“Commemorative handkerchiefs,” she said on a hush. “Can you picture it? Embroidered with the initials of The Grand Palace on the Thames. Because there won’t be a dry eye in the place when Miss Wylde sings!”
It was a deucedly clever and profoundly impractical notion. Plain linen handkerchiefs cost about four shillings each, and they fervently hoped to sell one hundred tickets, which made the cost outlandish.
“Perhaps providence will step in,” Angelique suggested gently.
They would need it. They were going to need to rely on providence to find one hundred chairs for the ballroom, too. They hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin for that.
As for the tickets, Lord Bolt had arranged for a popular jeweler in Bond Street to sell them, which would make it more convenient for gentlemen to purchase. They were printed in elegant script on a palm-sized card: four shillings for a seat, or two shillings if one preferred to stand, or, in the case of the drunk man who liked to lean against the building near The Grand Palace on the Thames, lean. The name of the jeweler was to be printed on the handbill along with the address of The Grand Palace on the Thames, and the handbills would then be distributed about London and posted primarily in places where opera enthusiasts might befound, near Haymarket and Covent Garden and Piccadilly. This ought to make it easy for people with money and a love for opera to learn about it and buy tickets, if the scandal didn’t stop them.
Mariana’s name would be tall enough on the handbills to see from at least ten feet away, if one didn’t need spectacles. Or opera glasses.
She began to feel hopeful. At least things were progressing a little.
And she’d studied her Italian, of course, as though her life depended on it.
She might be a “spirited girl,” but damned if she would let the Duke of Valkirk think she was anything like a fool.
“Buonasera, Miss Wylde.”
“Buonasera, Your Grace.”
Next to his arm was what seemed to be the same stack of foolscap—his book—she’d seen yesterday. Alongside it was a veritable mound of what looked like correspondence, some opened, some still sealed with various wax blobs, and next to that pile was what looked like a miniature tower of crisp, snowy, engraved invitations and calling cards. She’d never received or sent either of those things.
She peered and noted that the top sheet of his book began with the words “Chapter 4.” It appeared to be comprised of about five sentences, all of which had been violently scratched out, alongside which were a little drawing of a sailing ship and another of a tiny horse. She was gratified to see that this one had a fluffier tail.
Beneath this he’d drawn three gentle upward arcs. Perhaps he’d been testing a new ink?
“It was kind of you to donate two hundred pounds to the Society for the Protection of the Sussex Poor, Your Grace,” she said.
“I suppose it was,” he said, politely. “It was kind of Madame LeCroix to reminisce about her relationship to you.” He paused. “And yours to champagne.”
She regarded him coolly.
Kind, but also a bit of a bastard.How she wished someone would reminisce thusly to the newspaper about the Duke of Valkirk.
“I suppose it was,” she said, carefully.
A smile flickered over his lips. “Shall we review what you’ve learned since yesterday, to ascertain her assessment of your... how did Madame LeCroix describe it? Sense of responsibility?”
“I’m ready when you are,” she said.
He pulled the foolscap he’d given to her yesterday toward him, and swiftly, crisply, tested her on the words by first reading the English and demanding the Italian. Then reading Italian in a different order and demanding the English versions.
She didn’t miss a one.
“Well done, Miss Wylde.”
The faint surprise he’d inflected that with set her teeth on edge. But she could not deny that hearing these words from the most irritatingly exacting man in the world was gratifying.
“Grazie, Your Grace.”
“Do you think you can handle more vocabularywords this time? I’ll send you away with a much longer list and an assignment of, oh, say, fifteen to twenty sentences. How did Madame LeCroix put it? If a girl has plenty of work, she won’t have time to get into mischief.”
Normally she enjoyed a good piss-taking but was disinclined to let him know. She found herself instead coolly staring again, as if in so doing she had a hope of putting him in his place. The silence unfortunately allowed her to note, once more, that the contours of his face were fascinating. So distinctive and implacably fierce in repose. Those heavy brows. The mouth that bordered on sensual above that hard chin.
“Well done on memorizing the article, Your Grace. May I commend you on your parroting skills.”
A swift little smile flashed again. “Before we discuss which categories of words you ought to take away for your next lesson, was there an Italian phrase you’ve overheard that you’d like translated, or would you like to know how to say a specific phrase in Italian?”
