Blackmoore(41)

“Are there truly smugglers in these parts?” the younger Mr. Brandon asked.

A look of irritation flashed over Henry’s face, and his smile vanished completely. He looked ready to say something curt to Mr. Brandon, but Sylvia spoke up before he could.

“We always hear rumors of smuggling, especially in Robin Hood’s Bay. But there is nothing to worry about now. Mother would never stand for anything inappropriate happening at Blackmoore.”

“I surely hope so,” Miss St. Claire said, her large green eyes opened even wider than usual.

The elder Mr. Brandon nodded his head and offered another sandwich to Sylvia, which she accepted with a bashful smile. Henry said nothing. He only continued to frown at the younger Mr. Brandon, who had just asked me if I would like to explore the ruins some more.

I watched Henry from the corner of my eye as his jaw clenched and he scowled at the rooks wheeling above us. I wondered what about this lovely day had put him in such a foul temper. I stood and brushed the grass from my skirt. “I would like that very much, Mr. Brandon,” I said.

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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n But it was a lie. What I would really have liked was for all of these strangers to go away and leave me here alone with Henry and the ruins and the birds.

L

The walk to the ruined abbey, the exploration of its crumbling form, the picnic, and the return to Blackmoore took the greater part of the afternoon. As pleasant as Mr. Brandon’s company was, I wished the whole time for the company of only Henry and Sylvia. But not Henry and Sylvia as they were behaving today: angry and cold, respectively. I wanted the Henry and Sylvia who had been my dearest friends all my life. What had happened to us? And how had it happened in such a short time?

And then there was the need to speak to Henry alone. I had to ask him for my proposals so that I could be sure of winning my trip to India.

This day, just as much as last night, solidified the rightness of my deci-sion to leave. There was no happy life for me here. Sylvia would marry and move away. Henry would marry Miss St. Claire, and they would live together at Blackmoore, and I would most likely never see him again. And I would be left home, alone, with no prospects and no independence. No.

It was India or a caged life.

But Henry was impossible to speak to alone. At every opportunity when I might have had a quiet word with him, Miss St. Claire was at his side, finding a reason to touch his arm, or smile at him, or find an errant streak of sunlight to illuminate the copper in her hair. She was altogether too pretty, and worse than that, she seemed to know it.

By the time we returned to Blackmoore, it was time to dress for dinner. And dinner was a grand affair with all forty guests in the grand dining room. I was seated next to Herr Spohr, far down the table from Henry and Sylvia. I did not mind, though, as I had something important to ask of him.

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“Herr Spohr, I believe we had some sort of misunderstanding last night. When you took my music away from me.”

I watched him chew a piece of roasted duck. He chewed it for what seemed a long time while I awaited his response. I had to have misunder-stood his intentions last night. Gentlemen did not walk around confiscat-ing the belongings of young ladies. His behavior was so highly irregular.

Surely there was some explanation for it.

He finally swallowed, looked at me briefly, and shook his head. “No.

Mozart is not good for you.”

“But it belongs to me. You cannot just take something that belongs to someone else.”

He speared another piece of duck. “It is for your own good, meine kleine Vogel. Trust me.”

At a loss, I shook my head and would have felt inclined to resent his heavy-handed attitude, were it not for the rather charming combination of his wild hair and his German accent and the term he called me. Little bird. And I did feel rather in awe of him—a real composer. A professional musician. I respected him, despite his unorthodox methods of separating young musicians from their musical geniuses.

“Do you know Faust, Miss Worthington?”

I sat up straight. “What?”

“Faust.” He regarded me steadily, his eyes a deep blue.

My heart lurched in my chest. My gaze darted across the room, to where Henry sat at the head of the table with Miss St. Claire at his right hand. His gaze was down, his dark hair shone in the candlelight, and he occupied that seat of authority with a casual grace that could not be taught, only earned. I looked away and tried not to think of the morning I had first heard of Faust. I nodded. “Yes. A little.”

“What do you know?” Herr Spohr had set down his fork and was regarding me with the unwavering attention of a tutor for his pupil.

“Faust was a brilliant man who yearned for more than he already had.

He struck a bargain with the devil—with Mephistopheles. He bargained 121



J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n away his soul in exchange for greater wisdom, greater favors, greater accomplishments.”

“And in the end?” Herr Spohr prompted.

I swallowed. “In the end, he lost his soul.”

Herr Spohr nodded, his hair flopping with the movement. “Yes, Fr?ulein. That is good. You know the important things. The ambition.

The restlessness. The greed. The great struggle for more.” He rubbed a hand over the top of his head. “I wrote an opera about him, you know.