"Yes."
"You cannot interrupt a public performance because of personal resentment."
Matilda held his gaze. "I have no wish to interrupt the music." She looked toward the program in his hand. "Only the false name attached to it."
The room quieted. Hester's face tightened. "Enough. You are humiliating yourself."
"No," Matilda said. "I have done that long enough for other people's comfort."
She walked to the closed pianoforte and placed the wooden box on its polished surface. Then she opened it. The ivory satin slipper lay inside, faintly stained where blood had dried into the fabric. Several guests leaned forward; Hester went still. Matilda lifted the slipper and placed it beside the printed program bearing Hester's name.
"The night His Grace first noticed me, I was playing this music."
Hester's voice cut through the room: "This is grotesque!"
Matilda did not look at her. "I was also bleeding. Neither fact seemed important enough for anyone to ask who was paying the price."
Silence followed: not the empty silence of shock—a listening silence.
Matilda turned toward the audience. "The slipper is not proof that I composed the Fantasia. It is proof of what I was willing to endure while someone else accepted praise for it. The proof of authorship is elsewhere."
Beckham laughed once. "At last, something sensible. Then perhaps we can dispense with theatrics."
Robert's expression hardened, but he remained where Matilda had placed him.
She looked at Mrs. Albright. The widow brought forward the folder; Matilda opened it.
"This is the incomplete printer's proof supplied through Mr. Beckham's office," she held it up. "It ends before the final variation."
Beckham lifted his chin. "Because final corrections were still pending."
"From whom?"
He did not answer at once.
Matilda continued: "This is an earlier rehearsal copy in my hand. It contains the passage Mr. Ellison was taught months before Mrs. Dracott publicly claimed the piece."
Mr. Ellison stood. "That is true."
Beckham turned toward him. "A musician's memory is hardly conclusive."