The Firebird (52 page)

She had learnt and remembered those words through the years, but she found she’d forgotten the tune, having heard it just once. And so now she had learnt to play music, as he had advised her to do, and she finally could pick out the notes on the keyboard and play them.

The tune, written down, was a simple one – only the melody, all on its own, and her hand could not capture the lilt of it, but it still brought from her memory the captain’s deep, comforting voice, singing gently to soothe a small girl in the darkness. When she’d played it three times there were tears in her eyes, and to keep them from falling she looked swiftly up from the keys and saw Edmund, who’d entered the house without any announcement, and stood in the doorway.

His head briefly dipped in a gentleman’s greeting. ‘And what song is that?’

He was already leaving the doorway and coming across to the harpsichord, and short of snatching the paper up rudely and stuffing it safe in her pocket again there was little that Anna could do but allow him to look at it.

‘May I?’ He lifted the paper. ‘“The Wandering Maiden”. I am unfamiliar with this one, although I’ve heard some very like it.’ He read through the words. ‘Not a happy song.’

‘Not till the end.’

‘And is this what you’re playing,’ he asked, ‘after dinner? To keep us all well entertained?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Mrs Lacy has planned a duet.’

Edmund smiled at whatever her face had betrayed. ‘And ’tis plain that you relish the prospect.’

His smile did not mock, but was meant to be shared, which she did in a small way as she replied, ‘I have no skill at this instrument that would allow me to do so. As you will discover.’

‘I’ll stop up my ears,’ Edmund promised. ‘Perhaps I should teach you a trick with the cards. You could do that in silence.’

‘I have no great skill with cards, either, sir.’

‘Right, you did tell me.’ He seemed to have taken more care than he usually did when preparing for dinner. His face had been recently shaved, his hair carefully combed and tied back, yet for all that he still had the air of a rogue. ‘Do you truly not know any card games at all?’

‘I do not.’

‘Come, I’ll teach you one.’ Setting the song sheet back down on the harpsichord, he gave a sideways nod towards the small plush-topped table still set up between two chairs, only a few steps away.

‘What, this instant?’ she asked him.

‘Why not?’

He was clearly not going to sit till she’d crossed to take one of the chairs, so she did.

‘Now,’ said Edmund, removing the cards from his pocket, ‘this game is called “Fives”. ’Tis the game of my country and simple to learn; quick to play. It is how your red shoes were won.’

Anna refused to give in to the charm of that smile. ‘I would doubt that the shoes were won fairly.’

‘Then you’d be mistaken. I played all upon the square for those shoes, so I did, for Mr Morley is an honest man.’

She watched him while he shuffled. ‘Do you not cheat honest men, then?’

‘Honest men cannot be cheated,’ Edmund said. ‘They’ve a conscience that speaks to them, leads them away from a game that might harm them. No, a man who will fall for the play of a sharper must first have the heart of a thief himself, under his fine clothes and all his respectable airs. Very often you’ll find he’s a liar besides, spinning tales to impress you. The thing is, he wants something from you himself, whether it be respect or your money, and right till the end of the game and beyond it he’ll think in his heart he’s the one cheating you. There you are, then.’ He dealt her five cards, and himself the same, then explained how the game worked with its trumps. ‘So, the five of trumps, that’s the best card you can have, then the ace of hearts – which is your own special favourite, as I recall – then ace of trumps, then the knave. Follow that?’

Anna nodded. They started to play. For the first hand, he played along with her and showed her what moves she should make. At the start of the second hand, which Anna dealt in her turn, he quickly looked over her cards and, on seeing that she held the ace of diamonds, shook his head. ‘No, that’s truly the worst card of all you could possibly have. Give it here,’ he said, taking it from her and giving her one from his hand in exchange. ‘There now.’

Sighing, she told him, ‘That still counts as cheating.’

‘Does not,’ was his argument. ‘Not if my intent is good.’

In her third hand, her cards were so perfectly good that she knew he had dealt them on purpose. She looked at him. ‘Stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘I had rather play poorly and lose by my own efforts,’ she said, ‘than win by dishonesty.’

‘Sure that’s a very fine sentiment,’ Edmund replied, with his eyes on his own cards, ‘but life does not always allow us to do as we’d please.’

Still, he won both of the following hands, and when dealing the next gave her cards that did not seem to be prearranged. Anna played them with full concentration, unable to guard her own features as closely as Edmund did while he was playing, for she could not help the satisfied smile as she played her last card. ‘I believe I’ve just won.’

Edmund, looking down too, gave a nod. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Ace of hearts wins the knave.’ His eyes lifted and met hers and held them, the smile in his own fading slowly to something less readable, though no less warm, as he told her, ‘And
that
, I’ll allow, you did all on your own.’

Something changed in the way the air settled between them, and had they been walking outdoors Anna might have believed that a storm was approaching. It brushed on the back of her neck and her spine and made everything at the periphery darken a shade so that Edmund’s half-smile and his face and his eyes were the things most in focus.

And then he was standing, and taking the cards from her hand, and the whole world came back in a rush as she heard, from the hallway, the sound of male voices and laughter.

The rest of the guests had arrived.

Dinner was a miserable affair, and her duet was a disaster.

Anna doubted whether anybody else had even noticed, but for her the trouble had begun before the bread was served. She had at first been truly pleased to see that Nan and Mary had come with Vice Admiral Gordon this time, in a bid, no doubt, to better even out the sexes at the table. But with Nan all tongue-tied sitting at Sir Harry Stirling’s shoulder, being no help whatsoever when it came to conversation, and Mary on the other side of Edmund, talking nonsense with the dark-haired, dark-eyed Irishman, Anna had been left adrift.

Ordinarily she would have taken an interest in the lively interchange between the general and Vice Admiral Gordon, at her own end of the table. Gordon, who’d been sitting just across from her, had tried to draw her in on two occasions that she’d noticed, but she’d been distracted by the sound of Edmund’s laughter mixed with Mary’s, and as ever, she had been aware of Mr Taylor’s obvious regard.

She had been bothered more today than she had ever been before that her own feelings could not equal Mr Taylor’s, for in truth he was exactly as a man should be. His looks were pleasant, and his manners even more so, and he was a good and
even-tempered
man who’d be, she had no doubt, a faithful husband and good father. He had prospects, he had friends, and he was clearly half in love with her, and yet her heart would not return the sentiment, no matter how she willed it to. A heart, so Anna had decided, was a cruel and stubborn thing.

And then, midway through dinner, when the general and Sir Harry had been speaking about Captain Hay, who was just then arranging for the passport that would let him leave St Petersburg, Sir Harry had looked straight across at Edmund and asked, ‘And have you decided, yet, the date of your departure?’

Edmund, with a shrug, had answered, ‘No, but it would look to be the middle of July, just at the moment.’ Only that, and nothing more was said, as though the matter of his leaving had been common knowledge to them all.

It had affected her. It shouldn’t have, she knew, yet after that one short exchange she’d found it difficult to focus, and when all of them had moved into the drawing room and she had tried to play the harpsichord with Mrs Lacy, she had played so very poorly that the faint applause that followed had, she thought, been more from gratitude the piece was finally over than from praise.

Nor did she think it a coincidence that Father Dominic excused himself immediately after that to see to his devotions.

She made light of it. ‘Perhaps if I had played for Captain Deane, he’d have departed Russia earlier than Sunday last.’

The others hastened to assure her she’d done better than she knew she had. Except for Edmund, who before this had been watching her with what approached impatience, and who now appeared the only one well pleased that she had failed at her performance.

‘’Tis the song,’ he told the gathering. ‘It speaks of home and hearth and things domestic. Sure, our Mistress Jamieson wants something more adventurous. Where is your song,’ he asked her, ‘of “The Wandering Maiden”?’

She had folded it already and returned it to her pocket before sitting down to dinner, but she only said, ‘I do not have it.’

‘It was well loved, from the look of it. Do you recall the words? For our hostess knows so many tunes, she may know that one, too.’

Mrs Lacy, to Anna’s relief, had not heard of ‘The Wandering Maiden’. ‘Is it to the tune of “The Wandering Young Man”?’ she asked Edmund.

‘It is not,’ he replied, then unfolded himself from his lounging position to stand as he said, ‘But play that, if you will, for it is a good tune on its own.’

Mrs Lacy looked delighted as he crossed the drawing room towards the harpsichord. ‘And will you sing it for us, Edmund? We have not heard you sing since Christmas.’

He did sing it, standing next to Mrs Lacy while she played, with Anna sitting just beside her. She had guessed that, from the deepness of his speaking voice, he would not be a tenor when he sang, so she was not surprised to hear the richer timbre of a baritone, nor was she much surprised that he sang well, for singing seemed, in truth, to run within the blood of many Irishmen.

The song surprised her, though. Where ‘The Wandering Maiden’ was weeping and sad, this song spoke of a man who’d been pushed to the brink of frustration by what he perceived was the torturous treatment the woman he loved had been giving him, and to that end he addressed his song, not to some wide and uncaring world, but directly to his lady-love.

Edmund, singing in the role of the young man, aimed all his words in turn towards the women in the room, so that he seemed to be accusing Mrs Lacy at the first of being beautiful and cruel, before his gaze moved on to Anna with the lines,

His gaze did seem to hold a dark and languid heat as it held hers a moment longer than it needed to before it moved to Mary, making her the object of the young man’s next reproach, then Nan, till all the others in the room were well amused.

‘’Tis thee alone can kill or cure,’
he sang to Anna next.
‘Send me one gentle smile.’

But she could not, although the others did. She could not smile; she could but sit there silently and feel the words and wish that she did not, because it seemed as though he sang for her alone, when at the end his gaze returned full-force to hers.

The sound of clapping jarred her back into reality, reminding her that there were others with them in the room. She blinked, and roused herself enough to pull her gaze away from Edmund, to find Mary Gordon watching her with undisguised surprise, and a small, knowing smile that Anna looked away from too.

But Mary would not let her escape with such ease. Later on, when they’d all gathered into the lobby to say their farewells, Mary caught Anna’s elbow and drew her aside and said, low and delighted, ‘But I thought you hated him.’

‘Hated who?’

Mary just gave her a look that would not be fooled, and with a kiss and embrace said, ‘You must tell me all, the next time I come visit.’

To be so discovered by Mary, who knew her so well and could read her expressions, was not unexpected, but Anna still felt thrown off balance, and when Mr Taylor was saying goodbye to her and she saw Edmund himself looking on with a frown, Anna could not remove herself quickly enough from the lobby, relieved that the general had, at the last minute, called Edmund aside for a private talk, so she would not have to wait to farewell him.

The air in the yard was much warmer than that in the
stone-walled
house, but there was light and the feeling of freedom that washed through her troubling thoughts like a tonic. At least, for the minutes she spent there alone.

When she heard the door open and close, she instinctively straightened her back, her arms folding as both a defence and a means of protection. Not waiting for him to approach, she turned round.

‘Was there something you wanted, then, Mr O’Connor?’

‘A great many things, Mistress Jamieson. But for the moment, my purpose was only to find you.’

‘And why would you go to such trouble?’

He said, ‘’Twas no trouble at all, for I knew where to look.’ With a glance round the yard and a faint upward lift of his chin to the clouds he remarked, ‘This is your bit of sky, is it not? Where you’d fly, had your wings not been clipped.’

‘You talk nonsense.’

His own arms crossed over the width of his chest. ‘Mr Taylor will do more than clip those wings for you. He’ll tie them.’

‘You’ve no right—’

‘I need no right,’ he cut her off, his voice gone hard, ‘to tell you what a fool could see, and what you seem determined not to.’