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Outrage. Hurt. Regret.
She never stormed out of rooms unless provoked beyond reason.
She wasn’t given to erratic weather patterns of any kind. Her general outlook was blue skies and tranquil seas. She’d had to be calm and on an even keel with a mercurial genius for a father.
But the duke had towered over her, telling her that she was wrong, that she had no business interfering in the lives of his sisters, and something just snapped. Something inside her, something stretched so taut that she hadn’t known it had worn thin, gave way and a dam of emotion poured forth.
She loved those young ladies as though they were her own sisters. Their fate felt like her fate. Their happiness, her own. She’d become emotionally entwined with them . . . and with their brother. She’d tried so hard to vanquish this impossible longing, this forbidden desire, but it was tenacious. It grabbed hold of her mind and infiltrated her dreams.
She’d tried to convince herself that she cared nothing about the duke. She’d been lying to herself.
Why else would the news of his engagement throw her into such a turbulent state of mind? He had to marry an heiress out of necessity. She’d known this day would come. What had she been hoping? That London’s most wicked, and yet most eligible, duke would suddenly realize he was madly in love with a music teacher with no money, no pedigree, no connections, and sweep her off her feet?
He hadn’t even bothered to learn her name.
A gust of wind caught her black silk umbrella and turned it inside out. As she was wrestling it back into shape, one of the metal ribs snapped in half. Useless. She tucked the broken umbrella under her arm. Perhaps she’d be able to find a way to mend it—Lord knows they had no funds to buy a new one.
The drizzle became a downpour. She wiped rain out of her eyes.
Even if the duke had fallen in love with her, marriage would have been out of the question.
Her father was distantly related to an earl, but that didn’t change the fact that she was the daughter of a disgraced composer and an Italian opera singer whose marriage had lasted only one year, whereupon her mother had abandoned them to continue her career.
Viola had toured Europe with him as a child, watching as his symphonies were performed in crowded concert halls and royal reception chambers.
Music was her life. And teaching gave her great joy. And the salary she made helped keep them afloat. And now she’d thrown away her employment and the duke wouldn’t give her a reference after that outburst.
She was the worst kind of fool. The kind that harbored secret hopes and dreams that she hadn’t even admitted to herself until they’d been torn to bits and scattered to the winds.
She didn’t want the duke to marry anyone else, but she’d learned that life didn’t usually give her what she wanted. And that meant she’d had to lower her expectations. She’d learned not to want anything too far out of reach.
She couldn’t blame him for seeking a financially beneficial matrimonial arrangement, though Miss Chandler was far from the bride his family would have chosen for him.
But she could, and would, blame him for upending his sisters’ lives in such a callous manner.
The Season was everything they’d talked of, dreamed of, and speculated upon for the past year. Even though Bernadette had no plans to marry immediately, she still wanted to chatter with her friends, observe the social rituals, and widen her sphere of experience.
They wanted to see and be seen, flirt with gentlemen, dance and laugh. They wanted to be young and free, and to choose their own partners.
And he would take all that away from them.
At least she could have insulted him properly. Instead, she’d quit her employment without even delivering a scathing set-down that would stick in his memory and fester for years to come.
If he ever thought about their encounter in his study, it would be with mild amusement at her expense. He’d remember how she sputtered and failed to insult him.
As she entered their lodgings, shaking rain from her hair, she saw the entrance hall as if for the first time. The paint was peeling from the woodwork, the carpet was fraying at the edges, and there was a permanent odor of dirty wet woolens and lye that emanated from the laundress next door that couldn’t be dispelled with the sprigs of dried lavender she tied from the ceiling beams and tucked into their linen closet.
They didn’t even own their own home. She’d had to economize and make do with only one maid who came to do the washing, and Withers, her father’s elderly manservant, who’d been with him since the glory days and still held the composer in great reverence.
“You’re home early, Miss Viola,” Withers said as he took the bent umbrella and helped her off with her sodden bonnet and cloak.
“I’m afraid I’ve done something rash, Withers.” The full consequences of her hasty actions were only now beginning to sink in. “I ended my employment with the Duke of Westbury.”
“Good. Never liked you working there. He has a dreadful reputation.”
“It’s not good. He won’t give me a reference now. Dukes don’t take kindly to having doors slammed in their faces.”
“You shouldn’t have to work, Miss Viola. It’s not right.”
