Prologue
Surrey, Summer 1801
David held his hands above the keyboard, trying to form the next chord correctly, when he heard a baby crying in the hall. Moments later his sister Lydia poked her head through the doorway, her eyes closed.“Are you decent?”
He checked that the blanket on his lap covered his nightshirt and legs, at least as far as he could reach. “Enter,” he called loud enough to be heard over the squalling baby.
Lydia shut the music room door behind her and strode directly to David, holding her baby out in front until she thrust the screaming infant into David’s arms.
David tucked the baby against his chest and began rocking side to side and uttering soothing nonsense. Within moments Missy began to settle, and soon let David hold her in the crook of his arm.
“Oh, thank heavens,” Lydia muttered as soon as the baby quieted. “Keep talking to her, or better yet, sing,” she said. “She wouldn’t settle for Nurse or me.”
David shook his head and frowned at Lydia even as he began to quietly sing a lullaby. Only a few phrases in and Missy relaxed with her chubby cheek against David’s chest, one tiny fist clutching his nightshirt.
Lydia tugged the blanket down to cover David’s foot, his splinted right leg propped up on the Bath chair. He finished the first verse and began the next, dropping his voice one octave. Lydia sat on the pianoforte stool and swayed as though she were holding the baby.
He finished the lullaby. Missy gave a tiny yawn and kept her head pillowed on his chest.
Lydia opened her eyes and smiled fondly at her baby. “I noticed how quickly she settled when you held her while we were all singing after dinner.”
“I couldn’t exactly run away when you handed her to me.”
She squeezed his toes. “How much longer did the surgeon say you had to stay off your leg?”
“Another three weeks, at least,” he grumbled. “I’ll be stuck in here like this the whole rest of the summer.”
“Well, at least you won’t miss any school. And you have plenty of toys to break up the boredom.” Her gesture encompassed the entire room. The family music room held pianoforte and harpsichord, harp, violins, viola and violincellos, Great-Grandfather’s viola da gamba, and cupboards with an extensive collection of smaller instruments and music books. After David broke his leg and was brought to the house, footmen carried him in through the terrace doors and set him on the sofa in here. His mother had since ordered a cot set up and the servants brought some of his belongings and a privacy screen down from his bedchamber while he convalesced in the ground floor room.
“I’ve heard you, you know,” Lydia continued. “When you leave the garden doors open, I can hear you practicing, playing with your voice like it’s a new toy. You’re getting better at baritone, and when you’re playing the pianoforte, I’ve heard you hit several bass notes.”
Missy patted his chest and lifted her head to look at him expectantly. “It’s just interesting to see how low I can go now, or how high I can still hit and hold a note.” As soon as he began speaking, Missy laid her head down. He hummed and absently patted her back.
“I’m going to rewrite my latest composition. I knew your voice would keep getting deeper as you mature but didn’t realize just how quickly it would change.”
“You didn’t notice the changes in Philip’s voice?” Their older brother had gone from singing tenor to baritone in their family musicales before he left for Oxford two years ago. David had sung soprano at ten, alto at twelve, tenor at fourteen, and now at fifteen could almost do justice to baritone parts. When his voice didn’t crack.
“I wasn’t trying to make my own voice sound good back then,” Lydia said. She took it as a personal insult to have such a limited vocal range—barely one full octave—in a family that sang and played together almost every evening, and often invited friends and neighbors over to join in creating their entertainment.
David grinned. “Iknewthat was why you took up arranging music.” Missy made little sounds of pleasure when he spoke. “You snagged a husband, though, so I don’t know why you keep doing it.”
She gave a soft smile at the mention of her husband, who was currently out of the country on a diplomatic mission. His absence was why she’d come home for an extended visit. “I tangle embroidery threads, and my watercolors are abysmal. But music that I arrange sounds good. Especially if someone more talented than me brings it to life.”
Missy was lax in his arms, sound asleep. He stopped patting her. She didn’t react. “Going to take her up to the nursery now?”
Lydia wheeled David’s Bath chair away from the pianoforte, tugged the stool close to the keyboard, and played a chord. “One more song, to make sure she’s sound asleep.” She played a familiar tune but in a key that challenged his lower register. His voice was warmed up, though, and he got through it competently if not artistically.
Lydia moved the stool again so he could get close to the pianoforte in his Bath chair before she gently picked up Missy and cradled her. “Thank you. I’ll bring her to you tomorrow night if she’s fussy.”
“No,” David said, careful to keep his voice quiet and free of tension. “I am not a nurse. Soothing fussy babies is not my responsibility.”
Lydia only smiled as she exited the music room.
The next day, his sister Diana and her family arrived for a visit, to meet Missy. Diana was only six years older than David and two years older than Lydia, but had married a widower with three young children. So far, they’d had two more.
He was not surprised when Diana knocked on the music room door at the children’s bedtime and trooped in with her five children, ranging from one to seven years, followed by Lydia carrying Missy.
“They want a lullaby,” Lydia said, innocently batting her lashes as she handed him her infant. She rolled his Bath chair away from the pianoforte, pulled up the stool, and began to play.
