“Your wish is my command.”Huntley bowed and kissed her hand, gave a nod to Sophia, and strode toward the pianoforte.
Mrs.Digby had taken up her usual armchair by the fireplace, Henry on her lap.“I would like to hear an original composition,” she said when there was a break in the warming-up.“I’ve heard you rehearsing Rossini.It is coming along nicely but is not yet ready for public consumption.”
At the crestfallen expressions on the men’s faces, Sophia struggled not to laugh.
They quickly rallied and conferred in a huddle, then Fairfax sorted through folders of sheet music in the cupboard.
“How about a compromise?”he said, holding up a sheaf of paper.“An original arrangement.”
“Oh, I adore your arrangements,” Mrs.Royston said from her end of the sofa.“Do carry on.”
Mrs.Digby grumbled a bit, but waved her hand in a “get on with it” gesture.
Sophia tugged Mildred to sit beside her on the sofa.Wallace maintained a polite expression and proper distance, as though their previous conversation had never taken place.
Huntley now played pianoforte, Xavier standing behind him to the left, and Fairfax with his violin to the right, both of them reading the music over Huntley’s shoulder.
As they began to play, she recognized the overture fromDon Giovanni, one of her favorite Mozart operas.She had regularly arranged expeditions for students to attend the opera in Torquay.Though it couldn’t compare to the opera in London, it was an important bit of polish to give the girls.She had persuaded Madame Zavrina that they never miss a performance, especially of anything composed by Mozart.
With only two instruments and three voices, the men in Mrs.Digby’s drawing room couldn’t possibly perform the entire opera.The song progressed for a bit, then they skipped ahead to the next song, moving on to the parts that she always played and had her students learn.Xavier could not soar as high as Mr.Huntley nor plumb the depths that Fairfax reached, but his baritone voice was a pleasant balance between the two.
They were playing and singing just her favorite sections.How could Fairfax know?His arrangement was a medley of all her favorite melodies fromDon Giovanni, smoothly transitioning from one to the next.All the segments fit together as if that was how Mozart had originally composed them, with enough of the lyrics included to tell the main points of the opera’s plot.
How did Fairfax do that?
When they finished, they had performed the entire opera in under ten minutes.“Your Rossini opera has me thinking aboutFigaro,” Mrs.Royston said as the applause died away.“Do you still have the sheet music of the arrangement you made for—”
“Le nozze di Figaro?” Fairfax said.He set his violin and bow back in their case and rummaged through the music folder again.Within a few moments, the trio launched into a medley of songs fromThe Marriage of Figaro,with Fairfax at the pianoforte and Huntley singing along with him and Xavier.
After the applause when they finished, Xavier declared himself parched and helped himself to refreshments from the tea tray.“Why don’t you play one of your impersonations,” he said to Fairfax as he stirred milk into his tea.“I haven’t heard you play Beethoven like Mozart since Father’s house party last summer.”
“Oh, I love those!”Mrs.Royston clapped her hands together.“So amusing.The last time you played Mozart in the style of Rossini, I nearly snorted sherry through my nose!”
“I think Lady Castlereach, our next-door neighbor, did exactly that,” Xavier confided to Sophia with a broad grin.“Her reaction was almost as entertaining as Vincent’s performance.”
Fairfax laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, and tossed a wink at Sophia before he set his hands on the keys.He began playing Pachelbel’sCanon in Das she’d heard it hundreds of times.Then, subtly at first, he began adding extra notes, extra runs and flourishes, until she realized that he was somehow playing a Henry Purcell tune mixed in with Pachelbel’s notes.Anaughtytune by Purcell, one that had made her students giggle.
Mrs.Royston was not above giggling, it turned out.Her mirth was contagious.Sophia found herself chuckling at Fairfax playing a silly song while maintaining the serious mien that befitted theCanon.Mrs.Digby contentedly petted Henry as she watched her nephew play.Theo held a teacup but hadn’t taken a sip since Fairfax began playing, her gaze fixed upon the viscount.
When Fairfax finished, the applause had not died down before he launched into another.This time he made Bach’sToccata and Fugue in D Minorsound as though it had been written by Mozart, with a great deal ofRondo Alla Turcasprinkled throughout the extra notes.
As a music instructor and someone who had spent countless hours practicing, perhaps more than anyone else in the room Sophia appreciated the excellent skills required both to execute the complicated performance of this entertaining silliness and to arrange it in the first place.How many dozens or hundreds of hours had Fairfax invested in perfecting this medley, and the one before?With each delighted gasp or chuckle from his audience, he allowed himself a small smile before going back to appearing as serious as a church organist.
She envied his large hands, easily stretching to form chords she could only dream about, his nimble fingers moving so effortlessly on the keys.Free to gaze upon his handsome features, slowly she raised her gaze to study his expression.She could tell when the notes simply flowed out of him, his expression serene, and when he had to concentrate, a slight furrow to his brow.He hid any mistakes in the lavish wealth of notes he extracted from the keys, all of them played with the same degree of confidence.
How she longed to sit beside him, to play with him.Across the room, so far from him now, she was just one of several people enjoying his musical prowess.Just another person for whom he was showing off.
He wasn’t just performing for the audience, though.Like Wallace or Mrs.Royston with their painting, Fairfax’s expression as he coaxed such beautiful sounds from his instrument transformed his already handsome features into angelic, masculine beauty.She breathed in time with him, almost able to feel the music as he did.The only thing that could have made the experience more sublime was if he sang, too.When he sang with that magnificent deep bass or mellow baritone, she didn’t just hear it, she felt it, like a lover’s caress.
Or at least what she imagined a lover’s caress would feel like.
So enthralled in watching Fairfax, it wasn’t until he finished did Sophia realize that Mildred was no longer at her side on the sofa, but stood by the fireplace again, deep in conversation with Mr.Huntley.Good thing she was not officially the girl’s chaperone, as easily distracted as she was in Fairfax’s presence.She needed to get the pair betrothed as soon as possible.
“It’s like he was designed expressly as a match for you,” Theo whispered in Sophia’s ear under the guise of refilling her cup, taking Mildred’s spot on the sofa.“Imagine what it would be like if the two of you sat down to compose something together.”
Sophia didn’t dare let herself imagine.Fairfax would soon leave on his trip to Italy, taking his magnificent voice with him, and with any luck she would soon be employed at another academy … where she would again struggle to balance her duties as music instructor with her desire to play and compose for her own creative satisfaction.
* * *
