Mariana released a sigh and allowed the glass to fall to her lap.
“Why not?” Helene pressed, misinterpreting the cause of Mariana’s pique. “The state of your marriage is no secret on either side of the Channel,ma chérie.”
Vexed, Mariana averted her gaze toward the stage and focused on an unremarkable point in the middle distance. It was true: the state of her and Nick’s marriage had become open for public speculation when his affair with an opera singer was splashed across every gossip rag in London ten years ago. With little recourse available to her—Parliament wasn’t likely to allow her to divorce a husband who had only behaved like every other Society husband—she’d accepted that she would have the sort of marriage she’d vowed never to have: loveless and detached.
She’d anticipated a different sort of marriage with Nick, one rooted in love. But, in the end, that feeling had been hers alone.
A crowd of unfamiliar faces formed a continuous blur before and below her. By sheer accident, she caught the eyes of her young admirer. Something about him struck a flat note. His countenance held no hint of the playful or sensual. There was no promise of future delights should she choose him. A word came to her:solemn. Who ever heard of asolemnadmirer?
Upon further reflection, solemn wasn’t quite on the mark. His regard registered as deeper, more soulful, like a Parisian Lord Byron. In fact, this man’s entire being spoke of the Romantic ideal: luminous brown eyes; dark curly locks; a general brooding air that belonged to a set of Mariana’s peers for whom she never had an ounce of patience.
Still, he was handsome. And he was young.
Too handsome and too young.
What a night this was turning out to be.
She swung her attention back toward the stage and forced herself to concentrate for the rest of the performance. Part of the ballet’s allure, aside from its breathless beauty, was its order and synchronicity. If everyone hit their marks, it flowed with a precision missing from life outside these walls. For the duration of the performance, she was allowed the fantasy that an ordered life was possible.
All too soon, the ballet ended, and reality—and disorder—was allowed to prevail once again.
Nick is alive.Nick is a spy.
Possessed of the proportions of a sturdy, little bullfinch, Helene took Mariana’s hand and pulled her up. Times like these reminded Mariana how very much taller she was than other women. Not that she’d ever minded. She rather liked that she could see across a crowd on her flat feet.
Helene began guiding her through various groupings of Society acquaintances. Numb to it all, Mariana stepped through the motions of introductions and small chit-chat. She wouldn’t remember a single person from this night.
Courtesies observed, Helene led Mariana down a dark and crowded corridor that spilled into a high-ceilinged room stripped of all decoration. It appeared to be a rehearsal studio with mirrors lining two adjacent walls and ballet barres bisecting all four walls.
“What is this place?” Mariana asked. She couldn’t help feeling displaced, yet invigorated by an effervescence infusing the room’s atmosphere.
“This is the Foyer de la Danse,” Helene replied. “A select number of patrons have the opportunity to associate with the dancers after the performance.”
Mariana observed the dynamics of the room. In England, dancers were regarded as little better than common prostitutes, and they were treated as such. Aristocratic Londoners kept every part of their lives distinct: their virtues located in Mayfair and Belgravia; their vices in Southwark and Whitechapel. The English didn’t mix virtue and vice in the same neighborhood, much less in the same room.
Here, some patrons patiently watched the ballet dancers mingle with the crowd, while others seized the opportunity to engage the dancers and try their luck. In all, it was high and low, heavenly and sordid, an odd and conflicting atmosphere, and so very Parisian.
“I believe,” Mariana observed, “you and I are the only two females not wearing tights and tulle.”
A pleased giggle escaped Helene. “Ma chérie, I would never see my husband, the Marquis, if I didn’t step inside this room from time to time.”
Mariana couldn’t summon a carefree rejoinder. She hadn’t been so sanguine when it had come to her own husband’s abandonment.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure clad in evening black approaching. It was her admirer. Better to have this introduction over and done. Solemnly—again that word—the man bowed before her and Helene.
“Isn’t this perfect,” Helene stated rather than asked as she held out her hand to be kissed. “Lady Nicholas Asquith, may I introduce Lucien Capet, the Comte de Villefranche and heir to the Marquis de Touraine, to you?”
Mariana acquiesced to the request with a nod of her head and allowed the young Comte to take her hand. As his lips brushed the back of her gloved fingers, she braced herself for the suggestive eye contact that would inevitably follow when he straightened.
The inevitable didn’t come to pass. In fact, his dark eyes barely glanced her way, hardly knowing where to rest as they darted from her to Helene, to coffered ceilings, back to her and Helene, and finally to his feet. Mariana was dizzy watching him.
This young man didn’t seem to have the slightest understanding of the role he was attempting to play. This was no worldly French suitor with a trail of conquests in his wake. He was the very opposite.
“If you will allow me,” he began, a callow crack in his voice, “I would be your escort for the evening. The Foyer can be a scandalous place for unescortedmesdames.”
“Scandal?” Mariana asked, both bemused and irritated. “How very”—Oh, what was the perfect word?—“stimulating.”
“Too much stimulation is not good for the delicate constitutions of . . .”
