The Baron Next Door (Prelude to a Kiss) Read Online Free PDF

question for you.”
    Sophie cocked her head, allowing dappled sunlight to kiss her cheeks. “Yes?”
    “What on earth will we play for the recital?”
    An excellent question. Charity had almost forgotten their whole reason for being together. She didn’t even attempt to search her brain for a composition tailored for a pianoforte, oboe, and zither trio; she was positive such a thing didn’t exist. And for good reason. An odder pairing, she couldn’t imagine.
    She closed her eyes, heedless of what the others would think of her, and listened for the music that came to her when she was quiet. It had always been her gift. She composed because the music wanted her to write it, not because she wished to capture it. It couldn’t be created, only heard—recognized and recorded as it came to her.
    As she listened, soft strains teased the back of her mind, but nothing distinct enough to capture. It was like trying to look at a dim star. Sometimes one had to focus on something else before it would come clearly into view.
    “I think Charity may have given up on us,” Sophie teased in a stage whisper. “But I have no doubt something brilliant will come to us—or, rather,
her.
She’s quite a marvelous composer.”
    Charity’s eyes popped open. “You know?” Her compositions were little known to others. Mama believed it very ill-bred for her to think herself better than the masters. It was so frustrating because it had nothing to do with her feelings toward the masters, and everything to do with giving voice to the music inside her. So for years, Charity pretended to play from the music books her mother supplied her, all the while playing her own creations. Fortunately for her, Mama couldn’t read music, and Charity sprinkled in just enough of the boring songs to avoid suspicion.
    Sophie put a hand to her hip. “Yes, of course. I’m a musician, after all. I may not play as masterfully as you, but I am exceedingly well educated in the art. I daresay I could recognize your pieces no matter who was performing them—you have a very developed personality, musically speaking.”
    “I think,” May said, grinning broadly, “that I am very lucky to have fallen in with you two prodigies. I just know we shall come up with something inspired.”
    Charity wasn’t nearly so confident. The thought of having the committee laugh at them was daunting indeed. Her music was the one thing for which she could always count on a positive response. She pursed her lips, weighing the need to do well with the desire to embrace the chance to truly befriend these women. “I certainly hope so.”
    “Just you wait,” May said, her voice entirely confident. “We shall be absolutely brilliant. If for no other reason than to prove that dreadful clerk wrong for ever trying to repress the pair of you.”
    Charity straightened her spine, drawing on the strength of the women beside her. She was done with people trying to repress her. Be it the gossips, her parents, the clerk, or the awful Baron Cadgwith, this was her summer and she would
not
be talked down to.
    She pursed her lips, once again distracted by the man that would be her neighbor for the next few months. He clearly thought himself above her. Men like that were little more than bullies. She looked at the other two women, with their confident smiles and clear ability to attract trouble. They would be the perfect allies this summer.
    “Right you are, May,” she said with a decisive nod. “And I’d be more than happy to offer up my house as a place to practice.”
    *   *   *
    Promptly at ten, Hugh stood outside one of nearly two dozen identical white doors that dotted the curving row of homes on Lansdown Crescent. Surely he had the wrong address. He double-checked the brass numbers glinting in the flickering lamplight. It was definitely the address provided.
    He glanced again to the brightly lit second-story windows, where the sounds of conversation and music could clearly be heard,