All whispers stopped as Mr. Grenville began the next melody, leaving the entirety of the audience frozen in place like a life-sized glass menagerie.
In alarm, Nora turned wide eyes toward Lady Roundtree just as the gentleman behind her whispered, “What is it? What’s happening?”
“It’s…a new song,” came another man’s disbelieving voice. “It’snevera new song.”
Camellia Grenville stepped up to the edge of the dais to face her peers.
“Tonight, I am going to sing an aria currently being performed at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden.” She took a deep breath and smiled at the crowd. “With luck, the next time I perform, it will be on that stage.”
A collective gasp ran through the audience.
Before anyone could begin to process the shocking announcement, she opened her mouth and began to sing.
Nora stared in awe and disbelief. Miss Grenville had been born to vast advantages that someone like Nora could not begin to imagine, and yet was willingly tossing it all away to pursue a dream she might never achieve.
More startlingly, her elder brother wasn’t just allowing it to happen. He steadfastly played an operatic accompaniment despite the pallor in his cheeks, despite the horrified murmurs in the crowd, despite the obvious anguish on his face. Her heart flipped.
This was a man who loved his family just as much as Nora loved hers.
When the song ended, scattered applause sounded from a few brave souls whilst the rest of the crowd erupted into cacophony, each outraged opinion vying to be heard over the din.
Others simply stood up and walked out of the room in disgust.
“Don Juan: A Grand Opera in Two Acts,” Lady Roundtree whispered behind her fan. “She shouldn’t evenknowabout such things, much less sing them.”
But she didn’t motion for her footmen to wheel her from the room. A significant percentage of the audience appeared just as glued to their seats as Nora was, on tenterhooks to see what would happen next.
Poor Mr. Grenville. And his sister! Nora’s heart twisted for the entire family. It had taken a lot of courage for the siblings to be complicit in such a display, and even more bravery for Camellia to destroy her easy path in favor of a difficult one she felt passion for.
An elegant lady with a silver-streaked chestnut chignon leapt up from the first row and whirled toward the crowd in an obvious panic. “Everybody go home! The musicale is over. Out! Out!”
“Lady Grenville,” the baroness whispered behind her fan. “Normally, such crass shrieking would be the talk of the Town by morning, but I rather suspect no one will recall a word she says tonight because they’re all too focused on Camellia. Mark my words, that chit will be the next face you see in the caricatures.”
Nora’s sympathy twisted into self-loathing. She had not been thinking about the caricatures. She had not been thinking about the repairs needed on the farm or her grandparents’ fragile health or the boatload of money she could earn for her desperate family by turning the Grenville family’s pain into a city-wide mockery.
But could she afford not to?
Chapter 12
“More ribbons!” demanded Lady Roundtree from the closest chaise. “He’s not pretty enough yet.”
“Hold still, pup.” Nora settled Captain Pugboat on her lap—as much as one could settle a wriggling puppy anywhere—and reached for the pile of yellow ribbons. “If I tie any more to his collar, he’ll look like a wrinkle-faced lion.”
“He’ll look like a prince,” the baroness corrected with a sniff. “Have you not seen my great-grandfather’s likeness in the Hall of Portraits?”
Nora wasn’t certain any resemblance between the baroness’s ancestor and her plump, tail-wagging Pugmalion could be remotely construed as a compliment to either individual.
As she dutifully added more bright yellow bows to his leather collar, her fervent hope was that Mr. Grenville would not sweep into the salon and catch sight of her lunging about the carpet in an attempt to turn a pug into a lion.
When the last of the ribbons had been added to Captain Pugboat’s mane, Nora lifted her brows toward her patroness. “Now is he properly leonine?”
“He is a lionking.” Lady Roundtree patted the empty footstool before her. “Now set him here.”
With a dubious glance down at the yipping, wriggly puppy, Nora swung the pudgy lion king up from her lap and placed him in the center of the footstool.
Captain Pugboat immediately flipped onto his back in an attempt to gnaw the ring of yellow bows tickling his wrinkled chin.
“Make him sit still,” Lady Roundtree ordered.
