Let it be Me (Blue Raven) (21 page)

Gently, his thumb danced along her jaw, the slightest pressure urging her mouth to open, to let him in. She did, a small shudder of surprise moving down her spine. Feeling it through their contact only made Oliver want to bring her closer. And so, with his other hand, he reached around to the back of her waist, pressing her body into his, holding her in a stunning, needful embrace. He deepened the kiss, their dance. His hand fisted in the back of her dress.

And then, he felt it. The tentative touch against his coat. The slide of her arms up to his shoulder, her fingers threading through the dark hairs at his neck, her embrace a copy of his.

“Good,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re learning.”

“I was always a good student,” she whispered back, a little shakily.

“Ready for something more advanced?” He did not wait for a reply, of course. Instead, he let his lips fall away from hers and moved them to the tantalizing line of her throat.

She gasped in surprise.
In pleasure.
He grinned against her neck.

He took a step forward; she moved with him. Suddenly her back was against the wall of the alley. He sought relief to the hard ache that had grown in his cock, pressing himself, through their clothes, against her softness.

She sighed, an echo of want in that empty Venetian street, with only the cobblestones and the impatient windows to hear.

He wanted to explore. He wanted to roam across her skin and find all the spots that would make her sigh like that. But some small, still-intact part of his brain made him resist the impulse. Made him stay right there, in the alley, in the here and now. Made him pull back and meet her eyes.

Normally bright green and probing, those eyes were now hooded, glazed with passion. Her breaths were coming in short, hard bursts, much like his own.

“That is what the music is supposed to feel like,” he said, unable to keep his hands from framing her face, from feeling her. “That wanting. That
need
.”

“I think . . .” she said after a moment, unable to tear her eyes away, “I understand now.”

Oliver found himself straightening. Had he gone too far? Was she dismissing him? Doubts began to creep in, but he forced them away. He would not allow anything, especially his own conscience, to rob him of the joy of what had just transpired. Of what he felt.

And whether she recognized it or not, he knew she’d felt it, too.

“I have to go,” she said suddenly, clearing her voice, setting him back on his heels.

“Oh . . . of course,” he replied, forcing himself back into the English Gentleman character he had let slip for a few brief precious moments. Although his body, still coursing with lust, was not as receptive to the idea. He began to pace, to move, trying to settle himself down. “Give me a moment, and I’ll escort you.”

She looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes traveled lower on his body, leaving a trail of innocent heat in their wake.

“Bridget, staring doesn’t help.”

She blushed the deepest crimson before shooting her gaze away at the evidence of his baseness.

“Oh!” she cried. “No, do not . . . trouble yourself. I’m . . . I have to go.”

And before he could stop her, before he could get his body under control, she shot out of the alley like a ball from a cannon, taking those few short blocks back to the hotel with impossible speed.

Leaving Oliver standing in the middle of an empty, sunlit alleyway, his body still coursing with need, his mind muddled by a thousand thoughts. But one thought managed to find its way through the fog to the front of his mind.

She had just run away from him.

Bridget burst into the hotel, her only goal the piano. Oh, she knew it was forbidden, she knew that she was not permitted to practice at home, lest prying ears overhear, but she could not bend to the Signore’s overly worrisome whims just now. Because right now, she had to get to a piano. She had to play that run again and put what she had just felt into the keys.

She had never been kissed before. Never really wanted to be. It was the unfortunate circumstance of limiting one’s emotional curiosity to music. In music, especially opera, if a lady is kissed, she is likely dead by the time the curtain falls. To equate the press of a man’s lips to hers with death hardly promoted romanticism. But to be kissed twice in one day, by two entirely different men—and to have two such different reactions to them!

It was actually a bit untrue that she had never really
wanted
to be kissed. Of late, she had been thinking about it quite a bit. She had lied slightly to Oliver. With her now-defunct crush on her now-brother-in-law Jackson, lips hadn’t figured into her fantasies—that was really more about getting someone to notice her who had only noticed her sister. But for the past several weeks, spending every day in the presence of the great Carpenini, his passions becoming hers, his voice filling her head, it was only natural that her mind would turn to wondering about his touch.

She considered a slight crush on Carpenini logical. Even if he proved severely trying.

But when that touch had actually happened . . . well, to say Carpenini’s kiss was a disappointment was akin to saying that the tower in Pisa was only slightly off center. She had been shocked more than anything, and then sort of felt bruised by the whole thing—as if she had been hit across the face with a piece of raw meat. It would get one’s attention, certainly, but it would hardly inspire passion.

And to think, this was the man whose dark eyes burned into her, his voice a mesmerization—so much more so than his brother’s! Strange as it was, Carpenini, who had brought her to Venice, who had seen in her a spark of something special, who had brought a circus into the music room for her . . .

Wait.

She came to an abrupt stop on the main stairs in the foyer of the Hotel Cortile, oblivious to any servants or guests who might have been around her.

Had
it been Carpenini who had brought the circus into the music room? If he was so unloved in the Venetian music scene, would any of those performers have leaped to his call? Besides, from what she’d gathered by her time spent in the house—by the fact that Oliver had to pay his bills for paper for his compositions—Carpenini was without enough funds to pay for such a circus act. It was Oliver who had the connections to the theatre, Oliver who could make such a thing possible. It was Oliver who had done so for her.

Oliver, who made her laugh. Oliver, who was a steady calm in the sea of volatility that was Carpenini’s world. Whom she could talk to and enjoy time with. Whom she could ask to help her understand what she couldn’t before.

And it was Oliver whose kiss had run through her blood and rattled her senses.

Little pieces of the puzzle that was Bridget’s life for the past several weeks began to fall into place, like the shapes of city blocks on a Venetian map.

But she couldn’t think about that now. No—right now, she had to play.

Bridget made her way to the Forrester rooms, occupying the entirety of the second floor. She remembered fleetingly that Molly had said this was the day her mother was receiving callers—and therefore had to avoid the woman like the plague, lest she get roped into visiting with whatever friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend happened to be touring through Venice that week.

She only prayed that her mother was using the east parlor, which was smaller but far more comfortable in the afternoon, rather than the west, which was larger and held the pianoforte.

She ducked her head into the west parlor and breathed a sigh of relief. It was empty.

Bridget quickly put down her portfolio and pulled out her sheet music for the No. 23. Turning to the appropriate page, she set herself at the keys.

She played it once through—just the few bars she was focused on. Despite the old instrument’s need for a good tuning, it sounded the same to her ears. Then she stopped. Decided to back up to the beginning of the movement. To allow for something—want? need?—to build.

This time, when she began with
andante con moto
, she did not think of anything as she was playing, as Oliver had said. She did not think of the cross-hand chords that were coming up in sixteen measures, or the way Carpenini had played the run, trying to imitate him. Instead, she let herself feel.

She could feel the way Oliver’s warm breath felt against her cheek as he whispered in her ear. Felt his hand on the back of her neck. She could practically see the light in his eyes when he bent his head down to hers. And then suddenly her heart was beating fast, and pinpricks of awareness rolled across her body.

Her vision lost focus on the music, clouding over with memories unbidden but welcomed. A rush of excitement, of surprise. Her back hitting the wall of the alley. Not knowing what would come next, but wanting that knowledge, needing it breathlessly.

And then she heard it. Heard the need in the music, as if it had always been there, and always been so perfect. It was the sound of getting lost in sensation. The anticipation built with the crescendo—starting earlier, as Carpenini had kept insisting, and the notes rushing into one another. Each wanting their turn, each needing to be savored.

She took her hands off the keys in wonder. It was all there. Everything that Oliver had shown her, everything that Carpenini had been insisting go into the music, had just flown from her heart straight onto the keys.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cheer. She settled for clapping her hands, allowing herself applause at this small triumph, only one thought going through her head:

She couldn’t wait to play it tomorrow.

But not for Carpenini.

For Oliver.

In the east parlor, Lady Forrester was in the process of receiving the tea tray from Signor Zinni, who had deigned to bring it up himself. Whether this was a testament to his respect for the formidable Lady Forrester or the elevated stature of her guests, she didn’t care. What she did care about was that as soon as the tea tray was set down, they were rudely interrupted again, this time by music coming from across the hall.

“Signor Zinni!” she cried. “I thought none but my family and guests were permitted to the second floor. Who is that playing?”

“
Si
, Signora, but I believe that is your daughter, Signorina Bridget.”

“Bridget?” Lady Forrester’s annoyance at her errant daughter’s not coming into visit with their guests warred with her astonishment.
That
was Bridget? That complicated, passionate piece came from her daughter? It had been so long since she had heard her daughter play . . . she had always been very good, but she did not recall her daughter being able to play like that.

A small, impressed smile played across her features, but she swallowed it and retained her composure. “Yes, of course, how silly of me. I simply did not expect her home this early.” She took the teapot in hand and made to pour. “Would you care for tea, Herr Klein?”

“Please. No sugar,” was the man’s stiff answer. If possible, he had grown even stiffer in the past few moments.

“I’m sure Bridget will be very pleased to meet you—she is, after all, a great devotee of music,” Lady Forrester said, smoothly pouring out the tea. “In fact, she is a student of the renowned Signor Carpenini, you know.”

“Actually, I did know,” came the syrupy, feminine voice of Signora Antonia Galetti, whose ingratiating demeanor was a marked contrast to Klein. Ever since they had met a few days ago in the Piazza San Marco, Signora Galetti had been so keen on getting to know the Forresters, and even more keen to have the renowned composer Gustav Klein meet them as well.

Signora Galetti leaned in conspiratorially, her eyes shining with glee. Or at least Lady Forrester thought it was glee, it was difficult to tell without her dreaded spectacles. “But the question, Signora Forrester, is do you know why?”

Sixteen

T
HE
next morning, Bridget could hardly look to Oliver without a blush breaking across her cheek. It was really quite distracting. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“Signorina!” Carpenini’s voice broke into her trailing thoughts. “If you are going to fly away during your morning drills, God help us during your lessons today!”

“I’m sorry, Signore,” she said meekly, warm embarrassment spreading across her cheeks. She had been at Oliver’s little house on the Rio di San Salvador for less than twenty minutes, having already changed into Oliver’s shirt, taken her seat at the piano, and begun her morning drills. Something so easy, she should be able to perform by rote, but she could not help drifting into the memories of yesterday.

After her illicit time at the pianoforte, she had spent the rest of the afternoon in her room at the hotel, doing her best to avoid her mother and sister. She could not put on a subdued face just then; she had to sort out her feelings, her understanding of everything that had transpired.

Those puzzle pieces that had fallen into place painted a clearer picture now. And that picture took on the form of one Mr. Oliver Merrick—and it boasted significant detail, too.

When her nerves had failed her when first playing for Carpenini, and she had run away in disgrace, it had been Oliver who had run after her, persuaded her to come back the next day, and thrown her a circus.

When Carpenini had assaulted the buttons and the back of her dress, it was Oliver who had made the whole thing all right by giving her the very shirt she was wearing.

It was Oliver who had encouraged her to write down her “Ode to Venice,” while Carpenini had simply sniffed and told her (in so many words) to put such things away.

And when Bridget was in danger of falling into the abyss of practice, practice, practice . . . it was Oliver who—through either subversiveness or a true lack of sense of direction—made sure she experienced some part of the city, of the world outside herself.

And one could not forget that it had been Oliver who wrote the letter that brought her to Venice to begin with.

“Signorina, please!” Carpenini cried. “Pay attention! You have repeated the A-minor scale three times!”

Carpenini was a brilliant musician and instructor, true. But it was Oliver who made the entire experience bearable.

She couldn’t help looking at him—not now, not after what had transpired yesterday. Her eyes wanted to dart away, wanted to stay on the keys, but there he was—always so tall, lounging on the worn velvet sofa, his broad shoulders stuffed into a jacket, his shirt open at the throat now, revealing a glimpse of tanned skin in the hollow there. When had he begun eschewing the cravat he always wore? Was it days ago? Weeks?

Although today he looked remarkably uncomfortable under her gaze. His posture was stiff; his eyes avoided hers. Except for those times when they refused to do so, and glanced up, seemingly just to check and see if she was still looking at him. When he did, and their eyes met, both of them darted their eyes away.

“Signorina,” Carpenini sighed. “I am going to go outside for a breath of fresh air. When I come back, you had best be ready to work.”

When the door to the music room fell shut, Bridget stopped playing immediately. “I’m sorry,” she began, but was immediately cut off by Oliver.

“No, I’m sorry.” He stood awkwardly. “It will be easier for you to play without my presence—I can wait outside the door today.”

“No!” she cried, rising. She moved around the pianoforte, anxious to stop him. “I don’t want you to leave! It’s my fault I’m so scattered.”

“No, it’s mine; I took advantages I should not have and it has made you uncomfortable in my presence.”

“For heaven’s sake, Oliver, I asked you to help me understand the music. And you did! There was no advantage being taken.”

He seemed to relax a little bit then. “Oh. So . . . you feel you understand the music now?”

“Yes,” she replied, coloring, unable to help a small smile. “Among other things.” But then a thought—a
terrible
thought—came unbidden into her mind.

“You do not—that is, did I take advantage of you?”

A disbelieving smile spread across his features. “No.” Then he tilted his head to the side, considering. “Although, I suppose if one looked at it in a certain light . . .”

“Oh, please tell me you don’t regret it,” Bridget cried, covering her face with her hands. “I would die of complete mortification.”

A gentle hand brought hers down; a second tipped her face up to look at his. “I only regret that you felt you had to run away after.” His voice was soft, serious. A balm. “I thought I had scared you off.”

She shook her head gently. “I had to make sure your theory was correct.”

“What theory?”

“That I mustn’t think when playing. That I must let need come in unbidden.”

His hand was resting on her cheek now, the other deftly twining her fingers around his.

“And did it?”

She nodded. “I can play it for you if you like.”

“I would,” he smiled.

It was as easy as that, Bridget thought, looking up into Oliver’s face. Their friendship was evenly keeled once again, without the awkwardness that had punctuated their conversation. And yet, because of what she now saw when she looked at him—and she saw so much more!—she could not deny that something had subtly, irrevocably shifted. What had once been a pleasant constant in her life now took on an exciting new tone.

This—
he
—might just be important.

How on earth was she going to keep her eyes off him during her lesson?

No, she would be professional, she told herself as she straightened her shoulders. She turned to go back to the pianoforte, ready to play the troublesome run for him, when he pulled her to a stop by their still-entwined hands.

“Wait a moment,” he said, a mischievous smile. “Before you begin, do you need a reminder?”

Anticipation quickened her pulse. Well, if he wanted to be cheeky, she could be too . . . No! Professional. Subdued.

“No, I’m fine.” But she could not help smiling as she said it.

“Are you sure?” he answered back, a laugh escaping his lips. “I think perhaps you might . . .”

One quick tug and Bridget found herself caught up against his chest, wrapped in an embrace that set every one of her nerves alight. Her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned down and . . .

“We have a problem.”

They broke apart quickly, children caught at mischief. Bridget looked around Oliver to find Carpenini rushing into the music room, shutting the door hastily behind him.

“Your mother is here.” He turned his dark, angry eyes to Bridget.

“Here?” she cried. “Now?”

“Not far off. I saw her approaching in a gondola, with your sister and Antonia Galetti.” Carpenini rushed around the room, putting papers into proper place, moving his chair far back from hers. “How does your mother know Antonia?”

Bridget shook her head, her mind reeling. Her mother,
here
. She’d shown absolutely no interest in the lessons since that first time, had in fact granted Bridget much freedom since then. Since being frightened away by scales and drills, and a non-English-speaking great-aunt, that is.

Oh no
, Bridget thought.
The great-aunt.

“Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you barred her from the house ever since her last visit,” Oliver was saying. “Antonia was always far more clever and spiteful than you gave her credit for.”

“Oliver,” Bridget said sharply, getting his attention. “What about the
chaperone
?”

Both Oliver and Carpenini came to a sudden halt.

“Send a note for Veronica?” Carpenini asked.

“Unless she arrives in the next two minutes, it is rather useless,” Oliver shot back, rubbing his chin. His eyes darted to the screen in the corner of the room, the one with all the costumes from the circus, behind which Bridget changed.

“We can delay—” Carpenini was saying.

“No.” Oliver turned to Bridget and ruthlessly began unbuttoning her overshirt.

“How bad is your mother’s eyesight?” he asked, taking the shirt off her, and then spinning her around and beginning to button up her dress at the back, making her presentable again.

“My mother’s eyesight?” Bridget asked, bewildered.

“She squints all the time, but leaves off her spectacles, am I right?” Oliver spun Bridget back around again. “Do you think, on sight alone, she could, say, tell you apart from your sister?”

Bridget practically snorted. “On sight alone, she could not tell me apart from the Pope.”

“Good. Vincenzo, stall as best you can—just give me a few minutes!”

And with that, Oliver quickly grabbed something from behind the screen and swept out of the room, the pounding of his footsteps taking the stairs two at a time receding in the distance.

“Come, come, Signorina, sit!” Carpenini was saying, gesturing to the pianoforte. “Do not worry, Oliver will take care of everything.”

Bridget moved to the pianoforte at his command, but her mind was reeling. What would Oliver take care of? What was her mother doing here? How would they explain the lack of a chaperone?

She took her seat and let her fingers rest on the keys. Carpenini motioned for her to play. She had no idea what to play, other than the piece that had been consuming them for weeks, and thus began on the No. 23, starting with the recently troublesome second movement.

Carpenini listened in silence, standing over her shoulder for a tense thirty seconds, listening for any sound beyond the music room.

She kept playing as she heard the approaching noise of a party of females determined to get past a terribly befuddled Frederico, and then, finally, succeeding.

“Just keep playing,” Carpenini whispered in her ear, before he straightened and greeted the intruders.

“Ah! Signora Forrester!” he cried. “And Signora Galetti! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Likewise, Vincenzo,” Signora Galetti purred, and Bridget barely kept her lip from curling in distaste. Antonia came forward with her hands out, and Carpenini took them in his and kissed them, as expected.

“Well, I am
not
pleasantly surprised!” Bridget’s mother huffed. “I am quite the opposite.”

“Mother, will this take very long?” came the voice of Amanda from behind her. “It’s just that the Church of the Frari is open to visitors this morning and I was so hoping to see it in morning light.”

“It will take only as long as Signor Carpenini desires to explain himself.”

“Explain?” Carpenini asked, putting on a good show of astonishment. “What requires explanation?”

“First, you can explain to me where Mr. Merrick is—and more importantly, where his great-aunt is.” Lady Forrester narrowed her eyes at him—or, rather, in the general direction of him. “Then you can explain to me how my daughter came to be involved in something so base as a musical competition!”

Carpenini seemed struck by the latter of the two charges. But by the way Antonia Galetti was coyly trying to hide her amusement, his astonishment quickly faded.

“Oliver—Mr. Merrick—is out. He pays his calls to friends and the church on Wednesday mornings,
si
, Signorina?”

Carpenini turned to Bridget, and she nodded quickly, playing along to his rhythm. Her fingers continued to flow over the keys, trying to keep from shaking.

“As for Auntie . . . ah! Here she is!” Carpenini cried, herding the women away from the door, allowing Bridget to see who had joined their party.

She almost lost her place in the music.

There, hunched and dressed in an ill-fitting gown, lines painted on his face, and a cap covering strands of hair floured to a dull gray, was Oliver. He murmured greetings in a reedy, high-pitched Italian and, with the use of a cane, hobbled over to the center of the room to greet Lady Forrester.

It was absolutely amazing. If Bridget had not been so close or her eyesight not nearly so sharp, she would have thought for all the world that it was an old woman who entered the room. His posture, his voice, were a perfect mimic of a frail, elderly woman—three things he most certainly was not!

Oliver was a better actor than he gave himself credit for.

“Oh, Signora . . . do you know, I do not know if I ever learned your surname,” Lady Forrester mused, as she gave a correct albeit stiff curtsy. Behind Oliver—er, Auntie—came Molly, bearing a tea tray.

“Auntie’s last name is Oliveri,” Carpenini replied cheekily, earning a reproving stare from Bridget and the great-aunt, “and she was just downstairs helping with the morning repast. No one makes fresh bread like Auntie.”

Bridget’s mother seemed to consider this, eyeing Carpenini as he gently handed Oliver’s “aunt” into a chair by the fire. Oliver pulled Carpenini down to his level and said something to him in Italian.

“
Si
, Aunt,” Carpenini said, playing along. “She is playing much better today.” And then Carpenini straightened up, truly listening to what Bridget was playing, as if hearing it for the first time. “My God! You played the run!” he cried, clapping his hands. “
Bellissima!
With a gut of fire!”

But while Bridget was blushing under Carpenini’s praises, the situation in front of them was growing more precarious.

“Ah, Mother,” Amanda was saying, her voice a low warning. “I do not think that this person—”

“Amanda!” Bridget cried suddenly, bringing her sister’s attention away from whatever she was about to say. “Come turn pages for me, please.”

There must have been something in her voice, in the directness of her plea and her gaze, that had Amanda crossing the room to the pianoforte. Once there, she wasted no time in speaking low to her sister.

“What is going on? For heaven’s sake, Bridge, you’re not even reading music.”

“Please, please do not tell Mother anything. I promise you, nothing untoward is going on,” Bridget whispered back, making certain to keep the music louder than their conversation.

“Nothing untoward!” Amanda whispered excitedly. “Bridge, unless my eyesight is going like Mother’s, that woman is a man.”