Royal Academy? He’d have known Father then, most likely. I accepted a small scone from a passing footman, a glass of water from another. “My manager handles the long-term engagements.” Yet my curiosity wouldn’t let go just yet. Perhaps it was what he’d said about being a light. “What sort of outlet did you have in mind?” I nibbled the edge of the flaky pastry.

“I’ve been working in hospitals around the country, experimenting with music in the wards, and the results have been quite pleasing.”

I eyed the man, looking for the jest in his expression. “Truly, a hospital?” I wasn’t keen on giving up a great deal of time to create a musical spa treatment of sorts for invalids laid up in hospital. Lord, forgive my uncharitable spirit. “What are you hoping to accomplish?”

“Why, healing of course. Music opens up what we once believed lost. It penetrates, influences, and restores like nothing in a bottle can. Lost memories resurface, peace invades pain . . .”

I breathed in deeply, plunging through his rambles. “And who pays for such a thing? Surely not the patients.” I loathed to tread into the unpardonable topic of compensation, but neither could I afford to work for free. Not now, anyway.

“Why, I’m hoping for donors, once I have established my methodology.”

“Sir, if it’s a donation you seek from me—”

He opened his palms before me. “Not at all. My aim at this moment is to conduct a clinical study to attract potential sponsors. When minds are open, pocketbooks follow. What I need is a true musician to open those minds and demonstrate what may be accomplished—a performer who has enough light to pierce the darkness.” That tender smile returned, and my heart quickened. “You see, my dear, I only want you for your music.”

My back stiffened. “I don’t recall any of London’s hospitals having a reputation for being particularly dark, Mr. Harford. Had you a specific one in mind for me to . . . pierce?”

“Actually, where I wanted to take you and your music is the darkest place in all of England—the county asylums. Hurstwell, to be exact.”

I spit my water into my glass to keep from choking, then held gloved fingertips to my lips. “I beg your pardon?” Normally, I wasn’t one to believe in coincidences—not when I’d personally experienced God’s remarkable sovereignty. Yet I couldn’t explain this any other way.

“You’ve not seen darkness until you’ve experienced the despair at such a place, Miss Mourdant. There is nothing it needs more than a little light breaking through. It’s a dead end with little comfort, no hope.”

My heart pounded as I searched for polite responses, and I offered what I hoped was a passable yet vague regret.