Page 89 of Hearts of Locke Hill

Violet still stood, staring at him. Or, rather, at his violin.“You were playing,” she said. “The violin.” Her gaze rose to his. “In your bare feet.”

He moved to a nearby table and set down his violin and bow in their case, then turned back to her, placing his hands behind his back, hoping the pounding of his heart didn’t show through the fabric of his cotton shirt.

He’d always preferred practicing in his bare feet. Something about the way he could feel the floor beneath him as the music moved through him. And she knew it, dash it all.

“Why did you come bursting into my home, Violet?” He made himself meet her gaze. Kept himself from going to her, even as he noticed that she might have been crying recently. Though, the idea did soften him a bit. “Is there something wrong?” He bit the words back. The answer to that question could be anything and everything.

She breathed, her mouth opening, then closing. Finally, she stepped forward. “Your mother called. She couldn’t reach you.”

In an instant, he strode to her and took her arms. “What is it?” He watched her. Waited.

“Your father. He’s not doing well with the antiserum.”

As his grip tightened, she gently wrapped her hands around his forearms. “You need to go to Oakleigh. Everyone is packing for London. Florrie’s offered Janes House, including two Panhard Qs to get your family there and to use at your disposal. I’m told it’s a brilliant car. Fifty horsepower. Large. You’ll all fit in the pair.”

He blinked at the observation.

She continued. “You can stay there for the duration. However long you need.”

He stared, unsure of what to say, his throat thick.

“You might want to put on your shoes.”

With that, he leaped into action, throwing clothes into hisvalise, putting on his shoes. His fingers fumbled as he attempted to button his shirt.

“Here, let me.” Violet pushed his Dopp case into his valise and hurried to him, tugging the buttons of his shirt fluidly through each buttonhole. “Give me your collar,” she said as if she did this every day.

He managed to place the starched collar in her hands, their fingers brushing as he did so.

“Chin up.”

He obeyed and soon had his coat on his arm and his hat on his head. Mr. Turner put his valise in the boot of his car.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you to Oakleigh?” she asked.

He shook his head as he put his arm through his coat sleeve. She reached to hold the rest of it so it would slide on smoothly.

“Is there anything more I can do?” she asked.

He paused, searching the ground, then finally lifted his gaze to fully meet hers. “I … I don’t know what to say.”

Her misty green eyes shifted back and forth to his. “Please. If you can. Give your father my love.”

His jaw shifted. Words wouldn’t come. But he nodded, adjusted his hat, and got in the car.

Y

18

Despite her protests, Violet’s coming-out ball was, indeed, a reality. An archaic tradition meant to thrust a young girl into the adult world of behaving badly. Or, at least, that’s what she’d observed so far. Men who had not so much as brushed a glancein her direction a week ago were now arranged before her as pigeons awaiting her toss of breadcrumbs. Her archaically minded father had insisted. Her suffragette mother had encouraged—for in what other way could a young woman of eighteen display her poise, intelligence, and influence to so many in one night?

A university graduation ceremony, Violet had thought quietly.

But she had not attended university, had not gone to America, had not sat in stimulating discussion with scientists, composers, or philosophers.

So she stood before mustachioed boys who plied her with questions of her favorite flower and whether or not she enjoyed the opera.

“The symphony,” she responded. She smiled at Mr. Stratham, who had posed the question. “As a violinist, how could I answer any other way?”