Rhapsody for Two - Theresa Romain Page 0,26
out. “Bring a tankard,” Rowena told the maid. “And the brandy.”
Idly, she wandered back into the workshop. She stroked the satin-smooth ebony fingerboard, the sharp-edged, intricately carved bridge. What if this was the last violoncello she repaired? What if her days never again held the surprise of what—of who—came through the door next? If she owed more than three guineas a week for the address alone, she’d have to accept the highest-paying jobs, not the most interesting ones. Pianofortes, one after another, forever.
Would that truly be saving Fairweather’s? Would that be what her father had wanted—or what she did?
She was glad when Alice returned with a pair of pottery tankards and a bottle of brandy. Nanny took a medicinal nip every night, but Rowena rarely touched it. Tonight, though, why not? She splashed a little brandy into each tankard, then topped them with tea and added sugar. Handing one to the surprised Alice, she clinked their tankards together.
“To Fairweather’s,” she said, “whatever that means.”
“Yes, miss,” Alice said dutifully.
“You don’t have to drink that if you don’t want it.” Rowena stared into the depths of her beverage, then took a sip. “It’s good, though.”
Alice curled protective fingers around the tankard. “I want it well enough, miss. I’ll take it to my room. If that’s all?”
May days were long, and sunset hadn’t yet pulled all the blue from the sky. But morning came early, especially for a maid-of-all-work. “Of course, Alice. Thank you.”
Once Alice bobbed a good-night and left Rowena alone, she sipped idly at her brandy-laced tea for a few minutes. Too tired to work, too busy to permit herself to sleep. It was an awkward in-between. Perhaps she’d try reading some of The Necromancer to weary her brain—but no, not even a book appealed right now.
The bell over the front door jingled a greeting. “Hullo, I didn’t think it’d be unlocked,” said a familiar voice.
Simon’s voice. The only distraction she’d truly welcome at the moment.
“Simon?” Rowena thumped her tankard onto the worktable, then hurried into the front room. “Sorry, I must have forgot to lock the door when Mr. Lifford left. Stupid of me.”
“I wouldn’t put it that strongly, but I do want you to be safe.” He smiled at her. “Hope I didn’t give you a fright.”
“No, it’s quite all right. Why have you come?” Was that impolite? She didn’t really care right now.
“Because I like seeing you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You like everyone.” No matter who came to the shop—whether a duke’s footman or the merchant father of a daughter in need of town polish—Simon spoke to them as if they were equals, as if he’d never wanted to do anything else.
“I’m interested in almost everyone,” Simon replied. “But I don’t like everyone in the same way, or to the same degree.”
She didn’t want explanations. She wanted…what the devil did she want? Sympathy? Solutions? Oblivion?
All of it. None of it. “It’s not a good time, Simon.”
Concern softened his features. “Something has happened. Is it to do with the lease? Do you want to tell me about it?”
Did she? She supposed she did. It was good to tell someone who cared, who wasn’t relying on her for their daily bread as Nanny and Alice were.
More than that: She truly did think of him as a partner. Someone she could rely on herself.
“Come to the back,” she decided, locking the front door. “I’ll tell you all of it.”
So he followed her into the workroom, picking up the wandering Cotton and stroking the spiny-backed animal as Rowena explained Lifford’s terms. After weeks of notice, she still couldn’t quite believe the figure she had to meet.
She’d been prepared for another of the incremental increases built into the original lease. From a hundred pounds per annum to a hundred ten, perhaps. Or a hundred guineas, twenty-one shillings each instead of the nice common twenty per pound. A hundred fifty guineas? Extortionate!
But it wasn’t, really. Here on Bond Street, she was surrounded by nobles, patronized by nobles, kept in business by nobles. So, properties commanded a noble rent.
“There it is,” she concluded, “and the weekly rate is even higher. I have to look carefully at my accounts to sort out whether I can pay it. I can’t lose the shop.”
Simon crouched, setting Cotton on the floor. “Because your father told you not to?”
“My father, and generations before him, and…and what would I do? What else is there for a Fairweather?”
He gave the hedgehog a little nudge, setting the animal into snout-wiggling motion. “Anything you’d