Free Sedition by Katharine Grant

“Thank you, my Annie,” she whispered. “You’re a blessing to me.”
    “Sssssh, Mother,” said Anne. “You’re a blessing to me.”
    “We’re blessings to each other.” Mrs. Cantabile smiled the sweet smile Annie should have inherited. Annie pressed her cheek against her mother’s as she had done since she was a little girl. It was an accommodation they had come to: an acceptable kiss. It made Annie want to howl.

 
    FIVE
    At half past eight, Mrs. Frogmorton was already a cumbersome presence in her drawing room. She kept the drapes shut through some notion of secrecy, though the room was too high for peeping Toms. The lamps hissed. She stood on a chair to turn them down. No need for waste. The fire, stacked high, shed light enough and there were four three-candled candelabra on the pianoforte itself. Monsieur arrived, in brown again, workaday. He gazed with renewed disgust at the room, whose furniture, all depressingly resistant to woodworm, cast shadows as bulky as his employer’s. An old suit of armor hanging between two of the three long windows hinted at a baronial past, the effect rendered comic by the greaves, not a pair, and the helmet stolen from a dressing-up box. A screen embroidered with Chinese dragons nodded to the privacy of the lesson, though Mrs. Frogmorton had ensured it did not completely obstruct her view. The floor was highly polished—no carpet. Monsieur was, for a moment, tempted to skate across it as he had skated on the river when a boy. Instead, he padded over to the pianoforte, removed two of the candelabra, and murmured his condolences to the keyboard. Mrs. Frogmorton stared at the instrument. Square tailed, with pedals angled like a bowlegged girl, it seemed unlikely that such a thing could attract a husband for Harriet. Monsieur Belladroit was soon busy under the pianoforte lid, twisting, tightening, prodding, dusting, stroking. Mrs. Frogmorton sighed. As chaperone, she was stuck here. She gathered Frilly to herself, rang for more coal, and plunged her needle into a small piece of tapestry. She would be bored. She was used to that.
    Marianne arrived. Monsieur set to work. Had Marianne any skill at the keys? Of course, she replied. Then she should play something for him, so he could judge how best to progress. Marianne stopped after two bars of Couperin. “This thing doesn’t make what I call music,” she declared. “It’s all uneven, and so dull. My harpsichord’s much better.”
    “The pianoforte does not make music for you, mademoiselle,” Monsieur agreed. “That we must acknowledge.”
    “Why can’t I just play my harpsichord—or Harriet’s? It’s over there.”
    “With a harpsichord everything you say is the same. With a pianoforte, you may say many different things.”
    “I don’t want to say different things. I’m supposed to say ‘marry me.’ Isn’t that the whole point?” She bashed out the Barricades Mystérieuses .
    Monsieur considered the unmysterious noise she was making. This girl was, and would always be, no more a musician than Mrs. Frogmorton’s dog was an orator. If she played in time, that would have to be enough. As for seduction, yesterday’s anticipation had been optimistic. There could be no pleasure here. Marianne lacked not only delicacy in feature and limb, she lacked any vestiges of girlish charm and her breath was still fuzzy from breakfast. Still, he told himself firmly, she had swellings in the correct places and assisted by silk, lace, and some decent brocade, a clever dressmaker was keeping her just short of impossible. When the time came, he could always close his eyes and hold his nose. He nudged the piano with a sympathetic knee. With luck, Marianne would be the worst. She ground out the final chord.
    “B-flat major is a pleasant key, yes?” said Monsieur.
    Marianne snorted. “You music masters! It’s just a key, like the others. Let’s get on. Where shall we start? I don’t want to be here forever.”
    “Indeed not,