Secrets of a Soprano (10 page)

“Good morning.” At least he’d addressed her with respect and his tone was perfectly civil.

“Good morning, Lord Allerton,” she responded cautiously.

“A warm day, is it not?”

Covertly she examined his face while maintaining her pace. Though inscrutable, his expression didn’t seem hostile. “Are we going to discuss the weather?” Then, unable to prevent a ghost of a smile from crossing her lips, she said, “How very English.”

“Since I read in the papers that you are the pride of our country, the greatest English singer since Mrs. Billington, I assume you have adopted tea-drinking, fox hunting, and the ability to discuss the daily minutiae of our climate for hours at a time.”

Tessa turned the words over in her mind, considering if this light-hearted speech contained an insult. As far as she could see it did not, so she replied in kind. “Fox hunting I’ve never practiced. Tea and prognostications of rain? Why not? Despite the warmth the sky looks threatening. I fear it may pour later this morning. Luckily I always walk early when I haven’t performed the night before.”

“So my spies tell me.”

Suspicion that the meeting wasn’t coincidental hardened to certainty. She found she was…not displeased…that he’d troubled to discover her habits. Yet she couldn’t imagine he’d have anything to say to her after their last encounter.

He offered his arm. “May I join you?”

She ignored the gesture. “It appears you already have. I warn you I’m not in the habit of strolling idly. When I exercise I mean business.”

“I can keep up.”

“You always could.” During that brief time, so many years ago, they’d walked miles around the old town of Oporto and the surrounding countryside. At the time she’d been grateful for her guardian’s casual attitude towards chaperonage. It had never occurred to her that Max would take advantage of the laxity. She’d believed him the perfect gentleman in every way, until she had discovered otherwise.

She thrust aside that thought and its attendant bitterness. It was pointless to remain angry about an eleven-year-old incident. Her own bad behavior was recent and needed to be addressed. She hated herself for throwing that glass at Max even more than she hated him for provoking her. Swallowing her pride and summoning her courage, she murmured a few rapid Italian phrases to Angela and the maid drew several paces back.

“The other night,” Tessa began, “I owe you an apology—”

He cut her off. “There’s no need. My own behavior has been far from perfect. May we put the incident behind us and agree to say no more about it?” She wasn’t sure from his tone of voice that he was really so forgiving, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Very well,” she replied.

Why didn’t you meet me at the churchyard? Why did you leave without a word?
The questions were on the tip of her tongue but she held back. If she spoke to him about the misery he’d caused her she’d never be able to maintain a façade of indifference.

“I would like to make something clear,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him. “Whatever happened between us before was long ago. We were little more than children. It is foolish to go on resenting the sins of the very young.”

His expression held no trace of regret. Had he ever even wondered how she’d felt, waiting for him on another cloudy day in a different country?

They strode on in silence, pausing only to avoid two little boys who ran across the path in pursuit of their ball. Keeping her eyes on the way ahead, she was keenly aware of his presence at her side, his relaxed but purposeful gait, the lithe figure towering over her. So reminiscent of the past, yet different. He was no longer Max Hawthorne, a charming youth with a deceptive air of diffidence. It was a grown man beside her, with a man’s muscular body and the confidence of his years and status: Viscount Allerton, one of England’s richest citizens.

“I always wondered about you, whether Tessa Birkett was, in fact, La Divina.” There was a new timbre to his voice, less guarded than before. She looked up and met his eyes. The breeze had blown a lock of straight black hair across his forehead and his expression matched that informality.

It was humiliating to find herself pleased that he’d thought of her. “Why did it take you so long to discover it? I’ve learned you are one of the greatest connoisseurs of opera in England. Didn’t you ever think of coming to hear me?” She didn’t intend to sound conceited, let alone offended, but her head was at sixes and sevens.

“Once the war ended I visited some of the European houses. Unfortunately for me, I never happened to be where you were singing.”

His polite response enabled her to reply with more civility. “Your opera house, the Regent, is very fine. It reminds me a little of La Fenice.”

“I’ve never been to Venice but I studied plans of La Fenice as well as several others. I wanted to emulate the smaller size and superior acoustical qualities of the European court houses. And their artistic standards. In England orchestra, chorus, and staging are not always of the best. The Tavistock, for instance, is so very large that only the largest voices can be heard to advantage.”

She turned her neck sharply. “Are you suggesting that my voice is too negligible to be heard properly there?” She was joking, but only half. He still made her skin and her attitude prickly.

“I’m suggesting nothing of the kind, as you must know.” He paused, as though to consider his words, with an air of gravity that added weight to his opinion. “Even when I first heard you, your resonance was extraordinary, not that I understood what that meant. You were always good and I don’t need to tell you how great you have become.”

His praise, though no more effusive than she had heard a thousand times, soothed her and she lowered her defenses. Her heart warmed at the compliment from Max, of all people.

A wave of regret swept over her, not for the brief period she’d spent in his company so long ago. More a wistful recollection of her youth, when things had been uncomplicated, and all she’d cared about was her music. Before Domenico Foscari came into her life and brought her dazzling success and profound misery.

They drew to a halt in the tree-lined path and he regarded her, grave as ever. Max had never been flirtatious in his manner.

“Thank you,” she said. “I am gratified. You always had excellent taste.” And because she suddenly feared she might cry, which would never do, she smiled at him.

*

A fist slammed
into Max’s chest when, for the first time, she tilted her head and gave him a full view of her face, unobstructed by the brim of her headwear: a perfect oval with flawless skin, as yet unmarred by years of stage makeup; arched brows a few shades darker than her golden hair; a straight, firm nose whose prominence had always raised her countenance above conventional prettiness; the full, pink mouth designed for the emission of ravishing sounds. And those blue eyes.

For a long moment their gazes meshed and there lay a hint of melancholy behind the smile, as though shadows had darkened a life once filled only with sunlight and hope.

Not melancholy, he corrected himself. Cynicism. It was cynicism her eyes reflected. As well they might, given her character and history.

Not wanting to be fooled again by Teresa Foscari’s deceptively angelic beauty, he examined her from head to toe. Her costume was designed to draw attention to her figure. The pale blue walking dress topped by a satin spencer in a darker azure was simple on the face of it, yet embellished with fiendishly intricate pleats that molded to her bosom. Its skirt was narrow enough to offer tantalizing hints of her legs as she walked. This ensemble, like every garment he’d seen the diva wear, spoke eloquently of Paris.

Paris. Where the woman had bedded the emperor and Lord knows how many other men, all with one thing in common: deep pockets.

Yet he couldn’t repress a curiosity to know something about her advancement from merchant’s daughter to operatic luminary. A curiosity perfectly consistent with his role as a patron of her art.

“Tell me how you came to leave Oporto?” he said.

Her cheeks flushed a little. “Soon after my debut, I was offered an engagement in Lisbon. That’s where I met Domenico Foscari who said I would never make anything of myself in Portugal. He persuaded me to go to Italy with him.”

“Reports say that you eloped.”

“Yes. My guardian, Mr. Waring, didn’t approve of our marriage.”

The name brought to mind his own final interview with Josiah Waring. There was a kind of bitter satisfaction in learning that she had parted ways with the family. When thieves fall out…

“And then?” he prodded.

She described how she started in the Italian opera houses, winning bigger and better roles, and continuing with acclaim in Vienna, Paris, and St. Petersburg. She spoke of her preferred operas and the theaters where she’d performed them. Caught up in her obvious devotion to the art, her manner lost any remnant of constraint and she talked as though to an old friend. Max reciprocated, trading stories and opinions about his favorite topic.

“Did you sing with Edouard Delorme in Paris?” he asked.

“Many times. Early in his career, less early in mine. His is a remarkable voice.” The words were approving but her tone reserved.

“We were lucky to secure his services. Aside from the voice, what do you think of him?”

“He likes to flaunt his good looks,” she said, then flushed a little. “That’s unfair. We all do that.”

“All of you with the looks to flaunt. We’ve encountered some…recalcitrance from
monsieur
when it comes to the selection of costume.”

He didn’t add that to his and Simon’s profound relief Delorme had at least agreed to perform his most recent role fully clothed, up to a point.

“He likes to display his attributes,” Tessa said with a little laugh. “Holy Saint George, I thought he would burst out of his breeches last week. I’m sure he succeeded in impressing the ladies.”

“You still say Holy Saint George,” Max said, all thought of the French tenor and his breeches blown away.

“What? Oh yes, I do. It’s a foolish oath.” She dropped her eyes. They both fell silent, the atmosphere thick enough to slice.

It came back to him, vividly as though it had been yesterday. They’d been walking around Oporto’s old quarter. Max, always interested in history, told her of a medieval treaty between England and Portugal that included a clause by which Portugal adopted England’s patron saint as its own, as a symbol of friendship between the two nations. Tessa for some reason found the tale hugely amusing. Infected by her laughter, they’d both almost doubled up with mirth and had to slip into an alley to recover their breath. Where he’d rather desperately wanted to kiss her and hadn’t been able to summon the courage. That came later.

For so long he had assumed he meant nothing to her, yet she still used their oath. He halted and grasped her elbow. “Tessa…” he began, hardly knowing what he wanted to ask.

She brushed him off, kept walking, and interrupted him in a bright voice. “Anyway, despite his tendency to preen, Edouard is a fine artist.”

“You didn’t ever sing Rosina, did you?” he asked, referring to the lead role in
The Barber of Seville
, the Rossini work just debuted at the Regent.

“Not on stage, though I studied it in Paris just before I came here. It’s a little low for me but within my tessitura.” She threw back her head and trilled a few measures from the opera’s most beautiful and difficult aria. By God, she had a spectacular voice!

“I have no doubt of that,” he said. “I hope one day to hear you sing it at the Regent.” Personal recollections gave way to a vision of Foscari singing Rosina at his opera house, every corner of the house filled with her admirers. Excitement at the idea led him easily to what was, after all, the point of this meeting. “I think you’ll find the Regent superior in every way to the Tavistock. Regardless of your contract with Mortimer, if you would agree to come and sing there for a single night, a benefit performance—”

“Oh Lord!”

The sky had darkened unnoticed and fat drops of rain stained the blue silk of Tessa’s spencer.

“Holy Saint George,” she cried in alarm. “I must get home. My throat!”

Max needed no explanation. Most people might regard a head cold as a trifling risk; to an opera singer it was a looming catastrophe.

“We’re near the Grosvenor Gate,” he said, seizing her arm. “I’ll find you a hackney.”

Foolish thought! Whoever finds a hackney in the rain? By the time they reached Park Lane, with no vacant vehicle in sight, her clothing was soaked, the Parisian silk clinging to her body. Resisting the distraction, Max shrugged out of his coat and threw it over her shoulders. She huddled into it, shivering and unhappy. Her maid arrived at a run and fussed around her mistress, emitting distressed Italian squawks.

“I live only a step away,” he offered. “I know it wouldn’t be quite proper…”

“Never mind about that. I must get dry immediately.”

A few minutes brought them to Max’s house on Upper Grosvenor Street where one of his footmen admitted them. Tessa said a few words to Angela, then to Max.