Let It Be Me

Twenty-two

IT was a good few minutes before Bridget felt sure enough of herself to speak. A feeling not uncommon to her, as it was the second time it had visited her that evening.

“I want to play.”

She was thrown against Oliver’s side, lying on her back on the bed. Her arm lay flung out to the side, the need for air, for relief, acute, but she was unwilling still to break that delicious (necessary!) contact. He was breathing heavily, staring at the ceiling, the tent of bed curtains that surrounded them.

“You want to play?” he asked between deep gulping breaths. “If you wish to play with me, I can only beg a short respite.”

“No.” She gave a short laugh. “I want to play the pianoforte.”

“The pianoforte?” He grinned against the dark. “Why on earth would you want to play the pianoforte now?”

“Because I’ve got it!” She smiled, sitting up. “I think I understand the Number Twenty-three, after tonight, and the Beethoven of it, in particular.” She turned to him, holding the bare linen sheet against her breast, so becomingly that Oliver could hardly help but reach his hand toward it—a hand she swatted away like a fly buzzing about the cream.

“I understand the Number Twenty-three sonata now. Beethoven—he pushes feeling at you, he does not allow you the leisure of discovering it for yourself. You are already on the ship and riding along before you realize you have joined. And it is a ride.” Her determination came up with her color. “There is this hook, just on the inside of your cheek, like a caught fish. You are jerked along until you are finally caught up with him, and all you can do is hold on.”

She paused for a moment, leaning back against the sheets.

“I would play that,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “That is, I think I can play that. I think that’s what is missing from how I play the Number Twenty-three.”

Of course she would want to play now, he thought ruefully, when they were lying in bed, lost to the world, to the night. Her jumpy, fractious nature did not allow for anything else. And that was the woman he loved. So there was nothing else but to go along with it. Or try to find a way to persuade her to stay.

“I do not know if this place even has a piano,” he answered lazily, letting his finger trace figure eights on her shoulder.

“Of course you do,” she replied. “This is your house, is it not?”

He stilled, letting his eyes meet hers in the darkness.

“What do you mean?”

“This is your room,” Bridget breathed, as she met his gaze, coming back down to earth from her musical meanderings.

“Yes,” he nodded. “For the time being.”

“No, I mean . . . this is your room.” Her brow came down. “The portrait over the hearth—that is of you as a young man, is it not?”

Oliver felt color creep up over his face. She saw more than he gave her credit for.

“Yes,” he conceded. “That is me at sixteen.”

“You know all the staff by name. And the streets of Vienna. This is your house.”

“This is my father’s house,” he corrected, leaning back against the pillows in defeat.

She shook her head at him. “Why did you not tell us? You let us think this is Lord Pomfrey’s house—or at the very least, the home of a ‘friend.’”

Oliver stared up at the ceiling. “I do not know,” he said quietly. “I suppose I wanted you to think I had managed all of this by my own measure, without resting on the shoulders—or money—of my father.”

“Why?” she asked simply, propping up her head on her elbow so she could look at him properly. Lying naked next to him, having shared their bodies, it seemed to Bridget that sharing other secrets would come without objection. And thankfully, after a moment, Oliver did not object and gave in to her inquiry.

“I know how it is, Bridget. Everyone sees me as either my father’s son or Carpenini’s brother. And I do live off both of them in some ways. I cannot deny that it is family money that keeps me fed and sheltered, and that I have used to purchase the Teatro Michelina. Nor can I deny that I am going to use my half brother’s compositions to put it back on the map.” He rose up on his own elbow, meeting her gaze. She took the opportunity to reach out and smooth the hair that mussed about his temple.

“The idea that you do not stand on your own feet is preposterous.”

“Bridget—”

“It’s true. How did you come by invitations to the concert this evening?” she asked.

“I have met with Signor Domenico Barbaia, who manages the theatre, on several occasions. I called in a favor of sorts,” Oliver answered, hesitantly.

“So your father did not fetch them for you?”

“Of course not, but—”

“And Carpenini? He had no influence over this?”

“Actually, Vincenzo and Signor Barbaia have had differences of opinions in the past.”

“You see!” Bridget cried, putting a gentle hand against Oliver’s chest. “They had nothing to do with it. In fact, Carpenini could have been a hindrance. And he”—she hesitated, not wanting to offend but still needing to make her point—“has been living with you for a year now, exiled from the musical world in Venice. You are the one who is of assistance to him now, not the other way around.”

Oliver shrugged. “He is not living with me for free—he will produce a piece to premiere on stage at the Teatro. Besides that . . . he is my brother. He is family.”

“You allow your brother such leeway and not your father?” she countered.

Oliver looked at her, pained—unhappy to reveal this little bit of himself. But not unwilling. Nay, perhaps he was even compelled.

“I told you—my father does not understand.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “Hell, he gives me an allowance to stay away.”

“Are you sure he is not providing for you to follow your heart?” Bridget asked, a fissure in her heart, opening just that much wider for Oliver, for his pain. “That is what families do, after all. They support, even when they do not understand. Do you think my mother understands how I feel about music? Why I felt the need to travel halfway across the world to Venice? Why I am putting every piece of myself into a competition that she did not even know about? Of course she does not.” Bridget let her hand rest on his heart, let him feel her presence there. “But she supports me, loves me, to the occasional point of lunacy.”

His hand came over and held hers in place against his chest, his thumb making lazy patterns against her soft skin.

“She is not the only one,” he murmured, before lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing her palm.

Bridget froze. Did she dare trust her ears? Had he said what she thought he had? But before she could move, before she could think, Oliver had released her hand and thrown himself back against the bed and, with exaggerated humor, covered his face with a pillow.

“When you said you wanted to play, I did not think it would be with my deeply held beliefs about my family!” he groaned, eliciting a giggle from Bridget.

“Well, you are the one who has not provided me with the requisite pianoforte,” she countered with a laugh.

That had Oliver sitting up. “Fine,” he began with an overly weary sigh. “We shall adjourn to the music room.”

Oliver stood up and began to pull on his trousers, letting them hang from his hips in a distractingly lazy manner.

“Ah . . . there’s a music room?” Bridget asked, her eyes jumping to his face.

“Yes—and thankfully, it is on the opposite side of the house from your mother and sister’s bedchamber.” He looked down at her in the bed, his eyes running over the way she held the bedsheet to her breast, the tangle of her hair. And then a smile crept over his features.

A delightful, devilish smile. One full of ideas.

“But if you are going to play, you are going to do so my way.”





Tiptoeing was not easy for Bridget. Especially when dressed in only a bedsheet.

It was longer than her, so it dragged on the floor, catching against her feet. Also, it was wrapped so tightly around her that her steps were mincing and unsure.

They were barely out the door of his bedroom when Oliver gave up hope of her maintaining silence and lifted her in his arms to carry her to the music room.

“This is much simpler,” he whispered, as he lifted her against his chest.

“And much more fun,” she returned with a wicked smile.

Oliver was able to tiptoe their way to the music room, down the corridor, past Amanda’s room and Lady Forrester’s, down the stairs and through the living rooms that had been aired out for the younger Mr. Merrick and his guests, and into a room that had not received such attention.

It was a narrow, high room at the back of the house, windows looking onto the small garden that produced flowers and cuttings for the public rooms. But those windows had not been opened in many a week, making the air thick and stifled. All the furniture was still covered in dust cloths.

“Well,” Bridget said, as she was put on her feet again, clutching the sheet to her. “At least I match.”

“Now, it may not be perfectly in tune,” Oliver said as he crossed the room and whipped the sheet off of the beautiful oakwood instrument that dominated the space. As he opened up the instrument, he continued, “Although I do know the servants are under strict orders to have it serviced monthly.”

“Why have an instrument tuned if no one lives here?” she asked.

“It was my mother’s,” Oliver shrugged, as he self-consciously rubbed the back of his head. “They lived here for a time before I was born. Taking in the city. After her death, my father . . . well, he has a sentimentality about some things, at least.”

Bridget just shook her head at him as she followed his path across the room and took her seat at the piano bench.

“No, no.” Oliver shook his head and held out his hand. “You have to leave that with me.”

She looked down to where his eyes had fallen. “You want the sheet?” she asked, surprise lighting up those eyes.

He nodded.

“But I’ll be naked.”

He nodded again, unable to suppress a grin.

“In the words of Molly, you’re stark raving mad,” she retorted, and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Keep doing that and I’ll find far more interesting uses for your tongue,” he growled at her, and took estimable pleasure in watching her blush. Oliver put his hands behind his back, putting his back up straight.

“You are about to launch a logical argument at me,” Bridget said before he could speak.

“I am?” he asked, surprised. “How can you tell?”

“You always put your hands behind you and lean back on your heels when you are about to give a lecture.” She smirked at him. She looked so impossibly lovely in that moment—her hair running wild about her face and shoulders, the curves of her woman’s body exposed by the draping of a single sheet—that Oliver had difficulty keeping his hands behind his back. But he’d be damned if she wasn’t right about his posture.

“All right,” she sighed, waving her hand, and almost lost her grasp on her sheet. “Er, convince me why it is logical that I play naked.”

“Again, shall I revisit your statement to me about rather playing naked in front of a thousand people?” He grinned at her. “Well, you have played before a thousand people, now you have the opportunity to complete the other half of that prospect, in relative privacy.” He took a step forward, closing the distance between them. “After this, you can have nothing to fear.”

He held her gaze as his fingers slipped deftly below the neckline of the sheet, and he slowly pulled it away from her. Leaving Bridget standing there, in the dark, in her full, freckled glory.

Brava, you, he thought as she continued to hold his gaze—refusing to shrink or to cover her body with her arms. Instead, she took a measured breath, then squared her shoulders and turned to the pianoforte.

Light gold freckles covered her from head to toe. Hell, his trousers (his only clothing at the moment) were not going to do a damn thing to hide his admiration.

Seating herself on that glorious rear (of which she had afforded him a fabulous view with her defiant walk to the bench), Bridget began a quick scale, feeling out the keys, making sure the instrument was in tune. She picked out the insistent melody they had heard that evening in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She giggled as Oliver moved across the room and found an old taper and candlestick, lighting it quickly with a nearby flint and bringing it over so she could see the keys better.

Once the light was on her, once the room had stilled, she took a steadying breath, followed by a second for what came next; then she asked very simply, “What should I play?”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Play . . . play your ‘Ode to Venice.’”

“In Vienna? Surely this is some kind of sacrilege. You know, Byron wrote an ‘Ode on Venice,’” she stated, placing her fingers in the first position for her own ode.

“Yes, but it is quite long-winded. I like yours better.”

She smiled and began to play those soft, awakening notes, the tune so much a part of herself, so full of her idiosyncrasies, that it was hard to tell where the artist stopped and the art began.

It was only a few minutes in length to play, so when she was done, she turned to him again.

“Perhaps it should be renamed. Perhaps it can be the ‘Ode to Vienna’ after tonight,” he teased.

“No, I shall write Vienna her own ode. This one belongs to Venice.” She shook her head at him. Then, with consideration, she asked, “What next?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Play what urged you down here. What you wanted to play when we lay so cozily next to each other in bed.”

She regarded him for a short moment. Then, with infinite care, she placed her hands on the keys again and began the No. 23.

With those few opening chords, the music took over her body. There was no hesitation. There was, indeed, nowhere to hide. Oliver leaned against the instrument, weakened by the beauty of it. She exposed every ache, every plunge, through the highs and lows and rapid appoggiaturas. It was well played, as always. But this time, something was very different.

Instead of sitting back and letting the feeling come, as before, this time, she pushed the feeling at the audience, the way she had described Beethoven doing in his latest symphony. Whether she could do this because she was naked, or because she had only Oliver listening, he could not tell, but the only thing he could think was that he was so terribly grateful that he got to be the one to hear it.

She let her fingers rest after the first movement, taking them off the keys. She let the power that she had unleashed into the air seep back again, falling like light, settling around them.

When she finally turned to him, her eyes were shiny with tears.

“You’re crying,” she said to him. Oliver put his hand to his own eyes. She was right—tears threatened to fall onto his cheek, too.

“That is how you should play it. At the competition.”

“That’s how I will win?”

He shook his head. “That is how it should be heard.”

He moved from his position leaning on the pianoforte and came to gingerly sit next to her on the delicate piano bench. He felt the warmth coming off her, her skin so close to his. She began the second movement of the No. 23. Not pushing emotion or herself this time, just feeling out the notes from memory, letting herself float along with the melody.

“The competition,” she breathed, shaking her head. “You have no idea how much I wish that were already over. And yet I dread its coming.”

“Do you?” he asked.

“It is all I think about,” she admitted. “My entire life has been framed around it, for months. I will be so relieved when it is over, but on the other hand . . . what do I do with myself when it is gone? My lessons . . . do they come to an end? My family—I suppose we go back to England. But if I begin thinking of the after, I become overwhelmed and then ultimately, oddly . . . bereft.”

“Bereft,” he repeated. “I do not understand why.”

She shook her head, lifting her fingers from the keys midmeasure. “Because it means this time—this wonderful, glorious time—is coming to an end. My lessons, playing for a circus, learning from Carpenini and wandering the city with you. My purpose will have ended. And I cannot think on that without being a little sad. And then utterly distracted.”

He held his breath, waiting. She put her fingers back on the keys again, picked up exactly where she had left off.

“So I do not think about it,” she said, letting herself drift back into the music. “I can only think of the competition. And let the after come later.”

Oliver let out a long slow breath. He had to admit, he had not been thinking about the after, either. He had only assumed that the way their lives were would carry on. His mind had not let him think of her not taking lessons any longer . . . or of the possibility of her going back to England.

But he knew one thing. He did not want Bridget to leave his life. He wanted that day of family and flowers and a church, and the lifetime of music that followed.

“Bridget, you know that we are going to have a conversation all too soon. About the after. A question that needs asking.”

“I know,” she nodded. “But not until after. Please.”

“All right,” he conceded. “Not until after.”

She smiled at him and leaned into him playfully as her fingers continued on the keys. He let the music surround them for a few moments, let it whisk her away into feeling. Then, gently, he leaned down and kissed her shoulder. Reverently.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Whatever for?” she replied, astonished.

“For the most incredible night of my life.”