She broke the clasp of his hands and turned away from his penetrating gaze, staring at the fountain instead. “I’ve made my choices. It’s too late to change the entire course of my life now.” She laughed softly. “And have you read any reviews from the critics about female composers? The reviews of Mr. Beam’s work have been glowing. Everyone wants to know who he is and whether he’ll reveal his identity. The conversation would change drastically if they knew it was composed by a female. The reviews would read something like this: ‘How rare it is for a woman to compose a symphony of real talent,’ or they would conjecture that since I’m the daughter of a famous composer, I must be merely copying my father. I couldn’t be a talent in my own right.”

And she couldn’t risk the possibility of someone discovering that she’d been publishing under her father’s name.

“Critics be damned!” West crooked his thumb under her chin and turned her to face him. “Don’t allow a review that hasn’t even been written yet to silence you. If you composed one symphonic work, there must be more inside that brilliant mind of yours.”

There were those bells again. Ringing softly, just a tinkling in the night air . . . but they were ready to peal loudly, to claim joy.

“I have an entire trunk filled with my musical compositions,” she admitted. “But I’m content with the life I’ve carved out for myself. It’s only rarely that I feel that being my father’s caretaker is a yawning abyss that swallows everything, consumes everything, leaving no room for me. For my creativity. My voice.”

“Do you want the works you’ve composed to be discovered after your death and published posthumously? Everyone will say what a shame it was that the musical genius, Miss Viola Beaton, kept her opus locked away in a trunk.”

“I’m the great composer’s daughter. I’ll be a side note in the history books if I’m mentioned at all. And that’s perfectly amenable to me.”

“Is it, though?” He cupped her face with his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Is that really enough? You should want more.”

“I wouldn’t call my works genius. I would say they’re an itch that must be scratched. I could no more stop composing music than I could stop breathing.”

“And you shouldn’t have to. You’ve been holding yourself back from truly living. I saw you perform tonight. You were amazing. You shouldn’t hide that talent from the world.”

“I never should have performed.”