Let It Be Me

Sixteen

THE next morning, Bridget could hardly look to Oliver without a blush breaking across her cheek. It was really quite distracting. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“Signorina!” Carpenini’s voice broke into her trailing thoughts. “If you are going to fly away during your morning drills, God help us during your lessons today!”

“I’m sorry, Signore,” she said meekly, warm embarrassment spreading across her cheeks. She had been at Oliver’s little house on the Rio di San Salvador for less than twenty minutes, having already changed into Oliver’s shirt, taken her seat at the piano, and begun her morning drills. Something so easy, she should be able to perform by rote, but she could not help drifting into the memories of yesterday.

After her illicit time at the pianoforte, she had spent the rest of the afternoon in her room at the hotel, doing her best to avoid her mother and sister. She could not put on a subdued face just then; she had to sort out her feelings, her understanding of everything that had transpired.

Those puzzle pieces that had fallen into place painted a clearer picture now. And that picture took on the form of one Mr. Oliver Merrick—and it boasted significant detail, too.

When her nerves had failed her when first playing for Carpenini, and she had run away in disgrace, it had been Oliver who had run after her, persuaded her to come back the next day, and thrown her a circus.

When Carpenini had assaulted the buttons and the back of her dress, it was Oliver who had made the whole thing all right by giving her the very shirt she was wearing.

It was Oliver who had encouraged her to write down her “Ode to Venice,” while Carpenini had simply sniffed and told her (in so many words) to put such things away.

And when Bridget was in danger of falling into the abyss of practice, practice, practice . . . it was Oliver who—through either subversiveness or a true lack of sense of direction—made sure she experienced some part of the city, of the world outside herself.

And one could not forget that it had been Oliver who wrote the letter that brought her to Venice to begin with.

“Signorina, please!” Carpenini cried. “Pay attention! You have repeated the A-minor scale three times!”

Carpenini was a brilliant musician and instructor, true. But it was Oliver who made the entire experience bearable.

She couldn’t help looking at him—not now, not after what had transpired yesterday. Her eyes wanted to dart away, wanted to stay on the keys, but there he was—always so tall, lounging on the worn velvet sofa, his broad shoulders stuffed into a jacket, his shirt open at the throat now, revealing a glimpse of tanned skin in the hollow there. When had he begun eschewing the cravat he always wore? Was it days ago? Weeks?

Although today he looked remarkably uncomfortable under her gaze. His posture was stiff; his eyes avoided hers. Except for those times when they refused to do so, and glanced up, seemingly just to check and see if she was still looking at him. When he did, and their eyes met, both of them darted their eyes away.

“Signorina,” Carpenini sighed. “I am going to go outside for a breath of fresh air. When I come back, you had best be ready to work.”

When the door to the music room fell shut, Bridget stopped playing immediately. “I’m sorry,” she began, but was immediately cut off by Oliver.

“No, I’m sorry.” He stood awkwardly. “It will be easier for you to play without my presence—I can wait outside the door today.”

“No!” she cried, rising. She moved around the pianoforte, anxious to stop him. “I don’t want you to leave! It’s my fault I’m so scattered.”

“No, it’s mine; I took advantages I should not have and it has made you uncomfortable in my presence.”

“For heaven’s sake, Oliver, I asked you to help me understand the music. And you did! There was no advantage being taken.”

He seemed to relax a little bit then. “Oh. So . . . you feel you understand the music now?”

“Yes,” she replied, coloring, unable to help a small smile. “Among other things.” But then a thought—a terrible thought—came unbidden into her mind.

“You do not—that is, did I take advantage of you?”

A disbelieving smile spread across his features. “No.” Then he tilted his head to the side, considering. “Although, I suppose if one looked at it in a certain light . . .”

“Oh, please tell me you don’t regret it,” Bridget cried, covering her face with her hands. “I would die of complete mortification.”

A gentle hand brought hers down; a second tipped her face up to look at his. “I only regret that you felt you had to run away after.” His voice was soft, serious. A balm. “I thought I had scared you off.”

She shook her head gently. “I had to make sure your theory was correct.”

“What theory?”

“That I mustn’t think when playing. That I must let need come in unbidden.”

His hand was resting on her cheek now, the other deftly twining her fingers around his.

“And did it?”

She nodded. “I can play it for you if you like.”

“I would,” he smiled.

It was as easy as that, Bridget thought, looking up into Oliver’s face. Their friendship was evenly keeled once again, without the awkwardness that had punctuated their conversation. And yet, because of what she now saw when she looked at him—and she saw so much more!—she could not deny that something had subtly, irrevocably shifted. What had once been a pleasant constant in her life now took on an exciting new tone.

This—he—might just be important.

How on earth was she going to keep her eyes off him during her lesson?

No, she would be professional, she told herself as she straightened her shoulders. She turned to go back to the pianoforte, ready to play the troublesome run for him, when he pulled her to a stop by their still-entwined hands.

“Wait a moment,” he said, a mischievous smile. “Before you begin, do you need a reminder?”

Anticipation quickened her pulse. Well, if he wanted to be cheeky, she could be too . . . No! Professional. Subdued.

“No, I’m fine.” But she could not help smiling as she said it.

“Are you sure?” he answered back, a laugh escaping his lips. “I think perhaps you might . . .”

One quick tug and Bridget found herself caught up against his chest, wrapped in an embrace that set every one of her nerves alight. Her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned down and . . .

“We have a problem.”

They broke apart quickly, children caught at mischief. Bridget looked around Oliver to find Carpenini rushing into the music room, shutting the door hastily behind him.

“Your mother is here.” He turned his dark, angry eyes to Bridget.

“Here?” she cried. “Now?”

“Not far off. I saw her approaching in a gondola, with your sister and Antonia Galetti.” Carpenini rushed around the room, putting papers into proper place, moving his chair far back from hers. “How does your mother know Antonia?”

Bridget shook her head, her mind reeling. Her mother, here. She’d shown absolutely no interest in the lessons since that first time, had in fact granted Bridget much freedom since then. Since being frightened away by scales and drills, and a non-English-speaking great-aunt, that is.

Oh no, Bridget thought. The great-aunt.

“Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you barred her from the house ever since her last visit,” Oliver was saying. “Antonia was always far more clever and spiteful than you gave her credit for.”

“Oliver,” Bridget said sharply, getting his attention. “What about the chaperone?”

Both Oliver and Carpenini came to a sudden halt.

“Send a note for Veronica?” Carpenini asked.

“Unless she arrives in the next two minutes, it is rather useless,” Oliver shot back, rubbing his chin. His eyes darted to the screen in the corner of the room, the one with all the costumes from the circus, behind which Bridget changed.

“We can delay—” Carpenini was saying.

“No.” Oliver turned to Bridget and ruthlessly began unbuttoning her overshirt.

“How bad is your mother’s eyesight?” he asked, taking the shirt off her, and then spinning her around and beginning to button up her dress at the back, making her presentable again.

“My mother’s eyesight?” Bridget asked, bewildered.

“She squints all the time, but leaves off her spectacles, am I right?” Oliver spun Bridget back around again. “Do you think, on sight alone, she could, say, tell you apart from your sister?”

Bridget practically snorted. “On sight alone, she could not tell me apart from the Pope.”

“Good. Vincenzo, stall as best you can—just give me a few minutes!”

And with that, Oliver quickly grabbed something from behind the screen and swept out of the room, the pounding of his footsteps taking the stairs two at a time receding in the distance.

“Come, come, Signorina, sit!” Carpenini was saying, gesturing to the pianoforte. “Do not worry, Oliver will take care of everything.”

Bridget moved to the pianoforte at his command, but her mind was reeling. What would Oliver take care of? What was her mother doing here? How would they explain the lack of a chaperone?

She took her seat and let her fingers rest on the keys. Carpenini motioned for her to play. She had no idea what to play, other than the piece that had been consuming them for weeks, and thus began on the No. 23, starting with the recently troublesome second movement.

Carpenini listened in silence, standing over her shoulder for a tense thirty seconds, listening for any sound beyond the music room.

She kept playing as she heard the approaching noise of a party of females determined to get past a terribly befuddled Frederico, and then, finally, succeeding.

“Just keep playing,” Carpenini whispered in her ear, before he straightened and greeted the intruders.

“Ah! Signora Forrester!” he cried. “And Signora Galetti! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Likewise, Vincenzo,” Signora Galetti purred, and Bridget barely kept her lip from curling in distaste. Antonia came forward with her hands out, and Carpenini took them in his and kissed them, as expected.

“Well, I am not pleasantly surprised!” Bridget’s mother huffed. “I am quite the opposite.”

“Mother, will this take very long?” came the voice of Amanda from behind her. “It’s just that the Church of the Frari is open to visitors this morning and I was so hoping to see it in morning light.”

“It will take only as long as Signor Carpenini desires to explain himself.”

“Explain?” Carpenini asked, putting on a good show of astonishment. “What requires explanation?”

“First, you can explain to me where Mr. Merrick is—and more importantly, where his great-aunt is.” Lady Forrester narrowed her eyes at him—or, rather, in the general direction of him. “Then you can explain to me how my daughter came to be involved in something so base as a musical competition!”

Carpenini seemed struck by the latter of the two charges. But by the way Antonia Galetti was coyly trying to hide her amusement, his astonishment quickly faded.

“Oliver—Mr. Merrick—is out. He pays his calls to friends and the church on Wednesday mornings, si, Signorina?”

Carpenini turned to Bridget, and she nodded quickly, playing along to his rhythm. Her fingers continued to flow over the keys, trying to keep from shaking.

“As for Auntie . . . ah! Here she is!” Carpenini cried, herding the women away from the door, allowing Bridget to see who had joined their party.

She almost lost her place in the music.

There, hunched and dressed in an ill-fitting gown, lines painted on his face, and a cap covering strands of hair floured to a dull gray, was Oliver. He murmured greetings in a reedy, high-pitched Italian and, with the use of a cane, hobbled over to the center of the room to greet Lady Forrester.

It was absolutely amazing. If Bridget had not been so close or her eyesight not nearly so sharp, she would have thought for all the world that it was an old woman who entered the room. His posture, his voice, were a perfect mimic of a frail, elderly woman—three things he most certainly was not!

Oliver was a better actor than he gave himself credit for.

“Oh, Signora . . . do you know, I do not know if I ever learned your surname,” Lady Forrester mused, as she gave a correct albeit stiff curtsy. Behind Oliver—er, Auntie—came Molly, bearing a tea tray.

“Auntie’s last name is Oliveri,” Carpenini replied cheekily, earning a reproving stare from Bridget and the great-aunt, “and she was just downstairs helping with the morning repast. No one makes fresh bread like Auntie.”

Bridget’s mother seemed to consider this, eyeing Carpenini as he gently handed Oliver’s “aunt” into a chair by the fire. Oliver pulled Carpenini down to his level and said something to him in Italian.

“Si, Aunt,” Carpenini said, playing along. “She is playing much better today.” And then Carpenini straightened up, truly listening to what Bridget was playing, as if hearing it for the first time. “My God! You played the run!” he cried, clapping his hands. “Bellissima! With a gut of fire!”

But while Bridget was blushing under Carpenini’s praises, the situation in front of them was growing more precarious.

“Ah, Mother,” Amanda was saying, her voice a low warning. “I do not think that this person—”

“Amanda!” Bridget cried suddenly, bringing her sister’s attention away from whatever she was about to say. “Come turn pages for me, please.”

There must have been something in her voice, in the directness of her plea and her gaze, that had Amanda crossing the room to the pianoforte. Once there, she wasted no time in speaking low to her sister.

“What is going on? For heaven’s sake, Bridge, you’re not even reading music.”

“Please, please do not tell Mother anything. I promise you, nothing untoward is going on,” Bridget whispered back, making certain to keep the music louder than their conversation.

“Nothing untoward!” Amanda whispered excitedly. “Bridge, unless my eyesight is going like Mother’s, that woman is a man.”

The existence of the woman—er, man—in question was at that moment being discussed not only by Bridget and Amanda, but by their mother and a more insidious personality.

“Well, I am quite pleased to find you here, Signora Oliveri!” Lady Forrester enunciated very clearly and loudly toward the great-aunt, before turning back to Carpenini and Signora Galetti.

“You must understand, I was very concerned when Antonia here told me that when she last visited you, she did not see Signora Oliveri anywhere.”

“I do wonder if she puts in an appearance at all times,” Antonia said, sowing mischief as ruthlessly as the snake did in the Garden of Eden.

“Good point, my dear, thank you,” Lady Forrester replied. “Molly!”

The startled maid looked up from arranging the tea tray and seemed as if she wanted nothing more than to melt into the wall.

Lady Forrester pointed to the great-aunt, muttering and rocking by the fire. “Has that person been here, in this room, every day during my daughter’s lessons?”

Bridget had been worried for one heart-stopping moment that Molly’s fundamentalist upbringing would override her loyalty, and she would leap at the chance to extract herself from the tangled web they currently navigated on a daily basis. Luckily, her mother’s choice of wording had allowed her an opportunity to tell the truth without incurring any divine retribution.

“Yes, ma’am,” Molly said very clearly, looking Lady Forrester in the eye. Then, with a side-eyed glance to Bridget, she curtsied and made her escape.

“There, you see, Antonia, at least I am satisfied on that score. Although I do appreciate your concern.” She patted the lady’s hand. Although Bridget couldn’t be sure, she thought she heard something like triumph in her mother’s voice.

“But there is still the matter of the competition,” Antonia was saying slyly. “I was socked when you said you did not know of it.”

“I think you mean shocked, Antonia,” Carpenini muttered.

“Whatever she meant, I was as well,” Lady Forrester filled in. “What is this competition, and why do I hear of it only now?”

Carpenini seemed to hesitate for a moment, and from what Bridget could see, it was all Antonia could do not to jump up and crow about it. But then the answer came. From a very unlikely source.

“E un onore,” came the small voice of the fictitious great-aunt, from her place by the fire. “An honor.”

Bridget felt Carpenini, Oliver, and yes, herself lance through with fear. After all, the most dangerous thing Oliver could do at that point would be to draw attention to himself. But there was such a sweetness in his old woman’s voice. A persuasion. Who could deny him?—er, her?

“Lei suona il pianoforte—bellissima,” he said, shaking a gnarled hand in Bridget’s direction.

“Yes,” Lady Forrester replied, her face taking on softer hues. “She does play beautifully,” she said, understanding the sentiment without need of translation.

Bridget felt a warm lance of pride run through her. She knew her mother loved her and encouraged her playing, but at some point, she had stopped hearing the praise from her parent. Not that it wasn’t said—rather that it was said so often, it seemed commonplace. It was difficult to trust as anything other than a mother’s deafness in the face of love.

But for some reason, these few simple words, and her mother’s expression, did not seem commonplace. Not this time. Had she truly improved so much?

Bridget kept her head down and concentrated on her playing as Carpenini picked up his cues.

“Yes—we did not wish to tell you, until we knew that she was a strong enough player—but it is truly an honor to be chosen. Signorina Bridget is my best student and will be playing for the Marchese di Garibaldi and everyone else in Venice who loves music.” Then, with a nod to Antonia, and with that deep entrancing gaze Bridget knew so well, Carpenini turned his full mesmerizing power to Lady Forrester.

“And I believe she can win.”

As Carpenini began explaining the details of the competition and glossing over the less savory parts, the small glow of pride Bridget had been nurturing from her mother’s words multiplied tenfold with Carpenini’s. Heavens, it was practically exploding from her fingertips, so hard it was to keep her joy contained. She wanted to dance about the room—she wanted to play for days! She wanted to shake the dust off Oliver’s head and exclaim how much his imitation of an old lady impressed her—he was truly a great actor. Why, he could be on any stage he desired, from here to London, or perhaps Paris—

“Bridge,” Amanda whispered. “I have no idea what is going on, but I do not like it.”

But of course, the celebration would have to wait.

She turned to her sister, still sitting patiently beside her, still threatening everything with dark, frightened looks.

“Amanda, if you want to ever see the Frari, or any more of Venice, or Rome, or anywhere, you will please keep Mother in the dark. If she knew the truth, she would pack us up and take us home without missing a heartbeat,” Bridget pleaded. “I will do anything. Anything.”

Amanda seemed taken aback by this—and whether it was the fear of leaving Venice or the offer of anything she wanted, it seemed to have the effect needed . . . if not exactly the effect intended.

“Agreed.” Amanda took on a mercenary gleam in her eye—not unlike their mother’s when it came to bargaining. “But you have to tell me everything.”

“Everything?” she replied weakly.

“I just want what I’ve always wanted.” Amanda shrugged. “Information.”