Page 35 of The Best of Friends
“You’re not nearly as generous as Daria,” Toss said as they made their way toward the music room. “She said that one poor performance does not negate a person’s talent.”
“When did you talk to Daria about your music?” Charlie asked.
“At her soiree last night. She thought I wasn’t enjoying the evening, so I explained that I was just stewing over my poor showing at the Brinleys’.”
“Itold you that one clumsy performance wasn’t the end of the world. Why did you listen to her but not me?”
“Well, you’re ugly, and you smell bad, neither of which can be said about her.”
“Artie likes the way I smell.”
“Now you’re making me want to vomit, also something that can’t be said about Daria.”
They stepped into the music room.
“I do have a pianoforte at my disposal though.” Charlie motioned to it. “That must improve my standing at least a little.”
Toss set his stack of papers on an obliging table. “I hope you thank His Grace for the pianoforte. Without it, you’d have no friends.”
“To quote His Grace, ‘Shut up.’” Charlie uttered the last two words in an absolutely perfect imitation of the Dangerous Duke.
The pianoforte was in tune, which Toss chose to see as an indication that fate was smiling on him at last. Charlie was very quickly engrossed in his geometry. It wasn’t an indication that Charlie expected to not be entertained by whatever Toss managed to play but was, rather, the result of his friend being the strange sort of fellow who couldn’t resist the siren song of mathematics.
“I wish Duke and Poppy were in Town,” Toss said as he sat on the stool at the pianoforte.
“They are clever coves,” Charlie said. “Might have some ideas of how to adequately torture your brother for being a surly old rustyguts.”
“No, I’d like having them here becausetheyaren’t obsessed with mathematics, which would make them far better company than you.” He trilled a few keys.
“Focus on your music, Mozart.”
“Focus on your mathematics,... Euclid.”
Charlie held up a finger. “I am actually actively arguing against some of Euclid’s work. You’ll have to choose another mathematician.”
Toss shook his head. “I don’t know any others.”
“Pathetic.” Charlie flipped a page in one of his books.
Laurence sometimes called Toss “pathetic,” but it was different when Charlie said it. Charlie didn’t actually mean it.
Toss closed his eyes, his hands hovering above the keyboard. He took a deep, slow breath. Almost of their own accord, his fingers began playing an étude he’d composed his first year at Cambridge. It was often the piece he played at the beginning of his morning practice sessions.
He knew the étude so well he didn’t even have to think. Perhaps it was what he ought to have played at the Brinleys’. He likely wouldn’t have stumbled over the notes as he had the other song. But playing somethinghehad written had seemed like too much of a risk.
He’d done so as part of his studies at Cambridge. His friends had heard his compositions as he’d practiced them in the flat they’d all shared. Laurence had heard them when Toss was at home, though his brother likely hadn’t realized the pieces werehis.And his dear sister, Rosamond, had often requested he specifically play his own works for her. Why had the thought of playing his compositions at the Brinleys’ dinner party been so intimidating?
His time at Cambridge had been dedicated to becoming a composer, to writing music that would be played for far more people than had been present two nights earlier. Maybe it was a good thing Laurence had brought that to an end.
It was with that depressing thought echoing in his mind that he reached the end of the étude without his spirits lifting at all.
And in the silence that followed, the Duke of Kielder himself spoke. “I wondered who was playing.”
Toss jumped to his feet, startled and unsure what to think about the interruption, mostly because he wasn’t at all certain what the Dangerous Duke’s opinion was about Toss absconding with his pianoforte. Not knowing what a man as powerful and fearsome as the duke was thinking was dangerous. Literally. “Charlie said I could.”
From his mathematics-laden table, Charlie laughed. “You are such a lily-livered traitor.”
His Grace didn’t appear surprised by the comment. He stepped closer to the pianoforte, watching Toss with a focus that had, Toss knew for a fact, turned lesser men into quivering jellies of fear. His powerful presence had, if the legend was true, once resulted in the Prince Regent himself bowing to the Duke of Kielder.
