Page 4 of How to Ruin a Duke
Though she wished she had as much fortune as she did pedigree.
Fairweather’s was a shop to be proud of, nestled in the heart of London at an elegant address.On Bond Street, there was foot traffic at all hours, with a jeweler and a music seller and a china warehouse and a cutler almost at hand.Her great-great-grandfather had chosen the spot well, fashionable and fast-paced, and taken a ninety-nine-year lease.
Unfortunately, that lease was now up for renewal, and the landlord offered the building at a dramatically higher rate.The old rent of one hundred pounds a year was a scramble and scrimp now that Rowena was doing the work of two on her own.To pay one hundred fifty guineas?She might as well have been asked to fetch St.Edward’s Crown from the Tower of London.
“The shop is secure and in good hands,” she added, as much for her own benefit as for Thorn’s.“I build upon generations of good reputation.”
“And this good reputation persists under the management of a young woman?”Thorn appeared curious rather than skeptical, so she gave him an honest reply.
“It does to anyone who’s honest about the matter.Even before my father’s death a year ago, I was doing much of the repair work.He had developed arthritis, so mine were the hands and his the mind, until he’d taught me all he could.”
In truth, though Rowena maintained the same quality of work, Fairweather’s wasn’t quite the same anymore.Her father had been chatty and personable, making a friend of everyone whose instrument he took on for repair.Customers seemed to miss him as much as Rowena did—and upstairs, in the family quarters, she felt her solitude even more.
Once upon a time, she’d been told, the large building bustled both upstairs and down.In past generations there had been Fairweather brothers and sisters and their offspring, sisters-in-law and elderly grandparents and even a spinster aunt or two.A true family workshop, like the Amatis in Italy in an earlier century.
But Rowena’s father had married late, and her parents had had her still later.Her mother had died in childbed, and the spinster aunts and grandparents, too, had all moved along to the other side of life.
Rowena couldn’t miss what she’d never had, but she could miss the idea of it.
Now it was just her, a cook who came three times a week, a maid-of-all-work, her old nanny, and her hedgehog Cotton.It all felt rather threadbare, regardless of the thickness of the velvet curtain.There was a carewornness that came from the spirit, not from the eye.
But perhaps Rowena was the only one who perceived it.Simon Thorn appeared to be enjoying the conversation, as though he thought all was well with both Fairweather’s and its proprietress.
“Do you like the work of a luthier?”He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and fixed those curious dark eyes on hers.“I’ve had many occupations, but never yours.”
Did she like her work?She’d never thought about it.She had taken it for granted since she’d first stretched a catgut string that this was the work she would do.
Alongside her father, she’d more than liked the work, once.She’d loved it.But there was less to enjoy about running a family establishment alone.
Save the shop, her father had told her with his dying breath.Run it as I’ve taught you, and all will be well.I’m relying on you.We all are.
She’d thought at the time that he meant Nanny and Cook and the maid, Alice.But she wondered now whether he had meant the century of Fairweathers who had done business at this spot.All the previous generations whose expectations now stacked upon her, burdening her.
She took up the ruined hairpin and tried to bend it back into shape.“It’s difficult work, but it is satisfying.I like bringing music back to instruments that have lost it.”
“As you did to mine.”He smiled.“What do I owe you for your intervention, Miss Fairweather?”
All of a sudden, she didn’t want to turn this chance meeting into a transaction.“Oh, nothing.There’s no fee.”She snapped up the still-wandering Cotton before the animal could stumble over the edge of the counter.
“But you made my instrument playable again.That’s worth something.”He straightened up from his slouch, pulling a purse from his pocket.
“A favor for a fellow musician.I’m only out a hairpin.”
He hesitated, then put away his purse again.“I’m in your debt, then.”
“You’re not.You’re really not.”She knelt, depositing Cotton on the floor to wander in search of delicious insects.When Rowena stood to face Thorn again, she added, “Bring me a new hairpin sometime if you wish.Or if you have the time now, play me something pretty.”
“Now that’s an irresistible request.Why not both?”He smiled at her, his expression open and sunny as he unfastened the case holding his horn.
As he took up the instrument, she noticed every detail.The easy comfort with which he hefted it.The softness of his gaze as he rummaged through memory for a tune.His left hand gripped the golden scribble of tubing and lifted the instrument, and his right hand hid within the bell.Rowena glanced at her own right hand and thought—not for the first time—that she’d have liked to try playing the horn.
Then his lips shaped, a tight press against the mouthpiece like a kiss with purpose, and a tune so old and familiar issued from the horn that Rowena had to laugh and sing along.
“Lavender’s blue, diddle diddle,
Lavender’s green,
When you are king, diddle diddle,
