The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (Smythe-Smith Quartet #4)(4)

Oh, blast, she’d missed her entrance. “Sorry,” Iris muttered under her breath, even though no one could possibly hear her. She never missed her entrances. She didn’t care that the rest of the players were so mind-numbingly awful that it didn’t really matter if she came in on time or not—it was the principle of the matter.

Someone had to try to play properly.

She attended to her cello for the next few pages of the score, doing her best to block out Daisy, who was wandering all over the stage as she played. When Iris reached the next longish break in the cello part, however, she could not keep herself from looking up.

He was still watching her.

Did she have something on her dress? In her hair? Without thinking, she reached up to brush her coiffure, half expecting to dislodge a twig.

Nothing.

Now she was just angry. He was trying to rattle her. That could be the only explanation. What a rude boor. And an idiot. Did he really think he could irritate her more than her own sister? It would take an accordion-playing minotaur to top Daisy on the scale of bothersome to seventh circle of hell.

“Iris!” Sarah hissed.

“Errrrgh,” Iris growled. She’d missed her entrance again. Although really, who was Sarah to complain? She’d skipped two entire pages in the second movement.

Iris located the correct spot in the score and leapt back in, relieved to note that they were nearing the end of the concerto. All she had to do was play her final notes, curtsy as if she meant it, and attempt to smile through the strained applause.

Then she could plead a headache and go home and shut her door and read a book and ignore Daisy and pretend that she wasn’t going to have to do it all over again next year.

Unless, of course, she got married.

It was the only escape. Every unmarried Smythe-Smith (of the female variety) had to play in the quartet when an opening at her chosen instrument arose, and she stayed there until she walked down a church aisle and claimed her groom.

Only one cousin had managed to marry before she was forced onto the stage. It had been a spectacular convergence of luck and cunning. Frederica Smythe-Smith, now Frederica Plum, had been trained on the violin, just like her older sister Eleanor.

But Eleanor had not “taken,” in the words of Iris’s mother. In fact, Eleanor had played in the quartet a record seven years before falling head over heels for a kindly curate who had the amazing good sense to love her with equal abandon. Iris rather liked Eleanor, even if she did fancy herself an accomplished musician. (She was not.)

As for Frederica . . . Eleanor’s delayed success on the marriage mart meant that the violinist’s chair was filled when her younger sister made her debut. And if Frederica just happened to make certain that she found a husband with all possible haste . . .

It was the stuff of legend. To Iris, at least.

Frederica now lived in the south of India, which Iris suspected was somehow related to her orchestral escape. No one in the family had seen her for years, although every now and then a letter found its way to London, bearing news of heat and spice and the occasional elephant.

Iris hated hot weather, and she wasn’t particularly fond of spicy food, but as she sat in her cousins’ ballroom, trying to pretend that fifty people weren’t watching her make a fool of herself, she couldn’t help but think that India sounded rather pleasant.

She had no opinion one way or the other on the elephants.

Maybe she could find herself a husband this year. Truth be told, she hadn’t really put in much of an effort the two years she’d been out. But it was so hard to make an effort when she was—and there was no denying it—so unnoticeable.

Except—she looked up, then immediately looked down—by that strange man in the fifth row. Why was he watching her?

It made no sense. And Iris hated—even more than she hated making a fool of herself—things that made no sense.





Chapter Two


IT WAS CLEAR to Richard that Iris Smythe-Smith planned to flee the concert the moment she was able. She wasn’t obvious about it, but he’d been watching her for what seemed like an hour; by this point, he was practically an expert on the expressions and mannerisms of the reluctant cellist.

He was going to have to act quickly.

“Introduce us,” Richard said to Winston, discreetly motioning toward her with his head.

“Really?”

Richard gave a curt nod.

Winston shrugged, obviously surprised by his friend’s interest in the colorless Miss Iris Smythe-Smith. But if he was curious, he did not show it past his initial query. Instead he maneuvered through the crowd in his usual smooth manner. The woman in question might have been standing awkwardly by the door, but her eyes were sharp, taking in the room, its inhabitants, and the interactions thereof.

She was timing her escape. Richard was sure of it.

But she was to be thwarted. Winston came to a halt in front of her before she could make her move. “Miss Smythe-Smith,” he said, everything good cheer and amiability. “What a delight to see you again.”

She bobbed a suspicious curtsy. Clearly she did not have the sort of acquaintance with Winston as to warrant such a warm greeting. “Mr. Bevelstoke,” she murmured.

“May I introduce my good friend, Sir Richard Kenworthy?”

Richard bowed. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” he said.