The Reason a Piano Tuner Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Musicale Rehearsal

At noon on Tuesday the music room held forty chairs and almost as many people.

The six young women sat in the front row with their mothers behind them.

The vicar sat at the end with his hat on his knee.

My father had a chair by the wall, with his good ear turned to the room.

The Dowager sat in the middle with her stick across her lap.

Everard stood against the far wall with his arms folded and a face.

Barnabas sat down on the bench beside me, a hand's width too close, with the music open on the stand.

"Whenever you are ready, Miss Tallis," he said, in a carrying voice. "I shall be your humble servant."

I began.

It was a slow movement by Haydn, which the Dowager had chosen because it was kind to the middle of the keyboard.

I played it as cleanly as I knew how.

The room settled into it.

Somewhere in the second page one of the mothers took out a handkerchief.

The Broadwood sounded as it had not sounded in ten years.

At the end of the page Barnabas leaned across me to turn it, and his sleeve smelled of musk.

"Do play the bass, dear Miss Tallis," he murmured, so that the first row could hear. "I'm told it is the best part."

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