Secrets of a Soprano (32 page)

Delorme shrugged, bowed and complied. “
A bientôt
,” he said at the door, the picture of handsome insolence.

“Not if I see you coming,” Tessa muttered and Max felt marginally better.

Pouring a glass of wine from a decanter on a side table, he brought it to her. He watched in an agony of disquiet while she took a sip of the drink. The wretched woman he saw was almost unrecognizable as the bewitching diva or the offstage beauty. Her eyes seemed to have sunk into her face, and no cosmetic art could have made her paler. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms but he didn’t dare touch her, or even sit at her side.

She looked up and handed him the glass. “Thank you, Max,” she said with a dignity that belied her haggard appearance. “I’m sorry you had to witness this ugly episode.”

About Delorme, at least, he knew what to do. “He’ll never sing at the Regent again,” he said without any consideration of the business consequences of dismissing the popular tenor.

“Edouard is nothing.” She dismissed him as though swatting a gnat. “He was troublesome, yes, but I wasn’t in real danger. He is nothing but a voice to me and of no other importance.”

Max had never guessed Delorme responsible for Tessa’s profound unhappiness. While not ready to dismiss the tenor’s attack on her so easily, he was glad to hear her call him insignificant.

“But,” she continued, “we have a history.”

“No history that justifies him forcing himself on you.”

“No, not that. I think I had better tell you about it.”

Painful as it would be to hear the confirmation that Delorme had once been her lover, he savored the fact that she was ready to trust him. He ventured to perch beside her on the low couch, his long legs hunched up. When he tried to take her hand she removed it, though not urgently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no right.”

She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and her nose pinched into an inelegant sniff. “You have the right of a friend but it’s better not to touch me now. You will understand after you hear my story. To explain what happened today, and the night of the fire, I have to tell you about my life. The parts of my life that have not appeared in the newspapers.”

“I am honored by your confidence and you may rely on my discretion.”

“I trust you, Max. You deserve to know the truth.”

His heart turned over at the naked vulnerability of her expression. She was no longer hiding from him.

She made a visible effort to compose herself but her hands, twisted together in her lap, gave away her anguish. Max guessed that her story would not be an easy one to tell.

“Don’t speak of anything that upsets you,” he said, longing to hear everything.

She shook her head and murmured something he couldn’t make out. After a while she began, choosing her words carefully. “I told you how I eloped from Lisbon with Domenico Foscari. As an artist I made a good choice. He was an excellent manager for a young singer. He knew voices and made sure I had fine teachers in Italy. Had I stayed in Portugal I wouldn’t have risen beyond the provincial. While I made my name as a singer, he created an image for me—the temper, the broken china, the gowns, the jewels, the lovers.”

Was she saying what he thought? That there had been no lovers? That she had not lain with Napoleon Bonaparte after all? Max kept his mouth clamped shut and let her speak. Later perhaps he could ask questions.

“I didn’t like behaving like a temperamental diva, or the rumors he spread about me, but I let him do as he wished as long as I could sing. La Divina was an invention of Domenico Foscari.”

“Not your voice,” he said firmly. “No one but God could invent that.”

She smiled so faintly her face scarcely moved. Head bowed and shoulders hunched, unlike the confident, voluptuous goddess of the stage, she seemed fragile, as though she might break apart with the waft of the merest breeze. “The music and the performances were all I cared about. Domenico said if people read about me in the newspapers they would want to hear me, and the opera houses would engage me for the best roles. He was right. I became famous all over Europe and we became rich. He was very good at negotiating, unlike me.” She glanced at him wryly. “Neither Mortimer nor your Mr. Lindo would have had my services for so little if Domenico was in charge. But no fortune was ever enough for him.”

The words came more slowly as though enunciating them was a task for Sisyphus. He hated to see her pain and would have told her to stop but he couldn’t. He had to know. Unable to bear her nearness without offering physical comfort, he stood and put a little distance between them. From the sofa she looked up, her eyes dull.

“Performers often add to their incomes by coming under the protection of rich men, as I know
you
are aware. Domenico hinted that I should accept some of the lures sent out to me by noblemen, as long as they were rich. Many men wished to possess La Divina, but I refused them all. Even if I was tempted to give myself in a sordid commercial transaction, which I was not, I had made wedding vows and I honored them.” Her lush mouth turned down in a grimace and her forehead creased. She had never looked uglier…or more beautiful to his eyes. “What a fool. I already knew Domenico was far from an ideal husband. We were happy enough at first. I believed I loved him. But he became unpleasant when he did not get his way. He lost his temper. And when I refused to let him be my pimp, he no longer troubled to cover up his own infidelities. Our marriage became a business arrangement only. I sang. He collected money. He spent money, far more than I knew.”

Max nodded. Just as he had deduced. The man had ruined her in more ways than one.

“Then, last year in Paris, he began to woo me again. He said my coldness had driven him to other women. He made me believe that it had all been my fault but he wished to start again, have children, which he had always said was impossible for La Divina. I was wary but agreed. After all, we were tied to each other for life and I wanted a home and a family. I fooled myself that I could have them with Domenico. I let him convince me.”

Her voice had dropped to a whisper and she bent low so he couldn’t see her face. He sensed she was approaching the crisis in the tale and, as she had indicated, Delorme was not the villain.

“We began to share a bed again and once more he said I was cold and had no idea how to please a man. He made a suggestion. He told me there were games we could play in bed that would make things more exciting for both of us. I was reluctant but I agreed.” With her hands covering her face he could hardly make out the next part. “I had made up my mind to embrace our marriage so I let him—I let him tie me to the bed posts, bind my wrists and ankles, blindfold me. He left me for a while, telling me that the anticipation would increase my passion. I lay there for a long time, unable to move or see, and while I was waiting I knew that I did not love my husband and could never be happy with him. I heard his footsteps and the thought of him disgusted me. All I could think was that it would soon be over.”

“Bastard.” Max had indulged in some interesting bedsports in his time, but always with the full and enthusiastic participation of his partner.

Tears streamed down Tessa’s cheeks. “He came to the bed and lay on top of me. Oh God, I knew it wasn’t Domenico. He’d sent another man to take me. Larger, heavier. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.” Horror written on her face, her eyes closed. “
I couldn’t
move
. I was so frightened and somehow I managed to scream. Angela heard me. She saved me from rape.” Her voice was choked with tears and she bent over her knees. “He broke her nose.”

*

For a year
or more, Tessa had tried to avoid reliving the terror of Domenico’s ultimate betrayal. Angela and the Montellis knew, but she’d never described that night to anyone. She’d always locked the full horror away in an unexamined corner of her mind. Only in her dreams could she sometimes not control it. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth, racked with sobs. Then a pair of arms came around her and drew her against a broad chest. The masculine touch should have terrified her. But this was Max and she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Instead she crawled onto his lap and curled up like a baby, crying out her grief for what Domenico had taken from her forever.

He murmured soothing words, rubbed her back, and pressed light kisses on her hair. Gradually she returned to consciousness and with it came shame and sheer embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said with a giant sniff. “
Dio
, this crying will damage my voice. It’s good that I’m not singing tonight.”

“To hell with your singing,” he muttered. He tightened his hold and suddenly she had to get away. Not from fear of Max but of her own reaction. She could not let herself weaken and allow him into her heart again. Indeed, it was likely too late for that, but the way ahead was paved with nothing but misery.

The moment she resisted he let her go and set her gently on the seat. She watched him stand and pace the length of the dressing room. She was glad she had told him. He deserved to know what had occurred when they shared a bed and why it could never happen again. Yet, what must he think of her now that he knew of her shame?

“Would you like some more wine?” he asked.

“No thank you. But I seem to have mislaid my reticule. Could I trouble you for the loan of a handkerchief?”

She dried her eyes on his large, clean linen square. He stood over her radiating tension, his brown eyes filled with concern.

“I’d kill Foscari if I could,” he said abruptly. “Who was the other man?”

“A French
comte
who had earlier made his interest known. He paid Domenico a large sum for me to receive him according to his particular… taste. Once I convinced him that I was unwilling and not even aware of the transaction, he left.”

“And Foscari?”

“I told him I wanted to live apart. We were still arguing about the terms of our separation when he was attacked and killed by footpads in a dark street.”

“I wonder if the
comte
had anything to do with it.”

“The police never found his assailants. As I learned later, there were plenty of others who wished him dead.” The hordes of creditors who besieged his widow. “I couldn’t bring myself to feel much sorrow but I didn’t have him murdered.”

“Of course not,” Max said, shocked.

“The police questioned me and some of the Parisian newspapers hinted at it very strongly. The scandal made my performances more popular than ever and I detested it. I was glad to leave Paris when Mortimer came calling.”

“I wish it had been I.”

I do too
. But she did not say it. “Certainly my association with Mortimer caused me nothing but trouble.”

“I am not sorry you came to London.” His intense gaze set off flutters—part pleasure, part regret—in her breast.

“You need to know one more thing,” she said quickly. Perhaps the final confession would drive him away. “One thing that truly shames me. I told you that after the matter with the
comte
I demanded a separation from Domenico. But not only that. I was so angry that, for the first time in our marriage, I resolved to cuckold him. Not with a duke or an emperor, as he had always wished, but with a lowly singer who could give us no possible advantage. I didn’t even like Edouard but I was prepared to use him for revenge.”

Shaking her head, she remembered the decision that she had made during a duet on stage at the Paris opera. She had been a little insane at the time. Perhaps she still was. Max was waiting and she found this least important part of the story the hardest to relate, because she had certainly been at fault. “It wasn’t hard to appeal to Edouard’s vanity and entice him into my dressing room when I was alone. I flattered him, kissed him, drew him down onto the chaise longue. But as soon as I felt his weight my fear returned. I couldn’t do it and sent him away. That is why I don’t blame him too much for what he did today.”

He rocked back on his heels and harrumphed. “I’m not sure I’m ready to let him off so easily.”

“As I said, he means nothing.”

“I understand now why you panicked when I woke you that morning. I am sorry I frightened you.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Listen, Tessa.” He crouched at her feet, placed his hands on her waist, and, when she didn’t shrink from him, wrapped them around her back. “I love you. I loved you years ago and I love you now.”

She didn’t doubt him. His strength, sincerity, and fundamental goodness were written plainly on features that she would never again see as harsh.

“Oh God, Max,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob. “I wish you did not. Domenico has destroyed me. I am no use to any man.”

“I refuse to accept that. When we made love on the floor you weren’t frightened and you didn’t fight me. It was only when I came to you when you were asleep and didn’t know me. I could have been anyone and you panicked.”

“The night before was different. I was not myself after the fire.” She lowered her eyes. “Besides, most of the time I was on top. When you woke me I knew it was you. But as soon as I felt your weight I was terrified.”