She inspected her reflection. It wasn’t unpleasing. She tried a smile; it wasn’t unpersuasive. She did not look ravaged by disappointment. But there was still a tension about her eyes, at the corners of her mouth. That wouldn’t be going anywhere until—and if—she found a paying job.
This reminded her that she was luckier than most. Because she knew what to do with emotions. She could turn them into glory.
And one day again, hopefully, into more money.
Finally she made her way downstairs and followed the smells and laughter down one more flight of stairs to the kitchen. She found it as usual, filled with the warmth and laughter of kind and clever women. It was a balm, it truly was. A balm she was borrowing, like a balm from Delacorte’s case, a temporary remedy, but a remedy nonetheless. She did not truly belong here.
She hovered on the threshold for just one moment.
“Miss Wylde! We have decided on lemon seed cakes for the Night of the Nightingale, and punch,” Delilah told her happily.
“Oh, divine!” she told them, sincerely. “How lucky our guests will be.” She was beginning tofeel as though it was a bit of a pantomime, this pretending there would actually be guests. But life had surprised her before.
“Did you come to help?” Helga was teasing. One did not press the guests into folding dough for apple tarts.
“Well, I did come about work, but it’s of another sort. I know I usually use it earlier in the day, but would you mind terribly if I availed myself of the ballroom this evening before dinner? Privately, if you don’t mind. To rehearse a bit. I know I normally do it earlier, but the urge suddenly took me.”
“Oh, we should love for you to sing in the ballroom anytime you like, Miss Wylde.” Mrs. Durand gave her the key from the ones jingling merrily at her waist.
Mariana had in mind the aria fromThe Glass Rose. Sung at full voice. It was full of all those—how had the duke dryly put it?—very original words. Perhaps theyweremundane. Nevertheless, they could cut like a sword, and they would, when she sang it.
He’d lifted his head from the world of his writing to find that Dot had apparently come in with the tea and a scone, and he hadn’t so much as noted it. The tea was, naturally, cold. The sky outside his window was twilight-mauve, and the river had gone pewter.
It rather felt gray inside of him, too.
He lifted his body from the chair to go out for the evening. Dully he performed a shave, splashedin the washbasin with some soap for a few of his other parts, dragged on a fresh shirt, and tied a fresh cravat.
He’d been gravely injured in battle once. Took a musket ball, bled until they’d thought he would die. He was surprised to note that he felt a bit like that now.
It was how he knew Mariana had already become more a part of him than he’d realized. It was not something he would recover from overnight.
He buttoned his coat, reached for his hat, inhaled a deep breath in order to sigh it out again, and made for the stairs.
The sound reached him before he’d fully descended.
His breath caught. He stopped abruptly.
She was singing.
And oh, the sound. Full-throated, glorious waves of it reached him through the walls as though he was hearing it from a distance as far away as heaven.
And he moved toward it. Slowly. Breath shallow, heart beating slow and absurdly hard.
He stopped again.
The door of the ballroom was ajar.
Entering to witness her seemed like something he had irrevocably forfeited the right to do.
But it seemed he could neither stop nor deny himself, because stealthily, quietly, as though he was stealing this moment, he moved into the room and pressed himself against the wall.
Mariana was onstage, head tipped back, eyes closed. Her arms, crossed over her chest, unfurledoutward as the note she held grew in breadth and depth until he could feel it everywhere in his body.
He was motionless. Held fast by awe.
That such a small person should possess suchpower.
It wasn’t just the volume, which seemed otherworldly. He was helpless against the tide of its outrageous beauty, against the sorrow and yearning.
