of tools on the plush carpet beside the pianoforte. “Of course not. I thank you for entertaining the possibility at all.”
Ah, well—it had been worth mentioning as a means of ensuring steady income for the shop. She was disappointed, but only in the same way she’d once been when her father refused to buy her a puppy. She had hoped, but she’d only ever expected the answer no.
“I’ll leave you to your work, Miss Fairweather.” With an inclination of his head, Emory departed the room, leaving her alone with the pianoforte and her tools.
Or so she thought. She opened and propped the instrument’s lid, then the duke’s voice sounded behind her from the doorway. “I am told you’ve had help at your shop recently.”
“Edith?” Rowena’s head jerked around. “Sorry. Lady Edith, do you mean?”
His lids fluttered, but he otherwise betrayed no emotion. “I do not refer to Lady Edith. I mean a young man named Simon Thorn. Lord Farleigh doesn’t like it.”
Lord Farleigh. The man whose wife had stuffed an amorous page into Simon’s horn…how long ago? Not long, yet she could hardly remember not knowing Simon. But then, she’d been awake and working almost ever since.
Or awake and with him.
The duke paused, long enough for Rowena to wonder at the size of the figurative sword dangling over her head. Was this a threat? “Your Grace?” she prodded delicately.
“I do not like that Lord Farleigh has an opinion on the matter and have informed him so. He will not interfere with Mr. Thorn. Or with your shop.”
Mystified, Rowena thanked him.
“Think nothing of it. I do not care for bluster and menace.” And this time, he did depart, leaving her to work with her tuning hammer and her mutes of cotton felt.
Years of experience had her working with pianoforte strings as much by feel as by ear, leaving her free to ponder.
So. The Duke of Emory had exercised some of his privilege on her behalf. Or would it be more correct to say he’d protected Simon? Either way, Rowena was certain the credit lay with Edith. Rowena was known by the duke’s household to be a friend of Edith. There was simply no other reason why they would care about the fate of Fairweather’s.
Why had Edith left this household? She’d been making a good wage, and the duke seemed all right. He demonstrated none of the crawling sort of flirtation that came from a man taking pleasure in a woman’s vulnerability. The Duke of Emory had seemed hardly to notice that Rowena was a woman at all.
I’m not going to talk about it, Edith had said to Rowena of her departure. There’s nothing to say.
Which meant Edith was either afraid or ashamed.
Had she fallen in love with His Grace? Was How to Ruin a Duke embarrassing for her now that Emory’s true character was revealed?
An hour and a half later, the pianoforte was back in tune, but Rowena’s thoughts were no closer to harmony.
“‘I neither could thank my benefactor,’” read Nanny to Rowena, “‘nor inquire how I was to repay him. I could not help feeling some inward sensations of horror.’”
“That’s not what I’d feel if a mysterious man tossed bank drafts at me.” By lamplight in the parlor, Rowena was sanding a new fingerboard for the broken-necked violoncello. The whole day had gone in travels about London, in tuning one pianoforte after another, and her repair work still remained. “‘Inward sensations of horror’? Please! I’d kiss him on the lips.”
“Hush,” Nanny chastised. “There’s going to be a necromancer soon. The title says so.” Pulling the great magnifying lens to a handier spot, she continued, “‘Having recovered from my amazement, I went to the table, took up the papers, and saw, with astonishment, that each of them was a draft for a hundred dollars.’”
“Only dollars? Not pounds? It might not be enough.” Rowena squinted down the length of the fingerboard, holding the instrument’s bridge beneath it. The curve of the latter would have to fit perfectly beneath the former, or the strings wouldn’t lie properly.
“I can read this to myself if you’re not interested,” Nanny huffed.
“I’m too interested. More than I should be. I’ve been doing too much to forget the lease on the shop.”
At the end of the month, the money would come due, or Fairweather’s would cease to exist. The work of a century and more, gone under her guardianship.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. She sanded harder.
Through the open doorway, she heard a knock at the shop door.