Simply Unforgettable

Bond Street

. He had married the boy’s mother in January.

It was strange to think of Baron Heath as a married man with two young stepchildren. But it seemed to happen to all of them eventually, Lucius thought gloomily—marriage, that was. At least Heath had had the satisfaction of choosing his own bride and marrying for love.

Lucius invited him to attend a concert at Marshall House and promised him a musical treat that would make his hair stand on end.

“She has an extraordinarily lovely voice,” he explained, “but has had no one to bring her to the attention of people who can do something to sponsor her career.”

“And I will soon be clamoring to be that sponsor, I suppose,” Lord Heath said. “I hear this with tedious frequency, Sinclair. But I do trust your taste—provided we are talking of taste in voices, that is, and not in women.”

Lucius felt a touch of anger, but he quelled it.

“Come,” he said, “and bring Lady Heath. You may listen and judge for yourself whether her singing voice does not equal her beauty.”

But a singer needed an audience, Lucius believed. How could Frances sing as she had in Bath with only his family and hers and the Heaths looking on? Yet even in Bath the audience had been modest in size.

The music room in Marshall House would seat thirty people in some comfort. If the panels between it and the ballroom were removed, there would be room for many more, and the size of the combined rooms would give range for the power of a great voice.

And a concert needed more than one performer . . .

His schemes became more grandiose by the hour.

“I am thinking of inviting a few people to join us in the music room after dinner on the evening Miss Allard comes here with her great-aunts to dine, sir,” he told his grandfather at tea three days before the said dinner. “Including Baron Heath and his wife.”

“Ah, a good idea, Lucius,” the earl said. “I should have thought of it for myself—and of Heath. He can do something for her. I do not imagine Miss Allard will have any objection.”

She well might, Lucius suspected. He knew her better than his grandfather did. But he held his peace.

“I have the distinct impression,” the viscountess said, “that it is this Miss Allard rather than Mrs. Melford and Miss Driscoll who is to be the guest of honor at our table. It is extraordinary when one remembers that she is a schoolteacher.”

“You will see, Louisa,” the earl told her, “that it is she who is extraordinary.”

Caroline meanwhile had uttered a muffled shriek at Lucius’s words.

“And I am expected to accompany Miss Allard before an audience that includes Baron Heath?” she said. “When is she coming here to practice, Luce?”

“The afternoon after tomorrow,” he said. “You had better not mention Lord Heath to her, though, Caroline, or any other guests. You will only make her nervous.”

“Make her nervous!” Her voice had risen almost to a squeak. “How about me?”

“When she begins to sing,” Amy said kindly, “no one will even notice your playing, Caroline.”

“Well, thank you for that,” Caroline said before laughing suddenly.

Amy laughed with her. “I did not mean it quite the way it sounded,” she said. “Your playing is quite superior— far better than mine.”

“Which is not much of a compliment, Amy, when one really thinks about it,” Emily said dryly.

“And you, Father,” the viscountess said firmly, “are looking tired. Lucius will help you to your room, and you will lie down until dinnertime.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the earl said with a twinkle in his eye—and a slight gray tinge to his complexion.

No one had voiced any objection to the idea of making the musical part of the evening into a full-blown concert, though, Lucius thought as he climbed the stairs slowly, his grandfather leaning heavily on his arm. Not that he had used those words exactly, of course, to describe his plans. But any small—or large—gathering of people for the purpose of listening to a few musical performances could be loosely defined as a concert.

He had three days during which to gather a respectably sized audience to do Frances Allard’s talent justice—at the height of the Season, when every day brought a flood of invitations to every ton household. But it could be done, by Jove, and he would do it. Her feet were going to be set firmly on the road to success and fame that evening. He had no doubt of it.

And it would be all his doing.

That might prove small comfort in the years ahead, of course.

But all was not yet lost on the personal front. He was not married yet, or even betrothed—not officially anyway. The Balderstons were back in town, but he had contrived to avoid them for all of twenty-four hours.

He had never been a man to give up lightly on what he badly wanted. And new leaf or no new leaf, he had not changed in that particular.

He desperately wanted Frances Allard.

Marshall House was a grand mansion on

Cavendish Square