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“But why?”
“I’ll do anything for Nora. She’s the single most important thing in my life. I now realize that her happiness lies with you and the music that you teach her.” He hesitated. “I heard you singing that lullaby and realized why Nora wanted you to tutor her.”
She looked up at him in surprise. Italmostsounded like a compliment, if that was even possible coming from him.
“I apologize for slapping you,” she said. She was mortified at herself for doing so. It wasn’t that she found his touch or kiss repulsive. On the contrary, the response that managed to evoke in her scared her so much that she knew she had to end the madness before it was too late. Someone had to be sane.
“Don’t be,” the Duke said, wincing. “I deserved that one.”
When she remained silent, he continued. “Even if there’s any sort of strife between us in the future, I will respect you and any decisions you make. The rest is up to you.”
“Fine, I’ll come back. But it’s only because of Nora,” she said bluntly and straight to the point. She liked spending time with Nora. And that day at the piano with her, she had felt more alive than in the last few years. Until today, of course. But she shoved that thought firmly to the farthest corner of her head and locked it in. She definitely did not notice the speck of reddened skin on his bottom lip where she had slapped him.
“I think this is something we can both agree on,” he said, extending a hand to her. She put out her own to him, dazed that he was asking for it. She almost expected him to lay a kiss on her bare palm. Did she want him to? But he merely gave her hand a thorough handshake. “And since Nora seems to like the pianoforte very much, you may continue teaching her it.”
Carmen’s eyes widened. “On her mother’s piano?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Carmen knew that it must have taken him a great deal of courage to allow her access to something so private, especially now that she had an inkling of what had happened in his past. “Then we have ourselves a truce,” she said.
* * *
When Carmen arrived home, Lily rushed to her with concern written all over her face. “What did the Duke say?”
Carmen unfastened her cloak and both walked down the hallway. The women who hadn’t gone out to work were bustling about in the kitchen as they made the last-minute preparations for lunch. Food wasn’t a messy affair under this roof and consisted of mostly thin soup and bread and maybe canned peas and beans when they managed to find those.
“I will resume my lessons tomorrow,” Carmen said.
Lily frowned. “And the Duke wasn’t cross with you at all?”
“No,” Carmen said. “He’s not as incorrigible as I had thought before.”
Lily frowned. “That’s strange.”
“What is?” Carmen raised one of her brows.
“You’re not so quick to change your mind about men. So, why this one?”
Carmen sighed. “We had our fair share of misunderstandings. He isn’t all that bad. That is all there is to it.”
Lily frowned at her but before she could speak her mind, Carmen walked into the washroom and closed the door after her. Her heart pounded. Did Lily notice something different about her? She rushed to the mirror that hung over the wall. It was dirty and cracked but she could see her reflection well enough. She looked fine except for her lips that were slightly swollen. She touched it involuntarily, the memory of the kiss flooding back to her.
Carmen had been kissed before, but it had never been with such passion. The Duke’s kiss seemed to leave an imprint in her and, no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise, she wasn’t going to worry about it anytime soon.
She combed her hair back from her face, washed her face and hands and then marched out of the washroom. Lily had disappeared and Carmen assumed she had gone downstairs to eat. But instead of heading to kitchen, she found herself going towards the small room where she wrote her letters and kept odd things that she managed to find in the streets—old leather-bound books or weather-beaten and yellowed sheets of abandoned music that didn’t mean much to anyone else, but meant the world to her. Music was her home, always had been.
She took out the note that she had hidden away in the pages of one of the books. The note was brief and hurriedly written—
He has her and he’s planning to give her up to a family in Ireland. That is all I know. Take care.
Carmen held it to her heart dearly as she walked to the window overlooking the streets. Ireland seemed so far away but a few more months of music lessons and she could go to the old country and look for her daughter. This brief and clinging hope was the axis of her very world.
* * *
When she came downstairs, she could hear the clatter of dishes. Some of them had already sat down to lunch, while others were serving it. The soup bowls and bread were divided equally down to the very last grain. Carmen had appointed Elaine to oversee it.
“Carmen,” Queenie called out to her. “Sit down and have lunch, you must be starving.”
