He was lost inside his music today, happier than she’d seen him in months. She wiped her tears away and left him to his work.

She must find a way to pay the rent, and the servants, and settle the household accounts without troubling her father with tidings of destitution.

Now that the heat of her anger and hurt had evaporated, Viola knew she’d have to swallow her pride and ask for her back wages from the duke. She needn’t speak to the man himself. Dukes were cushioned sorts of creatures, cocooned from the reality of life’s pesky domestic matters.

What would her intrepid archaeologist friend India, the Duchess of Ravenwood, do? She’d corner the duke in a back alley outside of a gaming hell and threaten him with a judiciously placed knife until he paid her the back wages.

Not exactly Viola’s way of doing things. Her friends were all powerful women and they’d helped her so much in the past. She didn’t want to accept outright charity, but she would ask her friends if they knew of anyone who required a music instructor.

Oh, how she would miss Lady Blanche, Bernadette, the twins, and, especially, young Birdie, who showed such promise as a musician and a composer.

She’d miss the Delamar sisters, but she was absolutely determined not to miss their brother.

It was only a matter of time. One year from now she’d open a newspaper and read something about the Duke and Duchess of Westbury, and she’d feel nothing. She’d be very dispassionate about it. She’d think, Ah yes, I used to make a fool of myself over that arrogant duke.

Everything her friends had said about Westbury was true. He’d never had to work at anything. And what did he do with his wealth and position? He squandered it. And was rewarded for his bad behavior.

Her heart was an enigmatic organ. It beat to its own music, and try as she might to conduct a sprightlier, more suitable melody, it wanted to wallow in the minor chords of a hopeless infatuation. Hopeless not only because she could never marry him, and because he would never want, or be able, to marry her.

Hopeless because he wasn’t worthy of hope.

She’d known better than to develop feelings for him.

She’d simply have to force her heart to play a new tune.

Chapter Six

“What in the scorching fires of Hades is going on in the kitchens?” West asked urgently.

“Open warfare,” replied Bernadette.

A noisy clanging of metal pots and a shattering sound like pottery hitting a wall punctuated her words. “Cook and Sebastian loathe each other. She says that he’s a despot and he maintains that she’s trying to poison us slowly.”