“I’m curious how you know how to . . . shall we say . . . interpret a song if you don’t speak the language. Aren’t most operas in Italian? Perhapsbecause Italians are often profligate with their emotions.Excessivewith their emotions,” he said suddenly.
“Thank you. I didn’t know ‘profligate.’”
He smiled swiftly.
“Perhaps they are profligate.” She liked having a new word. “Compared to the English. But we ought to be grateful for it, because it results in the most thrilling and glorious music. Perhaps that’s why we have opera. All that excess must go somewhere, and it spills over into beauty.”
“Whereas the truly great English opera has yet to be written,” he said. “Because feelings are not the forte of the English.”
“Oh, but we must not discount Mr. Thomas Arne, andArtaxerxes!Lots of murder and romance. Then there’s Mr. John Gay andThe Beggar’s Opera... I should so love to play Polly Peachum one day. Who knows, Your Grace? Perhaps one day an opera will be written about your memoirs. Although I imagine it would be difficult for even me to sing over the sound of the cannon firing.”
His eyes crinkled.
And then something alarming happened: they lit with true amusement, and in lighting somehow revealed themselves to be filled with subtle little amber and russet lights.
Oh, dear God. They were beautiful.
She did not like knowing this.
It seemed terribly unfair that he should have yet another advantage.
Two tiny curves appeared at either side of his mouth. Dimples.
She stared at him.
She really ought to smile back, but suddenly she was dumbstruck and wary of this evidence of charm.
“Aren’t opera singers on the whole famously temperamental?” he asked. “Buffeted about by great winds of emotion. No choice but to throw vases and tantrums. Laughing one moment. Sobbing the next. Threats and exhortations. That sort of thing?”
“That’s for later in one’s career, when one can get away with nearly anything.” She thought, but did not say, that there was no guarantee there would be a “later” in her career.
He nodded, mouth quirked at the corner.
And then he swiftly pushed over to her the sheet of foolscap he’d been writing on.
She bent her head. Written in a hand that was neat but dashing and singular, she found several columns of words, in English and Italian, sorted into categories, like so:
stage
costume
wig
shoes
actor
actress
coat
stockings
balcony
conductor
long
