Let It Be Me

Five

“THAT,” Oliver seethed, “was your last best chance of making any money this month.”

“Making money?” Vincenzo replied, as if he had never heard of the concept. “Was that child going to pay me for a composition? A tune to commemorate her first communion, perhaps?”

“No, she was a prospective student,” Oliver sighed, collapsing onto the red velvet chaise that occupied the corner of the drawing room. Well, really the music room, ever since Carpenini had come to stay with him. “A determined one, at that.”

“A student?” Vincenzo recoiled from the keys. “I’m not going to take a student I’ve never heard play. Besides, once I complete this opera, money will not be a consideration anymore.”

“Yes, if you would please hurry up and finish the opera, I would be most grateful,” he sighed. “But by the by, you have heard her play. That was Miss Forrester. When you came to get me in England? Five years ago?” At Vincenzo’s blank look, Oliver rolled his eyes. “We stayed with her father, Lord Forrester, for a day while awaiting our ship in Portsmouth. She played while her elder sister sang ‘Tom Bowling.’”

A light of recognition filled Vincenzo’s eyes. “But what on earth is she doing in Venice?”

“That . . . is my doing, I’m afraid.”

Vincenzo’s dark eyebrow went up. “Indeed? You called a little lamb to me from the coast of England?”

“Not exactly.” Oliver’s face went hard. He refused to turn red. This would all have been easier a year ago, when Vincenzo was the toast of Venice—not now, when he was practically barred from every patron and musical venue in the city. Every venue except Oliver’s. “Do you recall, a few months ago, my father sent for me, calling me home?”

Vincenzo’s eyes returned to the keys in front of him, and he began softly playing the same tune that had been haunting him all morning. As if he could escape the conversation by slipping into music.

“And when I told you of it,” Oliver continued, heedless of his friend’s inattention, “you said you would love to see England again—and I said I could likely manage your passage, but you would need some kind of income once there.”

If Vincenzo was listening, he did not acknowledge it. But he did continue his playing, as if giving Oliver permission to continue speaking.

“And you said—and I quote: ‘I’ll find a few students, stage a few concerts, and sell a few operas. It will be a triumph!’”

Vincenzo’s hands came off the keys. “I do remember something about you trying to force me to leave Venice,” he replied, shrugging. “But then you changed your mind.”

“It was not I whose mind was changed,” Oliver replied darkly. Oliver had been packed; he had broken off ties with his work at the Teatro la Fenice, the premier theatre in Venice, and was ready to return to London when he received another letter from his father, stating that Oliver was not needed at home after all.

Not needed. Stay away.

Oliver had admitted to himself a certain disappointment. Not for his sake, he told himself, but for his friend. Vincenzo could have had a fresh start in England. Overseas he was still regarded as a master. Miss Bridget Forrester’s appearance here today made that clear.

But Vincenzo was nothing if not stubborn.

Suddenly the music stopped with a slam on the keys. Vincenzo stood and began pacing. “I could not leave Venice, my tail between my legs, surely you see that!” He rubbed the growth of beard that had taken over his features since his fall from grace. “If I cannot compose in the city of my birth, then I can compose nowhere! I will not be in disgrace forever—and this”—he threw his hand out to the half-written pages on the pianoforte—“will be what saves me from it. This symphony will be my triumph!”

“Oh, it’s a symphony now? A moment ago it was an opera.”

Vincenzo shot Oliver such a look of loathing that Oliver felt momentarily compelled to be contrite. Or he would have, had he not remembered that Carpenini was living in Oliver’s house, on Oliver’s income, as the only person in Venice who would accept him.

And that was the quandary in which Oliver had found himself stuck. Carpenini had promised him a new composition to stage. But a year after Carpenini’s fall from grace, he was still living on Oliver’s goodwill and depleting what funds Oliver had to possibly stage said opera.

Unfortunately, Oliver owed him too much to do otherwise.

“The Marchese prefers symphonies to operatic histrionics,” Vincenzo replied. “And you will benefit as much as I from the Marchese putting me back in favor.”

It was true. However, until then, Oliver was stuck.

Oliver was resigned to putting up with supporting his friend (financially as well as emotionally) until he wrote a piece that would impress all of Venice into loving him again. But it was not just the city that Carpenini had to impress. It was his former patron—the Marchese di Garibaldi.

“But if you wish to travel to England,” Vincenzo continued blithely, “go. Do not worry about that warehouse you purchased . . .”

“It’s a theatre—the Teatro Michelina,” Oliver answered automatically.

“Right now it is a warehouse,” Vincenzo answered back. “At any rate, you can tell your father you have invested your allowance in real estate. I am sure he will be pleased. But I release you from any obligation. I will be fine here by myself.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. If he could only believe that Vincenzo would be fine without him! The difficulty was he had no notion as to the man’s ability to take care of himself. There were too many days he did not eat, and absolutely no money coming in to pay someone to remind him to do so or to pay the rent on this house. His artistic fever would overtake him, and he would compose, compose, compose. Or his artistic fever would leave him, and he would wander aimlessly into trouble with women, women, women.

Just watching it, Oliver—who himself enjoyed such troubles, in moderation—was exhausted.

“You know I’m not going anywhere.” He gave in to the impulse to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he had first come to Venice, the excuse he had given his father was that he wanted to know the land of his mother’s birth. He had not intended to stay this long. But now it had become his home—if only because his father did not welcome him back in England. And it was here that he had determined to have a future. It was here that he had learned the business of the theatre from every angle—even appearing on stage. It was where, discovering his position at La Fenice had been filled after his aborted trip to England, Oliver decided to attempt a long-held ambition, sinking most of his savings into his own warehouse . . . er, theatre. It was where he would someday stage works of his own choosing, starting with Vincenzo’s newest. Whenever he happened to finish the damn thing. “Can we move forward, please?”

“But you still have not explained the girl,” Vincenzo broached, his fingers returning to the keys.

“Ah—well, she seemed a good prospective student. You even offered to teach her when you originally met. So, when I thought we were going to England, I wrote a letter on your behalf, exploring whether her family would allow her to be taught by you.”

Vincenzo looked up at him in horror. “So you’re my procurer now?”

“I was attempting to be practical.” Oliver’s brow thundered down. “I apologize, it won’t happen again.”

“How many letters did you write? Are there going to be a dozen English schoolgirls showing up while I am trying to write my masterpiece?”

“I only wrote the one, because that was the only English girl I ever heard you offer to teach.” Granted, they had not been in England together for very long five years ago. But after spending the last five years in Vincenzo’s company, he hadn’t often heard the man offer to teach anyone. He’d had students, of course—back before his fall from grace. But those had been children of the highest nobles in Venice, people who did not wait to be asked. For Carpenini to want to teach someone, they had to display something special.

“Was she that good, then? This Miss Forrester?”

As Vincenzo kept playing variations of his tune, Oliver took himself back in time to that afternoon they had spent at the home of the Forresters, Primrose Manor, waiting for their ship to be ready to sail with the tide.

His father was going to try to stop him. He had been sure of it, and it made him one raw nerve during the long carriage ride from London to Portsmouth, where they would catch their ship. But while he had been taking furtive glances out the window and constantly rearranging his long legs, trying to get comfortable, easy, he had also been sitting across from the great composer Vincenzo Carpenini, who—after a concert at which the man had received three ovations—upon learning who Oliver’s mother was, and Oliver’s desire to see Italy, offered to take him back with him.

Lord Merrick had been furious. He saw it as a personal betrayal, a rejection of everything English that Oliver had been raised to be. His older brother had just blinked in confusion—how could Oliver want to go to Italy, of all places? Wasn’t it horribly hot and dirty? But his brother Francis, both of his parents having been English, never knew what it was like to feel like you had one foot in one world and one foot somewhere else. Oliver was the second son, from the second wife. England was where he was raised, but perhaps, he’d thought, perhaps he belonged elsewhere. Why else did he reject the notion of a career in any of the three places—the law, the military, or the church—where a gentleman’s second son can thrive? Why would he be so unnatural, as his father had said more than once, to take a liking to music, to the stage?

So there he was, on a mad adventure away from the only place he knew, with a man he knew of but did not know. One who kept smiling at him and trying to converse about the bright and beautiful city of Venice in broken English, and Oliver kept trying to answer in barely remembered Italian from his mother.

They had come to Portsmouth a day earlier than the ship departed, and Oliver was numb with fright that his father might come and try to stop him. Worse yet, Oliver was afraid that he himself would have time to rethink his flight. Italy? Had he gone mad? He had no funds and didn’t know a soul there!

He was doing this kind of second-guessing when he and Carpenini had run into Lord Forrester’s personal brand of kindness in Portsmouth. And Lord Forrester, delighting in finding an Italian composer of renown wandering around looking for a decent spot of lunch, invited both of them back to Primrose to wait for the dawn and their departure.

Oliver had walked into Primrose Manor still unsettled, but realizing he had to play the gentleman for the next several hours, he kept it under wraps. And he found that—much as it did on the stage—playing the role helped ease his nerves. Not entirely, however. Primrose was a big, happy place, made more so by the hospitality that Lord Forrester and his family provided. It reminded him of his own home, the one he was leaving.

The second-guessing began again, and as he and Carpenini wandered the halls, he almost voiced his change of heart.

Almost.

Because at that moment, they passed the music room, and Oliver’s ears were filled with . . . Tom Bowling?

Carpenini, like a bloodhound with a scent, turned on his heel and followed the music. And in the music room they had found two of the Forrester girls, one singing, one playing. It was a solemn tune, but the girl had been playing it in a joking fashion, as if she made fun of its overwrought lyrics by matching it with even more overwrought dramatics. Carpenini began correcting her immediately, of course.

“Play it again,” Carpenini had said to the girl. “But this time, calando, ritardando.”

Oliver hadn’t expected what came next. But there was something about the way the girl at the keys played, bringing the truth out of the music. Something about how she infused the music with some spark of life—even if she was just playing a phrase twice over, as she was doing now for Carpenini. Fine-tuning her playing, elevating the mood, the emotion behind her technique. But none of that mattered nearly as much as the feeling of being caught up. The way she was. In music. In a story.

That is why you are going to Italy. To be caught up in something.

“Melancholy.” his voice came from somewhere outside himself. “Beautiful.”

Later that evening, the Misses Forrester had played for them again, although the obvious talent had been the one on the pianoforte. Oliver knew enough about music to appreciate its being played well. There was no mistaking her playing in the music room as simply a passing moment. She was very, very good.

Yes, Miss Forrester had shown them something special.

Although now, Vincenzo seemed hard-pressed to remember it.

“She was very good.” Oliver said, as if lost in a dream. Then, at Vincenzo’s arched eyebrow, he cleared his throat. “She stood out in my memory for five years, and she was just a child then,” Oliver tried again, venturing into the void of silence that had fallen. “Think of how much better she could have become in that time.”

“Or so desperate for instruction that she crosses a continent to obtain a teacher.” Carpenini shrugged. “But it does not matter. I will not have need of a student before long. It has been a year, and the Marchese has not given his patronage to a new musician. He has not found someone to match me. He is simply waiting for me to compose something that will justify my return. Thus, I will finish this sonata—”

“I thought it was a symphony.”

“—and I will dedicate it to the Marchese, and he will have to forgive me. And then you will stage it to great acclaim!”

Once again, it was up to Oliver to pour ice water onto his fantasy. “Men forgive their mistresses being seduced, Vincenzo, not their daughters.”

Vincenzo’s expression darkened. “The Signora Galetti is a married woman; she should be her husband’s concern, not her father’s. But she feels badly enough about my circumstances that she has agreed to help me.”

“Now she feels badly?” Oliver asked in disbelief. “A year after her seduction and betrayal caused you to lose your place?”

“It was not the seduction and betrayal—it was her telling of it.”

Oliver refrained from allowing his judgment to show on his face. Again, when the muse left Vincenzo . . . women, women, women. The more troublesome, the better. And the beautiful, vain, and spoiled Signora Galetti had certainly proved troublesome. What did Vincenzo think would happen when he started up with her? And then started up with her maid?

“But she is making up for it now,” Vincenzo continued. “With this!”

He stood up with his characteristic energy, his mood swinging into elation as easily as it could in high dudgeon. He rummaged through a pile of letters and scratched-out sheets of music that littered the top of the pianoforte, beneath it all finding two pieces of card and, with a triumphant flourish, handing them to Oliver.

They were heavy stock, ornately gilded around the edges. He turned them over in his hand. But it was what was written on them that was most interesting.

“This is an invitation . . . to the Marchese’s ball.”

“It is.” Vincenzo smiled mischievously at him.

“I’m assuming that the Marchese does not know that you have this. Because if he did, either his guards would be here to take it back or all would be forgiven and his servants would be moving you back into the palazzo.”

“True, he does not know. But I ran into the Signora Galetti the other day at the Piazza San Marco—”

“Because you just run into aristocratic ladies walking around the city all the time, do you?” Oliver interjected sardonically.

Vincenzo ignored him. “Her husband is at the villa near Padua for the winter. Antonia—the Signora—has been so saddened by his departure, she has taken to walking through the piazza. So I paid a call or two on her recently, to keep her company. She feels very badly for what happened between us, and said I should attend her father’s ball.”

“But if the Marchese doesn’t know you are coming, he’ll throw you out on sight.”

“No, he won’t.”

“You have a greater faith in your ability to beg than I do, then.”

“No, he won’t,” Vincenzo continued patiently, “because it is a Carnival ball. Everyone will be wearing carnival masks.”

Oliver ruminated and had to admit there was some intelligence to that argument. Carnival masks, faces blank and frozen, were used for hundreds of years to hide the identity of anyone—thus, one could be dancing with a Duchess as easily as with a milkmaid. Some had been made of plaster, some heavy ceramic, some embellished with paints and gold, some austere and staring. Yet all were strangely beautiful and grotesque.

While they had been banned during Napoleon’s reign, the tradition had begun to filter its way back in during the height of the Carnival season. And for someone of the Marchese’s consequence, no Austrian Emperor was going to kick up any fuss.

The mask could make Vincenzo as anonymous as the next guest. And chances were the ball would be so crowded, one more person would not be remarked upon.

“So . . .” Oliver said slowly, putting together the pieces of Vincenzo’s jumbled plan in his head. “You sneak into this party, find an opportunity to play your new piece. You tell the Marchese it is dedicated to him and only him. And once he sees that you and Antonia have mended fences, all will be forgiven?”

Vincenzo blinked at the mention of Antonia, as if he had not considered her as more than a stepping-stone on his path to the Marchese. But he then nodded fervently, latching on to the idea.

“Si, si, I will make it known the lady loves me once again. And when the Marchese hears this music, he will fall to pieces weeping, and I will once again live in the light of Venice!”

Vincenzo finished his speech with a flourish, his future triumph vibrating through his wiry frame. Oliver was always struck that such a lean, sinewy individual could have so much energy. Oliver himself was much more solidly built and seemed, therefore, much more grounded. Then again, Oliver had spent his formative years in boxing lessons, and Vincenzo had spent his at a pianoforte. And while Oliver could not help but envy Vincenzo’s talent, there was one thing that went along with his grounding that Vincenzo never seemed to grasp. Practicality.

“Well, I had better get started, then,” Oliver said on a sigh. “It’s rather late for us to get proper costumes. There isn’t a chance that any tailor could make something up in two days . . . our only hope of finding any masks is likely at La Fenice. I’ll ask my friends there, although I have a feeling every opera singer in Venice is invited, and therefore their stores are likely well picked over.”

“Us?” Vincenzo looked up at him, happy surprise in his voice. “You mean you will come as my guest, help me with the Marchese?”

Oliver sighed again. “Of course I’ll help you. If you go by yourself I will likely end up paying for your release from prison. I figure the expense of a second costume is much cheaper.”

Oliver was being glib, he knew, but deep inside, a spark of hope came to life. This could be the solution to their difficulties. If Vincenzo found himself back in the Marchese’s good graces, Oliver could start putting his meager funds into his warehouse-theatre. It was far-fetched, but if Vincenzo could do it . . .

“Marvelous!” Vincenzo cried, clapping his hands like a pleased child, for all that he was in his thirties. “I will come with you to pick out costumes. The costumer at La Fenice adores me; they will have something for us.”

“No. That is my part. You have your own work to do.”

“Nothing that can’t wait until the afternoon,” Vincenzo replied with a wave.

But Oliver pushed him back firmly to his seat at the pianoforte.

“I will arrange the costumes. You have a masterpiece to finish.” Oliver checked his pocket watch. “And seventy-eight hours in which to do it.”