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“She’s waiting outside,” Mrs. Cooper said. “She really has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ll see about that,” Arthur replied coldly. “Tell her to step inside the office.”
“Be kind to her, please,” Nora said, tugging at his waistcoat. Her height didn’t permit her to reach further than that.
“I will,” he said, wondering if Nora had heard them arguing before.
Mrs. Cooper and Nora walked out of the room and a few moments later, she arrived. There was something sharp about her, maybe the way she held herself or the way she walked. Her regal nose was pinched slightly as if his sight left her with distaste. Arthur wanted to remind her that he felt the same, but the sight of her had quite literally left him speechless. Why? He had just seen her half-an hour ago.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked with the perfect arch of her brows.
“Yes,” he said. “My daughter wishes to learn music from you.”
“I sense a but coming,” she said. “Speak your mind, Your Grace.” Again, the mocking way in which she addressed him made him want to shake her senseless. What was it about this woman that was raising such passion in him? He rarely ever had violent thoughts, but now, he wanted to smash his fist through a wall.
“I’m afraid of what the implications might mean if I let my daughter mingle with someone of your reputation and station,” he said.
“A woman of my reputation?” Carmen said, scowling at him. “What do you mean?” She knew exactly what he meant, but she wanted to make him say it aloud.
He looked flustered. “I know about your profession.”
“Did you bring me in here to insult me, Your Grace? Because I’m going to make things clear right away. I’m not like the rest of the people who will bow to your beck and call because of your title and money,” she said. He already knew that. “You have to earn your respect with me.”
“You don’t get to speak to me in that manner,” he said, frowning. Nobody in his life had ever spoken to him like this woman was.
“You insulted and belittled me, Your Grace. I simply pointed out your wrongdoing. And since you seem to be very interested in my profession, here’s the truth. I work down at the docks as a daily laborer. Pray tell me what’s wrong in that?”
He blinked. “You do?”
Carmen realized that he had assumed the worst about her. “You think I’m a woman of bad repute.” It wasn’t even a question. She stated it.
Arthur cleared his voice. “All evidences seem to point towards it.”
“And pray, who told you that? The landlord? The men who live in the buildings next to us?” Carmen scoffed. “They always assume the worst about us even though they know that all of the women have left that life far behind them. We were trying to fix our own lives by fixing the music hall. That’s what it has been about.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t like that.”
“Oh? People are quick to point to the character of the night-women and ostracize them because it makes them feel good about themselves. But what about the men who visit them when they have wives and children at home. Doesn’t that make them culpable too?”
Arthur blinked. “I didn’t mean it in that manner—”
“Of course, you didn’t,” she said. “You wished to insult me by likening me to woman who use their body to survive in this cruel world, where most of them have been forced into the trade. If you had bothered to look outside your bed of roses—”
He fisted his hands at his sides. “You don’t know anything about me.” And yet she stood in front of him making audacious remarks about him.
Carmen looked around as if to make a point, barely even deterred by the cold in his voice. “You live in a sprawling mansion and have gilded carriages to take you around and have every need fulfilled before you have to ask for it. Pray tell me, what your world is lacking?”
Peace, he wanted to say but fell silent. He hadn’t known peace since the day Lydia had died. There was always this insistent voice at the back of his head that reminded him of his various failings and most prominently of his wife’s death.
“You don’t know the first thing about my life,” he said. Maybe there was something in the way he said it, but she stopped, and her stance loosened. She wasn’t posing to fight him anymore and he almost saw pity in her eyes. He didn’t like that either, so he said, “My daughter wishes to learn music from you. I want you to be her music tutor.”
“Respectfully, I must decline, Your Grace.”
He was taken aback at her answer. He had assumed that this is what she wanted. “You don’t want the position?” he asked.
She shook her head and gave him a humorless smile. “I have no wish nor reason to work for the man who took away the dream that I have worked day and night to fulfil,” she said. “You cannot care less for me or for the women who work with me. Why should I agree to it?”
“Nora wanted it,” he said.
