Page 6

Papa, je suis désolé.1

1. Father, forgive me.

2

Vulgar

Evander

The toastmaster’s voice slithers between the beams and the polished wax of the floors, oily, measured, without a single tremor.

“Lords and ladies, Evander Marcel Gideon Rochefort, Viscount Rochefort.”

A soulless echo.

I seize the bow and set it upon the strings. The vibrations respond, sharp and clear, without hesitation.

Everything is in its place.

I close my eyes and allow Bach’s Prelude to take breath.

The audience vanishes, the ballroom dissolves, nothing remains but the wood, faithful to my will.

The fingers speak what the mouth must keep silent.

The sequence thickens, growing denser, swifter. My shirt clings to my back, sweat trickles from my temple and disappears behind my ear. I increase the pressure of the bow upon the bass strings. I feel the sound vibrate in my sternum, then in my thighs, where the cello presses against me. I open my eyes for a fleeting moment.

The room seems suspended in time, there is no movement, not a single breath. I sense the weight of their gazes upon my hands.

One, in particular, reaches me. Hot and insistent against my skin.

Too insistent.

A shiver courses down my spine, reaching my thighs. I tighten my grip upon the bow as I clasp the cello, the wood groaning under the pressure.

That gaze does not release me.

Who is it?

The notes continue, long and low, but the movements slow. When the bow finally lifts from the last string, the audience wavers between distance and a ravenous curiosity.

In the front row, the elder notables sit rigid. Beside them are the Duke and Duchess of Winterbourne, the evening’s hosts: Alaric, a commanding presence, and his wife Maurielle, who scours the room with hungry, hazel eyes.

One would say she has found another creature to hunt.

Further along, my mother maintains an impeccable posture, her back straight and hands clasped in her lap. In the central rows, I discern Reverend Joseph Fallow; he appears somewhat ill at ease, his fingers tracing nervously over the wooden cross at his throat.

I still sense that insistent gaze from before. I attempt to discern its direction, yet everything appears as it always does.

The rest of the ballroom still pulses with the thunder of applause, but I perceive it from a distance, filtered through the thrumming in my temples. I take a few steps back and lean the cello against the wall.

Now comes the tide of adulation.

As I reach the ballroom floor, the first to step forward is the Marquess of Houghton, Frederick Brownell.

“Viscount, your father had a singular way of making the soul vibrate... and you are granting him a legacy that none can ignore.”

“I thank you, Marquess.”