She wouldn’t, of course, write any of that to her mother, who was not free of lines, fine or otherwise, and she had no illusions about escaping that fate herself.
She in fact still hadn’t written anything at all to her mother, and her letter was now nearly a week late.
It was another example of a truth that wasn’t a truth. She wished the duke was anything so benign as dull. He had only to be himself to be considered interesting, and in merely being himself, he had somehow all but eliminated her, the way an ocean engulfs a drop of water.
But Mariana yearned for a confidante. Her circumstances remained roughly as secure as a lifeboat on a sea that could turn stormy at any time. She was very aware she was here on the gentle sufferance of the ladies of The Grand Palace on the Thames until the time came for her to sing, and she was unaccustomed to charity. She’d need to get a message to Giancarlo somehow to let him know to where she’d fled. He might be a bit of a rogue, but as a composer and director, he knew talented sopranos were not so thick on the vine that he could afford losing one to tar and feathers. Or starvation.
And before the ladies went through the trouble of printing handbills and placing them in the finest establishments on Bond Street, in Grosvenor Square and St. James’s Square, and all about the Italian Opera House, there was a little matter of reputation repair. Otherwise the little audience that had been underneath her window the other night might show up at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“Have you anyone who might be willing to speak on your behalf? Someone the newspapers might find newsworthy? Perhaps someone with a title, or, er... a certain stature?”
Lord Bolt had asked this during the planning meeting they’d held yesterday afternoon, before the arrival of the duke. He’d had more than a little experience with renovating a reputation.
A number of titled men liked to congregate backstage after performances, but she personally knew only four of them. Two of them had shot at each other, ostensibly because of her, the third was Lord Bolt, and the fourth was the Duke of Valkirk, who had already court-martialed her in the tribunal of self-righteousness.
“Madame LeCroix?” she suggested, tentatively. “I sang alongside her in a production last year, and we got on well. She was kind to me.” Madame LeCroix had since retired from the stage, but was still much admired and respected in London for her charitable works. How charitable the retired diva might be toward a young one caught up in a scandal was anyone’s guess.
“I shall send a message to Madame LeCroix,” Lord Bolt said.
How had it come to this?
She longed to unburden her heart to someone, to anyone. But she could not think of anyone quite like her, and that was the problem. Society did tend to like its categories and labels, and there was no place into which she comfortably notched. One couldn’t be “a bit of a whore,” for instance, any more than one could be “a little bit pregnant.” One either was, or one wasn’t.
She was a singularity. She was feeling her way in the dark, and the dark was littered with pitfalls that looked like delights and delights that turned out to be terrible pitfalls.
She stared at the foolscap and daydreamed words onto it.
Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds you well.
It’s partly true, what they said in the newspaper. I felt I ought to tell you.
I have always tried very hard to be good. But he was very handsome, and a lord, and he said to me things like “beautiful” and “bewitching.” I think lords learn those words at Eton because they think they’ll work on women like me, and as it turns out, they’re right.
Sometimes, I wish I didn’t remember how our family used to be in our rooms over the shop, because that life was the aria, and everything since feels like just its echo. I suppose I felt very alone, which is why it all happened. I like to think I have learned a lot about men, but I worry I only know how to manage them. Perhaps that’s all I’ll ever need to know. I don’t suppose I will ever get a glimpse inside a man’s heart. I think I would know if I had. Wouldn’t I know? How do you know?
I also sometimes wish I didn’t now know how much I enjoy kissing and—well, everything else. But I do. (Moreover, I’m good at it.) But it’s like a duel, I suppose. Not something one ought to do without a good reason. Ha. At least I now know.
It did not make anything better.
I did not understand that pride, temper, and champagne could make men so apt to shoot each other.
It all happened so quickly.
And I swear to you on Papa’s grave that I only went to a gaming hell once, and the pelisse was a gift, not a payment.
She sighed and put the quill pen down. She wouldn’t be writing the letter tonight, either. That much was clear.
Had the Duke of Valkirk learned words like “bewitched” and “beautiful” and used them to seduce women? It seemed nearly impossible to imagine him in the throes of anything other than self-importance.
If she were being more truthful, it was also impossible to imagine him needing totryto seduce women. He was possessed of unfair charisma and the kind of body that, when considered apart from his odious personality, might tempt a woman to slide right underneath.
It shouldn’t matter to her, given all of her current concerns. But his instant judgment felt like an injustice layered upon an injustice, which was somehow, finally, an injustice too far.
But it was revelatory, too. It was useful to know that it took only one person to make her feel small, when she had tried so hard for so long to be seen. This would never do.
She would make him see her. And the best way to do that was to somehow best him in a way he couldn’t possibly ignore.
