Chapter 6: Bench and Candlelight

I did not blush.

I had a candle in one hand and a shawl over my nightgown, and I looked down at him on the step.

"Good morning, Mr. Blythe," I said.

"Barnabas, please. We're practically cousins."

"We are not."

"Not yet."

He smiled up at me.

"My cousin has made no marriage offers in six years, and you have had two in three days."

"You are well informed."

"I am an interested party."

He rose and brushed his dressing gown. "A duke's trinket lasts a season, Miss Tallis. Nobody asks what becomes of the trinket afterward."

I felt my back go hard as a board.

"I'm a tuner," I said. "I'm paid to listen, and I've just listened to you."

"And?"

"You're flat."

He blinked.

"You play at being clever, and you are a little sharp and a little sour."

"Everything you say wobbles at the bottom," I said.

"I would not hold my breath for a good result."

I walked past him.

He said, behind me, in a different voice, "He won't marry you."

I did not turn round.

"Then you've nothing to worry about," I said.

I went down to the music room and did not tell the duke.

I told myself it was because he had enough to carry.

The truth was that I wanted to keep the morning to myself for as long as I could.

All that Friday I worked on the block.

I cleaned the crack with a thin blade and a brush, and I dried it with a cloth warmed on the kitchen stove.

Then I mixed a glue that smelled of hide and old stables, and I worked it into the split with a palette knife.

Everard did not come to hold the lamp.

He came at noon with a tray, and set it down, and looked at me.

I looked at him.

"You've glue on your nose," he said.

"I know."

"May I?"

"No," I said, and then, "Yes."

He thumbed it off, and licked his thumb, and gave it back to me with his eyes.

"Hide glue," he said. "Dreadful."

"I'm sure you've tasted worse at your mother's table."

"Never," said Everard. "Worse at mine."

He went away grinning.

I put my forehead on the cold case for a full minute.

That night I did not go along the east corridor.

I stayed in the music room until the lamp burned low.

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