“If you would send him over, I’ll just review my list of songs with him to make certain they know what to do. Thank you.”
And just like that, Mariana felt the surge of the excitement that always heralded her most transcendent evenings. She knew, in her very bones, something magical was about to happen.
The trickle of guests became, if not a torrent, then decidedly a flow. They arrived occasionally singly, most often in pairs, over and over again. Delilah and Angelique witnessed virtually the same progression of emotions on every face, all of them at last passing into the building wearing expressions of bemused, delighted anticipation. Which of course was only what the decorations deserved.
Shillings tinkled deliciously into the locked box.
And soon it was clear that not only would every seat be filled, but many members of the audience would be standing, as well.
Guests mingled and murmured, stood and craned their heads to admire the stars and draped fishnet sky and the flowers and to inspect each other, all in all quite satisfied with everything.
And yet not one of them revealed why or how they had come to be here at the last minute. Neither Delilah nor Angelique asked. They wanted everyone attending to believe this was precisely what they’d expected all along.
But they paused now and again to give each other’s arms little squeezes.
Delilah gestured with her chin to her husband, who, along with Sergeant Massey and Lord Bolt, was keeping an eye on affairs to make sure things remained civil, and he came to her side.
“Do you know anything about this?” Tristan murmured to the ladies.
They shook their heads.
“I think I do,” he said.
He was less amazed than he’d thought he’d be.
Because Captain Hardy knew more than a little bit about the mountains a man would move for a woman he loved. And how fragile and new even the greatest, most battered of hearts could become in the hands of the right woman.
He felt protective of his theory. He wouldn’t betray the man. He let it lie for now.
Delacorte had campaigned for the role (“Who’s louder than I am?” he’d insisted indignantly), but Lucien finally won the vote over who would announce the start of the performance. As Mrs. Pariseau had said more than once before, Lord Bolt had a very fine reading voice and ought to be onstage, which was what she thought of everyone who possessed a very fine reading voice.
His voice was indeed perfect for this night: resonant, refined, his pristine aristocratic English accent still a bit haunted about the edges by the French he’d been raised with and the other lands to which he’d traveled.
He strolled out onstage, stood before the curtain, and like a conjurer, raised his arms and announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming. We are so pleased to have you with us tonight for this very special occasion. May I have your silence and attention, please. And please take your seats.”
The rustling of programs and fans gradually eased, like a dying breeze.
And then Dot and Rose, each in a blue apron, a white tissue flower tucked into her hair and her belt, moved along the aisles and carefully doused every other sconce on the wall. The net effect was like watching the gradual fall of eventide.
A sigh went up when, in this darkened room, a hundred more little jeweled stars were revealed, twisting and glinting on the finest of wire from the midnight-blue-bedecked ceiling.
And then, with somber wonderment, as though he could not believe his luck and theirs, Lucien announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen... Miss Mariana Wylde.”
The curtains shimmied smoothly aside on their runners.
To reveal a star-studded blue against which hung a huge luminous moon.
Where was Mariana?
They heard her before they saw her. A soft call. A sighing note, wavering, like a breeze moving through the trees. A call like a nightingale.
Singing, she strolled from the shadows, like a nymph called by the moonlight, a flowered wreath in her loosed hair, a nacre-colored silk gown flowing in Grecian folds from her shoulders, banded beneath her breasts with a little ribbon.
There was a collective gasp.
