Secrets of a Soprano (25 page)

Tessa doubled over,
hands pressed to her mouth, and found a swirling haze of black smoke masking her feet. A blast of heat struck her back and terror seized her, her escape plan vaporized from her mind.

I’m going to die
, she thought.
I’m going to burn like Joan of Arc.
A sob racked her grated throat. Stiff as a gouty old man, she straightened her back and looked upward. The flies were on fire. A burning beam swung loose from its ropes and descended, slow as the stateliest largo.

Paralyzed, unable to move an inch, she didn’t want to see the instrument of her demise. Saying a silent last prayer, she peered into the auditorium. If only everyone had escaped … Then a figure appeared through the smoke, a dark angel come to take her to death.

*

A fiery beam
was falling right over Tessa as Max crashed through the instruments of the orchestra.

“Jump, Tessa!” he cried. But she didn’t hear, or move.

Kicking aside everything in his path, he stepped onto the tight vellum membrane of a timpanum and seized her around the legs. She slumped over his shoulder and he staggered backward until he lost his balance, landing with a mouthful of velvet and his back against something sharp.

An incoherent croak emerged from her throat and somehow she managed to get her arms about his neck.

The stage had turned into an inferno as burning beams and rolled backcloths rained from the flies. The main curtains and the old wooden proscenium arch were fully engaged by flames.

“Come, we need to move,” he urged, trying to loosen Tessa’s death grip. “Come on, love, it’s time to go.”

Terrified beyond reason or movement, she refused to be dislodged, clinging and moaning through bouts of coughing. Murmuring words of reassurance, he pushed away her weight, struggled to his feet and helped her up.

“Up you go,” he coaxed, lifting her over the low orchestra wall and scooping up the train of her gown as he followed. “Can you run?” He snatched her hand, dragged her to the aisle and back towards the exit. If any lights remained, they did nothing to pierce the black smoke that filled the chamber. He ran blind, on instinct alone, knowing only that he had to keep hold of Tessa or lose her in the impenetrable darkness. His lungs burned but he dared not stop. He closed his mouth tight and clenched his nostrils against the invading fumes. Time enough to breathe when they reached clear air.

Her hand slipped from his grasp and he sensed her fall. Heedless of her weight, he hefted her onto his shoulder and staggered on. Mercifully he found the single door out of the auditorium and burst into the lobby.

Still clutching Tessa, he fell to his knees and sucked in welcome gulps of air.

“Is she alive?” Somerville pulled Tessa’s limp body off his back. Max labored to stand up and pulled her back into his own arms.

“Tessa,” he croaked. “Tessa. Wake up, love, wake up.” He feared his heart would stop.

Her head lolled on his shoulder but she opened her eyes, glazed with fear, and managed a nod. Max had never felt such exquisite relief in his life.

“Did everyone get out?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks to her,” replied the marquess. “Without her the theater would never have been safely cleared. We’re the last. I came back to find you. Now let’s go.”

Frightened people thronged the street. Several fire engines had arrived on the scene, but none of the water pumps were yet working and there seemed to be an argument going on among the firemen.

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Max asked.

Somerville looked grim. “It seems the theater management failed to make payments to the fire insurance company. They are only agreeing to work at the insistence of owners of the neighboring buildings.”

A loud bang drowned his words and a column of fire erupted from the roof of the theater, reaching high into the sky and lighting the street as though it were noon.

“I don’t think it matters,” Max said. “Nothing can save it now.”

*

Tessa stood within
the circle of Max’s arm, her head against his chest, the steady beat of his heart assuring her that she was, miraculously, alive. Beyond rational thought or independent movement, she’d been half-carried out of the lobby. Aroused from her state of shock by the noise and glare, she tried to speak.

“S…” Not a sound emerged. She followed Max’s gaze to the conflagration in the sky. No one left in the theater could possibly survive.

She tugged on his shoulder with her free hand.

At once he looked down, his eyes and voice gentle and concerned. “What is it? How do you feel?”

“So-fie,” she managed to articulate in a husk. “Sem… Sem…”

“Sempronio? You want to know what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Montelli.”

She nodded. “An-ge-la.”

“And your maid?” She nodded again.

“Somerville. Do you know what happened to those backstage?”

“I’ll find out,” Somerville said. “Stay here with Madame Foscari, Max. She doesn’t look in any condition to move.”

“We’ll wait across the street. We’re too close to the fire here.”

Max led her to the front steps of a building and helped her to sit. She nestled close to him on their stone perch, her arms rigid bands about his chest. Her frozen mind knew only one thing: as long as she held on to Max she was safe. She concentrated on that fact, shying away from her anxiety about the others. Without them she was truly alone in the world.

“Your friends are well.” Somerville had returned. “I saw Nancy and she says everyone escaped.”

Something loosened in her chest and she burst into dry, overwrought sobs, unable to stop while Max and Somerville talked and the latter disappeared again.

“We’ve managed to find you a carriage,” Max said. “Only a hackney but they are hard to come by in this maelstrom. The others will make their own way back to your hotel.”

She clung to him as he led her into the throng milling in the thoroughfare. For some reason the crowd drew back, parted to make way for them. She heard scattered applause, her name called out in praise.

That was odd. She’d sung well, of course, but she hadn’t finished the aria and it seemed likely they’d have forgotten, what with the excitement of the fire. She turned around to face the crowd and gave a slightly wobbly curtsey and a cheer went up. How polite people were.

It was Max they should applaud. He was the hero. He’d saved her life.

“The Tavistock Theatre was last evening devastated by fire.”

The Times

T
he sitting room
at the Pulteney seemed another world, refined and still. Max had kept his arm about Tessa all the way to the hotel and up the stairs to her suite of rooms. When he disengaged she made an incoherent protest.

“Hush,” he said, and with infinite tenderness, as though she were a precious and fragile egg, settled her on the sofa. Was he leaving her alone? He must not abandon her when she could still feel the heat and smoke coming for her, the certainty of death. But when she tried to ask him to stay, nothing emerged from her throat. Dazed, she watched him leave the room and heard him speak to a servant in the antechamber. He wasn’t gone long. “Drink this.” He held something to her lips.

Water, with a hint of brandy. She seized the glass, gulped the cool liquid, and asked for more. The drink soothed her ravaged throat and her fear. As though the water traveled through her veins, her body awoke from its paralysis.

She was alive. More alive than she had ever felt in her life. Max’s expression turned from anxiety to his rare smile, teeth gleaming in his sooty face. She wanted to laugh with joy.

She leaped up and flung her arms around his neck as vitality suffused every inch of her flesh, every sinew. She was omnipotent, immortal, because she’d faced down death and survived.

Acting on heedless instinct, she pulled his head down for a hungry, open-mouthed, ravishing kiss. As they kissed, wild and greedy, the cool water in her veins turned into fire, a wonderful reviving blaze.

The heat intensified and concentrated itself in a single place where she ached, empty, ravenous to be filled. She welcomed the ache, the hunger, and clung tighter, rubbing herself against Max and the evidence of his own desire, stiff beneath the fall of his trousers. Releasing her hold on his neck, she plucked with impatient hands at the buttons and sensed him smiling through their kiss.

“Shall we take this a little slower?” he murmured.

“No!” Her voice didn’t produce much sound so she lent it all the force of her passion. “Now! I want you now!”

“Shouldn’t we at least undress?”

“No!” She didn’t want to wait even a second. Neither did she dare wait. At the back of her mind she knew she couldn’t risk the loss of this delicious hunger, the return of fear. She must have him now, without thought or a moment’s delay. She groped at his buttons with trembling, clumsy fingers, tore off the last one, reached in and found him, hot and hard through—astonishing she still wore them—her gloves.

He winced and removed her hand with his own. “This should come off, at least, I beg you,” he said, tugging at the bracelet on her wrist. His voice was full of laughter beneath unmistakable urgency.

False diamonds glinted against the elbow-length gloves, once pristine white satin streaked with black. Tessa clawed at the jewelry without effect but somehow Max undid the catches and she pulled the bracelets off and flung them to the ground, then ripped off her gloves as he worked on the fastenings of her gown.

“Hurry,” she rasped. His hands on her neck stoked her hunger. Unable to wait even another second, she spun around and shoved him so he sprawled clumsily on the sofa behind them. She landed on top, straddling his hips.

Now
.

She pulled up her velvet skirts, pushed aside her fine linen drawers, seized his member and impaled herself. He slid easily into a passage slick and ready and aching to be filled and stretched.

What relief, what bliss, to have Max inside her at last.

A thrust of his hips toppled them from the edge of the seat onto the floor. Now he was on top, taking her hard. She kicked her legs free of her skirts and wrapped her legs about his hips, exercising muscles she’d forgotten she owned to draw him in deeper, to clench him to her so she’d never let him go, to assuage the agony of longing that was building inside her. Their joining was fierce and elemental as she celebrated her escape and her passion for the man she’d never forgotten. And at last she found blessed liberation, melting into a pool of joy she hadn’t experienced in years. Perhaps ever. With a few powerful thrusts he followed her into release with an incoherent shout and collapsed, his face buried in her neck.

They lay side by side on the floor. Every nerve in her body buzzed happily and her senses seemed to function at a heightened pitch. She was intensely aware of his breathing as it subsided from panting gusts to a more regular respiration. She explored the texture of the skin over his hipbone, the contours of a muscled thigh, and heard the diminishing beat of his heart where her head rested on his still-clothed chest. His neckcloth had disappeared, whether during their fevered coupling or the escape from the fire she had no idea. A vee of skin and a tuft of dark hair showed where his shirt buttons had come loose and she shifted up to press her lips there, closing her eyes to savor Max’s scent.

“Ew!” Her voice had returned sufficiently to speak at a low husk. “Max, you smell awful, like smoke.” She raised her head. “And you’re black and filthy all over.”

He tipped his head up. “You think you’re in any better state? Is this a new perfume?
Eau de Théâtre Brûlant
?”

She replaced her head on his chest and snuggled closer. His arms tightened around her and she lay quiet, enjoying his closeness and a sense of peace.

“How do you feel?” he asked after a while, stroking her head.

“Very well.” Her laugh sounded ribald to herself.

“I meant,” he continued, “how do you feel after the fire? Any injuries you hadn’t noticed before? Were you hurt?”

She shook her head. “Thanks to you, no. You saved my life, Max. How can I thank you?”