“Best of luck to you,” Tovah said as she rushed by to take her place, and I followed close behind.
I had all but forgotten about the heat of the overhead lights, the tight pull of my pinned hair, the eyes—oh, theeyes—hundreds of audience members turned their attention to the curtain spreading in front of our poised company, then there was applause. Pulse-pounding. Thrilling. Terrifying.
I crouched in position on the stage, and when the curtain parted, flooding the dimness with the glow of golden chandeliers, I fixed my gaze upon my focal point, the little peep above the audience, and fancied I saw a face there. A young girl, starstruck and in love with ballet.
All sound beyond the stage dimmed for one time-stopping moment, the whole place holding its breath. Then the music rolled out from the pit, and I felt the largeness of the ballet again, the full-bodied orchestra resounding in my chest, thudding against my ribs. We rose, slowly animating before the audience and sweeping into the opening ofIl Fiore Danzanteas flowers unfurling their color.
Annika Friedl was stunning as the maiden, so torn over love. I watched her between my dances. Precise and lithe, at home in her body, natural as a silk scarf waving in the breeze. She was a mesmerizing storyteller. Watching her, something akin to envy curled through me. I nearly forgot to sway with the other flowers.
“Focus on where you want to go.”Mama had said that, years ago.“Your eyes are always the first to latch onto something, and they’ll guide the rest of you there.”From now on, I would focus on Annika. Beautiful, controlled Annika, who had earned the privilege of dancing every performance with Philippe Rousseau.
I spun with a breathless flourish as the music climbed into a crescendo, signaling Philippe’s entrance. He’d done another disappearing act, and I hadn’t seen him since the cemetery. We all held our breath in that final moment before his planned entrance, breaking concentration for a moment to look at each other. Would he appear?
I waited, poised. My heart pounded. Then he leaped out with a cymbal crash and spun in center stage, twirling at blinding speed. Mighty leaps carried him around the rear of the stage and back to Annika, whom he swept up in a dramatic embrace. Thus joined, they danced a most perfect pas de deux,an almost intimate portrayal of lovers who moved as one.
Philippe was the glow of that performance, the outpouring of those thousands of unwritten poems pressurized inside him, now spilling out on the stage. What in heaven’s name had he done with himself in that absence? He was magnificent, his body in perfect rhythm with the dramatic music, his dance following the push and pull of the song as if it were part of his being.
He whipped past me in an acrobatic spin, sucking the breath from my lungs and splaying cool air across my face. All fell silent, the whole world frozen in time to watch this masterful artist display his strength, to soak up the emotion exuding from his being. It was then I realized just how depleted he’d become, up until now. His technique was always impeccable, but now there was so much life in his dance that I could scarcely take my eyes from him.
Yet this was the man who’d written off love. I watched him and knew—Iknew—the inner man was capable of feeling what he conveyed on the stage.
He spun one last time and tossed something small into the audience—a rosebud. A delighted sound arose, and one woman stood to catch it. I strained to see who, but something else caught my gaze past the stage. Something green. I blinked, but it was not a hat—only a scarf hanging over the back of a chair near the front. I scanned further, hardly able to see past the first rows, but then ... I sawhim.
He sat tall and refined in his seat just off to the side of the stage, dressed in all black save for his silver hair, and those deep prism eyes. I could hardly breathe.“One day you will findhim, Miss Blythe, right under your very nose.”
My muscles suddenly tried to liquefy as I lifted into an arabesque, my heart a thunderstorm within. Suddenly my impending solo took on far more meaning. Two and a half minutes and my father, the stranger-man who looked so much like me, would be focused on my dance. On me.
The flowers rose and circled Annika, then spun off, and it was my turn—my variation. Focused, strong, I lifted into my turns and pulled my arms in tight. Around and around I moved, head buzzing with tiredness, legs trembling, vision snapping back over and over to the peep high above.
I swept into a landing just a little off center and held my position. Another lift of my arms and it wasfinito. The two lines of other flowers were sweeping across center stage, and I fell in with them. Soon the thick curtain blessedly swept across, separating us from the heat of the gaslights. We’d been a success. It was over, and I hadn’t fallen on my face. I collapsed against the wall backstage with heavy breaths, then I peeledback a few inches of the heavy drapes, peering out at that man, but the lights blinded me from this angle.
When the final piece came to a close, the callboy moved me aside to pull the ropes and open the curtains again, and the heat, the noise of applause, swarmed us. Pasting smiles, forcing poise into our tired bodies, we floated in two lines across the stage, clasped hands, and curtsied to the sound of praise.
I lifted my head and squinted against the lights as we pas de bourreéd backward toward the shadows. All I could see was a deep, nearly iridescent red ribbon around his hat to match his cravat, making him stand out in a sea of darker colors—red, the same color as Mum’s slippers. Unless my fanciful mind was making all this up. If I could only see his face better.
The curtains swept closed again and I nearly spun into Tovah. “You were magnificent,” she breathed.
“You as well.”
I heard them leaving. Hushed voices, scuffing footsteps up the aisle. Soon he’d be gone, vanishing back into the shadows. I grabbed her shoulders. “I’ll be back.”
Tovah frowned, but I bolted toward the stairs, applause still popping in my ears. What a little fool I was. Yet I couldn’t imagine the berating I’d give myself when I was alone for the night, staring up at the ceiling, knowing I’d done nothing.
I hadn’t seen Jack Dorian all night, but somewhere in the backstage area, the man was likely smiling darkly as he watched me fly off the stage and down toward the side entrance in pursuit of the once-famous Marcus de Silva.
13
Ioften act foolishly and call it impetuous. This was one of those times. I whirled my cloak around my shoulders and hurried out the side door, into the night crisply spiced with the last of winter.
Peering around the east corner of the building like a common snoop, I waited for him, watching throngs of people pour from the doors to be handed into the carriages and cabs that snaked up and down the street for blocks. Snow had begun to fall in large, wet drops that seeped through fabric and chilled the skin, slicking the walks and roads. I spotted that scarlet band bobbing through the growing chaos, through the falling snow clumping on my eyelashes. I fought through the surging crowds, heedless of the looks and grumbles, until I stood a mere horse’s length from him. How fine and tall he was, with a shiny top hat over silvered hair. And yes—it was him. The man from the portrait.Him.“Pardon, sir. A word, please.” My voice was soft, but he heard.
He turned with slow grace, and to my horror, so did a lady on his arm. She was far younger than him, her pale skin flawless and pure, yet they were undoubtedly a couple—her satin dressmatched his cravat, and that scarlet ribbon. She challenged me with a lovely blue-eyed stare, laying out the difference in our social rank with a look.
“You are...” Not Marcus de Silva. Not anymore. “You are a theater man, are you not?”
“He’ll have nothing to do with your kind.” The slender woman beside him straightened, cinching his arm against her side. “He’s a respectable man and devoted to his wife.”
I felt myself blushing at the insinuation, then one word locked into my awareness.Wife?But of course. What had I expected? I steeled myself against the sense of betrayal, the questions flooding my being, and met his gaze. “I believe I am acquainted with ... your daughter.”
