Secrets of a Soprano (20 page)

*

Max spoke with
hesitation and his words were awkward. Yet examining his face, his once dear face, Tessa accepted their sincerity. Unspoken of course was what he believed of her now. She had long pretended to herself that Domenico’s creation of La Divina the amorous adventurer was no great matter, merely a necessary part of her success in the world. She realized she resented it, and never more so than now, when the only man whose love she’d ever craved had heard and believed every tale spread by her husband. The sculptural planes of his severe features were immobile; Max had never been a man whose emotions were written on his face. Yet the dark eyes expressed genuine contrition and regarded her with an anxiety she felt compelled to assuage.

As he looked down at her, awaiting her response, he raised a fist and rested his chin on the knuckles, close to his wide, well-formed lips. She recalled his firm, sensitive hands on her bare skin, caressing her through the silk of his dressing robe, and that mouth claiming hers. Such a short time ago, yet it seemed an age during which the affair of the hospital benefit had interrupted a rapprochement of sorts. Then their ardor had been tempered by their mutual anger about the past. Now that issue had been put to rest for both of them. Neither could be blamed for anything save the mistakes of extreme youth.

She fought an impulse to touch his cheek. Too much had intervened to make it possible to reclaim the past. The moment she’d stepped into this house she’d known in the back of her mind that she and Max were worlds apart. Even could her reputation be repaired, an inconceivable outcome, the heir to all this magnificence would never stoop to wed an opera singer. The very idea had been nothing but the impractical dream of an inexperienced boy. Besides, even if a fairy godmother could banish all other differences with the wave of her wand, Tessa was irreparably damaged inside. After Domenico she could never make a satisfactory wife. Barring Max at the entrance to her heart was essential to her sanity.

Moving backwards a step, as though physical distance could induce mental detachment, she noticed a hint of distress replace the anxiety in his eyes. She remembered Jacobin’s remarks about men needing approval when they troubled to apologize. And truly she felt no further need to punish Max.

“That’s very handsome of you. I accept your apology for Oporto.”

He smiled tentatively.

“As for the rest, I understand that this evening’s event is your effort to set things right. I’m not unappreciative.”

His entire body relaxed and the smile became wholehearted. “Thank you, it was the least I could do to make up for my unconscionable behavior,” he said, and kissed her hand with a warmth and grace that soothed her battered heart.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself just now.” For once there was no trace of edge in his tone.

She smiled back at him. “I was, and I hadn’t expected to. Lady Clarissa knows how to give a good party. This is a beautiful house. Did you grow up here?”

“Here, and on my grandfather’s estate. Tamworth is the place I regard as home. As for this house?” He rolled his eyes north to the gilt coffered plasterwork lavished on even a minor reception room. “I’ve always found it too large and too ornate for comfort. I prefer to live on a modest scale.”

Sternly refusing to dwell on any details of her visit to Max’s house save those relating to interior decoration, she ventured a tease.

“Modest compared to this, perhaps. But I couldn’t help noticing a flair for drama in the furnishing of your home.”

“Really? Are you referring to the tapestries in the hall, or the bed hangings? You didn’t see enough of the house to admire the dark red and orange library.”

“Red and orange? How very brave of you.”

“I seem to have a taste for drama. No doubt why I am drawn to opera.” His eyes raked her body, lingering almost imperceptibly at her low bodice, and falling to the floor where gold slippers peeped out beneath the gold-encrusted hem of her satin gown. “Your gown is superb. Is it the work of a theatrical costumier?”

Tessa told herself his question was innocent, merely the natural curiosity of a man who was involved in the business of theater. But she wanted to squirm with embarrassment. How she wished she were garbed in the kind of understated attire she’d noticed on the backs of those proper young ladies Max had mingled with earlier. She hated—hated—this garment. It was one of the last Domenico had picked out before his death. Paying for it had taken a substantial portion from the sale of her jewelry.

*

He’d upset her
again, though why a simple compliment on her dress should cause that look of discomfort Max couldn’t imagine.

“Is there a place you call home, Tessa?” he asked, to change the subject.

“I had a small house at Busetto where we stayed during the times when I had no engagement. Quite an ordinary little town but peaceful.” She emitted a ghost of a sigh. “Most of the time there’s an opera season somewhere so I was never there as much as I would have liked. Sometimes it seems most of my life has been spent in carriages and hotels. Domenico liked to keep me busy.”

Curiosity about the motives of Domenico Foscari aside, Max wondered what had happened to all the money Tessa earned. And tried not to regret that he hadn’t spent the past decade traipsing around Europe with her, a life that sounded much more interesting than his own.

“Yet you never came to London before?” he asked, recalling Simon’s impression that Foscari had deliberately avoided England.

“Domenico always refused offers from the theaters here. I suppose they weren’t rich enough.”

“What changed your mind, once you were widowed?” He had a moment’s mad hope that she’d come to find him.

“Mr. Mortimer offered me a good contract.”

“More than you could have made in Paris or Vienna? I find that hard to believe.”

“I had another reason.”

“Yes?” He leaned forward.

She delayed answering and the flicker of hope became a physical presence in his chest.

Finally she nodded, as though making a decision. “I want to find my father’s family,” she said.

He rocked back on his heels. “I see,” he said. He looked around the familiar room a little wildly, composing his disappointed thoughts. “Don’t you know where they are?”

Tessa seemed blissfully unaware of his discomfiture. “I don’t even know
who
they are. My father never spoke of them. When I asked once, he told me his father had disowned him and the whole family remained estranged.”

“Your father was a wine merchant, I believe.”

“Yes, but only from necessity.” She smiled wryly. “And not a successful one. His interests were scholarly and I know he attended Cambridge, but not much else.”

“Then how do you propose to find your relations?’

“I have one possible line of inquiry.”

“Tell me about it.” He almost held his breath waiting for her response. It seemed terribly important she should confide in him.

She described the discovery of a letter, just a copy, from her husband, rebuffing the efforts of someone in Bristol to find her. Her narrative was delivered simply, without commentary on Domenico Foscari’s denial of her identity. The omission spoke volumes. Neither did he refer to her husband, though a number of questions sprang to mind. Instead he listened, asking for occasional clarification and committing the details to memory.

“I have no idea,” she concluded, and she sounded despondent, “how to trace Mr. Smith without an expensive investigation.”

He wondered if she realized how revealing this statement was. Had he not good reason to believe her in financial difficulties, his obvious response would be to recommend the engagement of a Bow Street Runner. But he wouldn’t embarrass her. She had suffered, he thought with slow-burning anger, far too much embarrassment at the hands of her husband.

“I am glad you told me about it,” he said instead. “Let me think about it and I will let you know if a solution occurs to me.”

She murmured her thanks and they stood in silence for some time while he relapsed into reflection, his thoughts straying from the subject of her lost family to the state of his own tangled emotions.

He was, he very much feared, still infatuated with Tessa, a state of mind that promised no possibility of a happy ending. So much time and so much history had intervened since they’d been innocent children. Marriage was out of the question. Even if he set aside what she had become, he couldn’t ignore what he owed to his family and name to wed a notorious singer.

He could pursue her as a mistress. In a sense that’s what he’d been doing ever since they parted: seeking her replacement from the ranks of opera singers. But would she have him? She claimed to have loved him once, and he believed her, but that was long ago. The girl he’d known and loved no longer existed, any more than he was still an eager boy. Although it hadn’t been his fault, he’d killed her love when he left her.

She broke into his gloom. “I must go to Sempronio. It is time to warm up my voice for the recital, short though it may be.”

“Of course. Let me escort you.”

He raised his arm and prepared to return her to her accompanist, to the world where she belonged and where he couldn’t join her. The room around him came back into focus and he became aware of its other inhabitants. Montelli was at the piano, playing a Mozart sonata with extraordinary lucidity and haunting emotion to an enraptured audience gathered around the instrument. Lady Clarissa and Simon Lindo were deep in conversation in another corner. Simon had done his job well. Yet he couldn’t help a twinge of uneasiness. God only knew what his mother was up to, what information she was extracting from Simon, and what she planned to do with it.

A footman entered the room followed by another guest, one quite familiar to Max. Clad in the continental fashion, the man’s close-fitting, high-cut trousers and skin-tight coat and
gilet
were designed to stress his height and muscular physique. Dark hair, expertly cut, framed well-chiseled features and set off gleaming blue eyes and very white teeth. From the corner of his eye Max saw his mother come forward to greet the newcomer but his concentration was on Tessa’s expression. One of surprise, pleased or not he couldn’t tell, then carefully assumed neutrality. Whatever she felt for this vision of masculine splendor it wasn’t indifference.

“Monsieur Edouard Delorme,” the footman announced.

“With little astonishment we learn that Madame Foscari’s lack of generosity extends to the good English singers of the Tavistock company. Cruel disparagement and displays of temper are the lot of those forced to share the stage with Madame F.”

The Morning Post

“M
a chère Thérèse
!” Having greeted his hostess with a sweeping obeisance to the hand and a few lavish compliments in broken English, Edouard Delorme took Tessa by the shoulders and saluted her on each cheek. “
Quelle joie de te voir
.”

Tessa suffered his touch, though she’d sooner embrace a scorpion. “Edouard,” she murmured. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

The tenor rattled on in rapid French. “You should have let me know where you are living in London. I would have called.”

“My residence has, of course, been a big secret.”

“You are upset with me,
chérie
. We have meant so much to each other. But now I shall call. Do not worry.”

As though his absence would disturb her for a single second!

“
Ne te dérange pas
,” she said, unclenching her teeth. “But we must speak English, Edouard. It is not polite to our fellow guests.” She guessed that most of those observing the meeting were capable of following a conversation in French, but knowing the tenor’s work habits she doubted he’d troubled to prepare for his London engagement by thoroughly studying the local language. Her superior knowledge gave her a much-needed advantage.

He flashed a smile at the gathered observers and seemed not a whit discomposed. “I do not speak the English so good. Not like you.
Mais je fais l’effort
.”

Lady Clarissa cut into the exchange. “You know each other, I see. Have you sung together?”