Penniless and Purchased Read Free

been her biggest enthusiast, from the moment her primary school music teacher had said she really should have piano lessons. From then onher father had paid willingly for anything and everything that developing her talent, such as it was, required. Oh, she was no musical genius. She knew that, accepted that. So very few musicians were, and, considering how incredibly hard it was even for the exceptionally gifted to make a living, she didn’t envy them. No, she was perfectly content being talented, dedicated—and amateur. Besides, she made rueful the acknowledgement that she was in the highly privileged position of not having to earn a living. Even when she left college she could continue with her music without any thought of having to make it pay in any way. She would play for pleasure—and other people’s, too, she hoped.
    Certainly her father loved to listen to her. Again, a rueful smile tugged at her lips. He might be her biggest fan, but his ear was not musical.
    ‘Oh, Daddy, that’s Handel, not Bach!’
    She heard herself laugh affectionately in her memory.
    ‘Whatever you say, Sophie, pet, whatever you say,’ Edward Granton would reply indulgently.
    Yes, indulgence was definitely the word when it came to her, his daughter, Sophie knew. But although she knew she was the apple of his eye she had never taken advantage of it other than to pursue her music. Besides…a tiny glint of sadness shadowed in her eyes…she knew why her father wanted to indulge her so.
    She was all he had.
    Her memories of her mother were dim, almost non-existent. She could remember her singing, that was all, a low, clear voice, lulling her to sleep as an infant.
    ‘That’s where you get your music from,’ her father would tell her, over and over again. ‘Your wonderful, wonderful mother.’ Then he would sigh, and Sophie’s heart would squeeze with terrible sadness.
    So she let him spoil her, for he loved to do so, and she could not deprive him of what gave him so much pleasure. She tried very hard not to be spoilt, though she knew that compared with many of the other students, she was. Her father could pay the music college fees without blinking, never burdening her with student loans or the like. She could continue to live at home, in the beautiful house in Holland Park, and have a first-class instrument to practise on, and her clothes were always beautiful because her father liked to see her look pretty.
    ‘You’re so like your mother, pet,’ he would say. ‘She’d be so proud of you. As proud as I am.’
    Well, she wanted her father to be proud of her, wanted to see him smiling at her. Another little frown flickered across her brow. Her father’s smiles hadn’t been as forthcoming for the past few months, ever since her birthday, really, she supposed. Oh, he wasn’t cross or grumpy—it was more that he seemed…preoccupied. As if things were on his mind.
    She’d asked him once, when his brow had seemed particularly drawn. But all he’d said to her had been, ‘Oh, just the market…the market. Things will pick up again. They always do. They go in cycles.’
    For a while she’d been worried about him. But then she’d had exams coming up, and all her focus had been on them. When she’d surfaced on the other side of the exams it had been the vacation, and she’d had a chance to visit Vienna on a college trip. She’d grabbed it with both hands, and, though her father had blinked a moment when she’d said how much it would cost, he’d handed her a cheque to cover it all the same.
    The trip had been every bit as wonderful as she’d known it would be, and so had the extra excursion to Salzberg, which she hadn’t been able to resist signing up for, even if had cost a lot. But it had been worth it. She’d brought her father backa huge box of Mozartkugeln to show her appreciation. He’d thanked her with the air of preoccupation that still seemed to be his dominant mood, and listened absently while she’d regaled him