Let It Be Me

Two

TWO things came in quick succession that would change Bridget Forrester’s fortunes and alter the course of her second Season.

The first was a letter.

The second was a tree.

Bridget was where she always was when the first of these life-altering objects made their arrival: the music room. And it was hand-delivered by her little sister.

“I knew I’d find you here!” Mandy—Amanda, as she preferred to be called now, Bridget quickly admonished herself—exclaimed as she raced into the room, her face flushed, eyes sparkling.

Bridget did not pause in the minuet she was practicing. “And what new bit of gossip have you heard?”

Amanda pulled off her bonnet, her bright, shiny curls bouncing as she did so.

“Why would you think I have gossip?” Amanda frowned.

“Because you rushed in here from shopping with Mother, and you didn’t even pause to take off your cloak and bonnet,” Bridget replied, unable to hide a smirk.

“Well, if you don’t want my gossip, I shan’t give it to you.” Amanda said in a huff. At sixteen, Amanda had reached her full height—at least everyone hoped she had, since she had outstripped their father and most men of their acquaintance. But her features still maintained the roundness of girlhood, and her hair still bounced around her shoulders. Mother never let any of them put their hair up before seventeen, no matter how much they had all whined and begged.

“Fine,” Bridget said, smiling to herself, wondering how long Amanda could hold out before the dam burst.

Amanda came to sit next to her on the bench. Idly, she tapped her finger against the wood, then leaned her elbow against the pianoforte’s frame, her head against her hand. Staring her sister down.

“That’s a pretty piece. What is it?”

“It’s a Bach minuet,” Bridget answered, her fingers hopping over the keys in their happy rhythm. She’d always found the piece rather wistful, even though it employed staccato.

“Really?” Amanda asked, her brow coming down. “It sounds different.”

“Well, I’m fiddling about with a variation,” Bridget admitted. Indeed, the Minuet in G Major was a clean but somewhat simplistic piece. Its bass clef was little more than long-held chords. Today, Bridget wanted a challenge.

Bridget had always found that the easiest way to put away her social failures was to lose herself in a challenging bit of music. To let her fingers flow over the keys, moving and mutating the sounds she knew, took all of her will, so that she had none left over to reflect on how Mr. Coombe had denigrated her to Mr. Hartley the night before, and how Mr. Hartley had believed him so faithfully. How she had not received one single request to dance. How she had kept a smile pasted on her face until it became strained, painful, and still it was for nothing.

It was all her sister’s fault.

Not Amanda’s of course—as she was not yet out, she could not really have any effect on Bridget’s social successes or failures—but Sarah’s. If Sarah had not spent all of last Season—Bridget’s first—being so popular . . . If Sarah had not seemed to shun Bridget when she proved less popular than she . . . If Sarah had not had so many suitors they left none for poor Bridget, and she was sought out only by those wishing to charm inside information about her sister out of her . . .

But really, it was difficult to blame Sarah when she was now married and living in her own town house a few streets away, and not at all involved in the Little Season’s social whirl.

Luckily, as she played the Minuet in G Major, and her variations on it, Bridget did not have to think about such trying things.

Until, of course, she ran out of music. Which she did far too quickly.

“Are you finished?” Amanda asked excitedly.

“Apparently,” Bridget replied, lifting her fingers off the keys.

“Good, so now I can tell you my news!”

“You made it thirty-two measures, I’m impressed.”

Amanda shot Bridget a look of sisterly exasperation.

“Fine,” Bridget said, holding up her hands. “What did you learn today on Bond Street?”

Bridget braced herself for being told of some wonderful salon to which she would not be invited, or the announcement of some young lady’s engagement, a girl who had come out at the same time as Bridget. But instead, Amanda launched into a breathless narrative that, surprisingly, turned out to be all about Bridget.

“We didn’t learn anything on Bond Street; in fact, we only made it to one shop before it began to snow so heavily that Mother insisted we come back before the roads became impassable, although I did get a new bonnet ribbon, which will hopefully last me through St. Valentine’s Day because one simply cannot wear bright spring colors in winter, it just seems lazy. But anyway,” Amanda plowed on, taking a deep breath, “when we got home the post had been delivered, and since Mother was occupied telling the butler to make sure the front steps were swept of the snow in a timely fashion, I looked through it myself, and there was a letter that was addressed to the Forrester Family from Venice of all places, and since I’m a Forrester I decided I should be allowed to open it and so I did.”

And with that, Amanda took the letter out of her pocket and held it out to Bridget.

“Mother will be absolutely livid that you took a letter without her permission!” Bridget admonished.

“Bridget, just read it!” Amanda bounced in her seat. “Hurry!”

Bridget took it with some caution. “But we don’t know anyone in Venice.”

“That’s what I thought, too! But apparently, you do.”

“Me?” Bridget replied, perplexed.

She unfolded the letter. And as she read the words, each more fantastical than the last, a buzz of anticipation and excitement spread through her core.

Dear Lord and Lady Forrester—

I am writing this note on behalf of my good friend Signor Vincenzo Carpenini, the musician and composer, who, I am told, is well-known to you. His written English is unfortunately unequal to the task. Signor Carpenini and I are currently planning a tour of his latest compositions in northern Europe and England. He has mentioned several times that your daughter, Miss Brittany, has great raw skill at the pianoforte, and perhaps—should she be of a mind to further improvement—you would be amenable to having her become a pupil of his. Be aware, the Signore rarely takes on students but felt her natural talent worthy of his instruction. If it is agreeable to you, the Signore will call at your household upon his arrival in London.

Yours, etc.—

Oliver Merrick, Esq.

Rio di San Salvador, Venice

Bridget stared for some minutes at the letter, letting its words flow over her, some fragments of sentences making sense, and then others not.

“You remember Signor Carpenini, don’t you, Bridge?” Amanda said, gleefully.

Of course Bridget remembered Signor Carpenini. It had been one of the pinnacles of her short life, meeting the Signore.

It was five summers ago. A few years before Sarah’s first season. They were at their home near Portsmouth, which, as a major shipping city, always had people passing through. And their father, Lord Forrester, had a propensity to take in strays. Thus, people of the thinnest connection to the Forresters were always invited to stay at their beloved Primrose Manor while they waited for passage on a ship that had been delayed, or for friends who were at sea two days—or sometimes two weeks—longer than expected.

Lord Forrester at least had discretion enough that these people were, in general, incredibly interesting. There was the time a young painter, Mr. Turner, came for lunch while he waited for a colleague to come in on the ship from Spain. Mr. Turner became quite taken with the rolling hills of Primrose and the violence of the sea at their far edge. There was another time that Bridget’s mother’s second cousin’s four nephews came in from the wilds of America and stayed the night, before beginning the long trip up to Scotland, where their mother’s second cousin lived, as they were sent to help him build a manufactory. Bridget, Sarah, and Amanda beat those four strapping young boys soundly at bowls. (Sarah was, Bridget had to admit, a rather fierce bowl-player.) And Sarah’s own husband, Jack, had once been such a stray, as a midshipman at the nearby Royal Naval Academy. But having a house opened to unexpected visitors her whole life in no way prepared Bridget for the arrival of Signor Carpenini.

She had been in the music room—which was not uncommon at any point in her life, but especially at the age of fourteen. She preferred to hide there. From her governess, who would no doubt try to make her learn more Latin. Really, she should be learning Italian, given the amount of musical terminology written in that language—but no, Miss Pritchett insisted that Latin was the root of all romantic languages, and therefore it was better to learn that stuff and nonsense. She hid as well from her mother, who would undoubtedly try to tie another bow in her hair, no matter how much she had exclaimed that her unruly, curly dark hair was statement enough and did not require any frills or furbelows. And from her sisters, who would try to rope her into widening pursuits—be it a walk to town, or shopping, or playing a game. Right at that moment, at fourteen, she just felt like playing music.

Of course, the fact that she was hiding didn’t mean that she hadn’t been found.

Sarah had entered abruptly, interrupting what Bridget had been playing—an étude, if she recalled correctly—and wheedled, whined, and cajoled Bridget into accompanying her while she practiced singing a new tune.

Bridget grumbled but complied. After all, Bridget didn’t sing. Sarah did not sing much better, but she insisted on trying.

“For tho’ his body is under hatches, his soul is gone aloft . . .” Sarah sang in her soft, thin voice, finishing out the strains to the not particularly feminine tune “Tom Bowling.” Bridget let her chords resolve . . . then, struck by a moment of impishness, played a few runs and triads—a flourish to finish off the piece. Though it was completely incongruous to the theme of the song, after playing accompaniment for the past half hour, it felt good to let her fingers run free.

“Why must you always do that?” Sarah had asked, her brow coming down. “It’s a sad song!”

“Would it be better if I did this?” Bridget asked, playing a range of minor chords in a progression that could only spell out doom for the poor sailor, Tom Bowling.

“Si, that is better,” came a thickly accented voice at the door. Both Bridget and Sarah turned and saw in the doorway a dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger. Behind him an equally dark-haired but hazel-eyed man hovered, anxiousness apparent in his tall frame.

“Vincenzo, Lady Forrester has had luncheon laid for us. If you will excuse us, ladies,” the lighter-eyed, anxious one spoke, his voice the epitome of aristocratic English.

“No, uno momento, Oliver,” the first man said, as he angled his way into the music room and came to stand over Bridget. She craned her neck to see up into his face.

“Play it again,” he intoned, his hand behind his back. “But this time, calando, ritardando.”

If Bridget was slightly confused why this man would be dictating how she played, she was also too curious about his critique to voice objection. She put her fingers to the keys and played the same minor chord progression that he had deemed better than before. But as per his request, she gradually lessened the pressure, the intensity, the music becoming slower and softer, as if drifting away to sea. When she lifted her fingers from the pianoforte, the note faded away, and all that was left was . . .

“Melancholy,” came the British voice of the light-eyed man—Oliver, he had been called—by the door. “Beautiful.” Bridget noticed that all the tension had left his shoulders for those few moments, and his line of sight went straight through the window to somewhere far, far away. The continental man who hovered over her, however, wore a smirk on his face.

“Si, Oliver! Exact!” he cried triumphantly. “You do well! I will hear more later!” And with that, he slapped Bridget on the back—a shocking gesture, not only for its impact but its intimacy—and made for the door.

“Ciao, signorinas,” he said, with a flourishing bow, and made his way past his friend, then disappeared down the hall, following where his stomach took him.

“Ciao, Signor Carpenini, Mr. Merrick,” Sarah replied, giving a small wave. The man who remained in the doorway—the light-eyed English one—snapped out of his reverie, tension returning to his shoulders as he gave a stiff bow, and made to follow his friend. But Bridget could only pay cursory attention to him. Because, if she was not mistaken, Sarah had called the Italian man . . .

“Did you say Signor Carpenini?” she asked, breathless.

“Yes, I did.”

“Vincenzo Carpenini? The composer?”

Sarah nodded. “He and his friend Mr. Merrick are on their way to Italy, but their ship was delayed until tomorrow. Why do you think I wanted to practice this song? Mother intends to have us play after supper.”

“Oh my goodness.” Bridget’s voice came out a squeak. “Oh my goodness.”

“Bridge—are you all right?” Sarah asked, looking queerly into her face. “You haven’t blinked in the last two minutes.”

“What? No! I mean, yes, I’m all right!” Bridget said finally. “But what are you doing just standing there? We must practice!”

And they had, Bridget working her fingers over the keys long after Sarah had felt she had practiced her fill and abandoned Bridget to the pianoforte. Bridget, of course, did not limit herself to playing droning chords for Sarah while she sang “Tom Bowling,” but instead, once dinner was over, she rushed to the piano and was ready to play the entirety of a Haydn concerto. When she was finished, and after Sarah had dutifully sung “Tom Bowling,” both guests had clapped enthusiastically, and then . . .

Bridget would never forget it.

Signor Carpenini made his way over to the pianoforte, kissed her hand, and declared to the room, “Marvelous! Send her to me, and I will make a virtuoso of her!”

Of course, she was not to be sent to Signor Carpenini. She knew this immediately. He was going to Italy the next day, after all, and Bridget was but fourteen. And no girl, especially not one of aristocratic birth, would be allowed to travel to Italy alone to study music.

But she had been so proud when he had said it. Practically glowing with it, her mother commented to her later. So full of . . . confidence.

It had been a long time since Bridget had felt such confidence. To know that she was the one, for that briefest moment in time, standing at the center of the universe and succeeding at the task in front of her.

But again, that was more than five years ago.

“Of course I remember the Signore,” Bridget answered her sister. “But he apparently doesn’t remember me. My name is not Brittany,” she murmured, on a frown.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “He certainly remembers your playing! Who else could he mean, silly?” She snatched the letter back, before Bridget could stop her. “You’re the only one of us he heard play—and besides, you’re the only one who could have ‘great raw skill’ . . . Sarah and I are abysmal.”

“He thinks my skill raw,” Bridget said dully. Then a terrible thought wretched through her. “Oh Lord—does that mean he thinks I play poorly? As if I am too unformed a player to have any true talent?”

Amanda blinked at her twice before shaking her head. “How is it possible that you heard only that one word? Instead of great and skill?”

Instead of answering, Bridget snatched the letter back. “Hold on. I have to read it again. I have to make certain—”

“Make certain of what? Yes, you play excellent pianoforte. Yes, he wants to tutor you. Yes, yes, yes!” Amanda cried, grabbing Bridget by the shoulders and giving her a small shake. “And most importantly, yes, you have to tell Mother that you rifled the mail without her knowledge.”

“Oh, hang that!” Bridget said, her heartbeat finally catching up with her shock as excitement coursed through her body. “You tell her you rifled the mail, and then I’ll tell her I am about to become a student of the great composer Signor Carpenini!”





Lady Forrester was duly annoyed at her youngest daughter and duly enthusiastic for her middle child upon hearing about the letter.

“Of course we will receive him when he comes, darling!” Lady Forrester cried. “He doesn’t list a date of arrival, does he? Hmm . . . well, for now I suppose there is little to be done but wait.”

And so they waited. Bridget practiced and practiced while she waited. She went to boring teas and dances where she was rarely asked to partner anyone. But now, it was actually tolerable. Because she had this shining, glowing ball of light inside her. A secret, better than anything anyone had ever had happen to them.

Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it, that such a shining glowing secret could not stay secret for long.

It happened casually. Some first-Season debutante, her mother hovering gently in the background with Lady Forrester, asking Bridget in the awkward silence of polite small talk if she played music.

“Oh, yes,” Bridget replied smartly. “I’ve played forever.”

“Oh, as have I,” the debutante—a Miss Parrish, who had in a few short weeks in the Little Season gained a reputation as a silly girl with as voracious an appetite for gossip as her mother had for food—said on a very dramatic sigh. “I absolutely loathed it as a girl. All those lessons, and music masters forcing me to spend hours on a hard bench, bored to tears—why, it was only when I pointed out to my mother how ugly and curled my hands were becoming that I was permitted to stop!” She finished on a laugh and glanced pointedly at Bridget’s hands.

Bridget stretched out her gloved fingers. They were long and elegant, nothing cramped or ugly about them. Granted, they were a little smaller than ideal—she could barely span an octave, no matter how much she stretched her hands—and the constant practice kept her nails blunt, but out of everything that could possibly be wrong with Bridget, her hands were certainly not one of them.

“Actually, I’ve found that constant practice keeps my fingers dexterous and nimble. Perhaps your music master had you positioning yours incorrectly,” Bridget replied, unable to keep a hint of archness out of her voice. Then she let her gaze slide to Miss Parrish’s hands, which were so plump, they looked like sausages in her gloves.

“Oh, so you still take lessons?” Miss Parrish continued, seemingly ignorant of any askance looks on Bridget’s part. “One would think that such instruction would have ended with the schoolroom. But if you require extra lessons . . .”

“Oh I wouldn’t call them a requirement,” Bridget responded, her reaction to the smugness in Miss Parrish’s voice strong and swift. Her own voice rose in volume, ever so slightly. “But when Signor Carpenini asks to take one on as a student, the extra instruction seems worthwhile.”

“Signor Carpenini?” Miss Parrish repeated, blinking in surprise. Mrs. Parrish, who had suspended her conversation with Bridget’s mother and taken a half step closer to them, blinked, too.

“Yes,” Lady Forrester said, jumping into the fray. “When the man returns to London, Bridget is to be one of his pupils.”

“You must be incredibly accomplished, Miss Forrester,” Mrs. Parrish replied.

“Er, yes,” Miss Parrish added, after a pointed look from her mother. “Perhaps you should put on a musicale, Miss Forrester. Show everyone your talent.”

“Perhaps we shall,” Lady Forrester replied. “But most likely in the regular Season. Bridget darling, I see your father calling us.”

And with that curtsies were made, and Lady Forrester excused them from the Parrishes.

“Mrs. Parrish grew her daughter’s penchant for gossip,” Lady Forrester muttered, taking Bridget’s arm while pulling her silk shawl tighter about herself. It was remarkably cold for a ballroom full of people, but the winter so far had no intentions of being mild. “It will be all over before tomorrow. I told you, we should keep this to ourselves for now.”

Bridget grimaced as her mother’s fingers unwittingly bit deeper into her arm. “I know, Mother, I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop myself.” Then she looked up, as if raising her eyes to the heavens. “Surely it isn’t a terrible thing to have known. After all, he is coming back, and I will be his pupil.”

“I know, my dear, I know.” Lady Forrester squeezed her hand as they threaded through the crowd. “But it invites trouble to brag about future accomplishments. I simply do not wish to put the cart before the horse. Do you take my meaning?”

Bridget grasped her mother’s meaning—but she did not understand the full measure of her social mistake until a week or so later. Yes, indeed, Miss Parrish and her mother had managed to work Bridget’s stunning news into every conversation they had. For a few days, it actually had a positive effect on Bridget’s popularity. She was asked to dance once at a public ball, and twice at small soirees. Granted, both times there was a scarcity of other partners to be had, but Bridget was strictly admonished to “not look a gift horse in the mouth.” (Her mother’s recent overuse of horses in metaphors merited some attention, however.)

But the most unfortunate surprise was when Lady Worth, a leading society matron and a dear friend of her sister Sarah—and a lady whose very voice set Bridget’s teeth on edge—asked Bridget to play the pianoforte.

“My dear, you simply must!” Phillippa, Lady Worth, said, as they milled around her alarmingly pink drawing room, waiting for dinner to be rung. Lady Worth’s dinner parties, as with all of Lady Worth’s activities, were the height of fashion. Therefore one could expect to be served fashionably late. “After we dine, I should love to hear what you’ve been working on!” Then she turned to Lady Chatsworth, a woman of Mrs. Parrish’s social circle who seemed appropriately cowed to have been invited to a party by Phillippa Worth. “Of course, I’ve heard Miss Forrester play many times when I have visited her home, and she is so talented. But she so rarely accepts invitations to play publicly!”

A trickle of fear ran down Bridget’s spine. Yes, since coming out, she rarely accepted invitations to play in public, with good reason.

“I find it so odd that you would not wish to play in public, Miss Forrester,” Lady Chatsworth was saying, a glint of suspicion in her eye. “Especially considering the status of tutor your playing apparently attracts.”

Bridget blinked twice, hesitating. Luckily Lady Worth was there to fill the void.

“Precisely why she does not! Indeed, I think we should be thanking her,” Phillippa smiled easily. “Think of how all the other young ladies, like your own Henrietta, who practice their scales and trills and whatnot, would have felt having to play after someone of such refined skill?”

“Yes . . . well . . .” Lady Chatsworth said, her cheeks becoming florid. “Henrietta’s playing was proficient enough to win her a fine fiancé. Without the help of fancy Italian tutors.”

“I would never say otherwise!” Phillippa cried. “Indeed, I am all astonishment that you would think so! I should never say something so rude about one of my guests. As I know, neither would you.” Steel had laced her sweet words, and Lady Chatsworth was smart enough to concede to the more socially influential lady in the room.

Perhaps Lady Worth’s voice was not so grating after all, Bridget had to admit to herself.

“You simply have to play for us after supper,” Lady Worth said graciously, turning back to Bridget. But her smile was firm and insistent.

Dread. Cold, pure dread started in the base of her stomach. But no, she would turn it away. Force it into submission. It was ridiculous, and more to the point, utterly vain to be nervous about playing. Thus she forced a smile that matched Lady Worth’s, and replied, “With pleasure, ma’am.”

As the eavesdropping vultures moved off from their little circle, Lady Worth turned her full attention to Bridget. “You are suddenly quite alarming pale, Miss Forrester,” she assessed, keeping her smile for appearances’ sake. “Dare I assume you suffer from a touch of nerves?”

Heat flushed across Bridget’s face. She hated being so transparent. Especially to someone like Lady Worth, whose manipulations were partially to blame for Sarah’s success the previous Season. Bridget had resented the highly polished woman for her interference, no matter that Sarah had flourished under it. And Lady Worth had tended to regard her—at least in Bridget’s estimation—as little more than a bothersome fly.

Although why she would concern herself with how Bridget felt now, she had no idea.

“I do not think my playing is a good idea, Lady Worth. I have nothing prepared . . .” Bridget began to demur, but Lady Worth cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You sister tells me you have hundreds of pieces memorized. And your mother tells me you play hours every day, so one must assume you have something in your repertoire.”

Bridget’s mind looped back over the course of the past week. The occasional dances, the gushing from one lady who said she was sooo lucky to have such a tutor, the pointed glances, and then her mother insisting on fitting this dinner party into their incredibly empty schedule. Bridget sought the eyes of her mother across the room and found her suspicions confirmed in Lady Forrester’s guilty look.

“You mean . . . did you throw this dinner party so I would have a stage upon which to exhibit?” Bridget asked, her entire body freezing in fear.

“Of course not,” Phillippa replied. “Although it is the only reason I would invite Lady Chatsworth. She is the most musically inclined of her little group. And it is why I invited Lord Merrick, of course.”

“Lord Merrick?” Bridget asked. The name was incredibly familiar.

“Yes—the father of Mr. Oliver Merrick, Signor Carpenini’s friend. The one who wrote you. Heavens, child, you mean you have not been introduced? That will be remedied shortly. You are seated next to him at dinner. To my knowledge, he is not particularly musical, but his late wife was,” Lady Worth continued. “So you should be able to impress him with your knowledge.”

Bridget was going to demur further, try to talk her way out of this situation that had put a hole in her stomach, but Lady Worth took her by the elbow and steered her to a more private corner of the room, where her smile instantly dropped.

“My dear Miss Bridget, if you are to convince the populace that you have what it takes to be a student of Signor Carpenini, you must play. There is simply no other way around it. Now, if you are as good as I assume you to be, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Spoken like someone who had never worried about anything, Bridget thought, her mind a huff. Never worried about how she was being perceived, about how people were judging, looking, peering closely to see if the cracks lined up as they should.

Bridget was a marvelous player. She never had loved anything like she loved music, and never would. But at some point, early in her first Season . . . music had failed her.

She had stood up to play at her first party—certain that this would be the thing to make her shine, the thing to make her stand out from a crowded field of young debutantes of refinement. She had smiled as she sat at the beautiful, expensive showpiece of a pianoforte, and . . .

And her eyes had caught on her sister Sarah across the room. Flirting with some man, some group of men, who all only had eyes for her. And for the first time in her life, Bridget had felt fear upon placing her fingers on the keys.

It wasn’t bad at first. She had played the opening stanza beautifully. But then she flubbed an arpeggio, and her fingers stumbled a bit on a key change. One thing building on another, like a snowball rolling downhill, becoming a boulder, and suddenly, Bridget was glancing wildly about her and finding herself . . . lost. By the end, the polite applause Bridget received was just that . . . polite. Not the triumph she had expected, that she needed.

The weight of judgment had fallen, and Bridget had been crushed beneath it.

She tried again, of course, but the second time was almost worse than the first, as she had that pit of dread in her stomach from the beginning. It was utterly bewildering, as Bridget had played in front of people loads of times! When people visited Primrose, they begged for a performance! Signor Carpenini, for heaven’s sake!

It was only at that time, in her first Season, when she was being judged on everything, that her playing was affected.

She was tempted to give up—but how could she give up the one thing that acted as solace? So she played at home, practiced, intent on rediscovering perfection. And with only her family to overhear, the family who had listened patiently through her first scales a decade and a half ago, she was completely fine. Better than fine, actually. She was . . .

“I am that good, Lady Worth,” Bridget replied fiercely.

“Are you certain?” Lady Worth replied, her eyebrow going up.

“Yes. I am brilliant,” Bridget stated. Her words might be full of bravado, but there was conviction behind them. At least enough to fool Lady Worth, who leaned in close, and whispered:

“Then play like it.”





She would. She would play like there was no tomorrow. The pit in her stomach, that cool dread making camp there, dissipated and howled against the fire now in her belly.

I can do this. I can do this.

All through dinner, Bridget repeated this mantra to herself, willing away that nervousness. She would play the Bach minuet she had been practicing the other day—perhaps she would even be so bold as to play the variation she had been fiddling with. No—that would be a mistake. Instead, let them see how perfectly she could play the original. Every note, every run, would fall perfectly in time. She could do that, she told herself.

Bridget held fast to the mental fever, to the focus that she needed to get through the meal—both interminable and too short!—and play. She was good enough. For heaven’s sake, she was going to be a student of Carpenini, wasn’t she?

“What did you say, my child?” Lord Merrick—an older, gruff man seated at the table next to her—asked in between bites of mutton. “Something about Carpenini?”

Oh dear Lord, had she been muttering her mantra aloud? Bridget blushed, mortified, hoping that no one would be paying their section of the table any attention. But Bridget’s luck had never been that good, and at the word Carpenini, several people in their immediate vicinity grew silent. The gentleman with little pieces of mutton stuck in his long sideburns did not seem to notice, however. Instead, he nudged his elbow into Bridget’s arm, attempting to prompt her to speak.

“Cat got your tongue, child?”

“More likely she was simply talking to herself, Lord Merrick,” came the voice of Henrietta Chatsworth—Lady Chatsworth’s eldest, snobbiest daughter—from the man’s other side. Bridget feared for the girl’s fiancé; her hearing was too sharp and her nose too pointed to make for a pleasant life. “After all, whom else would she talk to?”

Bridget’s eyes narrowed at the taunt. But as much as she wished to stare daggers at Henrietta, she knew it would only cause her reputation to further deteriorate, and therefore, she would have to try to be—ugh—sweet.

“We cannot all be as talkative as you, Henrietta,” Bridget replied, her tones so saccharine they would have turned lemons into lemonade. “I’m sorry, er, Lord Merrick,” she continued, turning her attention to the gentleman between them. “Miss Chatsworth is correct that I was talking to myself.”

“About Carpenini?” Lord Merrick replied, surprised. “Whatever for?”

“Well,” Bridget began. “I am a great admirer of his music . . .”

Merrick harrumphed at that.

“As I would assume your son is?” Bridget’s brow came down in confusion. “After all, he must be great friends with the composer, if he is bringing him with him to England . . .”

“No, he is not!” Lord Merrick exclaimed. “Fortunately or unfortunately, take your pick.”

His words came out with a measure of hurt behind them. But Bridget was far more concerned with the content of his speech than the emotions behind it.

“He’s . . . not?” she stuttered, dread driving her heartbeat faster.

“He’s not?” Henrietta injected herself into the conversation. “But how can that be?” Her voice dripped with the same acidic sweetness that had colored Bridget’s earlier tones. “When Miss Forrester here has been telling everyone that Carpenini asked if she would be his student?”

Bridget turned her mortified gaze to Lord Merrick. “I . . . that is, we . . . had a letter. Written by your son on behalf of Signor Carpenini, saying that they were coming to London.”

“And when did you receive this letter, Miss Forrester?” Lord Merrick regarded her with a gleam of interest in his eye.

“A few weeks ago, sir,” Bridget replied, only to watch Lord Merrick’s face fall abruptly, then reconstitute itself into resignation.

“I thought so. Your letter predates mine.” Lord Merrick shook his head and heaved a great sigh. “I’m sorry, my girl; I had a letter from my son not two days ago. It was brief, but in it he expressly said since he is not needed at home, he is extending his stay in Venice—and Signor Carpenini with him.”

“But . . . but . . .” Bridget couldn’t tear her eyes from Lord Merrick’s face. If she did, she knew she would see Henrietta Chatsworth positively crowing with delight.

Lord Merrick gave her a pitying pat on the shoulder. “Neither my son nor Carpenini is coming to England anytime soon.”





I can do this. I can do this.

She still had to play. If fact, as Henrietta whispered her delicious piece of gossip to the person on her other side, and it spread in a loop around the table, it became even more imperative that she show them all that she was imbued with real talent and skill. Or at least that was what Lady Worth whispered in her ear before she could slink away into the background.

“Let them know who you are, Bridget,” Lady Worth had said. “Make them eat their words.”

And so Bridget, her back straight and proud, still holding on for dear life to the focus she needed to play, walked through the crowd to the far side of Lady Worth’s pink sitting room and seated herself at the gleaming cherrywood pianoforte that had been placed there for her benefit.

The room grew quiet, stilling itself as the audience arranged themselves in their seats. Bridget felt a nervous giggle bubbling up and stifled it. After all, when was the last time any of the ton was so attentive to a debutante’s musical efforts? They were all so serious, so terribly curious!

But instead of giving in to a small hysteria, Bridget lifted the smooth hinged lid, revealing the ivory keys.

She took a deep breath and let her fingers rest lightly on the cool ivory, finding her first position for the Bach minuet as easily, as instinctually as breathing.

She let her muscles flex—not moving the fingers, mind, not yet ready to play. But just enough that she could map out where she wanted her force and power to go. She let the piece play in her head, let it wash over her, so much that everyone else in the room faded away.

I can do this.

Bridget played. She let the melody flow from her fingertips. And for once, it felt as if she might have it. As though the people who were staring at her were not there to judge her, and she were allowed to simply play the way she liked. To lose herself in the music.

But then . . .

A giggle intruded on her thoughts. But Bridget could not afford to let it distract her. So she played on, wiping it from her mind.

It was probably Henrietta Chatsworth who giggled.

It probably was, and she was probably giggling with Lord Merrick, who had been so sad himself and yet had regarded Bridget with pity.

Bridget suddenly realized her pace was too fast. Oh dear, this minuet would be over before too long, and Lady Worth would make her play something else, something longer. Better to slow down.

She changed her pace for the next stanza. But this just made her feel off. The G-major minuet was lively, spritely. But then again, its tempo was moderato; perhaps she should aim for somewhere in between?

A cough from somewhere in the back of the room jolted Bridget’s fingers, and she missed the F-sharp at the bottom of a long string of eighth notes, turning the entire run sour.

No, this mustn’t happen. I can do this.

. . . Can’t I?

At the refrain, she felt like it was a new start. But so much had come before it, it was impossible to undo all the damage. It was like a snowball rolling downhill—only getting larger and larger in her mind, a number of little mistakes adding up. Henrietta’s giggle, Bridget messing up the tempo, Lord Merrick telling her that Carpenini wasn’t coming . . .

Carpenini wasn’t coming.

Another note missed, another half rest not held right. Basic music, things taught to children in the nursery, was abandoning Bridget. Until finally, she could not take it anymore.

The piece still had sixteen measures left to it. But they didn’t matter.

She lifted her fingers from the keys as if they burned.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked out, with tears in her eyes.

And then, before she could see her mother’s dismay, Lady Worth’s disappointment, Henrietta Chatsworth’s glee, or Lord Merrick’s pity, Bridget ran from the room.





That night, as Bridget lay awake in bed, her wretchedness acute, Mother Nature decided she agreed wholeheartedly with the ton, and that it was futile for Bridget to continue the farce of being a London debutante, and delivered that second thing that would in quick succession forever alter Bridget’s life.

She dropped a tree on their house.