Secrets of a Soprano (6 page)

The Countess of Storrington drew in her breath in surprise. Tessa felt every inch of her skin flush, horrified by Max’s attack. The implication that she earned her fees for more than singing was all too clear. She longed to offer a reply that would hurt him as deeply as he had wounded her. But then, he had no heart. She knew that from bitter experience. Before she could think of a clever retort, Allerton spoke again.

“I will leave you to enjoy your evening’s triumph, Mrs. Foscari. No doubt this success will yield other lucrative engagements.” He sketched a bow in a manner almost mocking—as if he did not feel she merited such nicety—and moved off directly. Beyond rational thought, Tessa sought relief from the fearful noise in her head before she had to scream. She groped for a porcelain bowl sitting on a side table.

“Cousin, I beg you won’t,” Jacobin said softly and removed the bowl from her grasp.

Convulsively clenching her hand, Tessa stared at Max’s receding back, appalled at what she had nearly done.

“I fully understand your sentiments,” her cousin murmured. “If you will but wait a moment I’ll have a footman bring you something. Do you have a preference for Sèvres or Meissen? Or Chelsea, perhaps. It would be easier to replace. But I cannot allow you to destroy my husband’s favorite Song dynasty bowl.”

The tension inside Tessa abated. She took a deep breath and managed a rueful laugh. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do,” Jacobin replied wryly. “I too occasionally have the urge to throw china.”

Panic retreated further at her cousin’s sympathy, replaced by gratitude that Jacobin’s light-hearted intervention had prevented the kind of scene Tessa would rather avoid. In London she wished to avoid the notoriety she’d achieved in Europe, to find a degree of comfort and serenity in the land she regarded as her own, despite never before setting foot in England.

She owed Jacobin an explanation as well as an apology. “It’s an unfortunate habit I’ve acquired to hide my discomfort in company, particularly when I’m faced with…awkward situations. My husband advised me to do it when my nerves become unsupportable.” She didn’t add that Domenico had originally suggested the famous tantrums to enhance his diffident wife’s reputation as a temperamental goddess of the stage. Or that his own actions had triggered the genuine attacks of panic that now beset her.

“I’m sorry to have endangered your porcelain,” she continued. “I should have better control of myself but I really wanted to smash something on Lord Allerton’s head.”

“And I don’t blame you a bit. I can’t imagine why he was so rude.” Jacobin’s face was avid with curiosity. “He’s not usually like that.”

“Is he not? Our acquaintance was slight.”

“Beneath that forbidding exterior he’s one of the kindest men in London. I always enjoy talking to him because he really listens, and appears interested. Not like many men I could mention.”

Tessa murmured something noncommittal. She had no argument with her cousin’s assessment of the charms of Max’s companionship. All too well she recalled the joys of his conversation. In light of her experience, however, she’d have to dispute that he was “kind.”

“And I’ve always thought him so attractive,” Jacobin continued. “Especially since he’s completely unaware of it. Those serious dark looks, like a knight of old ready to charge into battle on his lady’s behalf. Except there never has been a lady, as far as I know. There’s hardly a woman in London, married or unmarried, who wouldn’t welcome his advances—and not just because he’s so rich—but he’s oblivious to them all. He seems only to be attracted to opera singers.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh Lord! I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’d say he’d made it quite clear he isn’t attracted to me.”

Jacobin’s eyes kindled with curiosity. “I wouldn’t say that.”

*

The Marquess of
Somerville caught Max’s arm as he strode toward the door. “Hardly the best way to woo a singer, whatever your interest.” Somerville spoke with his usual mockery but something in his face suggested that even he had been taken aback by Max’s behavior.

“I’m no longer interested in that woman in any way. She’s all yours, Somerville, and I wish you good fortune—or rather large fortune.” He laughed harshly. “You’ll need it.”

He stamped away and struck out blindly for the exit. He needed to get out of here at once. He knew he’d behaved badly and didn’t regret it a bit. Or rather he regretted making a public scene in Lady Storrington’s house. He wished he could have spoken privately. Sweet Tessa, he reflected bitterly, deserved everything he’d said to her and more.

“Max!” Oh, good Lord Almighty. His mother again.

“Yes?” he barked.

Lady Clarissa had too much strength of mind to be deterred by her son’s obvious ill temper. “It’s her, isn’t it? The one from Portugal.”

He didn’t deign to reply. He was as furious at her as he was at Tessa.

“Keep away from her, Max, I warn you. Don’t forget what she is. I’ll buy her off again if I have to.”

“I assure you, Mama,” he replied through clenched teeth, “that I’d rather be stretched on the rack than see that woman receive another farthing from either you or me.”

“Make sure you hold to that resolution. And come and see me in the morning. I have something important to discuss with you.”

Inwardly damning all parents, he took a last glance across the room to find Somerville bending intently over the singer’s hand, then favoring Lady Storrington with a melting smile. The man never stopped flirting with anybody in petticoats.

Storrington had noticed too. The earl walked casually across the room to join the group, careful, Max noticed, to stand between his wife and Somerville.

Max couldn’t resist waiting to see how the rascal would handle the confluence of a ravishing, if greedy, prima donna, a beautiful countess, and the beautiful countess’s husband. Not a whit discomfited, Somerville kissed both ladies’ hands—again—before heading in Max’s direction, a look of satisfaction glittering in his blue eyes.

“Still here, Allerton?” he asked. “I thought you’d had enough. But never mind. I have discovered something very interesting.”

Max raised his brows and the marquess continued. “I was already fairly certain, but a good look at that bracelet confirmed my suspicions.”

“A gift of the Tsar, payment for services rendered,” Max muttered with a sneer.

“Either the Tsar of all the Russias is a pinchpenny,” Somerville said softly, “or La Divina’s visited the pawnbroker. Those diamonds are made of paste.”

“Miss Johnston has too much appearance of self-enjoyment and good living, to accord with our ideas of a tragic heroine, who is generally doomed to endure all the vicissitudes of life, in a perpetual round of starvations, imprisonments, swoonings, and all the train of operatic miseries. This lady however makes no pretensions to acting, and being more skillful perhaps in wielding a knife and fork than a dagger, wisely avoids attempting what must appear ridiculous, and contents herself with walking on the stage or off, lifting occasionally an arm or an eye, and frowning or smiling as in duty bound.”

The Examiner

W
hen he presented
himself in his mother’s small drawing room, days later than promised, Max’s mood was no better, though for a different reason. The first night of opera at the Regent had enjoyed a full house, but the debut performance in England of Beethoven’s sublime
Fidelio
had been received with what Max could only describe as muted rapture. The opinion of the newspapers was equally tepid.

Lady Clarissa was alone, without any of the hangers-on who normally surrounded the heiress, or the elderly female relative who resided with her as a matter of propriety but was rarely seen. She reclined on a Sheraton sofa and waved one of these offensive journals at him as he entered the room that was small in name only, almost the size of one whole floor of Max’s house.

“My poor Max,” she said jovially, without further greeting. “I’ve just finished reading the
Examiner
’s account of your first night. It’s very wicked but has Miss Johnston’s appearance precisely right. Wielding a knife and fork! Yes indeed! She really shouldn’t be permitted to appear in male attire. How came you to engage such a—large—female for a breeches part?”

“When I saw the lady last year there was rather less of her,” Max admitted. “But,” he continued bravely, “her voice is very fine.”

His mother gave him a look that said he hadn’t fooled her and turned back to the newspaper. “The only defect in Miss Johnston’s voice,” she read, “is a piercing shrillness in her upper notes, which produces rather an unpleasant sensation in the ear.”

Damned with faint praise, and unfortunately the reviewer was absolutely correct.

“You know, dear boy, I would have enjoyed the evening more if there had been elephants.”

“Elephants?”

“Yes. Or perhaps a bear or two.”

“The Regent is an opera house, not Astley’s Amphitheatre.”

“Such a pity. What about a shipwreck? I always enjoy a good shipwreck.”

“Since
Fidelio
takes place in a Spanish prison one is hardly likely to encounter elephants, bears, or a shipwreck.”

“No wonder it was so boring!” she concluded triumphantly, waving her newspaper for emphasis. “No elephants. And it’s in German.”

Apparently having had enough—for the moment—of torturing him, his mother set aside the paper. “Delorme is quite another matter. The man is as handsome as sin!”

“Unfortunately he is only too well aware of the fact,” Max replied. “Insisted on appearing in a spotless shirt and perfectly arranged hair though his character was supposed to have spent two years immured in a filthy dungeon.”

“The shirt was torn,” Lady Clarissa said with obvious appreciation, “and offered a quite delicious glimpse of his chest.”

“Mama!” Max expostulated. “Such comments are unsuitable for a lady of your years—in fact for one of any age.”

“Don’t be stuffy, darling. Just because I’m over forty doesn’t mean I’ve lost the use of my eyes or that I’m dead from the neck down.”

Over forty indeed! His mother guarded her true age as jealously as her sapphires, but Max could count. He, her only son, was thirty-one years old.

“It really didn’t matter why he was dressed like that,” she continued. “I had no idea what was happening since I don’t understand a word of German. Not that I wish to.”

His mother had put her finger on a major problem. No one had understood the plot. London operagoers, if they weren’t enjoying Henry Bishop’s butchered English versions of Mozart, preferred their opera in Italian. Not that they understood that language either, but they were accustomed to it. Besides, most of the overwrought tragedies on classical themes were so absurd it was a positive blessing not to follow the story. With Beethoven’s masterpiece it was different.

He set aside the concern for later discussion with Lindo. Meanwhile he’d rather not hear any more of his mother’s hideously perceptive comments.

“You summoned me, Mama. What can I do for you?” Some tedious chore, he suspected, not unrelated to an appearance at Almack’s and a dance with the daughter of one of her dearest friends. He steeled himself for resistance at all costs.

Lady Clarissa didn’t trouble with subtlety. “It’s time you married, Max. You’re past thirty and I need grandchildren.”

Max sighed. “We’ve had this conversation so many times I don’t know why you still bother. The answer, as ever, is the same. I don’t wish to wed and have no intention of doing so. Is that plain enough for you? If you’re so enthralled with the state of matrimony why don’t you marry again?”

“No thank you. As you know very well, once was enough for me.”

“I know my father was a wretched husband. Why should I inflict myself on some unfortunate female and treat her to the same joy?”

“You’re nothing like Hawthorne. You take after me.”

He walked over to the window and gazed out onto the rain-drenched grounds behind the Piccadilly mansion. He hated to think of his father, a penniless adventurer who’d cozened a seventeen-year-old heiress into marriage. The fact that he was heir to his uncle’s viscountcy made him marginally acceptable, but the reprobate had made her miserable for ten years until meeting his end in a tavern brawl. With his gambling and women he had little time for his wife, and even less for his only child. Max barely remembered the man and that was the way he liked it.

A certain intensity in his mother’s manner this morning told him she wasn’t going to let the subject of marriage drop. The gloves were off and he needed more than evasive tactics to escape.

He turned to face the room. “Why did you marry him?” He’d never asked before.

“I was young, a fool, and spoiled,” she said. “He was handsome and charming and I wanted him, however much I was warned against him.”

“Why did my grandfather permit it?”

“As I said, I was spoiled. He never refused me anything. I made such a fuss that he gave in. Your father’s birth, at least, was decent.”

Max could imagine his seventeen-year-old mother throwing tantrums, holding her breath until she was blue, making life impossible so that her adoring father caved in from sheer exhaustion. Things hadn’t changed.