Annie Potter has been sneaking into Woodglen Hall, seat of the absent Duke of Glenmoor, for months, using a window the steward kindly leaves open for her. She comes to lose herself in the duke’s grand piano forte, an antidote to her miserable life in her uncles vicarage. A week ago a stranger interrupted her, but she escaped. If her uncle knew, he would forbid it, and he had ways of enforcing his will.
Annie found a new piece on the stand above the keyboard. How odd. Had someone else been playing? She had never seen this composition at Woodglen, or anywhere else. A “nocturne,” it said. The notion pleased her.
She had come, certain the stranger would have gone on his way by the end of the week, but wary. If one visitor came to the manor, there could be another. Picking her way through the piece for the first time, she found it idea. A soft sound for the quiet of night. The second time went more smoothy. By the third she soared.
The very softness of the gentle piece gave her a sense of privacy, as if locked in a magic world of her own. Gone was the pressure of performing for an audience. Gone was the fear of Uncle Virgil’s censure. Gone was the risk of discovery. There was only the music and the night balm for her beleaguered soul, the reason she came.
Lost in that world, she didn’t realize she was no longer alone. When the final arpeggios faded away, she sat back with a sigh. A sound, however, as soft as the music, an indrawn breath perhaps, drew her attention to the doorway. When had it opened.
A man holding a candle, his face lost in shadows, stood there watching. She leapt to her feet almost knocking over the bench, and took a step backward.
“Don’t go!” the man said.
Anger flared in Annie. How dare he invade my world. How dare he destroy my time. She inched backward toward the open window, ready to break into a run.
The shadowed man took a step into the room, the flickering light of his candle giving him a sinister appearance. “Please stay.”
Fear pushed anger aside. “Don’t come near me.” She bumped against the window. “Leave me be.” She turned to climb out.
“Annie, no!” He shouted.
The worst fear took hold, and she tipped her head back and shouted back. “Please don’t tell my uncle. I beg you.”
She climbed over and ran into the night, running from the footsteps she her following her across the room. She slipped through the hedge before she heard his cry from the window, one pulled from his very center. “Lucia!”
She swallowed the sob that threatened to choke her. Lucia? Lucia is dead.