Susan’s hands became still on the keys. “Papa is dead, sir. But my brother is well.”
Leacroft covered her fingers briefly with his hand. “I am sorry to hear it, dear. He was a good man.”
Susan did not lift her eyes. “He was. Mrs. Westerman and Mr. Crowther here found who killed him and saved Jonathan and me.”
Leacroft looked up rather wonderingly at Harriet and Crowther; it was clear he had forgotten they were in the room.
Susan removed her hands from the keys and Leacroft began to play himself. It was a mournful, empty sort of sound. “Why are you here, sir?” Susan said quietly. “You do not seem mad to me.”
He continued to play. “I am not always as I am today, Susan. You have woken me a little, you and Mr. Mozart. But there has been such coming and going in the last little while. An old friend came to see me yesterday. She sang to me. It is strange, I had thought seeing her would make me very happy, but I felt as if she had brought all of London into the room. All the hurry and finery of it. I felt she was dragging something out of me. It made me very tired. Though I am glad she is well, I hope she does not come again.” His hands paused. “Do you understand? I know it is difficult. .”
“I think so, sir,” Susan replied. “I went to the opera on Saturday. It was wonderful, but it is exhausting to be so bright all the time.”
He nodded and smiled slightly, and his hands began to move on the keys again. Susan suddenly frowned and began to pick out a tune over the chords he played. Harriet concentrated. She was sure Susan was playing the theme from the “Yellow Rose Duet.” Leacroft continued to play as he asked, “You know this piece of mine? The young man in their picture stole it then.” He indicated Harriet and Crowther with his chin. “Strange. I wrote it thinking of Isabella. Then she came yesterday and sang it to me. She was amazed when I played alongside her. She asked too about that young man. Everyone does. It made her unhappy. I do not care that he took it.” He gave Susan a slightly twisted smile. “He came when I was in one of my shining moods. At such times I play and write day and night and think myself a king. He listened like a thirsty man drinks.”
Susan suddenly paused in her playing. “That part is different. In the opera house the harmony is this.” Leacroft raised his hands from the keyboard and Susan repeated the passage they had just played.
Leacroft shook his head. “No, no. The bass collects what has been, and hopes for what is to come.” He played the phrase again. Harriet could only tell it was different from the way Susan had played it, though it seemed more mournful, a deeper color somehow in the air.
Lady Susan seemed to hold her breath, then nodded very slowly. “That is a great deal better.”
Leacroft kept his eyes on the keyboard. “Yes.”
“Do you really not mind, sir, Mr. Bywater saying he wrote this piece when it is yours?”
“Miss Adams, I cannot feel it. I do not want the world to come and look at me. I was unhappy in the world. Here I am content. Perhaps that is enough to show I am mad.”
Susan looked down at her hands. “May I come and see you again, sir?”
He stopped for a second and looked into her face with calm consideration before he said, “Yes, my dear. I think I should like that. Who takes care of you now?”
“Mr. Graves. And Mrs. Service who lived opposite the shop.”
Leacroft looked up into the air to his right. “I remember Graves a little. He wrote for newspapers. And Mrs. Service. A quiet lady. How far away it seems. Yes. You may come, and bring Mrs. Service to watch you, but no one else, and not too often.”
“Thank you, sir.” She watched him for a little while, the way his hands moved over the keys. “I think perhaps you are weary, sir. We should go now.”
“Thank you, Miss Adams. Yes. I think so.”
Susan stood and gave him her hand; he bowed over it from his seat without standing, then returned to the keyboard. Susan walked toward the door. Harriet and Crowther simply followed in her wake, unnoticed.
Mr. Gaskin met them on the porch as they put on their cloaks. Susan fastened hers at her throat and, cutting across Mr. Gaskin’s compliments, turned and said to him, “Mr. Gaskin, I am Lady Susan Thornleigh. My brother is the Earl of Sussex. Theophilius Leacroft is my friend. We shall send manuscript paper for him to write on when the mood takes him.”
Mr. Gaskin’s greasy smile froze on his face and his eyes darted about in confusion.
“But, my lady, they are mere scraps! All in confusion! He writes on what he likes and leaves them fit for nothing but the fire.”
Susan was very still and spoke quietly. “We shall send paper. If he does not wish to keep his work by him, you must send it to us in Berkeley Square, and you will be paid for doing so. But if you put one more note of that gentleman’s music in the fire, I shall burn your house down.”
With that she turned and her footman handed her into the carriage. Harriet and Crowther, having nothing to add, followed her in silence, leaving Mr. Gaskin gasping and bowing on the gravel.
Harriet felt Susan trembling a little beside her. After a while, the girl turned toward her, and Harriet found herself looking down into her clear blue eyes. They had a thin rim of gold that matched her hair: it reminded her of Rachel.
“I did not want to be a lady, or rich, Mrs. Westerman,” she said. “But there are times when it is very useful, I think.”
Harriet put her arm around her and Lady Susan settled into her shoulder with a sigh.
“Indeed it is, my love. Indeed it is.”
4
The man Jocasta was looking for did not have any fixed place of business. He kept his wife and two boys in a first-floor room and saw that they ate well enough, but one was not likely to find him there after dark. His nature was not settled, nor did he hunger for domestic comfort, and he had made enemies enough in his time to make him wary of fixed sleeping places. His business made it needful though that he could be found by those who wanted him, so he had his public haunts. She knew he’d be in one of half a dozen places, so was ready to visit them in turn. The Season had started, so the Quality were beginning to run back to Town and get through their allowances. That meant the start of his hunting season, and as long as there was blood in the water he’d be in one of his haunts, though where he laid his head on any night remained a secret even from his woman.
Jocasta had taken a slow walk around Seven Dials, went first to the Peacock and then to the George’s Head before she found him hunched over a pint pot and with a clay pipe of cheap tobacco in his dirty hand. His face was hidden by the pointed brim of his hat and his figure shrouded by the shadows of the dark corner in which he sat curled, but she knew him well enough. Jocasta set herself down on the opposite side of the table. Sam stood behind her like a scrubby footman with Boyo in his arms.
“How do, Molloy?” she said.
The hat tipped slowly back to reveal a face so lined and cracked it looked like a milk jug smashed and restuck a dozen times. His cheeks were caved. He let the smoke drift out of his mouth softly, softly, like fog rising off the river.
“Mrs. Bligh. And a young friend. There’s nice.”
“I need a little tutoring from you, Molloy.”
“Them cards gathered you a bit of capital, have they? Want to learn how to send it to work in rich men’s pockets?”
Jocasta sniffed and folded her strong arms. “I’ll leave that business to you and the long beards in Whitechapel,” she retorted, then let her words come out slow after that. “I want tutoring in the ways of your former trade.”
Molloy leaned back, putting one arm along the back of the settle, his mouth twisting round his pipe.
“And what might that be, Mrs. Bligh? I don’t rightly know what you mean.”