Ezekiel placed a chair next to the bench for her, then started playing one hand of the tune they’d created yesterday.“Would you mind if we talk for a few minutes before working?”
“Has something happened to your mum?”
He jerked back with a blink.“No.Have you heard something?”
“No.I assumed from the heaviness of your demeanor that you’d received bad news.”
“Thankfully, no, but I had a strange conversation this morningwith Graham Linville, the librettist for the operetta.When I told him of you, he warned me to break things off because I’m a danger to you and your family, but he wouldn’t expound on why.Only that my opera connections put you at risk.”
How would Mr.Linville know that?It made no sense.Father would never befriend a librettist.“Perhaps he mistook us for someone else.”
Ezekiel’s fingers stopped moving over the keys.“I don’t think so.He claimed to care for you and your family more than I do.”
Had Mr.Linville known her parents during their days in the opera?It was the only thing that made sense for why he might care.
“Nora, why does your father think a life in opera would be a danger to you?”
“I’m not hearing any music.I hope that doesn’t mean there’s any unsanctioned kissing occurring,” Mrs.Jerden called in a sing-song voice.
Kissing would be decidedly better than this conversation.“We’re not kissing, merely talking.”
“What a pity.I hope Mr.Beaumont hasn’t brought these chocolates for nothing.”
Ezekiel chuckled and picked up the melody again.“She does know if we were determined, I could play while kissing you, right?”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Only the hypothetical.”
“Then I imagine the playing would be so awful she’d still know.”
He shrugged and conceded the point.All too swiftly, his seriousness was back.“I won’t push you to answer, but if you’re in danger, I can’t help unless I know what you’re facing.”He licked his lips and added more slowly, “Graham indicated it might have something to do with your ma’s past.”
“Isn’t that pushing?”
He sighed.“Yes, it is.I’m sorry.”He turned his attention to arranging the sheet music.His disappointment was obvious, but he didn’t press further.
What would it hurt to tell him?It was hardly her darkest secret,and theywerecourting.He’d find out eventually.If this scared him away, then they weren’t meant to be together.
Ezekiel played the notes but hardly heard them.She didn’t trust him.Yes, trust was something built over time, but didn’t a courtship mean she should have some level of faith in him to care for her needs and protect her?Had she seen how he failed Ma and determined he would fail her too?
“My real name is Eleonora Brisbane.My mum and father are Constanza and Marcellus Brisbane.”
He stopped mid-bar and faced her.She wouldn’t look at him, but studied the floor like a script for her tale, her fingers nervously twisting and roving over the cameo at her neck.
“It is a secret we’ve kept since coming to Cincinnati, and it’s a secret we hope to continue to keep, especially with where Mum is now.The reason we hide is because of her.”
That was understandable.The newspapers would love to publicize and mock her fall into disgrace.She would have no value as a person, merely as a source of lucrative headlines.
“Is that why your mum left in the middle of a performance all those years ago?She suffered a bout of hysteria during intermission?”
“No.”Her hand stilled, and she drew a deep breath.“I was kidnapped.”
She spoke the words with no more emotion than one giving a report on the weather, but the absolute horror of it bashed Ezekiel in the chest.He stared in stunned silence.Kidnapping had not been one of the proposed reasons by the newspapers for Constanza Brisbane’s disappearance.No wonder she had ended up in Longview.He would lose his mind too, knowing his daughter had been taken from him and only-God-knew-what done to her.His stomach roiled at the turn of his thoughts.Whathadbeen done to her?She couldn’t have been more than a girl in pinafores at the time.
He choked out the question.“Were you ...harmed?”
“Not in the physical sense.”
