CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

Listeners were treated to a surprise at Maestro Reynard’s concert on Friday. Debut musical sensation Mlle. Jessamyn Lovell, oft called the Gypsy Violinist, took the stage early in the evening to perform a selection of sad and beautiful melodies. She then raised the mood by playing a medley of fiery dance tunes that set toes tapping. An excellent addition to the bill!

- l’Assemblee

 

Jessa played. In Paris and Chartres, in Madrid and Seville, she lifted her violin before the anonymous audiences and played her entire soul. Her violin was her wordless cry into the world. Sorrow, always sorrow first, until she became known for eliciting tears with her sweet, yearning melodies.

Mindful of her obligation—to her listeners, to Master Reynard and his wife, who had so graciously added her to their performance schedule—she always ended her portion of the concert with something happy. Well, as happy as she could muster with a broken heart.

In the three weeks she had been gone from England, she’d been very careful to avoid reading the London Times, or any of the news out of Town. She had perused papers aplenty, as Mr. Widmere liked to bring her notices of the praise she was garnering. But never the Times. She could not bear to hear of Morgan’s betrothal and the no-doubt-imminent wedding of the Earl of Silverton to Lady Anne Percival.

She had received one letter from Louisa, posted the day after she left, but Mr. Widmere had told her that most of her correspondence would be waiting for her when they returned to Paris. It was too difficult to rely upon the mails to stay reliably on schedule as the tour moved so rapidly from place to place.

And so, she played. And traveled in the Reynard family’s shadow. And spoke very little, but wrote long, descriptive letters to Louisa, full of amusing anecdotes of her travel and avoiding all mention of her emotional state.

She’d found an unexpected friend in Darien and Clara’s eight-year-old daughter, Annabel. After the first night Jessa performed, Annabel had marched into Jessa’s suite of rooms in the Paris hotel, carrying her own small violin case.

“Teach me those songs you played,” she said, regarding Jessa from determined blue eyes.

Jessa gave her a curious look. “Isn’t it your bedtime, Miss Reynard?”

“My parents let me stay up as late as I like, as long as I’m playing music.” She set her case on the table and began unpacking the instrument. “And you may call me Annie.”

Annie proved to be a quick learner, and before long she was playing the Rom melodies as though she’d learned them in the cradle. Her sweet nature and delight in the music helped ease the wretched ache in Jessa’s soul. Once or twice, she even made Jessa laugh with one of her childishly forthright observations.

This evening, the concert tour took them to the Teatro Nacional in Lisbon. Jessa waited in the hushed shadows of the wings, her violin tucked beneath her arm. Five rows of balconies rose to the ornately painted ceiling. Directly facing the stage was an elaborate box, columned and gilded with gold paint. Tonight, Queen Maria and King Consort Ferdinand were in attendance.

Two weeks ago, the prospect of playing before royalty had made her sick with nerves. But with a few concerts, and the kind support of Master Reynard’s composer wife, Clara, Jessa was able to steady herself and perform without undue panic. Though her pulse still fluttered at the thought.

The lights along the balconies were extinguished, and the hum of anticipation rose. In a few moments, the concert would begin.

Jessa took a deep breath. Her portion of the performance would be over in fifteen minutes. Before she went on stage, it seemed an eternity, but once she started to play, the time sped.

And now the manager was announcing her.

Trying not to blink at the brightness of the stage lights, Jessa strode forward. Applause washed about her, but not loudly. Some members of the audience continued to converse. They were here to see Darien Reynard and Clara Becker, not some unknown Gypsy girl.

Jessa had become accustomed to the lack of interest. It was a challenge, to woo the listeners until they fell silent beneath the spell of her playing. Some nights she was more successful than others.

The air in the Teatro was warm, and the scent of perfumes swirled about the stage. Jessa bowed to the audience and, without waiting for their silence, began to play.

Strangely, she had found that beginning quietly hushed her listeners more quickly than if she thrust the music at them with force and volume.

The first notes crept into the air, curling like faint tendrils of smoke after a candle is blown out. Jessa let the sound twist and dissipate, almost coming into silence. The audience stilled.

She did not smile—not outwardly. But she felt that moment when the attention in the room shifted to her. Jessamyn Lovell. A woman in an emerald satin dress, playing the violin. Slowly, she increased the pace of the music.

The notes swirled and flurried, no longer smoke but fallen leaves. Dancing, even in decay, bright against the ominous clouds of winter. She danced with them, swaying as the tune rose and fell, until it ended in a gust, and blew all the leaves away.

The applause was far more enthusiastic this time.

“Obrigado,” she said. “Now, I will play for you a selection of Rom songs, dedicated to love, and sorrow.”

She had often wondered why so many of the Rom love songs were sad. Now she knew, to the depths of her heart. The two emotions were intertwined, just as shadows could not exist without light. At least in the music she could sob and wail, and give voice to everything she had lost.

Morgan.

His name was a burning coal lodged inside her chest, painful and bright.

When the aching sadness became too much, Jessa segued into the dance tunes. They still carried the echo of melancholy in the minor modes, but the tempos were jaunty. She stepped the pace up, and then again, driving the beat forward with her bow, driving all memory from her mind as her fingers flew.

At the end of the final tune, she pulled the bow across all four strings in a full, triumphant chord. It rang up to the ceiling, and the crowd applauded madly.

Jessa bowed, but declined the cries for an encore. Her part of the concert was over.

A few flowers were flung on stage, and a nimble stagehand scrambled to pick them up. He handed them to Jessa, who waved them at the audience as she headed for the shelter of the proscenium curtain.

“Well done, Jessamyn!” Clara Becker Reynard stood in the wings beside her husband, her fair hair glowing in the reflected stage lights.

“Indeed.” Master Reynard gave her a nod of approval. “Your performances grow stronger with every concert.”

“I cannot thank you both enough,” she said.

Clara sent her a sympathetic smile. Though Jessa had not spoken of why she left England, Master Reynard’s wife seemed to have guessed that it had something to do with unfortunate love.

“Come, my dear.” Master Reynard held out his free arm to his wife. “They are clamoring for us.”

“Play well,” Jessa said.

They always did, of course, with an ease and brilliance that continued to astound her. There was a wordless interplay between them that added such depth to the music, the weave of violin and piano into one voice as the couple performed Clara’s compositions.

Jessa was fortunate to hear them perform so often. Her musician’s soul delighted in the small variations and changes they made during each performance, keeping the pieces fresh and vital.

They strode on stage to deafening applause, and Jessa made for her dressing room. She would put her violin away, place her flowers in the vase provided, then return to listen to the rest of the concert.

As she passed the Reynards’ dressing room, she heard Annie laughing at her little brother, and the calm voice of their nanny in response. The sound cheered her, in a bittersweet fashion. Would she ever have children of her own?

Sighing, she pushed open the door of her dressing room, then froze in shock. A man stood there—a tall, blond-haired fellow. He turned, but she already knew who he was.

Morgan. Her lips shaped his name, but she could not speak it aloud.

Joy crashed over her, followed by bleakness that froze her to the bone.

“Jessa,” he said. “You sounded marvelous.”

“What are you doing here?” She forced herself to walk past him.

With trembling fingers, she set her violin in its case. The flowers she set on the table to wither. Her suddenly numb hands would not be able to jam them into the vase.

“I came to find you,” he said, as if that were explanation enough.

“And you have. Now you may depart again.” She knew her voice was cold, and she did not care. Inside, her heart careened wildly.

He took her hand, and she pulled it away, then folded her arms.

“I suppose I deserve your scorn,” he said with a wry look. “And you deserve my apology in full measure.”

“Your apology?” She clutched her arms close to her body. “Did your new wife send you on this mission, so that you might return to her with a clear conscience? What else did you bring—gold to buy my silence, so that your reputation may remain unsullied?”

He took a step back, a wounded light flashing through his gray eyes. “No. And I am not married.”

“Yet.”

“Yet.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You are making this damnably difficult, Jessa.”

“You may take your leave of me at any time.” Her body trembled with the need to touch him, but she forced herself to remain still. “Did Lady Anne accompany you to Lisbon? No doubt she is curious about your absence.”

“I’m not going to marry Lady Anne!” He strode forward and took her elbows. “I want to marry you.”

She blinked at him, the room suddenly tipping at the corners of her vision. Surely he had not just spoken those words. Her pulse beat loudly in her chest.

“I… beg your pardon?”

He stared into her eyes. “Jessamyn Lovell, will you marry me?”

It must be a cruel joke, yet his expression was completely serious. Pleading, even, if one knew how to read his face. Which, to her sorrow, she did—all too well.

“But you took her a bouquet.” She feared her replies were making her sound as simple as Louisa, yet she could make no sense of his words.

“To perdition with the bouquet. I threw it in the Thames, then told Lady Anne I could not fulfill her expectations.”

The truth in his voice pierced her. He had not married Lady Anne. He had come to Portugal to find her. But no matter how the embers in her heart burst to full flame at the thought, she could not be his ruin.

“Morgan, you cannot marry me. What of your name, your reputation—”

“Blast the reputation. My aunt was right, though it took me far too long to see it. A proper life is no good, if one is desperately unhappy all the way to death’s door. My brother…” He swallowed, then continued. “It was not a love of life that killed him. I tried to make myself believe it, though. I thought if I shut away that part of my soul, I would be safe. But you stormed into my life with your music and passion, and I was lost.”

She gazed at him, noticing that he wore a new coat in a deep moss-green color. Had Morgan truly broken free of his prison of respectability? Her chest expanded with ridiculous hope. Then the breath crushed out of her as she remembered the other reason she had fled.

“I still cannot marry you,” she said, her voice low and miserable.

“Why not? I told you, I don’t care what the ton thinks. We can go live in the country when you are not performing. Society can gossip all it likes, but it will not matter one whit.”

“You should have realized that a dozen years ago! What about Abigail, and Rosemary?”

He looked at her blankly, and she wanted to slap his face.

“Rosemary?” he asked.

What a blackguard he was, lacking all human decency. To think she had misjudged him so badly. She’d foolishly given her heart to a man who deserved to rot in hell.

“Your bastard daughter,” she said bitterly. “Or did you forget?”

To her shock, he threw his head back and laughed. She raised her hand then, to slap him in truth, but he caught her wrist.

“Wait. Wait.” His expression sobered. “You read the letters in my study?”

“To my everlasting regret.”

“What a tangle. I should have burned them.”

She could scarcely look at him. “You would consign Rosemary’s entire history to the fire?”

“Jessa, listen to me.” He moved his hands to her shoulders, his gaze clear. “There is no bastard daughter, no lover from the past. Those letters were a ruse, planted the night of the musicale for Mr. Burke to find.”

She swayed, and he steadied her.

“Is this the truth?” Her heart trembled violently with fear, with hope.

“I swear it. You can ask Commissioner Rowan of Scotland Yard if you won’t take my word for it. We laid the trap for your guardian.” His voice took on an exultant note. “When he came to threaten exposure, the constables were waiting in the next room. He’s in custody now, awaiting trial—and he named his accomplice, a Mr. Dabbage. He tried to pull you into it as well, but I told the commissioner to have none of that.”

“I must sit.” She felt as though she were about to collapse from the waves of revelations crashing over her.

Morgan drew the single chair over and settled her in it. Without asking, he fetched a glass of water. When she took it, the water shivered from the trembling of her hand.

“I am a bit disappointed.” A touch of the old coolness returned to his voice. “You believed those letters. Do you really take me for that kind of man?”

“No.” She took a sip of water, the coolness soothing in her mouth. “I could not believe it, although the proof lay there, before my eyes. At first I was going to ask you about them, once you returned home. But then…”

She paused to swallow back the lump of tears in her throat.

“Then you discovered I had gone to propose to Lady Anne.” He knelt on the carpet, heedless of his dignity, and took her hand.

“It was too much,” she said. “I could not bear to see you married, and the letters were yet another reason for me to go. Thinking you heartless allowed me to leave you. Morgan, I am so terribly sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” He shook his head. “We both behaved like idiots.”

“You, more than me.”

She meant it in truth, but also in jest. By the wry light in his eyes, he understood both her meanings.

“I believe you owe me an answer,” he said.

“Why do you want to marry me?”

“Ah. I believe I’ve neglected the most important part. I desire you. I need you.” Holding her gaze, he brought the back of her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “I love you.”

Her pulse jolted, as though she had just landed from leaping a great distance.

“If I agree, it won’t be easy.” Slowly, slowly, her heart was opening, cracked apart by the blaze within.

“I’m weary of spending my life working so hard for no joy.” He gave her a rueful look. “I’d far rather put that effort toward happiness. And so I’ll ask you yet again—and I’ll keep asking until you tell me yes. Will you marry me, Jessamyn Lovell?”

She stared at him a moment, nearly blinded with emotion, and the sheer unbelievability of his question. He cocked his eyebrow, and she leaned forward, slipping her arms about his neck.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I love you.”

She kissed him, their mouths meeting like a chord of music, like sparks and benediction. Like truth. Heat ran from her head to her toes, a rush of wildfire. If they were not in a dressing room during a performance, she would have begun unbuttoning his shirt, taken down her hair, and shared her body with his in a blaze of passion.

But they would have time, and more time, to give in to that yearning desire.

When the kiss ended, they both were breathing heavily. She did not care that a tear or two had slipped down her cheek. He blotted them with the back of his hand.

“I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a small, round box.

He undid the small hook and opened the box to reveal a diamond ring shining against black velvet. One large oval stone was mounted on a gold base, surrounded by smaller diamonds. It glittered like a flower made of stars.

“It’s beautiful,” she said as he slipped the ring on the finger of her left hand. “And it fits perfectly.”

“Louisa helped me choose it. She told me to size it to her finger, and then it would fit you. She called it the last talisman, and was utterly confident you would accept my proposal. Her faith in that happy ending is one of the reasons I am here now.”

Jessa glanced at him. “My sister knows of this?”

“Yes, and my aunt as well. They came with me to Portugal, and are in the audience even now. Louisa begged to come back to your dressing room with me, but I would not allow it.”

“They are here?” Jessa rose, happiness filling her so that she could scarcely draw a breath.

He stood, too, keeping her hand in his own. “When they learned I was going in pursuit of you, they insisted on coming along. Either to celebrate with or to comfort you, as need be. I’m unspeakably grateful that it is to be celebration.”

“So am I.” She shook her head. “I cannot quite believe this is not a dream.”

“If it is, then we can dream it together. But come. It’s intermission, and your sister will be overjoyed to see you.”

Any more joy and Jessa was certain she would rise up into the air. Perhaps float up to the painted ceiling of the Teatro Nacional. She smiled at the image of herself bobbing above the crowd, then laced her arm through Morgan’s. Her true and honorable love. He would keep her from floating away.