She took his arm with a winning smile, and drew him firmly towards the front to a very tempest of support. She sat at the instrument and stretched her fingers, but Kydd stammered in a low voice, 'I d-don't know anything, Miss L-Lockwood.'
'Nonsense!' she whispered back. 'This pretty piece of Mozart's perfect for you. You're a baritone?' Her fingers caressed the keys in an expert introductory flourish and the room fell quiet. 'You shall turn the page for me, Mr Kydd, will you?'
At his stricken face she added softly, 'Don't worry, I'll manage. Just follow the words—they're below the stave.'
He stared down, transfixed. 'It—I can't—!' She looked up at him with sympathy and unconcealed disappointment.
Kydd pulled himself together. 'Thank you, Miss Lockwood, but I've just remembered one—and this I'll sing on my own. That is to say, a solo.'
He stepped forward and faced the august room, the serried ranks of painted faces, the formidable lords and gentlemen, the Landgraf—then filled his chest and sang. It was one of the only pieces he knew well, songs that held meaning and memories but that he had kept suppressed for many years on the quarterdeck.
It came out with deep feeling, the parting of an outward-bound sailor from his true love:
The simple melody was received in absolute quiet, Kydd's powerful voice echoing about the room, and soon a soft improvisation from the pianoforte tentatively accompanied it, strengthening and growing in invention as the chorus repeated.
The song finished; there was an astonished silence, and then the room broke into rapturous applause. Kydd dared a glance at Persephone—she returned it with one of delight, her eyes sparkling. 'I rather think an encore is expected,' she said fondly. 'Shall you?'
Kydd obliged with a fo'c'sle favourite, and then his lordship and a bemused Landgraf heard a salty rendition of 'Spanish Ladies,' Persephone coming in almost immediately with a daring flourish and a laugh.
While he sang out the old words heartily he saw reactions about the room ranging from delight and amazement to hostility. He dared a glance at Admiral Lockwood and saw him pounding out the rhythm on his knee with a broad smile; his lady, however, impaled him with a look of venom.
Kydd finished the fine sea song to thunderous acclaim and, Persephone at his side, bowed this way and that. 'Well done, Mr Kydd!' she whispered, her eyes shining. 'You were . . . wonderful.'
Kydd's heart melted.
Renzi was sitting by a single candle at his desk when Kydd returned. He glanced up and, seeing Kydd's expression, remarked drily, 'So, the evening might be accounted a success, then, brother?'
'Aye—that is to say, it passed off right splendidly, Nicholas.' He peeled off his coat and flopped into his chair, wearing a broad smile that would not go away.
'And—dare I hazard the observation?—you there saw Miss Persephone Lockwood.'
'I did,' Kydd said sheepishly, and gave a graphic account of events. 'And y' should have been there t' hear the thumpin' applause they gave us at th' end,' he said, with huge satisfaction.
Renzi heard him out, then shook his head in wonder. 'So by this we can see you have achieved your object. You have indeed attained an eminence in society,' he declared, 'and, it must be admitted that at one and the same time you have been able to attract notice, it seems. Though what a young lady of breeding will make of a gentleman who eschews Mozart for 'Spanish Ladies' I cannot begin to think.'
'Then can I point out t' you, Nicholas, that it was this same who came an' played for me in the first place, an' it was she who said I should do an encore?' Kydd retorted acidly.
Renzi stretched and gave a tired smile. 'In any event, dear fellow, you are now known and talked about. For good or ill, the society world knows you exist and have made conquest of Miss Lockwood.'
The fore-topsail yard, now promised for Wednesday, would be fitted and squared on Thursday, and Friday, of course, being not a day for sailing to any right-thinking sailor, Kydd would begin to store
Only a few days more. Guiltily he was finding himself reluctant to put to sea and he told himself sternly to buckle down to work. Renzi was dealing swiftly with a pile of ship's papers, his pen flying across the pages, no doubt eager to dip into the parcel of books that had recently arrived at number eighteen.
There was now the difficult task of how or indeed whether he should open some form of address to Persephone. Was she expecting an overture from him? Should he ask Cecilia? Or was advice on the best way to woo another woman not quite what one might ask a sister? A knock interrupted his thoughts as a letter for the captain was handed to him respectfully.
Kydd recognised Cecilia's bold hand and smiled at the coincidence, tearing open the seal. Another letter fell out with unfamiliar handwriting. Cecilia went quickly to the subject to his growing astonishment and delight. '. . . and she is wondering if you would wish to accompany us. I really think you should, Thomas—it would get you out of your ship and seeing something of the moors, which are accounted to be some of the most dramatic country in the kingdom . . .'
A ride on the high moor—the wilds of Dartmoor. With Persephone.
The other letter was from Persephone, in a fine round hand, and addressed to Cecilia, whom she had met at the picnic. Kydd's eyes lingered on the writing: it was perfectly executed penmanship with few ornaments, bold and confident. The content was warm but practical—a rendezvous at the Goodameavy stables a few miles north on the Tavistock road, well-phrased advice concerning clothing for ladies and then, in a final sentence, the afterthought that if Commander Kydd found himself at leisure that day, did Cecilia think he might be persuaded to join them?
Cecilia said little on the journey out of town and gazed from the window as they wound into the uplands. It suited Kydd: his thoughts could jostle on unchecked. Would it be a substantial party? The lonely moor was probably a place of footpads and robbers so he wore a sword, a discreet borrowed hanger rather than his
