His face fell a little. “Ah, I am sorry for that, too,” he said. “Sorry for thinking you were experienced when you were not. And sorry for pushing you into something which you did not want.”
Her hand flew to his face, caressing his cheek instinctively. “I was not that I did not want
you,
Quin,” she whispered. “And it was not because I did not love you that I left you,
caro.
Never think that.”
“When you left me, I did not know what to think,” he confessed. “As a young man, I tortured myself over you. Wooing you, winning you; Vivie, it was like an obsession with me. I actually believed I knew how the world worked and what sophisticated women like you expected. It has taken me all these years to realize that I had understood nothing at all.”
“Ah,
caro!”
she whispered. “Too young. We were too young.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I believed you experienced and worldly, Viviana, because I was not,” he admitted. “I spent all our months together half in fear, half-believing that at any moment, you might leave me for someone older, or richer, or better placed in society. And worst of all, I believed you were embarrassed to be my mistress—which, as it turns out, was perfectly true. But not for the reasons I had imagined.”
Fleetingly, Viviana closed her eyes. “How we have hurt one another,” she answered. “So foolishly, we have hurt one another—and I, well, I have done worse, perhaps. I have hurt Cerelia. And now I would do anything—anything, Quinten—to give her a happy life.”
He turned his face into her palm and kissed it in that old, familiar way. “Then I have two other questions, Vivie,” he said softly. “The first is a favor I mean to ask of you.”
She nodded her head, and blinked back a tear.
“Certamente,”
she managed. “I will do what is in my power.”
“I wish to return to Venice with you, if you must go,” he said.
She could not believe him serious. “To—to Venice?” she whispered. “Oh,
caro.
That is—oh, that is so very…
lontanissimi.
So very far from England.”
His eyes danced with good humor. “I remember at least a little of my schoolroom geography, Vivie,” he said. “I think I know where Venice is.”
She felt her face flush with heat. “Forgive me,” she said. “Of course you do.”
He leaned back against the arm of the sofa and studied her. “And there I will take a house—a villa? But not a mansion. Just something small. What do you call that?”
She laughed nervously. “A
casa,”
she said. “Or an
appartamento.”
“A
casa
it is, then,” he said, smiling. “And then I would like to spend a little time getting to know Cerelia. Felise and Nicolo, too. Let them view me as a fond uncle or a godparent, or—well, choose any polite euphemism you like—I wish only to spend time with them. But I do not wish to interfere in your life, Vivie, if you do not wish me in it.”
Her blush deepened. “I did not say that, Quinten,” she whispered. “I did not say you were not wanted.”
Quin smiled again, and this time, the smile reached his dark blue eyes. “Then I have something for you, Vivie.” He released her hand, dug into his coat pocket, and handed her a jeweler’s box.
Viviana pushed it away.
“Grazie,”
she said. “But no present. And
per amore di Dio,
no more jewelry. Ever.”
“It isn’t jewelry,” he said, giving it a little shake. “Though you may like it even less well.”
Viviana drew back skeptically and studied it. Then feminine curiosity got the better of her. She took it from him, and lifted the lid. The box held nothing but a folded sheet of foolscap, tucked into the velvet where a bracelet or necklace should have lain. She looked at him and saw his blue eyes dance. “Quinten, I do not understand.”
“Read it,” he said.
She unfolded it, and did so. “I…Quinten, I still do not…” But a feeling of hope was coming over Viviana, an emotion so swift and so intense, her hand began to shake. “It has my name on it,” she whispered. “Yours, too.”
He smiled almost wistfully. “That is the reason Herndon and I were a day late back from London,” he explained.
“What…what are you saying, Quinten?” she asked unsteadily. “What does this—this
documento
mean?”
“Herndon needed a special license to marry Alice,” said Quin. “And one has to do quite a bit of work to obtain such a thing. But we succeeded. And then—well, I cannot explain it, Viviana. You had given me no hope. Indeed, you still have not. But I could not leave London without my own little piece of paper. Just in case, you see. Just because I have been in love with you for a full third of my life, and I know now that that will never change. So I went back the next day to get one for myself. For
us,
Vivie.”
Viviana set her fingertips to her forehead in some vain attempt to clear her dizzying thoughts. “Quinten, I am confused.”
“I am not,” he said. “For the first time in my life, Vivie, I am thinking with perfect clarity.”
“But—but Quin, I have done a terrible thing to you, and to Cerelia,” she protested. “And I am too old for you. And too Catholic. And a mother of three very lively children. And then there is
Papà,
who needs—”
He cut her off with a kiss that was swift and firm. “Enough,” he said. “None of that matters. So far as I am concerned, those are not obstacles. They are just details, and details can always be sorted out,
if
it is what we both wish. This license gives us six months, Vivie, to do just that. To sort it out. But
you,
Vivie—will you give us six months? Can you ever learn to love me again?”
She lowered her gaze to the floor. “I have never stopped,” she finally said. “You must know, Quin, that I never have.”
He shocked her then by taking her empty hand in his, and going down on one knee before her. “So, Viviana Alessandri, love of my life, woman whom I utterly do
not
deserve, will you have me anyway? Will you marry me, and make a family with me? And be warned, my love, that whilst this little piece of paper will eventually expire, my persistence will not. I will just wait a year or a month or a fortnight—or perhaps even another decade—and ask again.”
Viviana laid the paper aside. “Do you forgive me, then, Quinten?” she whispered. “For what I have done to Cerelia? For what I have done to us?”
He shook his head. “We must both forgive ourselves, Vivie,” he whispered. “We must think only of the future, and of the children—and even, perhaps, of the children to come. And we must tell Cerelia that we love her, that she is wanted, and that from this day forward, we will care for her. Either together. Or apart. I will take what I can get. Which, Vivie, would you rather it be?”
“Together,” she softly whispered. She dived into his arms, and somehow ended up on her knees on the floor with him. “Yes, yes, Quinten, my beautiful English boy, I will marry you.
Caro,
I will marry you a thousand times over.”
Quinten’s face lit with a happiness which at last seemed true. “Just once, Vivie,” he said. “If I can get you to the altar just once, it will be enough for a thousand lifetimes.”
A Dress Rehearsal.
T
he night was warm and heavy with rain when Lord Wynwood left his Curzon Street town house and set out at a brisk clip for the Haymarket. It was a short walk, but not a quiet one. Beyond the elegant seclusion of Mayfair, the pavements and streets were choked with traffic as the city’s working class flooded forth to make last-minute purchases from the markets or enjoy the first of what might be many libations in the local coffeehouses and pubs.
At the opera house, his destination, he pushed through the crowds and made his way along to the stage door just as it burst open, disgorging perhaps a dozen gay and laughing people into the muted gaslight. At first, they paid him no heed. But upon seeing him in the shadows, someone in the crowd whispered, “Hush, hush, it is
him.”
Quin stood to one side and lifted his hat, allowing the crowd to pass. “Good evening,” he said. “Is rehearsal over?”
“At last, my lord,” answered one the tenors deferentially. “Shall we see you at opening night?”
“I would not miss it,” he said. Nor did he miss the smiles and awkward, sidelong glances which came his way, particularly from some of the females in the crowd.
“Ah, Wynwood, that you there?” Lord Digleby Beresford was straggling in the rear of the crowd, his nose half-buried in a sheet of music one of the others had just passed him.
“I wouldn’t read that whilst strolling in the Haymarket, old man,” Quin advised. “One of those brewer’s drays will likely plow you down with a load of porter and deprive the world of your genius.”
Lord Digleby grunted. “Yes, well, we shall see what the world thinks of my genius come tomorrow night, will we not?” he answered. “I collect you are looking for your wife?”
“I am indeed.”
“She kept Signorina Fabiano after rehearsal,” he said. “The orchestra’s still in. Make yourself at home.”
Quin made his way through the stage door and along the narrow corridor. A violinist approached, his expression dark, a broken string sprouting from his violin scroll like a strand of hair gone wild. “Lady Wynwood?” he enquired, lifting his hat as they passed.
“Fabiano’s dressing room,” grumbled the musician, jerking his head toward another corridor.
The direction was not necessary. Above the choppy, discordant notes of the orchestra’s retuning, he could already hear the strains of
Nel Pomeriggio
’s most challenging aria, its high notes punctuating the air like staccato bursts of gunfire.
Upon reaching the door, he peeked inside. Viviana paced back and forth before Signorina Fabiano, her eyes almost shut, her brows in a knot. Quin watched as the piece drew to a close. The young lady hit her last notes perfectly—at least so far as he could tell.
Silence fell across the shabby little room. Viviana’s furrowed brow melted. “Brava! Brava!” she said, her eyes flying open.
“Grazie,
Maria. That was excellent!”
The younger woman blushed and dropped her chin. Just then, Viviana saw Quin standing in the doorway. “Quinten,
caro mio!”
she cried, coming toward him, arms outstretched in greeting.
“I hope I am not interrupting, my love?”
“No, not at all.”
Signorina Fabiano curtsied. “We have just finished, my lord,” she said, snatching up her music. “I bid you both good night.”
“Buona notte,
Maria,” said Viviana. “I shall see you tomorrow.”
Quin critically observed the young woman’s departure. “Has she really got hold of it, do you think?”
Viviana nodded. “Oh, Maria is ready,” she answered confidently. “She will never be the world’s greatest soprano, perhaps. But she is very good.”
“In other words, Vivie, she will never be you,” he remarked.
“I did not say that,” averred his wife.
Quin smiled down at her. “You did not need to,” he answered. “Your father said it for you. As did Lord Digleby and Uncle Ches. Their noses are still out of joint over your refusal to sing the lead. After all, they cast this opera in London just to suit you.”
“Just to suit me?” she exclaimed. “I never suggested they should do so!”
“One can scarcely blame them for hoping,” he said, kissing her lightly on the nose.
She shook her head. “My voice is not good enough,” she said. “Moreover, I have other duties now.” The last was followed by a sly smile.
“Other duties, eh?” Quin drew his wife close. “Of what sort?”
“Of the very pleasant sort,” she said on a laugh. “Ah, Quinten! I am glad to see you. It has been a long afternoon. What have the children been up to?”
He tucked her head beneath his chin. “Oh, Cerelia put poor Mr. Schmitt through his paces this afternoon,” he said. “Already she is beginning to conjugate German verbs. And Nicolo broke a jar of Felise’s favorite paint, and spilt it all over the schoolroom. And—well, I shan’t tell you yet about the frogs.”
“The
frogs—?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, pray do
not
tell me. I am quite sure the tale will involve Nicolo and a good deal of mud.”
Quin threw back his head and laughed. “The voice of maternal experience!” Then his expression sobered, and he kissed her soundly.
“But back to that pathetic excuse of yours,” he went on, when he’d lifted his mouth from hers. “Uncle Ches does insist that you, on your worst day, are still better than everyone else on their best. He claims you have made too much fuss about this nose business and that he can barely tell the difference.”
“Ah,
barely!”
she echoed. “What a telling word that is,
amore mio.
Opera requires—no, it
demands
—total perfection. But more importantly, Quinten, I find I much prefer to teach. All my grumbles and complains aside, I have enjoyed these last few months so very much. Teaching does not require one’s utter devotion and all of one’s time.”
Quin sat down on the tattered divan, the old leather crackling beneath his weight. Playfully, he pulled his wife between his legs and set his lips to her belly. “And then there is that other little problem,” he murmured against the silk of her gown. “That troubling little matter of squeezing oneself into all that costuming, night after night—and month after month.”
Viviana drew back a few inches and laughed. “Wretch! Do be quiet!”
“But indeed, I think you’ve gained at least a stone,” he said, eyeing her bodice. “Those stitches are pulled quite positively tight.”
His wife drove her fingers into his hair and pulled his cheek against the silk of her gown. “That is still our little secret,
caro mio,”
she reminded him. “It is too soon.”
He pulled her closer still. “It
is
too soon,” he admitted, his voice going thick with emotion. “I don’t wish to share it with anyone just yet, Vivie. Only you. I am awestruck still. I feel the most fortunate of men.”
Viviana turned and settled herself on his knee with a gentle smile. “And I, Quinten, the most fortunate of women,” she answered.
He held her there for a time, cradling her in his arms, his face buried in her hair. He could hear the orchestra leaving now, the unmistakable sound of chair legs scraping and instrument cases closing. Little by little, silence fell across the old theater, and still he did not move. He was afraid to break the spell. The spell of complete and utter happiness. And yet there had been a hundred such instances these last few months. It all seemed too perfect. And more than a little fragile.
Ah, but there was not time for his maudlin notions. It was time to see his wife safely home, where they would spend an hour or so with the children, then have dinner with Signor Alessandri. After that, he would have to urge Viviana and his father-in-law into bed early, for they had a very big day tomorrow.
He shifted his weight as if to move, making the old divan crackle again. A sudden, and slightly humorous, thought struck him. “Vivie?”
“Yes,
amore mio?”
“Is this—” He looked about him and blinked. “Is this your old dressing room?”
Lightly, she laughed. “It is,” she admitted. “Does it bring back memories?”
Quin looked down at the cracked and peeling leather surface. “And this old piece of rubbish—is it that same divan? The one we—well, never mind that. But
is
it?”
Viviana looked down. “Why, I daresay it might be,” she mused. “It certainly looks old enough and tatty enough, does it not?”
He set his mouth to the soft spot beneath her ear and kissed her again, a long, lingering kiss that slid slowly down to the turn of her throat. In his arms, she shivered ever so slightly. “Vivie,” he murmured, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I—I do not know.” The words were thick, and a little husky. “What are you thinking,
caro?”
“I am thinking that the orchestra is gone,” he said suggestively. “And that perhaps this old divan has not seen its last hurrah.”
His wife actually
giggled.
“Why, whatever can you be suggesting?”
He smiled. “I am suggesting that, where this room and this particular piece of furniture are concerned, perhaps I should leave you with a good memory? One that will once and forever wipe away your recollection of the bad.”
“A nefarious plan indeed.” But her slender, clever hands had already gone to his waistcoat buttons.
Quin shrugged. “Well, you must admit, my love, that the technique worked very well indeed the last time we tried it.”
Viviana slipped the next button free and kissed him again. But not for the last time that evening.