“She’ll grow into it. Our little opera baby.”
The door burst open, admitting Catherine and Timothy, both looking frazzled.
“Is it—oh!” Catherine’s hands flew to her mouth. “She is beautiful. I have a niece!”
“Born at the opera,” Timothy murmured, a little wild about the eyes. “Which somehow feels precisely right for your family.”
“May I hold her?” Catherine begged.
Adrian looked as though he’d sooner surrender a limb, but Marianne nudged him. With visible reluctance, he assisted the transfer.
“Hello, darling girl,” Catherine crooned. “I am your Aunt Catherine. I shall teach you mathematics and music—and how to argue with your papa.”
“She does not require instruction in that,” Adrian muttered. “It appears hereditary.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. A very uncomfortable-looking footman entered.
“Your Graces—the management begs to know if anything is required. Also, the audience is quite apprised of the… blessed event. They inquire whether the performance should continue.”
“Of course,” Marianne said. “The singers ought not delay their tragedy on our account.”
Timothy cleared his throat. “The entire opera house is talking about this. By morning, all of London will know.”
“Let them,” Adrian said, eyes never leaving his daughter. “Let them know the Duke and Duchess of Harrowmere have a daughter—born at the opera, during Don Giovanni—because she is a Blackwell and we do nothing by halves.”
“Including scandal,” Marianne murmured, smiling.
“Especially scandal.”
Elisabeth opened her eyes fully then, looking up at her father with a calm, imperial certainty.
“She knows she is loved,” he whispered.
“Of course she knows. She is clever—like her mother.”
“Beautiful—like her mother.”
“Dramatic—like her father.”
“We shall never live this down,” Adrian said. “Our daughter—born at the opera.”
“Would you wish to?” Marianne asked. “It is the perfect beginning for our perfect girl.”
As if in agreement, Elisabeth yawned—a tiny O—then settled to sleep, entirely assured she belonged.
“Shall we attempt to get you home?” Mr Peterson asked gently.
“In a moment,” Marianne said, reaching for Adrian’s hand. “Let us simply—be here. Where it began.”
Adrian kissed her temple, then their daughter’s brow. “Here is perfect.”
Outside, the opera continued—music swelling, voices rising—while inside the retiring room, the Blackwell family celebrated their own tale. Comedy, romance, drama; life, like opera, rarely fit neatly into a single category.
Later, much later, when they finally made it home—carried through the opera house to thunderous applause from an audience that had abandoned Mozart for the real-life drama—when Elisabeth was properly bathed and dressed and installed in her nursery, when the household had celebrated with champagne and tears, Marianne and Adrian lay in their bed with their daughter between them.
“She is truly here,” Adrian breathed.
“Very dramatically here.”
