Reid Read online

  It was an interesting break in the usual monotony of seeing the same type of students come and go. Once they felt they could hold a note or two they often stopped coming. More was the pity.

  She stirred from her musings of noblemen and looked at her son. Jonathan was busy putting his blocks back into their wooden box in readiness to head upstairs and sit with Mrs. Dean while his mother conducted the rest of the day’s singing lessons.

  “Would you like a cheese and butter sandwich before you go with Mrs. Dean?” she asked.

  Jonathan put the box of blocks away on the nearby shelf and came to her. She smiled at her brown-haired boy, then bent and gave him a kiss. A pair of hazel eyes stared back at her. He was so much like his father at times it felt like a knife in her heart.

  “Yes, please, Mama,” he said.

  She followed him into the small kitchen which sat to the right of the front door. If circumstances in her life had been different, Jonathan would have had a nobleman such as Lord Follett as his father.

  “Choices made,” she muttered.

  She had chosen love over duty. And even now, after all the pain she had endured, she wouldn’t have done anything differently.

  Reid Follett had been an interesting and amusing distraction from her life of reduced circumstances, a reminder of another world. But she had seen the last of him.

  “Pity. I certainly could have done with his money.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kendal stood to one side of the piano, impatiently tapping his foot. Seated at the instrument was a short, thin, balding man. On the floor next to him sat a large well-worn brown leather bag.

  Reid’s gaze settled on the woman standing on the other side of the piano. She held some sort of piano-tuning tool in her hand, but Reid didn’t give it a second look. Her long black hair was tied up with a blue ribbon. Some loose tendrils of hair had escaped the ribbon and framed her angelic face. Her skin was as pure white as porcelain. He blinked, for a moment thinking she was a life-size doll. When she handed the tool to the piano tuner, he stirred from his imaginings.

  Bloody hell. Who is she?

  Kendal cleared his throat and met Reid’s gaze. The proprietary look of warning on Kendal’s face informed him that the young woman was most definitely off-limits to the other members of the Noble Lords.

  It was Kendal’s funeral if he wanted to mix business with pleasure. Reid not only considered it beneath a man of his rank to trifle with the hired help, but he knew that those sorts of entanglements had an unhappy knack of creating nasty little problems. There were more than enough nobles with bastards born from trifling with housemaids for him never to consider taking that step. Safety lay in keeping your distance and maintaining the relationship on a purely professional footing.

  “Lord Kendal, if you would grant me your attention for just a moment. You will see here that I have loosened the tension on the strings,” said the man seated at the piano.

  Kendal gave a cursory look over to him, then nodded. He wasn’t paying any real attention and, knowing Kendal, he had no intention of ever doing so. He simply wanted the job done. Reid caught the expression of disapproval on the young woman’s face as Kendal turned away.

  Reid enjoyed that look immensely. If Kendal thought to get a spot of bed action with her, he sensed his friend was going to have his work cut out for him. She didn’t think too highly of the musical genius and his luscious gold locks if her frown was any indication.

  As for himself, he considered the piano tuner’s daughter to be too perfect. He liked his women to have character, even flaws. It made them so much more interesting. The woman he had met this morning was more his type. The widow L. Jones.

  Now there was an interesting story. He just needed to uncover it. While she had been checking him over as a potential student, Reid had conducted his own private study of her. His fingers flexed at the memory of those plump breasts held nicely in her gown; he would love to free them. And her rounded, childbearing hips which he found particularly appealing. He hadn’t managed to get a good look at the rest of her, but he promised himself that he would do that at the first opportunity. On the sly, of course.

  The piano tuner handed the tool back to his daughter, then gave the piano keys a gentle tinkle. He played the same key several times before standing up and putting his head inside the piano frame. The young woman bent and retrieved another tool from the bag.

  Kendal leaned over and Reid could see he was admiring the soft curves of the young woman’s rear as she bent. To her credit, she was doing a solid job of ignoring his less-than-subtle ogling of her.

  “How are things going?” said Reid.

  “Slowly, but I am a patient man and we shall get there eventually,” replied Kendal with an odd smile. His gaze remained fixed on the object of his lust.

  Reid swallowed down a biting retort. Patient. Kendal did not possess a single tolerant bone in his entire self-centered body. If Reid could be accused of being egotistical, Kendal was the epitome of pure vanity and tetchiness.

  The major difference between the two of them was that Kendal had the talent to match his ego. And for that, Reid harbored a sense of jealousy so deep that he knew he should never dare to explore its depths. But he would show Kendal that he could pull his own weight within the quartet. He would never be Marco Calvino, but he would rise above the level of simply being passable.

  On his way home from visiting Mrs. Jones, Reid had thought long and hard about what he should do. There were other singing teachers in London, plenty of whom would do exactly what Reid asked of them. They would help him become a better version of himself, using the skills currently at his disposal.

  By summer’s end he would be more than adequate. Ugh. The very thought had him clenching his hands into tight fists. The stubborn dark-haired singing teacher had captured his interest. He would be a fool not to explore what she had to offer. Both with his singing lessons and whatever else she felt willing to give.

  He made up his mind. Tomorrow morning, he would be on the widow Jones’s doorstep well before the hour of nine. He was encouraged by the fact that her resolve had faltered just before she had kicked him out.

  And if there was one thing Reid could claim to be better at than Kendal, it was helping a woman with a faltering resolve decide she would do exactly what Reid Follett wanted her to do. Mrs. Jones might have thought she had the measure of him, but she would soon discover who was the true master in bending others to their will.

  “You don’t need the piano tuned every day, my lord.”

  The piano tuner was packing up his instruments. His daughter now stood at his side. Kendal faced them, one hand sitting on his hip, a pose Reid knew only too well.

  The sound of boots on the wooden floor of the ballroom announced the arrival of Owen. Reid gave him a chin tip in greeting as Owen came to stand beside him.

  “Dear lord, is that Kendal’s ‘I am the son of a duke’ pose? I haven’t seen that one for a while. The piano tuner clearly doesn’t know the danger he is in.”

  Reid failed to stifle a laugh at Owen’s caustic comment. In the long history of their friendship, they had never known anyone to have successfully held out against Kendal when he adopted that particular stance.

  “Something tells me his need to have the piano tuned every day has more to do with the piano tuner’s daughter than the piano itself,” Reid replied.

  “Yes, she is rather a fetching creature. Though he would want to watch himself. Apparently, her name is Mercy, but from the filthy looks she is giving him, he will need more than mercy if he tries anything with her,” said Owen.

  Reid winced. Kendal wasn’t known for hearing, let alone understanding the word no. He could only hope that good sense would prevail.

  “He has already given me the ‘hands off, she is mine’ look, so don’t hold your breath,” replied Reid.

  Once the piano tuner and his all-too-tempting daughter finally left, Kendal sat at the piano and began to play. Reid immediately
recognized the composer as Haydn. Being Kendal, he chose to play a complicated piece. A piece beyond the skill level of most of the piano-playing population. And, being Kendal, he didn’t bother to look at the keys of the piano as he played. Rather, he stared out the window, paying attention to something that was happening outside on the footpath.

  At one point he played with one hand, swapping effortlessly between his left and his right. He was truly gifted. Reid may well have harbored feelings of jealousy over his friend’s musical prowess, but he would also be the first to say he was immensely proud.

  Eliza now joined Reid and Owen as they watched Kendal perform. Her head bobbed from side to side as she followed the music. She leaned in to her brother. “I would give a shilling just to see him fall off that chair onto his well-proportioned arse.”

  Reid patted her gently on the arm. “Make it two shillings and I shall have one of the legs of the piano chair weakened.”

  “Not until the end of the summer. We need him,” added Owen.

  Eliza captured her evil titter in her hand, turning her head away as Callum arrived in the ballroom and stood beside them.

  “Fuck, he is good. Oh, sorry, Eliza,” said Callum.

  Reid scowled at Callum’s less-than-gentlemanlike behavior in front of his sister, his displeasure compounded when Eliza simply shrugged it off.

  “You are right; he is good. Why he is wasting his talents in trying to help you all seduce women is beyond me. He could have the field all to himself. Well, apart from Marco and the boys,” she remarked.

  Reid and the others applauded Kendal when he finally finished playing. Kendal got to his feet and bowed low. “Haydn’s Sonata number twenty-four in D Major. Brute of a piece to play—took me a whole afternoon to learn it.”

  He ambled over toward them, shaking his fingers out as he walked. Reid caught the edge of a self-satisfied smile on Kendal’s face, but couldn’t bring himself to begrudge him for it. He would give a great deal to have even a mere sliver of the musical ability of Lord Kendal Grant.

  Once all four men were standing together, and Kendal had finished accepting the adulation of the others, Eliza stepped forward and turned to them. There was a sense of expectancy about her. It could only mean she had something of importance to discuss.

  “It’s nice to see Kendal is playing so well because I have news for you all. At my brother’s behest, I have spent the past day or so speaking with various hostesses of my acquaintance. This morning, I received a note,” she said.

  Whatever she was about to announce, it was clear Eliza had decided she was going to milk this moment for all it was worth. She grinned at her brother, her eyes sparkling with delight.

  “I have secured your first booking. You are going to perform in public.”

  Chapter Nine

  Reid went to bed early and, for him, relatively sober. He heard Eliza making polite excuses on his behalf as he closed the drawing room door. A singer had to preserve his throat, and the rumor of a minor cold being passed around among the servants was enough to have them all mumbling their understanding of the baritone taking care of his health.

  The truth was slightly more uncomfortable. Reid felt physically ill. The high and grand idea of taking on the Italians was now becoming all too real. A week from now, he would be standing in front of an audience and performing. It made his head spin.

  He stayed up until late, pacing his bedroom in an attempt to burn off his nerves. If he was this unsettled at hearing the news of their first paid booking, he dreaded to think how he would be when it came time to actually make good and perform in public.

  To make matters worse, what Mrs. Jones had said of his singing started to play on his mind. What if he was supposed to be a tenor and not a baritone? He couldn’t imagine himself as being anything other than a baritone. The deep tones of a baritone were far more manly than the high notes of a tenor.

  “But Marco gets the women and he is not a baritone.”

  Mrs. Jones had been quite certain that she had the right of it. If he was to work with her, he would have to trust her judgement.

  He had been duplicitous enough times with women over the years to know that trust was not something that came easily. He had lied and cheated his way into the beds of other men’s wives without caring about the consequences.

  For a man like Reid Follett, placing his trust in anyone other than himself or his brothers in arms was going to be a stretch.

  “Mrs. Jones, I hope you are right.”

  At eight thirty the following morning, he was waiting outside Mrs. Jones’ apartment. While he may have been full of puff and bravado, Reid wasn’t stupid; he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. At one minute to nine, he took hold of the broken knocker and rapped loudly on the door.

  “You came? I am surprised,” she said, opening the door. The look on her face told him she wasn’t lying when she said she hadn’t expected to see him again. It felt good to nudge her opinion of him a little sideways.

  She ushered him into the room and closed the door behind them.

  “For you.” With a flourish, Reid presented her with a small posy of summer flowers. He had bought them from a flower-seller on the twenty-minute walk over from Windmill Street.

  She took the flowers, then gazed at them with an unsure look on her face. He had surprised her a second time in as many minutes. His heart gave an unexpected thump in his chest.

  “Don’t tell me no one has ever given you flowers before?” he ventured.

  She flinched, then slowly shook her head. “Not in a long time. These are lovely. Thank you, Lord Follett.”

  There was hint of sadness in her voice that tore at his heart.

  Sometimes, Reid, you are not as clever as you think you are when it comes to women.

  He had just lost all the ground he had made from charming her, and they were now in Dante’s first circle of awkward hell. A knock at the door had Reid sending a prayer of thanks to the heavens. He needed time to rethink his approach. It would serve him right if she decided not to take him on as a client.

  When she opened the door, a middle-aged woman stepped into the apartment. “Good morning, Lavinia. Sorry I am late.”

  Lavinia. What a delightful name. I wonder if you ever planned to share it with me.

  The woman gave the now-smiling Reid a brief nod of acknowledgment before crossing the floor and offering Jonathan her hand.

  “Say goodbye to Mama,” she said to the small boy, as he took her hand.

  Lavinia bent and kissed him on the cheek. “You have a lovely day with Mrs. Dean. I shall come and get you in time for supper. Take these with you and see if you can find a nice vase and some water.”

  She handed the posy of flowers to Jonathan, who held them tightly in his hand.

  After he and Mrs. Dean had gone, Lavinia closed the door.

  “Now where were we . . . ah, yes.”

  For a moment, she didn’t meet his gaze. Reid watched her. The soft smile still sat on his lips.

  Come on, Lavinia. You know you will have to look at me at some point.

  “I was registering my surprise at your return, and you were trying to bribe your way into my good books with flowers,” she said.

  He ignored her pointed attempt to regain control of the moment, choosing instead to focus on the bright red of her burning cheeks. “Lavinia?”

  Lavinia silently cursed the fact that Viscount Follett now knew her name. She had always tried to keep a professional distance between herself and her students. With her husband dead, it was imperative that she maintain the façade of being a strong independent woman. One who would not hesitate to box the ears of any gentleman who tried to become overly familiar with her. And that stood doubly for lords.

  She kept a cudgel in the top drawer of the chest of drawers nearest to the door of her bedroom. Any student who had in mind to try his luck and attempt to seduce her by fair means or foul would find himself on the receiving end of a large, blunt instrument.

  F
ortunately, she had only had to wield it once in the time since her husband had gone off to war and failed to return. The student in question had quickly discovered that the other tenants of number twenty-five Craven Street not only had finely tuned hearing when it came to a woman’s cries for help, but also that they could move an unconscious body some distance and deposit it on the flat wetlands beside the River Thames.

  “Yes, my name is Lavinia. But I assure you that using it grants you no special favors. We are not amongst the ton now,” she replied. She curled her toes in her boots, annoyed with herself. Why did she have to go and mention London’s elite?

  It had been a long time since she had been a part of high society, but old habits and places from her former life still sat bright in her memories. If she took Reid Follett on as a student, she would have to face that problem time and time again. She really should say no to him.

  If only she didn’t need the money so badly.

  “No, Lavinia, we are far from the home of the ton. Though, from your accent, I would suggest you are not unfamiliar with that part of London,” he replied.

  One of the few skills she had maintained from her years in London high society was the ability to adopt a social mask whenever the situation called for it. She schooled her features into a look of slight disinterest. Her mother, wherever she was, would be proud.

  “It was only a figure of speech, Lord Follett. By the way, did you manage to find that rod?” she replied.

  Reid chuckled. His eyes sparkled with so much promised mischief; it nearly took her breath away. A frisson of heat shot through her body. His laugh was not a normal innocent chuckle; it was deep, with the hint of a carnal edge to it.

  She could just imagine how many women had laughed their way into his bed, the smiles on their faces replaced with rapture as he brought them to sexual climax.

  “Ah, Lavinia, you do tease,” he replied.