The Reason a Piano Tuner Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Against the Door

Barnabas yelped, hopped once on his good foot, and sat down hard on a mounting block.

"Aunt, you have broken my toe."

"I have bruised it," said the Dowager. "I am out of practice."

She turned her stick toward me, and her black eyes did not soften one inch.

"Go and find my son, Miss Tallis."

"He will not want me."

"He wants nothing else in the world, and he is too stubborn to know the road."

"Mr. Tallis, you will take tea with me in the Yellow Drawing Room and tell me forty years of pianos."

My father looked at me over his spectacles.

"I always did like a duchess who gives orders," he said, and offered her his good arm.

I went into the house.

I found him where I should have known to look.

The music room doors stood half open, and he was inside, with both hands flat on the lid of the Broadwood and his head down.

His shoulders were rising and falling.

I went in and shut the doors behind me.

The lock had two keys, his and mine.

Mine hung at my belt.

I turned it, and the bolt went home with a heavy click.

He did not turn round.

"You were right," he said to the walnut.

"I know."

"I stood in that yard and heard him say it."

"All I could think was that I wanted him to hear an answer."

"I used you to give it."

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