a great devotee of music,” Lady Forrester said, smoothly pouring out the tea. “In fact, she is a student of the renowned Signor Carpenini, you know.”

“Actually, I did know,” came the syrupy, feminine voice of Signora Antonia Galetti, whose ingratiating demeanor was a marked contrast to Klein. Ever since they had met a few days ago in the Piazza San Marco, Signora Galetti had been so keen on getting to know the Forresters, and even more keen to have the renowned composer Gustav Klein meet them as well.

Signora Galetti leaned in conspiratorially, her eyes shining with glee. Or at least Lady Forrester thought it was glee, it was difficult to tell without her dreaded spectacles. “But the question, Signora Forrester, is do you know why?”