“Did you seeHamlet?” he asked.
She nodded. “I confess I had no idea what was happening during most of it. Regardless, the scene with the witches was very well played. I have also seenKing Lear. I could not keep the characters straight in my mind, but they all seemed most treacherous.”
“This play has no murders in it,” he promised her. “It is calledTwelfth Night.”
“Like the Twelfthtide? I shall try to make sense of it then, but I’m afraid the tricky Elizabethan language often confuses me. If you don’t mind my asking occasionally what is going on, then I will enjoy it immensely. And I love the intermission.” She gave a small chuckle. “I could say the opening of the curtain and the intermission are my favorite two parts of a play.”
Vincent wouldn’t have interrupted her for a block of gold, waiting for whatever she would say next.
“The curtain, due to that moment of anticipation when something magical is about to happen,” she explained. “And the second because everyone is always in such a good mood.”
He could not deny she spoke the truth. “Perhaps that is because the audience members are stretching their legs after a long start to the play and also because they are finally allowed to enjoy a glass of wine.”
Brilliance’s laugh was contagious, and Vincent joined in. Even her maid smiled from the corner of the carriage.
Vincent felt like the luckiest man alive, escorting Lady Brilliance. As soon as she gave her black wool cloak to thecoatroom manager, revealing a gown of silver satin beneath, every male eye turned to admire her figure.
His mouth going dry, Vincent swallowed with difficulty. As her gown glittered in the lamplight, she sparkled like a diamond, but he would bite his tongue off before saying anything so trite. Yet he could tell her the truth.
“I have never seen a lovelier lady in my life.”
Instantly, her cheeks turned rosy, and a smile bowed her lips. With her blue eyes sparkling up at him, she said, “Thank you. I am better than a wedge of cheese, I guess.”
“Indeed, my lady, you are. Tastier, too.”
His words caused her blush to deepen, although Vincent knew she could not imagine how far beyond the taste of her lips his thoughts were leading him.
They went into the auditorium rather than lingering in the lobby. While he wanted to show her off, she wanted to get to their seats and read the playbill.
“Then I have a chance of understanding what I am about to see.”
“I don’t think you will have any difficulty,” he said, taking her arm and leading her into box seats. Her maid took one of the two spare seats behind them. Once Brilliance was settled and perusing the program, he tapped it to get her attention.
“The play goes along like this: Viola, although disguised as a man, is in love with Orsino, who is in love with Olivia. But she is in love with Cesario, who is really Viola’s male disguise.”
Brilliance shook her head. “I shall be utterly lost about five minutes after the curtain rises,” she said and closed the playbill. “I ought to have studied more when my mother sent me to school. Or at least tried to listen to my tutor instead of wool-gathering.”
“What were you thinking about when you weren’t being an attentive student?” he asked.
She grinned. “You will think me odd, perhaps. I was making up stories about people living up there.” She pointed up.
“On the roof?” he asked.
That seemed to tickle her greatly for she began to chuckle. “No, not upon the roof of the Theatre Royal.” She kept laughing. He adored her joyful nature. “My tutor had told me about the solar system. Don’t look so surprised, my lord. I know a little — sometimes very little — about many things. Mostly trivial things. And so, when I was supposed to be listening but found myself bored, I would imagine people on the other planets, riding fish instead of horses or flying like birds rather than walking. Indeed, I thought up entire new civilizations.”
“That sounds as important as anything your tutor was teaching, even Shakespeare.”
She shrugged delicately. “When I grew tired of colonizing planets, then I imagined people living deep underground and how they might spend their days without sunlight.”
Vincent was fascinated. “How did they?”
“How did they what?”
“Spend their days without sunlight?”
“Are you really interested?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “I have never told anyone about my silly musings. I gave the underground dwellers strong lamps made out of worm oil, like sperm whale oil, but they were squeezing fat worms instead. Then I decided that, having never seen the sun, they wouldn’t need lamps after all. They just existed in the darkness but with all their other senses working perfectly.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t even have eyes,” he said, warming to the topic of creating new worlds.
