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tempo was
moderato
; perhaps she should aim for somewhere in between?
    A cough from somewhere in the back of the room jolted Bridget’s fingers, and she missed the F-sharp at the bottom of a long string of eighth notes, turning the entire run sour.
    No, this mustn’t happen. I can do this.
    . . . Can’t
I?
    At the refrain, she felt like it was a new start. But so much had come before it, it was impossible to undo all the damage. It was like a snowball rolling downhill—only getting larger and larger in her mind, a number of little mistakes adding up. Henrietta’s giggle, Bridget messing up the tempo, Lord Merrick telling her that Carpenini wasn’t coming . . .
    Carpenini wasn’t coming.
    Another note missed, another half rest not held right. Basic music, things taught to children in the nursery, was abandoning Bridget. Until finally, she could not take it anymore.
    The piece still had sixteen measures left to it. But they didn’t matter.
    She lifted her fingers from the keys as if they burned.
    “I’m sorry,” she croaked out, with tears in her eyes.
    And then, before she could see her mother’s dismay, Lady Worth’s disappointment, Henrietta Chatsworth’s glee, or Lord Merrick’s pity, Bridget ran from the room.

    That night, as Bridget lay awake in bed, her wretchedness acute, Mother Nature decided she agreed wholeheartedly with the ton, and that it was futile for Bridget to continue the farce of being a London debutante, and delivered that second thing that would in quick succession forever alter Bridget’s life.
    She dropped a tree on their house.

Three
    “W ELL, this cannot possibly get anyworse!” Lady Forrester cried as they surveyed the damage the next morning.
    The tree in question—usually standing strong and elegant on the edge of the square, just across the thin street from the Forresters’ front door—thanks to the thick ice weighing down its branches and a suspiciously strong breeze that had exploited a weakness within the tree’s trunk, now resided in the drawing room of the Forrester house.
    “I tell you, my dear, I have absolutely had it!” Lady Forrester continued huffing to her husband. Lord Forrester stood in the doorway to the drawing room next to his daughters, staring into the wreckage while stroking his mustache in a nervous habit. Lady Forrester was working herself up into a good lather. The crash that had come in the wee hours of the morning had awoken the entire household, but only now, after the sun was well up, were they able to properly assess the damage.
    The two large framed windows facing the street in the drawing room were completely smashed in, broken glass mixing with melting ice and shards of wood from the window frames. Additionally, the masonry work of the Forrester town house must have been atrociously shoddy, since parts of the stone facade and bits of wall littered the now utterly ruined carpet, too.
    “How could we have possibly been living in a house as badly constructed as this one?” Bridget’s mother cried, as she paced. “We should take the builders to court!”
    “Considering the house was built sometime before George the Third’s ascension, I doubt the builders are still alive, my dear,” Lord Forrester replied, but a swift kick from his youngest daughter, Amanda, stilled him from making further comment. A look passed between them told Bridget it was best to not poke the grumpy bear.
    The grumpy bear in question shot her husband a dangerous look as she continued gesticulating from the doorway. None of the family had been allowed in the drawing room until all of the broken glass could be cleaned up, and thus they were relegated to the hall outside.
    “Look at the mess! It looks like a cannon fired through the house!”
    “That’s only because you refuse to wear your spectacles,” Lord Forrester muttered, and received swift kicks from both his daughters. “Er, I mean, my love, it’s not that bad. Just a few broken windows. We will simply