“Hear, hear,” echoed Warren and Josephine.
Minette laughed at their silly accolade. She’d missed being silly. She’d missed these casual dinners with the Warrens, when all of them gathered around one end of the table and traded funny tales. It was good to be together again, although Townsend and Aurelia were gone to the country already to prepare for their baby, and August had been unable to attend.
It was such a relief to be away from Barrymore House that Minette felt she could breathe freely for the first time in weeks. A disloyal thought, but it was only one dinner, and August said she ought to go and take some holiday cheer where she may.
“I wish August might have joined us tonight,” she said, as the footmen came to clear the ravaged dessert plates. “Lady Barrymore could not spare him.”
“I imagine the truth is that he didn’t wish to face me,” said Warren. “What a coward he’s become.”
“He’s not a coward.” Minette frowned at her brother. “And the ‘truth’ is that he stayed back to be with Lady Barrymore because she’s feeling poorly. If he doesn’t want to be around you, perhaps it’s because you’ve treated him badly when you ought to have been a friend.”
Arlington arched a fine, bronze brow. “I believe you’ve just had a scold, Warren.”
Her brother frowned back at her. She didn’t wish to annoy him. She loved him beyond measure, but she loved her husband too and she couldn’t bear to hear him disparaged.
“Do you really think I’ve treated him badly?” Warren asked.
“Yes, I do,” said Minette. “I think you’ve made him feel defensive and ashamed at every opportunity. It wouldn’t hurt for you to extend him an olive leaf.”
“An olive branch?”
“Whatever. Branch, leaf. Whatever will make the two of you stop glowering at one another.”
“Oh, my dear,” sighed Arlington. “They glowered at one another long before you and August wed.”
“I think I’ve shown admirable patience,” said her brother, sitting up straighter in his chair. Josephine laid a hand on his arm, which he appeared not to notice. “Considering his behavior toward you, both before and after you married, I think I’ve exhibited a great deal of restraint. I ought to have called him out the very day he ruined you. I may still call him out.”
Arlington looked heavenward and Josephine tsked. Minette bristled, standing from her chair. “You most certainly will not. If you do, I’ll stand right in front of him so whatever you do to him, you can very well do to me first.”
“You would take a pistol shot for him?”
“Of course I would.”
Josephine broke into appreciative applause. Warren muttered to Arlington, “She is never polite and boring when she converses with me.”
“But it’s wonderful that she’s in love,” said Josephine, taking Minette’s hand. “I find it very romantic that you should stand between your husband and brother and be shot, or run through with a sword, or whatever grisly method they chose to settle their accounts.”
“There will be no settling of accounts,” Minette insisted.
“Josephine, please, don’t work her up.” Warren held out a hand to her. “Minette, come here and give me a kiss.”
She went to her brother’s side, into his arms that felt so familiar. He kissed her on the forehead and then held her face between his palms.
“I won’t call out your husband. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” He said this lightly, but his deep blue eyes searched hers. “Are you happy?”
“Of course I am.” She looked away so he couldn’t study her too closely. He’d mistake the tiniest bit of doubt as a very big deal. He turned from her and smiled at his wife, a smile which seemed especially...loving. Dear Josephine was only three months from having her baby. She was round and glowing and so pretty. No wonder Warren looked at her that way. If only August would stare at her so, with such admiration and longing. Perhaps if he was happier, more at ease in his life. Minette kept thinking about his musical expertise, and how much good it might do her husband to bring his secret talents into the light of day. Why, he would surely begin to feel more proud and content, and happier in general. Even better, he’d be grateful to her for giving him that wifely little push.
Minette cleared her throat and drew back from her brother’s embrace. “I have a question for you, Warren, and you too, Arlington. Did you know August composes music?”
“I didn’t,” said Warren. “I knew he played, but I didn’t know he wrote.”
“He composes music?” Arlington asked. “What sort of music?”
“Concertos and symphonies and sonatas, mountains of them,” said Minette. “He’s written them all by hand, marking the notes and measures and various notations with his own pen. There are pages and pages of it at the house.”
Arlington and Warren looked at each other, genuinely shocked.
“How difficult that must be,” Josephine said, “to write entire concertos.”
“I think he could be famous if he wanted, as famous as Mozart or Bach,” Minette told them. “I’ve brought some of his work to show you, only a fraction of what’s there. He’s got cabinets full.”
“Cabinets, eh?” asked Warren. “Wherever does he find the time?”
“He doesn’t sleep much these days.”
Warren and Arlington exchanged another look. Minette crossed to the side table to fetch the portfolio she’d snuck out of the house. Not that August would object to her sharing the music with his friends. Well, he probably wouldn’t object. If only he were not so shy about his talents, when he ought to be proud!
“I was hoping you might play it for me and tell me what you think,” she explained. “You know, whether it was good enough to be published by the music printers. August has been so tense and distracted lately, and sad about his father. I thought it might cheer him to see his music in the shops. Why, our friends might buy it, and play it in their parlors, and congratulate him on what a clever musician he is.”
Warren looked doubtful, but when he opened the leather case and saw all the pages of musical notation, his expression changed. “Blast,” he murmured. “This is a full bloody suite.”
Josephine chided him for his language, but Minette felt a secret thrill that the dense display of notes had shocked and impressed her brother. “Arlington?” Warren said, looking up. “I never had a hand at music. Play it for us, will you?”
The duke took the pages, flipped through them with a rustle of lace cuffs, then headed through the dining room into the parlor beyond. He sat at the pianoforte, arranging the music as Josephine and Minette settled on the divan. “Turn pages for me?” Arlington asked Warren.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Warren muttered. “If you can’t be bothered to turn them yourself.”
“Very good. I may be a bit out of practice,” he said.
He began to play, and Minette thought that it sounded awfully fine, even if Arlington was out of practice. The piece began with lyrical stately chords, easy for the duke’s long fingers. These soon transformed to a complex melody, a beautiful arrangement of notes. Louder, softer, slower, faster. Arlington smiled as he played a particularly dramatic bit.
“I say, this is grand.” He paused as Warren was late turning a page.
“Do you know, he doesn’t even write it at the pianoforte?” said Minette. “He hears it all in his head.”
“Even with you chattering in the background?” teased her brother.
The piece lightened, notes tripping over one another in a dizzying cascade of harmony. Arlington stumbled, stopped, squinted at the page, and tried again twice before he got through the sequence. “Damn him,” he said with good nature. “No pity for the clods who have to play it.”
Josephine listened in awe. “It’s amazing, Minette. You must be so proud of your husband.”
Minette felt a flush of pleasure rise in her cheeks. It wasn’t her place to be proud, for she hadn’t written the music, but she was indeed very proud on he
r husband’s behalf. When Arlington came to the end of the first movement, he stopped and cracked his fingers while Warren leafed through the rest of the folio.
“You say he has more like this?” asked Warren.
“Yes, so much more. I wish everyone could hear it.”
“Indeed, it’s a fine piece of music,” said Arlington. “But it must be August’s decision to share it with the world.”
Minette felt the first pangs of conscience, that she had brought this music here without her husband’s permission. “He doesn’t wish to show it to anyone,” she confessed. “I only hate that no one knows how talented he is. Why, I didn’t know until I found him composing in his study, and he pretended it was nothing, a trifling pastime. I think he can be...shy.”
“I think he can be stubborn,” said Warren. “If he doesn’t want to share his music, he won’t.”