He set the new title pages down. "Then copy these before morning."
Matilda looked at the top sheet: A New Fantasia by Mrs. Hester Dracott. Beneath it, in smaller type, was the date of the York preview. Her stomach tightened. "I won't copy that title."
Beckham's face went still. Robert said nothing; Matilda felt his attention, but not his interference.
Beckham spoke carefully: "You are employed to prepare manuscripts."
"I am employed to prepare music."
"Do not become difficult."
"I am becoming precise."
"You owe your position to Mrs. Dracott."
Matilda met his eyes. "That does not make her the composer."
Silence. Beckham's expression changed completely: the polished publisher vanished; what remained was cold calculation. "Be careful, Miss Dracott."
"I am." She closed the score. "For the first time in years."
Beckham glanced at Robert and recovered his smile. "Perhaps fatigue is affecting her judgment."
Robert answered lightly: "Perhaps clarity is affecting yours."
Beckham's smile disappeared again. He gathered the title pages, but left one behind. "The York preview will proceed."
Matilda looked at him. "With an unfinished work?"
"With or without your cooperation." He turned and left; the door closed.
Matilda stared at the abandoned page bearing Hester's name. Robert moved no closer. "What will you do?" he asked.
She looked at the unfinished variation, then at the blank title page beside it. For years, other people had answered that question for her: Hester, Beckham, necessity, fear. This time, she placed the printed false title facedown. Then she took one handwritten page from the score, folded it carefully, and slipped it inside her reticule. It contained a variation no printed proof had ever seen.
"I will keep something that is mine," she said.
Robert looked at the reticule, then at her face. "A beginning."
Matilda rested one hand on the closed score. "Perhaps."
The following morning, Beckham announced that a private preview would be held in York within the week. Hester smiled as though victory had already been arranged. Matilda stood in her plain black shoes and understood the truth at once: the next attack would not happen behind a closed door. It would happen before witnesses powerful enough to decide with a few murmured words whether she was a composer, a copyist, or a woman who had reached above her station and deserved to fall.