“Monsieur Lucius Grenville,” the majordomo intoned.
Grenville stepped into the room, his suit without a wrinkle, his fashionable shoes polished, his cravat painfully white, his hair artfully arranged. Heads turned whenever Grenville entered a chamber, but tonight, the guests utterly ignored him.
“Bit of a blow to my pride,” Grenville said as he joined us. He lifted a flute of champagne from the attentive footman. “But I witnessed what happened and understand why I’ve been upstaged.”
Donata had her sharp gaze on the interesting pair. “I’ve seen Signora Ruggeri before, I’m certain of it. Before arriving in Lyon, I mean, but I cannot recall where. What do you think, Grenville?”
Grenville raised his quizzing glass, staring haughtily through it at the comtesse and the signora making their slow circuit of the ballroom.
“She’s made no secret of the fact that she was once an actress,” Grenville remarked. “Padua is near Venice. You saw her at La Fenice, perhaps? Or mayhap a theatre in Paris?”
“I was thinking more of Sadler’s Wells,” Donata countered.
“Ah,” Grenville answered. “Not necessarily the member of a grand company.”
“I am certain I’ve seen her in some sort of musical performance.” Donata’s eyes narrowed in thought. “A rather risqué one, as I recall, but quite popular at the time. People popping into and out of bedchambers, that sort of thing. A good daughter and a bad daughter, driving the squire father mad. Yes, that was it. She played the bad daughter and had the audience roaring with laughter. She danced rather well, I recall, quite athletic. Could kick her leg up over her head.”
I had no idea what play she was talking about, so I concluded Donata had seen the humorous performance in the years before I’d met her.
“I believe recall it,” Grenville said. “The Tender Foes or some such name. I viewed it with a gaggle of extremely ill-mannered fellows who distracted me greatly from the performance. But thinking it through, I believe you are right.”
“Marianne might have encountered her,” Donata suggested.
“Very true.” Grenville lowered his glass. “I’ll wager my dear Marianne will not only know the lady’s true name but have an entire dossier on what roles she played and where. She has amazing information in her head, does Marianne.” He finished with pride.
The former Marianne Simmons, once my upstairs neighbor, had been an actress in the company at Drury Lane Theatre, though she’d never been a principal. She’d left the stage about a year before she’d become Mrs. Grenville, but she retained a keen interest in the theatre.
Tonight, Marianne had chosen to attend a play’s performance in the lower town with former acting friends who’d taken up residence in Lyon. I envied her the more relaxed gathering, though I believed the entertainment here had already surpassed whatever Marianne was watching on the stage.
“The lady is certainly is not from Padua, as she claims,” Donata said. “I’d say from Manchester. In the play, she spoke with a decided accent of that area, and such things are not easily mimicked.”
“An Englishwoman then.” Grenville tucked his quizzing glass into his pocket as though satisfied with their conclusions. “One who has learned to pass for Italian, at least among the French.”
“No wonder she looks confused at the moment,” Donata observed. “She is not certain what role to assume.”
Gabriella and I listened to all this without comment, both of us intrigued by their assessment.
“Forgive me, Miss Auberge,” Grenville said when he found us scrutinizing them. “Witnessing scandal in the making is vastly diverting.”
“So long as you are not making the scandal yourself,” I said with some humor.
“Very true.” Grenville nodded. “All jesting aside, I admire the comtesse. She could so easily have let her servants throw the upstart out. I’ll be curious to learn of Comte Lejeune’s reaction when he hears of it.”
The comte himself was notably absent. I wondered if he’d anticipated such a scenario and chosen to spend the evening elsewhere.
“That will be equally as diverting,” Donata said. “Unless the comte pretends to take no notice of what his ladies get up to.”
“I’d be thoroughly embarrassed, if I were he,” I said mildly.
“You would, yes, Gabriel.” Donata laid her fingers on the crook of my arm. “Although, I don’t believe you’d be in such a predicament in the first place.”
“Of course not.” I touched her gloved hand. “I have no need.”
Donata looked pleased at my declaration. “We are a highly unfashionable pair, I admit. Will there be any dancing at all, do you think, Grenville? I am growing restless.”
She looked to the orchestra, who waited in a balcony above for the comtesse to indicate they should resume.
The comtesse and Signor Ruggeri had reached the far end of the ballroom. The comtesse then began steering the signora back again, making certain that every person in the room greeted her.
