When she looked up, he was hovering beside her. He looked alternately at the low, seeping sky and her dripping hair. He frowned.
“Will you not come back inside?” he asked. “The rain is not likely to let up. And you can sit.”
“No.” She shook her head. Drops of rain flung from her hair, piercing the fog. “I’m too restless to sit. And I’ve no wish to look you in the eye while I . . . say the words. I am impervious to the rain.”
“My God, Isobel,” he whispered, “what is it?”
“I think you should call me Miss Tin—”
“I will not call you Miss Tinker, so please stop asking. If you can reveal this very great secret history to me, so tragic that you cannot even look me in the eye, I will call you Isobel.”
“The irony is,” she sighed, “my secret, tragic history is not half as harrowing as what you have doubtless seen on a field of battle or in godforsaken parts of the world. But it was devastating for me. I am still recovering. It is difficult for me to relate.”
North stared a long moment. He looked like a man who’d opened a door he wasn’t certain he wanted to walk through. Finally, he nodded. He leaned a hip into the railing beside her and crossed his arms over his chest.
Isobel tried to hold his gaze and failed. She looked out at the fog. It swirled in great, white drifts over the sea. She squeezed the railing and pinned her shoulders back; she soothed her throat with a gulp of cold, damp air.
There should be no preamble, she thought. The preamble had been every evasion since they’d met.
“Very well,” she began. “I’ve said my mother was an actress.”
“Georgiana Tinker,” provided North.
“Right. When your mother is an actress, your playmates are the children of other actors and people in the theater. We—that is to say myself and these other children—grew up in myriad backstage wings, dressing rooms, and theater-district boardinghouses. Even before we left England, this had been my experience, although we had a proper flat in London.
“In Europe, we traveled constantly, lodging mostly in boardinghouses and hotels. The children of the other players, and of the costumers, and of the musicians and dancers—they were like brothers and sisters to me.
“We were tight-knit... more than a little wild, largely untended, surrounded by music and dancing. We bore witness to the romantic entanglements of our parents. We slept when we fell over in exhaustion—which was rarely—ate whatever we liked, dressed how we pleased.
“Actors change cities when a show wraps, as do members of the crew, and every production convened a different set of creative luminaries. I might see one family for the length of one production, and then not again for a year. The next time I would see them, we would be in another city or another country.”
“I’ve never considered,” said North, “the childhood of someone raised in the shadow of the stage. Fascinating. But you are clearly... educated. Did your mother arrange for tutors?”
“My mother did not,” Isobel said. “She taught me to read and do sums. Beyond that, she subscribed to the theory of ‘life is your schoolroom.’ I was a curious girl, a voracious reader. I was a repeat visitor to every museum in every city. I prowled ancient churches; I picked up languages quickly.”
“You’ve been classically educated in the most unclassical of ways,” he observed. “Extraordinary.”
Isobel gave a half nod, keeping her head down. “When I reached the age of fourteen or so, my friendsand I began to travel on our own, independent of our parents or their commitments to the stage.”
“A girl of fourteen traveling alone?” marveled North.
“I know it sounds shocking, and it was, but it happened so gradually. My mother would close a show in Rome and pack up for Salzburg to undertake a new role. I wouldn’t want to leave Italy, or I would have a holiday planned with another actor’s family on the coast. I would remain in Rome and join her in a fortnight, traveling with someone’s older sister or a maid.
“Orshe would take a role in a city I hated, such as St. Petersburg, and I would beg to travel with a group of other youths to Budapest, at first only for a fortnight.”
“And she allowed it,” observed North.
Isobel took a deep breath. “It was not as if she did notcare,” she ventured, even though Isobel had wondered, at times, about her mother’s ability to see beyond her own goals and preferences. “It was more like she did not have the patience to argue. I understood this about her and became an expert at simply wearing her down. If I wished to go ahead, or stay behind, or ramble, I need only try her patience. And Ialwayswished to go or stay behind or ramble.”
“As much as you now like to stay put?” he asked.
“Exactly the same amount,” she said.
“But did you have... resources?” he asked gently.
“Oh, we traveled in lavish style. My mother was highly sought-after and well compensated. Until my father died, he actually sent money as well. Mama would have nothing to do with his contributions, and she gave all of that money to me. I was too foolish to save it, and my wardrobe was a work of art. I employed a Paris-trained maid; I dined in the best restaurantsand drank the best wine. Mama and I hired a beautiful carriage and driver as soon as we arrived in any city. It was,” she said, “either the perfect combination of money and freedom, or the most dangerous combination of these. I suppose it depends on how you view it.”
“Perfect,” said North wistfully.
