It wasn’t Covent Garden or the Italian Opera House. It was stunning, just the same, and they were proud.
There was a moment of silence for the beauty of what they’d accomplished, tinged with a bit of the bittersweet for Mariana, because what she deserved was a hundred tickets sold.
Eleventickets had been sold.
Although perhaps more people would arrive the night of the performance. Especially if they sent Dot out with a bell.
(Dot still hoped.)
“I’m embarrassed,” Mariana confessed. “I so hoped to return your kindness.”
“We were aware of the risks. You’ll be givingus a night to remember, regardless. We have your friendship. And we would otherwise never have known how interesting Dot would have looked if she’d been born blue.”
The kindness made her eyes sting.
Italian lessons continued. Valkirk was aware that he was testing her rather relentlessly. It was as if words were weapons and fortifications he was sending with her out into the world.
She seemed to understand why he was so stern.
“Barouche,” he barked.
“Calesse,” she replied gently.
“I need help,” he demanded.
“Aiuto,” she told him tenderly. Her voice a thread.
He hoped she’d never need to ask for it.
Her sentences about did him in.
“Il tuo corpo è perfetto.”
“Your body is perfect,” she’d written.
And:
“Mi manca il duca di Valkirk.”
“I miss the Duke of Valkirk.”
He stared at those words a long time.
His throat felt tight.
He wanted to say,Don’t miss me, because he didn’t want her to suffer for even a moment.
He wanted to say,Don’t go, but he didn’t know what to say after that. He knew she must.
He did not know how to name what was between them.
The truth lay in the contrasts. If what approachedat the thought of losing her was desolation, then whatever he felt for her was precisely the opposite of that.
He had known more than one defeat in battle, but defeat was just a tool he’d used to learn to become victorious. He would never be accused of being an optimist, but he was indomitable. He’d experienced grievous losses and blows and struggled to his feet again. It was what a warrior did.
But nothing in his experience was of use to him here. Desolation was not an enemy army. It was more like a looming shadow, or a creeping mist. He couldn’t grasp hold of it with logic. He couldn’t conquer it with strategy. His power and influence were as nothing in the face of its inexorable approach.
But he began to think he might be able to stop it with that other tool at his disposal: money.
