Sonata for a Scoundrel (5 page)

Dare crossed his arms. There were undercurrents here he did not understand; some family secret that lay like a sandbar, treacherously close to the surface. Was it going to wreck his plans on the shoals?

He turned his attention to Miss Becker. She met his gaze for a moment, then flushed and dropped her eyes.

“There is no reason to include Miss Becker in the tour,” Dare said. “Much as I dislike to say it, I fear she would be an impediment. Her brother and I will be busy, leaving no time to chaperone. This is not some pleasure jaunt, no Grand Tour of the sights where we will have leisure to squire your daughter about.”

“Clara would not expect such a thing,” the elder Mr. Becker said. “She will keep herself, and her brother, out of harm’s way.”

Dare raised one eyebrow. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

The composer nervously ran his fingers over the back of the armchair, where the finish had worn off. He cleared his throat and met Dare’s eyes.

“I must confess. I recently underwent a… difficult period. Clara helped immensely. I am sure Papa wishes her to come along to help see to my well-being.”

His words rang true, and there was a tightness about his eyes that indicated the composer was not yet fully recovered. It would explain the family’s reluctance.

“I’ll see that you are treated well, Mr. Becker,” Dare said. “I understand the volatility of the artistic temperament, and I assure you, your sister’s presence is unneeded.”

“I must insist.” Nicholas Becker’s hand stilled, then tightened over the back of the chair. “You will take both of us. Or neither of us.”

Dare turned to Miss Becker. There must have been something fierce in his expression, for she took a step back, her eyes wide.

“What do you say?” he demanded. “Do you also insist on coming along?”

There was a flash of something—anger?—in her expression, quickly dampened.

“I stand with my family,” she said.

Peter set a calming hand on his arm. “Dare, they have laid out their terms. Do you agree?”

Anger pumped through his blood at the damned stubbornness of the Becker family. Why would they not behave sensibly? Dare blew a breath out his nostrils and forced himself to think, though there was only one answer.

He scowled at Nicholas Becker.

“Your sister’s expenses will come out of your weekly stipend,” Dare said. “I am paying you well enough. I refuse to be burdened with her needs as well.”

The composer swallowed, but he nodded.

“It will do,” their father said.

“Peter, change the agreements,” Dare said.

This was a displeasing outcome… and yet, he had achieved his goal. Nicholas Becker would be composing for him, touring with him, despite the compromise of dragging the sister along.

Dare turned to the composer. “Peter will take your signature and give you a week’s advance. We leave for Brighton in two days. I’ll send the coach to collect you. Both of you.” His gaze went to where Clara Becker stood, pale hands smoothing her skirts.

Shaking his head, he stalked to the door. He could not stand another instant in this cold, shabby house, dealing with the unmanageable composer and his family. Once they were on tour, Dare’s word was law. No matter what Nicholas Becker and his sister might want.

***

Clara turned to her father the moment the door closed behind their extraordinary guest. Her heart pounded with excitement even as her stomach clenched at the thought of everything that could go wrong.

“Papa! How could you agree to send us with him? It’s impossible. What if Nicholas—”

“Your brother is recovered,” Papa said, his tone harboring no room for argument. “There is no choice, Clara. You know this. We cannot afford to refuse. The two of you either go with the maestro, or we will be on the streets within the month.”

She folded her arms around herself, palms flat against her ribs. Papa was right. They had sold everything but the piano, and it was still not enough. Nicholas’s students had forsaken him during his dark time. The pittance the publisher paid for her works would not keep them housed and fed.

“It is providence,” Papa said. “When fate opens the door, one must be brave enough to walk through.”

Clara closed her eyes for a brief moment. The tour offered possibilities she could not have dreamed, along with the potential for even greater disaster.

“It’s my fault,” Nicholas said, his expression pinched with misery. “If I had been able to keep teaching, we wouldn’t be in such straits.”

Clara slipped her arm around his shoulders. “It’s not your fault. It was difficult even before, remember?”

Their mother’s long illness had begun the family’s slide into hardship; the ineffectual doctors who still had to be paid, the various medicines that had cost all their savings, but in the end had done little except ease her pain.

Nicholas’s descent into black melancholy had only locked a door that had already slammed closed in their faces.

“I’m no composer,” her brother said. “We’ll be discovered. The pretense, traveling with the maestro…” He shook his head, not bothering to brush away the hair that fell across his eyes.

“You will find a way.” Papa held up the bank notes Mr. Widmere had left, and shook them for emphasis. “Twenty pounds a week. Twenty! For that, for our family, you must. The contract is already signed. It is your chance, Nicholas, to bring back what we have lost.”

Clara felt her brother shudder, then take a steadying breath. There was no arguing with Papa. He always knew just how to force their agreement.

She wet her lips. “How can we possibly manage it?”

Papa began pacing, the thud of his cane a somber, hollow sound. “Everywhere you go, Nicholas will insist on a suite of rooms. He will keep watch while you write, Clara. Compose at night, in your room.” He rounded on them, a fierce light in his eyes. “You must swear to never let Master Reynard, or
anyone
, know. Think of what it would do to him—to us. Discovery now will not be a private scandal. If it is found that Master Reynard is promoting music composed by a
woman
, public opinion will turn against him. He will be disgraced… and we will be ruined. You must ensure that does not happen.”

She heard his unspoken command as well.
Watch over Nicholas.
She would, of course, although there had been very little she’d been able to do for him during his debilitating melancholy. It had taken everything she had to keep him eating, to coax him to rest when she heard him treading the floor through the night, to watch with mounting dismay as he grew listless and haunted.

But he had recovered. He was well now.

“You can do it, Nicholas.” She gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be there to help. Besides, you are a wonderful pianist. Imagine how the students will flock to you when you return from touring with the master.”

Her brother stared at the floor a moment more, then straightened and pushed the hair from his face. “It is madness, but very well. We’ll go with him through England and Scotland.”

“You will be home again in six weeks’ time,” Papa said. “After that, we shall see.”

They were going with Darien Reynard. They were going with Darien Reynard!

The reality of it sifted down into her soul and left her trembling. She, Clara Becker, was going to be traveling with the most celebrated musician in the world. He might be insufferably condescending, but she could forgive him. Could even forgive his rudeness to her.

After all, audiences would now hear her music the way she did. How would it feel, night after night, to lay her music in the hands of the master? Her heart twisted at how desperately she wanted it, and at how perfectly perilous their scheme was.

Master Reynard was so vibrant, so very masculine, from the set of his broad shoulders to the determination in his shadowy green eyes. So certain that the world would yield to him.

And she had stumbled against him like the most gauche of schoolgirls. The memory sent an embarrassed, thrilled prickle over her skin. No one in her family seemed to notice that brief, intimate contact before he set her on her feet. Likely he had barely registered it himself. But she felt as though something essential had brushed against her for a moment; some dark, beautiful flame.

The man was arrogant and inflexible, but he was
Darien Reynard
.

“Yes,” Nicholas said, with more hope in his voice than she had heard for months. “We are going to Scotland, to make our fortune.”

He strode to the hearth, took up the coal bucket, and with a flourish upended it into the fire.

“Nicholas!” she cried, from habit.

A half-bucket of coal was a guilty extravagance. But not any more. She could not help smiling at him.

“We can afford to be warm now.” The new coals began to glow and a sudden grin lit his face. “Everything has changed, Clara. Everything!”

He took her hand and pulled her into an impromptu polka. “We are going to Scot-land,” he sang as they whirled about the room, “with Darien Rey-nard.”

The floorboards creaked under their feet, and Clara laughed, dizzy and breathless. Papa pounded his cane, ostensibly to make them stop, but nonetheless keeping perfect time with their steps.

CHAPTER FIVE

With Master Reynard in London, ladies have been observed going to great lengths to snare his attention. Yesterday, in Hyde Park, Miss L_M_ flung herself into his path; and Lady B_ was spotted tapping at his windowpane in the dead of night—one would hope with no success!

-Tilly’s Mayfair Tattler

C
lara ran her fingers over the silver-backed hairbrush that had belonged to her mother, then tucked it into her valise. She had packed everything she needed; nearly everything she owned, in truth. Her two everyday dresses, her spare chemise and petticoats, her nightgown. Giving in to vanity, she had purchased new ribbons for her bonnet, though they had taken the last of her coins. She fastened the valise closed, glanced once more about her bare room, and stepped into the hallway.

With a pang, she passed the empty corner where their grandfather clock used to stand. Now they had to rely on the timepiece downstairs, which barely tinkled the hours instead of ringing them out with calm authority.

“Nicholas.” She paused beside his half-open door. “Are you ready?”

“Nearly.”

She heard him open a drawer, then shut it again with a clunk.

“I’m taking my valise downstairs. Master Reynard’s note said ten o’clock, and it’s rising the hour.”

“I know.” The drawer closed with a bit too much force. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Soon. Soon. Excitement twined with anxiety, the knotted tension coiling up from the soles of her boots. Every step forward from here would be a step into the unknown.

She had hardly slept the last two nights, trying to imagine what it might be like to tour with such a pre-eminent musician. Before her brother lost his students, he used to describe the grandiose houses to her, the ease and opulence that were simply a way of life to the gentry.

But Darien Reynard was not mere gentry. No, that was like comparing an eagle to a flock of swans. Which she supposed made her and Nicholas little brown wrens. She could not imagine how they were going to fly.

She hurried down the stairs and set her worn valise in the entryway, just in time to catch the unmistakable clatter of a coach arriving.

It was time.

Fingers suddenly cold, she pulled her gloves on, then tied her bonnet beneath her chin. The fresh blue ribbons formed a crisp bow, distracting from the faded brim—at least, she hoped so. Through the parlor window she glimpsed the coach door swing wide.

“Nicholas!” she called up the stairs, then pulled their front door open. A cold breeze rushed inside, the west wind shivering beneath low gray clouds.

A figure emerged from the vehicle and her breath stilled. But no. The slight, dapper-looking gentleman could never be confused with Master Reynard. She waited, but no one else stepped out of the coach.

She breathed a sigh of relief, like a marionette whose strings had suddenly gone slack. The maestro had not come to fetch them himself. Of course not. Instead there was this fellow, dressed with fastidious elegance in checked trousers, a russet coat, and a striking green cravat. He had a thin, beakish nose with large nostrils, and bright brown eyes that assessed her as he strutted up to their door, his ebony walking stick tucked under his arm.

When he reached the entryway he swept off his top hat, made not of the usual beaver, but some odd, silvery fur. He made her an extravagant bow, one foot pointed and extended before him.

“Miss Becker, I presume?” His voice bore a Continental accent. French, perhaps?

She nodded, unable to muster a reply. Should she curtsey? Was there a certain type of curtsey that answered such a bow? If so, she had already failed the first test, and she had not even stepped out her own front door.

“I am Henri Dubois.” He paused, as if expecting some sort of recognition. When none was forthcoming, he gave a shrug and continued. “Monsieur Reynard sent me to gather you and your brother. You are ready?”