The Arrangement

Chapter Two

Jon’s eyes stung from lack of sleep and the soap he’d used earlier to scrub off the rice powder. He blinked, shook his head, and picked up his pen again to get the notes down before they escaped him. They ran through his head like a string of crystal beads, tinkling against each other, winding around full circle, twisting playfully here and there. They’d been doing that ever since he arrived home.

He stopped scribbling to test their possibilities on the violin. Pleased with the results, he laid the instrument aside. Ink-dotted paper crinkled under his bare legs and feet as he wriggled out a comfortable spot. Stretching out full-length, his head on a threadbare cushion, Jon closed his eyes and let the music in his mind flow through him.

Last scene. The tenor returns.... Soprano greets him. Ahhh, a lyrical tease, a sly, dark-eyed cat... Dark-eyed? That woman’s face flashed through his mind, likely because she was the last one he’d seen. Jon lifted one hand toward the cracked ceiling plaster and waved in time with the imagined aria. Sforzando, now. Tenor offers final tribute to his lady. Now up, swiftly, like a cock...pounding, surging, reaching...

Jon’s voice joined in the process, using only pure sounds instead of words, bel canto, now rising in volume to return, almost unrecognizable, to his ears. Ah, yes... Slowly, on a burst of feeling that reached a crescendo, Jon rose to a sitting position and lifted the Stradivarius to repeat himself.

Then it came, profound as a lover’s cry, powerful as the urge itself, the whole of it sweeping over and through him, ending like the little death. Culmination, climax, ecstasy! Done!

He had finished! All but the finale with the entire ensemble, a mere repeat of the overture, with a few adjustments. At last!

Jon spared but a moment to savor the exhilaration, then laid down the violin and located his pen. He scratched madly with the pen, humming with his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

The ink trail crawled left to right in a wavy line, broken by myriad squiggles and curlicues. When it reached the right edge of the paper, it curved down and tracked right to left in a continuous scroll to the bottom of the page. Jon’s code, as Maman had laughingly called it, had developed when he was only five and untutored in the intricacies of the music staff and individual notes. She had quickly taught him to put down the music correctly, but suggested he keep to his own invented method for the first drafts when he wrote. No one could decipher the childish chicken tracks but himself, when he translated them later.

Poking a hole in the paper at the excitement of penning the last sound in his head, Jon sailed the pen across the room and boomed, “Bravo!”

A sharp “Ouch” jerked him off his cloud of euphoria. The shock of reality struck him dumb, and he stared, disbelieving, at the shadows surrounding the old grand piano. Out of the semidarkness crept a small figure nursing an ink-stained cheek.

“How did you know I was there?” she asked, rubbing the spot and smearing the black fluid down the side of her face.

Jon still stared, his mouth open. Good God, it was her! For a long moment, he feared he had conjured her up out of his imagination. How the hell had she gotten in? He looked around, seeing the open casement, feeling the cold night air for the first time. The candles in the broken candelabra next to him threw their wavering shadows on the peeling wallpaper.

He looked down in horror. He was sitting on the floor in his short flannel drawers, surrounded by a mountainous tangle of ink-scribbled papers. His lute, an ancient lyre and the Stradivarius lay about like scattered bodies on a battlefield. Frantically he snatched up the violin, worried she might step on it.

Hair tumbled across half his face, several frazzled strands caught on his lips. Jon winced, thinking how wild he must appear in this condition. Sweat from God knew how many hours of work wafted its scent upward from his body. He cringed. What a story this would make. Nasty, mad musician assaults female reporter with inky nib pen. He felt sick, and swallowed hard.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said softly, inching toward him. “I’m a friend. It’s all right now. Just be calm.” He recoiled as she crouched down and gently touched his bare foot.

Jon made himself meet her eyes. They held no sign of recognition, only compassionate warmth. Well, except for his size, he couldn’t possibly bear any resemblance to the man she had watched perform. The dark wig, nothing like his own light hair, was safely tucked in the armoire with his suit. He recalled scrubbing off the itchy powder and shucking his clothes to go to bed. But then the “ladies” had called him downstairs. At the memory, he stroked the Strad’s strings—it was his treasure of treasures, his most inventive lady, the most beautiful of his harem.

Maybe the woman thought him an interloper like her. She might take him for a village lad who’d broken into the main house to play with the instruments. Hope flared. He swallowed heavily again and nodded like an imbecile.

“You poor fellow. He keeps you here, doesn’t he?” Her voice held a wealth of pity as she patted his ankle.

Jon wiggled his foot, sniffed loudly and looked away. The dust from his hair made him sneeze. So, she thought he was mad. He fully agreed with her.

“You’re the one who makes up the music, aren’t you? I listened to you singing and playing. It’s all right to tell me about it. I know you have to be the one who creates it. No one, even Chadwick, can match what you just did.”

What a hypnotic voice she had. And she looked even lovelier than he had realized when he was trying to intimidate her. Her hair, loose from its pins, rippled over her shoulders like a mass of fine gold filament. She had very wide, dark-fringed eyes that reminded him of rich Dutch chocolate. He licked his lips at the thought. The eyes held such pity, though, that it was hard to meet them for any length of time. Her skin gleamed like porcelain, just the right amount of sheen to it. Her small breasts heaved with indignation now—for him, he realized—or at least for who she thought he was.

Jon shook his head to break the spell, but it didn’t work very well. When he squeezed his eyes shut, all he could see were the slender curves of her hips and legs in those too-tight breeches as she crouched beside him.

“No need to pretend with me,” she said sweetly. “What is your name, dear? Can you tell me your name?”

“Pip,” Jon answered reluctantly. It was the first thing that popped into his mind, his father’s childhood name for him, one he hadn’t heard since he was eight years old.

The woman obviously believed him some sort of idiot, from the way she spoke to him. Small wonder. If he had come upon somebody wallowing in the middle of a cavernous ballroom, dressed—no, undressed—the way he was, and in the throes of a musical stupor, he would have thought so, too.

Oh, God, how was he going to get out of this?

No recourse now but to play out the scenario and hope to hell her sympathy was genuine. First, he had to find out how much she had already uncovered about the public Chadwick’s background. This could be tricky, but the alternative of a full admission would definitely be disastrous.

He plucked idly at the Strad’s strings with two fingers. “Where’s Jon?” he mumbled.

She looked vastly relieved that he could string two words together. “Gone again,” she said. “At least his coach was gone when I got here. The place looked deserted, but then I heard you playing, so I came in.”

Ah, so she’d seen the hired conveyance leave, he mused. She’d braved his den believing the bear had left. He wondered for a moment if she might be after more than his life story. The only thing of great value here was his collection of instruments. Only a few knew of his “ladies” and fewer still would know how to go about selling such traceable treasures once they took them. No, she was probably just what she appeared to be, a female writer from a third-rate publication devoted to gossip.

His only hope was to persuade her not to print anything too derogatory. As it stood now, she would either expose him as a horrible pockets-to-let slob with delusions of grandeur, or as a pompous fraud who had enslaved a gifted simpleton and used him to ghostwrite his music. The situation didn’t look good, to say the least.

Play dumb and think. He drew his knees up and rested his head on them, letting his tousled hair curtain both his face and the violin.

“By chance, is Jon your brother? Your eyes look like his.” She explained her assumption with a tender smile. Jon started violently when she touched his head. “Don’t!” he muttered, jerking away.

“I won’t hurt you, Pip,” she crooned. “I can help you.” He faked a shiver. “Go away,” he whispered. With feeling.

She responded immediately by scrambling to her feet. He hoped she would take herself on back to London now and let him be. It would be his word against hers if she guessed the truth. He would sue her frilly drawers off if she printed a single word of this.

And he would still be ruined. Jon sighed heavily.

“Don’t you worry, Pip. You’re coming with me! Come on, get up now. We’re going to find you some clothes and get you out of here. Your brother’s very wrong to make you stay in this dismal place.” She shivered, more with disgust than from a chill. “Aren’t you cold? Are you hungry? Did the wretch think to feed you?”

Jon waved toward a discarded rind of cheese and the remainder of the coarse bread loaf Grandy had left for his midnight supper. He kicked at the empty wine bottle peeking from beneath the first page of the overture. “You eat?”

“Oh, you dear thing! You’d share it, wouldn’t you?” She sighed and squatted down again to lay her hand over his. He thought he detected tears swimming around those rich brown orbs. “Oh, Pip, how can he do this to you?” she moaned.

“Jonny likes me,” he said defensively, thinking a large lie from him was no more damning than allowing her to make up her own. And it was a lie. He certainly didn’t like himself much at the moment. On second thought, he didn’t like himself at all.

She pulled a wry face and sniffed. “No doubt he likes you very well, since you’re making a bloody fortune for him. I simply can’t believe this, even of someone like him.”

Jon felt a small swelling of warmth in his chest at the thought that anyone would really care if he was used and mistreated. Even though she thought him a half-wit, he could tell she meant what she said and wanted to do all she could to right the situation. It had been so long since anyone bothered about his feelings. He couldn’t even recall the last time. However, he reminded himself, in this case he was also the villain of the piece.

The whole predicament was so ridiculous, he felt like laughing. Until he remembered his whole career hinged on whether he could keep up the Pip act and retain her sympathy.

Jon needed to get rid of her so that he could think about this. Keeping his thoughts straight was proving difficult. Lack of sleep and that marvelous scent of hers were making him dizzy.

Lilacs. The fragrance cut right through the smell of his own sweat and the rancid wax of the cheap candles. Even the odor of the mildewed walls retreated behind it. Heady stuff, in spite of its subtlety, maybe because of it. Way too distracting. It made him want to take her to bed. Now? Ha! She’d love that, wouldn’t she! Hell, maybe she would.

“Sleepy?” he asked, blinking up at her stupidly, savoring a wicked inner vision of sharing Kathryn with old Morpheus.

She squatted down very near him and put one of those expressive little hands on his bare shoulder. He felt the heat shoot right through her glove, his skin, and into his bloodstream. God, he was hot. And hard, of all things.

Jon squirmed a little and tried to recall the last time he had bedded a woman. A month? Two? Too long ago, apparently. His appetite never flared up so rapidly as this, at least not since he’d grown old enough to control it. No way to approach her with any kind of proposition now, though, without revealing his identity. He shifted the violin to cover his lap.

“Poor fellow, you look exhausted. Where does he make you sleep?”

Jon let his eyes wander around the chaos of the room and then up. He motioned toward the ceiling.

“Upstairs?” she asked, and took the hand that was still raised to point. “Come on, Pip. I’ll just see you settled for the night and come back with my carriage first thing in the morning. You’ll like where we’re going. All right?” She smiled in a reassuring way and tugged on his hand.

Jon got to his feet rather clumsily; no task to fake, really, considering how long he had gone without sleep. He never got a wink the night before a performance, and tonight’s sudden inspiration had kept him from collapsing afterward. It had been at least forty-eight hours since he rested. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. It might not hinder his creativity, but it certainly didn’t provide a clear head for dealing with disasters.

He ought not to continue this stupid charade. Even in his current muddled state, he knew it was madness. But, hell, almost everything he did was mad.

His mother, his tutors, his old bodyguard; every one of them had always drummed into him the necessity of thinking before he acted. “Look before you leap” had become a litany. So he’d looked. And usually leapt anyway. The failing persisted, in spite of all their best efforts and his well-intentioned promises.

Jon tugged at the fourth finger of his left hand, a crooked reminder of the impulsive act that had almost destroyed his budding career. He massaged the souvenir of the bloody fistfight that had settled the outcome of the wildest horse race in history.

Maman had brought them home to Timberoaks to sell off the paintings and silver. He had been a strapping thirteen then, drunk with freedom in one of those rare, stolen moments away from Maman’s watchful eye. His stallion, Satan’s Imp, had carried him to a closely-won finish with Bick Wallerford. Old Bick had conceded the race only after Jon broke the fellow’s nose with a powerful left hook. An hour or so later, at the sight of his mangled hand, Jon’s mother had collapsed. So had his racing ambitions, when she reminded him of his vow to his dying father. That had been when he knew without doubt his father had made a dreadful mistake, demanding that Jon give total obedience to Maman. The man couldn’t have wanted a son who quailed at a few fisticuffs. Jon had told her as much, and Maman reluctantly agreed.

A lad of his size and build—especially one who admitted to being musically inclined—couldn’t swear off fighting even if he wanted to. Fortunately, Maman had agreed with him and hired a strong dockworker as a bodyguard soon after the incident.

Sato Nagai, a young Japanese expatriate, relished his new post, anglicized his surname, and became Long San. Understanding Jon’s need to fend for himself and yet protect his hands, Long San had taught him to fight with his feet. The method of fighting had come easily to Jon. Learning precaution and avoidance of a confrontation had proved a much harder task, one he wasn’t certain he had mastered even yet.

Judging by his reaction to Kathryn Wainwright and the threat she posed, he must have regressed farther back than lesson one in sidestepping a conflict. He sure as hell had a conflict here. And his well-trained feet weren’t going to help him at all.

Jon laid the Strad and the haphazard stack of music on the table by the door and led the way upstairs to his bedroom. Stumbling over a broken riser, he grunted his frustration and kicked aside the debris that had fallen or been dropped on the stairs during the past few years.

“Good Lord, this place is a wreck!” Kathryn muttered, following in his wake. “I wonder how he would like to have to live in this mess. Poor Pip. Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of you.”

Jon bit his lip to keep from answering. Through her eyes, he noticed the state of the master bedroom when they entered. He rarely paid any attention to the squalor, since his stays were brief and his thoughts glued to his music. The only things he took care with were the tools of his trade—his instruments, his one good suit, and the blasted wig. There was little point in worrying about housekeeping, since he hadn’t the extra cash to hire a cleaning woman. Tidying things up himself had never occurred to him. Until now.

The grayed sheets lay in wadded lumps, mingled with yesterday’s discarded clothing. One drape hung askew, rotted half off its sagging, tarnished rod. A mouse scurried off a blackened apple core and into its hole near the ash-heaped fireplace.

“Whew!” She grimaced and turned away toward the door. “You can’t possibly stay in here. Is there another room furnished?”

Jon nodded, remembering his mother’s chamber. He’d never been welcome there in the best of times. He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t even opened the door, since she died. Five years ago now? Yes, just before his twentieth birthday.

She patted his shoulder. “It’s all right, Pip. Let’s have a look at the other room.”

He dreaded facing memories he had wanted buried along with his mother, but Jon led her down the hallway to the very end. In front of the dusty oak panel, he stopped.

She brushed past him, opened the door and walked right in. “Oh, much better,” she said brightly, and promptly threw open the windows. “Needs to air out, but at least it looks clean.”

Her pert nose wrinkled when she approached him, and he knew very well why. He needed a long, soapy soak in a hot tub, but Jon knew he couldn’t stay awake for it. His lids drooped over what felt like a spoonful of sand in each eye. “So tired,” he exhaled on a sigh, and collapsed on top of the embroidered coverlet of his mother’s tester bed. Maybe if he feigned sleep, she would go away.

Jon felt her efficient little hands tuck something around him as he wriggled out a niche in the softness beneath him. A smile of sweet contentment stretched his lower face. He drifted toward sleep with the feel of her lips on his brow, thinking that at this moment, being Pip was better than being Jon.

Infinitely better.

Morning dawned gray and dreary at the Hare’s Foot Inn. Autumn had arrived overnight. Chill rain plinked on the roof above Kathryn’s head as she drowsed, reluctant to rise just yet.

A sharp staccato of knuckles against the flimsy door roused her fully. Annoyed, she crawled out of bed and dragged the tattered blanket around her like a robe.

“What is it, Thorn?” she answered as she padded to the door and swung it open.

“He’s gone and it’s your fault!” The massive figure of a black-clad Jonathan Chadwick filled the doorway.

“You!” Kathryn blinked sleepily and shrank back from his furious, heavily powdered countenance. “What? Who’s gone?”

“Pip, that’s who!” he thundered, twisting half away from her and then back again, in a frustrated movement that spoke of violence barely leashed. “You frightened him half to death! What makes you think you can prey on him just for the sake of a damned newspaper piece about me? It’s unconscionable, that’s what it is!” He slapped his gloves against a bare palm and pushed past her into the room.

Kathryn exploded, anger bringing her fully alert. “I? I preyed on him? Why, you ill-mannered thief! How dare you accuse me, when you keep the poor boy locked away in that crumbling excuse for a house and steal every note he writes!” She clenched both fists, releasing her grip on the blanket, but she didn’t care. “If I were a man, I’d...”

“But you’re certainly not that, now are you?” he said, leaning his head back and raking her with those piercing blue eyes of his. “Not by a very long chalk.”

“Don’t you try distracting me with your nasty leers,” Kathryn warned, well aware that she stood dreadfully exposed in her flimsy knee-length chemise. “If you think I’m going to let you get away with what you’re doing to your own brother, you are wrong! Dead wrong!”

Chadwick seemed to drop his anger as if it were a wet cloak. He slumped down on the rumpled bed, shaking his head as he looked up at her. “Pip’s not really my brother.”

Kathryn scoffed, crossing her arms across her half-bared bosom. “Of course he is. He looks so much like you, it’s unreal, except of course for the hair and...” Then it dawned on her what he meant. “Oh, I see. He’s your father’s bastard, then?”

The dark head inclined, and he stared at her, nodding slightly. “He’s a bastard, all right.”

Kathryn narrowed her eyes and gave him her sternest look. “You must know what you’re doing is wrong, Chadwick.”

He sighed soulfully. “Yes, I know.” His wonderful hands uncurled, and their long agile fingers lay open in supplication, bearing traces of the powder from his face.

“What would you have me do, Miss Wainwright? Stick him in some crofter’s hut to tend the sheep? Bury his music?” She watched him unfold his large body and pace the confines of the room with a catlike grace. He stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Or I could banish him to Bedlam, where he could while away his days in like company. You tell me what I should do.”