Swan's Grace Read online

  “Of course you do, no one likes scales, but everyone has to practice them.”

  She continued on with Circus as though he hadn’t said a word, her mind distant, savoring the andantino, the wonderful lilt and swing. She relished the syncopated rhythms. “I practice my technique by finding new gowns and combining them with stunning pieces of jewelry. We both know that is what my audience wants to see.”

  She bit her lip, concentrating, as she prepared for the ritardando in the last measure, her finger sliding up to a high B-flat and G before hitting a perfect F-sharp like the trill of a bird’s song.

  Finished, she whipped the bow away with a flourish, feeling pleased, triumphant. The piece of music was perfect for her show. Beautiful but accessible. The trick seemed to be to find works that an audience could hum after a performance, works that stayed with them. Hence the reason for performing a great many opera pieces that had been adapted for the cello. It had entailed learning a whole new way of playing.

  Most of the difficult concert pieces she had grown up on were appreciated for their complexity and sophistication, frequently nothing a person could hum. Except for the Bach cello suites. They were difficult, yes, sophisticated and complicated, true. But a truly talented cellist could enthrall any sort of audience with the pieces—if one had the ability to create magic.

  Once she had believed she could create magic with her cello. Once she had believed she was born to play Bach. Now she created magic with jewelry and gowns instead.

  “I think I’d like to wear a tiara for my next appearance.”

  “A tiara!” Henry demanded.

  The burst of sound brought the dog’s head up from where she slept on the brocade divan.

  “Shhh, sweetie, it’s okay. Uncle Henry was just being loud.”

  The dog thumped her tail against the cushions, then sank back down and tucked herself in more comfortably.

  “Yes, a tiara, with diamonds.”

  “Are we planning wardrobes?” Deandra asked as she walked into the room, her own cup of coffee held in her hand, her ostrich-plumed mules matching the ostrich plume around the neckline of her peignoir.

  “Good morning,” Sophie said.

  Deandra finished a sip, then returned the cup to its saucer with a clink, her ostrich-plumed sleeve slipping back down to her wrist. “Good morning, loves.”

  “Sophie wants a tiara,” Henry stated.

  “I think that is a fabulous idea,” Dea said after another sip.

  Margaret walked in, dressed in a severely cut woolen gown buttoned to her neck. She held a tray of tea items in her hands. “Everyone’s up early. Should I start breakfast?”

  Deandra shook her head. “You’d think there’d be servants around here. If we are going to be here until May, why don’t I look into hiring some?”

  “Oh, no.” Sophie said the words too fast, drawing everyone’s attention. She forced a smile, thinking of her limited funds, reminding her, among other things, that buying a tiara was completely out of the question.

  Her smile felt brittle on her lips. “I think it’s better we wait until I have this house situation straightened out before we start hiring servants. In the meantime, we can all pitch in and take care of things.”

  “Us, take care of a house? Sophie, are you feeling all right?” Henry asked.

  “I’m feeling fine.” Determined, she returned the bow to the strings, sawing up, then back.

  “Of course she is fine,” Margaret said from the doorway, her mood remarkably lightened since receiving a note from a cousin inviting her to the family country house for a weekend. “And she’s right. The last thing we need around here is more people. Good heavens, between all of us, Mr. Hawthorne, and that receptionist of his, not to mention his clients, the house is bursting at the seams.” Her eyes widened as she came in and set down the tray. “Speaking of houses bursting at the seams, how did the party go last night?”

  The bow sawed unevenly, turning a C into a muddied, screeching jangle of sound.

  “That good?” Henry asked, slipping into the wing-backed chair just before Deandra could get there.

  “Out of my seat.”

  “Sit on the divan,” Henry said with a snicker.

  Deandra pulled herself up to her imperious height. “The dog is there.”

  “Birds of a feather should flock together…”

  A brief silence sizzled through the room before Dea’s eyes narrowed and she started for Henry. But Sophie jumped in, waving her rosined bow between the two like a surrender flag. “Children, children.”

  Henry chuckled and hunkered back down against the buttery leather, his coffee cup held close to his chest like a shield.

  “Henry, I hardly call that the gentlemanly thing to do,” Sophie admonished.

  The little man sliced her a crooked grin. “Since when were you concerned about propriety?”

  “Since we got here,” Margaret interjected. “Didn’t you notice that she spent hours deciding on the perfect gown for last night?”

  “Did she really?” Henry mused.

  “She has been a bit different lately,” Deandra commented.

  “She is sitting right here,” Sophie demanded. “And she is no different now than ever before.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really!”

  With that she leaped into another popular piece adapted from an opera, the notes deep and brooding, her playing fast and furious.

  “I take it last night didn’t go so well,” Margaret remarked.

  In answer, Sophie dug into the strings, finding an angry F-sharp, the note leaping out from the others.

  “Oh, dear,” Henry said with a sigh, then stood up from the chair, walked over to the divan, and sat, seemingly unaware of what he did.

  “Tell us what happened,” Deandra said, lowering herself into the wing-backed chair.

  Within seconds, Margaret, Henry, and Deandra were circled around Sophie, leaning close.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  A knock sounded on the door. They ignored it.

  “Of course there is something to tell. You only play the overture to Don Giovanni when you’re upset.”

  Another knock sounded, followed by the ring of the bell. They didn’t even glance that way.

  “A lot you know,” Sophie replied, her tone disgruntled. “I was planning to add the piece to my repertoire.”

  “And I’m the queen of England,” Henry scoffed.

  Deandra shot him a sharp look. “Then we should get you the tiara.”

  “Funny, Dea.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Enough!” Sophie broke in. “After all this time, you’d think you two could get along.”

  “Ah, but we do get along.” Henry leaped up and set his coffee aside, along with Deandra’s. Then he swept the taller woman up from the seat and threw his arms around her. His head came to her bosom. “I adore you, Deandra,” he cried, his voice muffled by generous cleavage.

  Deandra laughed, and even Margaret couldn’t hold back a reluctant smile. Sophie shook her head and felt a surge of love for this group of people she had gathered around her, just as the sound of the door handle being turned clicked in the foyer.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Sophie, Deandra, and Margaret turned to find Grayson standing in the doorway of the east drawing room. Henry didn’t hear the approach.

  Grayson held his hat in his gloved hands; his heavy topcoat was buttoned to the top, only a hint of woolen scarf showing at his neck. His powerful build filled the doorway. Sophie hated him for looking so good, so calm, as if he had done nothing more to her than invite her over for tea. At the very least he could have the decency to look chagrined.

  “Yes, you are interrupting,” she stated.

  But Grayson wasn’t listening. He stared at Henry, who was slurping and moaning and carrying on with great enthusiasm at Deandra’s breast. Deandra chuckled and raised her delicate brow.

  “What is going on here?”
Grayson demanded.

  Henry finally heard, and popped his head out from between Deandra’s ample breasts, and at the sight of Grayson he smiled licentiously. “I was just enjoying myself. You’re just in time to have a try.”

  Grayson’s expression went cold, Deandra sputtered her laughter, and Margaret looked confused.

  “A try at what?” Margaret asked.

  Sophie boldly met Grayson’s eyes, then turned to her assistant. “Henry was just being bad, Maggie, love.”

  Henry let go of Deandra and came forward and bent over in front of Grayson. “Very bad. Perhaps you’d like to spank me.”

  This time there was no mistake about meaning.

  “Henry!” Margaret exclaimed, her face blanching before turning a bright shade of red. “What will Mr. Hawthorne think?”

  “We hardly need to concern ourselves with what he thinks,” Sophie stated, setting the cello aside, “as our esteemed guest is not above improper or, dare I say, underhanded actions himself.” She smiled bitingly. “Do you think I adequately described what you’ve done, Mr. Hawthorne?”

  Grayson got that look about him, hard and cold, his jaw tight.

  “What has he done?” Henry wanted to know, straightening like a jackknife.

  Grayson didn’t respond, his eyes locked with Sophie’s.

  “He’s gone and gotten himself engaged,” she supplied.

  “To whom?” Margaret asked.

  “To moi.”

  Deandra, Margaret, and Henry turned to her like precision soldiers. “What?” they cried incredulously.

  “Tell them, darling,” Sophie said to her newly betrothed, drawing out the endearment.

  Still, Grayson didn’t utter a word, but the look on his face said clearly enough that he wasn’t happy.

  “All right, if you insist, I’ll tell them.” She looked at her friends. “As it turns out, he bought me at the same time he bought the house. Signed, sealed, and delivered and he didn’t even have to get my permission. I’d say that’s a savvy businessman.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Margaret moaned. “How can you sit there and be so cavalier about this?”

  “What would you expect?” she asked, looking at Grayson rather than Margaret. “Tears and hysteria?”

  “Actually, yes,” Deandra supplied.

  She wasn’t about to share with them how true that was, how she had woken that morning sick and dizzy and wanting nothing more than to scream her outrage. How could she explain that the boy she had adored had become a man that was the very antithesis of what she wanted in life? He had grown up to be a man who made the rules, while she had grown up wanting only to break them. And she had broken them. Too many times to turn back from.

  As much as she wished her mother hadn’t died and life hadn’t changed in such a way that she’d needed to flee Boston, she couldn’t deny that experiencing life on her own had been a revelation. Could anyone who hadn’t experienced the heady intoxication of freedom understand its attraction—its addiction? Independence had given her freedom. How could she go back? Even for Grayson Hawthorne.

  She wouldn’t let Grayson or her friends see her distress. All she could do was find a way to undo all her father had done.

  “This is awful,” Henry cried. “You can’t get married.”

  “Rest assured, I’m not.”

  The words sliced through the air, followed by silence.

  “How do you plan to get out of it?”

  Grayson’s voiced shimmered through the room, down her spine, in a way that muddled her thoughts.

  Sophie shook her head, then flicked the cello bow aside. “I’m going to take you to court.”

  Margaret sat down, hard.

  Deandra started to pace. “Hmmm. Actually we could work this to our advantage.” She held her hands up in the air as if framing a headline. ” ‘Desperate Groom Snags Reluctant Bride.’ No, too boring. How about ‘Desperate Measures of a Desperate Groom’?”

  Henry twisted his lips and considered. “It sounds good to me.”

  “It sounds like libel to me,” Grayson said, his voice clipped.

  “And you say you’re a lawyer,” Deandra scoffed. “Tell me what’s not true about either of those statements?”

  Grayson stared at her in a way meant to quell her tongue as he slowly unbuttoned his coat, then set his winter things aside.

  Deandra only continued. “Sophie clearly is reluctant, and you certainly look desperate to me.”

  Grayson’s dark eyes narrowed.

  “I agree,” Margaret supplied.

  “Very desperate,” Henry added. “We all could testify.”

  “And both you and I know, Mr. Hawthorne,” Deandra explained, “that libel occurs only when a person knowingly and with malicious intent expresses defamatory statements. As far as I can determine, we see our statements as nothing but God’s own truth.”

  Margaret beamed. “Impressive, Dea.”

  Henry clapped. “Brava, mademoiselle!”

  Sophie bit her lip to keep from smiling with the surge of love she felt for her friends. “Headlines won’t be necessary, dear ones. As I see it, a quick trip to any judge in the land will have me out of this contract in no time. This is the 1890s, after all. Which means I will be unengaged and I will get my home back. So if I were you, Grayson dear, I’d trot on over to the nearest office building and find myself a new address from which to transact business.”

  “But that’s the thing, Sophie,” he said, his voice deep and low in a way that made her insides tremble, “you aren’t me.”

  She raised her chin and chided herself for trembling like a schoolgirl. “Well, well, aren’t we clever this morning?”

  “Clever enough to know you will never win. In the meantime we need to talk.” Grayson glowered at the entourage before turning back to Sophie. “Alone.”

  “I can’t think of a thing that needs discussing, unless you’ve had a fit of conscience and have come to say it was all a huge mistake.” She hesitated, hating the surge of hope that laced her tone. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “No.”

  “Then we have nothing to discuss.”

  “Actually, we do. I have the contracts for your concert,” he stated.

  “Concert! What concert?” Deandra demanded.

  Sophie felt a betraying tinge of red singe her cheeks. But she would not regret her impetuous discussion. “Did I forget to mention that I’m going to perform at the Music Hall?”

  “Good God!”

  “You’re not!”

  Deandra crossed her arms and studied her. “Aren’t we full of surprises this morning? First a betrothal, then a concert here in Boston. At the Music Hall, no less.”

  “Now might I have a word alone with you?” Grayson asked, his polite tone strained.

  “No,” she repeated, setting her cello aside, then she started out of the drawing room. “Just leave the documents on the desk and I’ll get to them later. Come along, dear ones.”

  The group started out, Sophie herding them along like a gaggle of geese. But just as she came to the door, Grayson stopped her. Henry and the others turned back as well.

  “Leave!” Grayson barked at them.

  “Don’t you dare!” Sophie shot back.

  Henry and the women glanced between Sophie and Grayson before they grimaced and headed for the kitchen.

  “Traitors,” she called after them.

  “No,” Grayson said, his voice ominous, “they’re just smart.”

  “Now who is being dramatic?”

  He raised a dark brow. “I take it drama is a sensitive subject for you.”

  She scoffed. “Hardly. I was just tired last night.” She ducked beneath his arm and left the room.

  Unfortunately, Grayson followed, though she felt the moment when he stopped abruptly. They had entered the library, his horrid paintings of hunting dogs and shot pheasants stacked up against the dark walnut wainscoting like an oversize deck of playing cards. Streaked on the wallpaper were sever
al swaths of colored paint.

  “What the blazes have you done?” he demanded.

  “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you’ve opened a play school and used the walls when you found yourself short of finger-painting paper.”

  Sophie smiled. “Wasn’t that witty. Actually, I am redecorating.” With paint instead of new wallpaper, because paint was in the basement and there was no money for anything else. And she couldn’t stand the dark room and dismal paintings a second longer.

  “I just had that wallpaper put up.”

  “Good God, you paid for that?”

  “Quite a lot.”

  “Then you were had.” She turned around and took in the walls. “I think I might go with red.”

  “You can’t paint the room red!”

  She tapped her finger against her cheek and studied her surroundings before looking back at him. “A bit much, you think?”

  His jaw went well beyond the tension stage. He looked furious. It was all she could do not to rub her hands together in glee, and a thought occurred to her. Perhaps she wouldn’t need a court case or a concert to run him off.

  “Maybe I should go with a cheerful yellow, or a nice, calming blue.” She tilted her head as if in serious contemplation. “What do you think? Yellow or blue?”

  For half a heartbeat, Grayson actually seemed to consider the question, before he shook his head and his face grew murderous.

  But Sophie headed him off. “I think a calming blue. Then we both could benefit from the redecoration. I could play in a beautiful setting, and you could just sit here to ease that straining jaw of yours. That can’t be good for your health.”

  “You aren’t good for my health,” he snapped.

  “Exactly. More reason for you to call off this silly betrothal and give me back my house.”

  “Not on your life. And you can forget your plans for redecorating.”

  “Good Lord, why are you so upset?” she asked. “Based on our earlier discussion, one of two things is going to happen. Either I’m going to get my house back, or I’m going to have to marry you. Whichever scenario plays out, I’m going to live here, and I need a music room.” She smiled devilishly at him. “Are you a gambling man, Mr. Hawthorne? Do you want to put a wager on which way the chips will fall?”