Rhapsody for Two - Theresa Romain Page 0,5

shrugged. “It’s called ‘Lavender’s Blue.’ I was trying to think of a song, and you’re wearing blue.”

Indeed she was, a blue day dress she’d chosen because it matched her eyes.

His reply was matter-of-fact rather than flirtatious, which she liked. Please, let him not be an incorrigible flirt. If he were, he teased every woman, and his smiles meant nothing.

For the second time, Thorn packed his horn away. “Thanks again for your help. I’ll bring you that hairpin soon, all right?”

She waved this off. “I was only teasing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t worry about hairpins, Miss Fairweather. But I’d welcome the chance to see you again.”

That grin, cheeky and sweet at once. Was he flirting with her?

Maybe she should have charged him a fee after all and sent him on his way.

Or maybe she should have sung more of “Lavender’s Blue” with him.

“Oh,” she said, just as when he’d entered the shop.

This incoherence seemed to please him, for the grin persisted even as his hand drifted from hers, as he left the building. The little bell over the door jingled its farewell to him, and then Rowena was alone.

Except for a wandering hedgehog underfoot, old Nanny upstairs, a sometime cook in the basement kitchen, and a maid dusting the few chambers that weren’t shut up.

They were relying on her. They all were.

She really should have charged Mr. Thorn a fee. But if she had, he wouldn’t come back again—and with the obligation of a hairpin hanging over him, he just might.

Not that it mattered if he did. She was a luthier, not a…a…horn-note-puller. A folk-song-singer. A hairpin-provider.

She pushed aside the velvet curtain and returned to her workroom. How to Ruin a Duke tempted her from the table. The violoncello with the broken neck beckoned her from its resting place against the wall.

“Work first,” she decided.

Oh, she knew her financial problems couldn’t be solved one instrument at a time. They couldn’t be solved before the lease ended, not by anything less than a miracle. But miracles happened occasionally—and she wouldn’t find that miracle in the pages of a book, no matter how salacious. The Duke of Amorous’s problems vanished in the face of his infinite resources, but he wasn’t going to stop by to fix hers. She had to face them herself.

The thought was usually discouraging. But at the moment, as she loosened the tuning pegs of the wounded violoncello, then uncoiled the strings to free the broken piece of the instrument’s neck, she found herself humming.

A brisk young man, diddle diddle,

Met with a maid,

And laid her down, diddle diddle

Under the shade…

Chapter Two

“Do not take a duke to partner! He will draw you astray and then run off with the spoils while you are trying to discover where he has led you.”

From How to Ruin a Duke by Anonymous

By night, Simon Thorn saw Vauxhall as it was intended to appear: a wonderland of glowing lights and whirling music and secret whispers. But during the day, he couldn’t help but notice the flaking gilt and pasteboard that made up London’s favorite pleasure garden.

The orchestra pavilion where the musicians practiced and played was a half hexagon of white scrollwork at the center of the park’s Grand Walk. The pavilion was boosted above the ground and festooned with lamps, lit at night to make it look like a jeweled crown. The effect was probably striking, but at all hours, the musicians were left cramped and crammed. Their stage had them elbow to elbow, and the red wool jackets they wore while performing were as hot as fur blankets.

Still, it was steady work. And with the loss of Lord Farleigh’s son as a student, this was the only source of income left to Simon. He’d have to find other employment, and soon. The vicar from Market Thistleton—his sole source of news on the people Simon had left behind—had broken the silence Simon had requested on Elias Howard to mention that Howard was having trouble with his hand again. This time he was contemplating the desperate move of an amputation, the poor devil.

And it was all Simon’s fault. He’d been a fool of a boy, more eager than careful as a tinworker’s younger apprentice, and he’d caused the accident that left the older, wiser, better Howard—a much more skilled apprentice—injured and ruined.

For thirteen years, he’d sent whatever money he could, but dribs and drabs of coin were no better than a droplet of laudanum on a grueling pain. It didn’t fix the problem; it didn’t soothe