Page 131 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘Oh dear, “final preparations” sound awfully hangman-ish. Along the lines of the last meal and confession to the prison chaplain. Is she scared to death?’

‘Richard!’

‘Sorry! Just trying to distract you. I think I must be nervous too.’

‘Well, you were responsible in the beginning for bringing her to Sir Thomas’s notice.’

‘Yes, it’s all my fault. I’m never sure whether to applaud myself or curse myself for that.’

‘Applaud, on the whole,’ said Molly, serenely. ‘I am feeling a great deal better about it all now. It’s a wonderful opportunity for her to study under him. And for the rest, she seems very happy. I believe she was right when she said she could keep him at a distance. I’m sure in my own mind that he is not trying to make her his mistress – hard though it is to believe.’

‘Hmm,’ said Richard. Of course, not moving in those circles, Molly was not exposed to the gossip, instalments of which he got from his grandmother. Fortunately the musical world and the world of the ton were not interconnected at a deep level. Most of the leading hostesses regarded concert music as a very peripheral part of London life – far down the list from opera and ballet, which themselves fell well short of the theatre. Consequently, musicians were far less interesting and important to the average grande dame than her hat-maker. But Sir Thomas, of course, was a very well-known public figure, so there had been gossip.

‘Shall we go?’ he said. ‘I have a cab waiting outside.’

‘How extravagant you are.’

‘I didn’t want you to catch cold walking to the rank,’ he said. ‘Can’t have you sneezing during the quiet passages. Especially as we’re in a box, and all eyes will be on us.’

‘In a box?’

‘My grandmother has a box for every concert. I told her I was bringing a guest.’

He had been putting her wrap around her shoulders, and now she pulled back from him, turned, and stared.

‘Richard, no!’ she said angrily. ‘Not on any account! What were you thinking?’

He was taken aback. ‘I was thinking that there’s plenty of room – the box seats eight, and there will only be Aunt Caroline and the Levens besides.’

She was furious. ‘You want me to accept your grandmother’s hospitality, sit in her box and chat with her? I was her son’s mistress!’

He was taken aback. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t know about that.’

‘I know about it! And I’d bet she does. How could you even think it would be all right?’

‘If it comes to it, her lover is your daughter’s patron, but that doesn’t seem to trouble you,’ he said, a little petulantly.

‘That’s a different matter entirely, a relationship between artist and patron. If you can’t see that you’re an idiot. But for me to sit beside your grandmother in a social situation, her guest, obligated to her . . . How could you be so thoughtless as to suggest it? Have you no sense of etiquette? Have you no sense at all?’

‘Enough of that,’ he said, angry too now. ‘I won’t be spoken to like a child.’

‘Then don’t behave like one!’

They stared at each other in a brittle silence, which became an appalled one. They had never quarrelled before.

He tried to find a firmer ground of reason to stand on. ‘You refine too much on that old relationship. No-one knows about it, and if they knew they wouldn’t care. Men in that position have always taken mistresses, and he’s dead now anyway—’ She winced at the words, and he cursed his clumsiness. ‘I’m sorry. But the point is, it’s over and done with.’ She didn’t answer. ‘You have to go to Chloë’s concert. Look, you don’t have to sit in the box. I’ll go to the ticket office when we get there and buy two stalls seats. I’ll make some excuse to Grandmère. Please don’t go on being angry with me, or it’ll spoil the evening.’ He touched her arm tentatively. ‘It’s Chloë’s evening. We mustn’t forget that.’

She turned to him with a sigh. ‘Don’t wheedle.’

‘But it’s what I’m good at,’ he urged.

She almost smiled. He was very hard to resist. ‘Just understand, Richard Tallant, that I cannot meet any of your family, not now, and not ever. I am outside society. That cannot change.’

‘We’ll argue about that another time,’ he said, pulling the wrap round her shoulders.

Sir Thomas was nothing if not a showman, and to build up anticipation he had arranged the concert so that the piano concerto was the whole of the second half.

As soon as the conductor and soloist had left the platform, Richard jumped up and ushered Molly through the pass door, which he had located during the interval, not forgetting to slip something to the attendant to ease their passage and direct them to the dressing-room.