He crossed his bare forearms over his chest and studied me, as he always did, but tension swelled between us in the silence. Mighty restraint. He lowered his voice. “I’m never certain what to make of you, Miss Fletcher.” His eyes strayed often to the flower tickling my ear. It almost looked as if he wished to touch it—which was madness. How fitting.

I shrugged. “I’m not certain anymore, either. But it’s Vivienne. Vivienne Mourdant.”

He dropped his gaze and heat washed over my skin. I hadn’t played in months now, and it had stripped something from me, erasing a large piece of my identity that I’d always taken for granted. Instead, the rhythms of Hurstwell now formed the backdrop of my days. I was becoming part of it, or it part of me.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you’d do better as an aid than a patient, the way you are with her, no matter your name. It’s a shame you cannot be.”

“If only it were up to you.” I swept a few more flowers up from the grass, touching their velvety petals.

“You know where to come if I can ever help, ever make things a little easier for you.”

I looked up at him, at that earnest face. “Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

“Oh?” His face shuttered, withdrawing. Regretting.

I sighed, twisting a tendril around my finger. “Boot polish.”

He blinked. “Boot . . . ?”

I smiled. “I’d be ever so grateful for a mite of linseed oil, if you’ve any to spare.”

23

The language of music is common to all generations and nations; it is understood by everybody, since it is understood with the heart.

~Gioachino Rossini

The deep bassoon of rolling thunder was the night’s background music, and I listened to the storm’s symphony from beneath the lid of that old Broadwood, feeling my way along the soundboard. Crashhhh. It was a noisy storm, pounding staccato against the windows accentuated with deep, booming rolls of percussion through the moors. Boooom.

I had lit only one candle stub, for I’d begun to run low, so I operated largely by memory and waited for flashes of lightning when I needed to see some small detail. I worked Dr. Turner’s borrowed boot oil into the crevices by feel where the pedal post met the soundboard, easing its movement. Next I’d polish the entire wooden case of the great instrument, bringing it to a fresh shine. I exhaled and dust puffed around my face. I pulled out of the pianoforte and froze as the sound of shuffling footsteps in the priest’s tunnel echoed, like mice. Large ones.

Twelve, three, and six o’clock. It was none of those. Not even eleven.