Page 40 of How to Ruin a Duke
“Kkhhhhgg,” contributed Howard.
“Not as quickyet, that’s true.He’ll soon catch on.Ah!There’s the door now.”Through the open study door, Rowena heard their manservant, Jafferty, greeting Simon downstairs.
Though business had slowed a bit since Fairweather’s moved from Bond Street, the lower rent still left them with more available funds—as did the stipend from George IV that had been paid each month since George III, the poor mad monarch, passed away in January.
They’d hired Jafferty soon after their wedding, greatly lessening Alice’s workload.The former maid-of-all-work now served as upper housemaid and an occasional lady’s maid to Rowena.Other servants had been hired for the house and to help Cook, now employed in the house rather than for a mere three days per week.
Rowena’s favorite use for their free funds was the help she’d been able to give Nanny.After arranging a pension, she and Simon had found a block of rooms nearby for Nanny and her old friend Mrs.Newland in a house formerly owned by a man who used a wheelchair.Instead of the steps that were so difficult for the aging women, one reached the ground-floor rooms with a gentle ramp from the street.Rowena also gave Nanny a magnifying lens for reading, and she’d bought the two women a subscription to a circulating library.
“It’s too much,” Nanny had protested, her round face marked with tears.
But it wasn’t.When someone had shown a body how to live a confident life, the least one could do in return was give her the means to enjoy the books she loved.
Rowena and Simon were also setting money aside for the future.One day the king might halt the stipend.One day Rowena and Simon might choose to stop working.Or they might need to for reasons of health, like Mrs.Newland and Nanny.Or there might be more children.
“Though not yet, please,” Rowena said to Howard, melding thought and conversation.“You’re a delight, but you don’t sleep nearly enough.Babies are supposed to nap during the day.You’ve got to work on that.”
“Mg,” replied the baby.Cotton dozed on.
Simon rapped at the doorframe.“Hullo, dears.Rowena, want me to finish reconciling the accounts?You could work on your violin.”
“What a lovely offer.”She rose from her chair and gathered her husband in her arms, inhaling his fresh scent of soap and bergamot—and of cut wood and coal smoke, the smells of a Londoner who’d spent hours in the luthier workshop and then walked outdoors.“I’ll happily turn over the accounts to you, though I’ve nearly finished.Your skull-cracker personage might need to pursue only one or two outstanding debts.”
“Excellent.”Simon gave her a hearty kiss on the lips, then grinned with unholy mischief.“It’s nice to be manly and aggressive every once in a while.”
Besides skull-cracking, which in reality consisted of assertive individual reminders, Simon had taken on most of the shop’s other administrative tasks.He made clever advertising cards for the windows.He visited theaters to consult with the orchestras’ string players—and sometimes, even, he played his horn.He checked printmakers’ shops for the latest fashions and scandals and made window displays based on them.
And most happily for Rowena, he’d learned to tune pianofortes over the past long, laborious year.Today marked the first occasion he’d done the tuning completely on his own, after the couple had carried out dozens of tunings together.
“How did the tuning go?”Rowena asked.“I hope you didn’t find it deadly dull.”
Simon laughed.“Not at all.I liked it, though it took me twice as long as you’d have needed.I’ll improve eventually.And the footmen gossiped with me the whole time, and the housekeeper brought me tea and biscuits.”
“How lucky of you!I rarely get tea.The gossip is by far my favorite part of tuning a pianoforte.”
“If that’s the only part you like, you needn’t do it anymore.Eventually I’ll get quicker at the job, and I’ll pass along all the interesting news I hear.Such as a few rumors about our new majesty.Lady Templeton’s footman says the king is renovating Buckingham House for his use as a palace, and he’s planning a month of festivities for his coronation.He’ll be needing a lot of string players, and they’ll be needing a lot of repairs.”
“Wonderful news.Though the coronation’s about a year away, so we shouldn’t count those chickens yet.”
“Aaaaa,” added Howard.
“Speaking of chickens.”Simon released his wife, crossed to the cradle, and swooped up the baby.“Look who’s stayed awake again, hmm?Go on, Ro, work on your violin.I’ve got this little one, at least until he’s hungry.”
One more kiss for each of her fellows, and Rowena was off.Down to the ground floor, where the formal parlor had been fitted to her specifications as a workshop.Here she carried out all the repairs, her time freed by Simon’s work on other aspects of the business.And when she’d caught up on repairs, she worked on her violin—a slow process as she experimented with each wood, each varnish.She even tinkered with dimensions, as Guarneri had once done.
At present, she was working on a new piece: a small platform to position the chin, so the instrument wouldn’t need to be pinched in place between the chin and shoulder.If she could get the material and position and size correct, the left arm would be freed to extend brightly up the whole length of the strings.
Just because something had always been done a certain way didn’t mean she couldn’t try something different.Maybe it would turn out wonderfully; maybe it would be a disaster.But it would be her way, and she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
She had a loving husband and a distracting but darling baby.She had the help of trustworthy servants.She had an apprentice, even.Thirteen-year-old Amelia Howard attended a prestigious London girls’ school, Mrs.Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, then stayed in Rowena and Simon’s Marylebone house over the weekend to work with Rowena on Saturdays.
It was a full home, a shop serving its purpose.It was everything Rowena had always wanted Fairweather’s to be.
Of course, she still kept her library subscription.When she and Simon read Gothic novels together, they knew that whatever happened in the books was ridiculous—but whatever happened in life, they could handle together.
