Sophia looked down at the embossed program in her hand and saw Dominic St. Claire’s
name scrolled across the top. She had heard that in London he was best known for playing
Shakespearean villains, but tonight’s play was a modern romantic comedy, newly written
just for this appearance in France, and he played the leading man. Sophia thought
wryly that he was surely well-suited to such a part—so charming, so handsome, so attentive
to the ladies. Yet there was also that flash of steel beneath, that sense that he
hid things in his depths. She had seen that darkness when he came to her and demanded
that she give him Mary’s diary. Right after kissing her senseless.
And the terrible thing was he was such a very
good
kisser. He made her forget that she needed to be wary of him when his lips touched
hers, when he touched her.
Was that all part of a role, too? The perfect lover, a villain underneath. Sophia
sighed and closed the program with a little snap. She felt as if the world was nothing
but a series of masks, layers upon layers that hid the core of raw truth. Like a never-ending
play. She wasn’t sure she would even know the truth if she saw it now.
“You look pensive tonight, Sophie,” Camille said. She had her opera glasses trained
on a box further along the row, intently watching a handsome young man in a gleaming
white-and-ivory uniform. “Is something worrying you?”
“Not at all,” Sophia answered. “Perhaps I am just a bit tired.”
“You have been working too hard. The maid said your light was burning very late last
night.”
“I was going over the ledgers,” Sophia answered. “I will master how to do accounts
yet!”
“I have told you,
ma chère
, you should not work so hard,” Camille said. “If you would only…”
“I know, I know,” Sophia said with a laugh. “If I only married a suitably rich gentleman,
my troubles would be over.” Or if she returned to her family.
“You should not dismiss such a scheme. It has worked for clever young French women
for hundreds of years. And you have so many admirers here.”
Sophia noticed the handsome young officer watching Camille, a soulful look on his
face. “Not as many as you.”
“Ah, yes!
Monsieur le capitaine
. He is a handsome devil. Though not quite so handsome as the
freres
St. Claire?” Before Sophia could answer, Camille gasped and turned her glasses down
into the stalls. “Oh, look at Princesse d’Artignan’s gown! Such a fright. I do hope
that color is not the new style…”
Sophia peered down to try to glimpse the frightful couture, but her attention was
caught by the group moving into the vacant box across the way. It was an Austrian
duke she had seen at the Tuileries, along with his dowdy wife in green satin and a
few other people in their Viennese fashions. And one young lady who looked as if she
had wandered into the wrong spot by mistake, a beautiful, ethereal creature, all silvery-blonde
hair and pale blue tulle, who was smiling vaguely at something a young man was whispering
into her ear. She seemed as if she was off in her own world, as she always did.
She was Sophia’s cousin Elizabeth, who had been
widowed soon after Sophia ran off with Jack, and she was the first member of her family
she had seen in months.
Sophia’s fist crumpled her program as she watched Elizabeth and remembered the last
time they met. Elizabeth had been staying in the house the night Sophia left with
Jack. She had glimpsed her blonde head peering down over the banisters as she ran
from the house, her father shouting after her, her mother weeping but making no protest.
Elizabeth had said nothing. She never did.
Yet somehow seeing her, a reminder of the past thrust suddenly into the present, made
Sophia remember too sharply the wounded feelings of that night. That sense of being
utterly rejected for her inability to be what they wanted, while Elizabeth drifted
through life being so quiet, so perfect.
Sophia had thought that pain was gone, buried beneath the tumult of life as Mrs. Westman,
of finding herself outside her family’s insular world. But now it felt as if someone
prodded at the old scar, and it stung.
“Sophia? Are you well? You look rather pale suddenly,” Camille said.
Sophia turned away from her cousin and gave Camille what she hoped was a bright smile.
“I am perfectly well. I just saw someone I know—my cousin Elizabeth, just over there.”
“Your family?” Camille said. She knew something of Sophia’s checkered past with the
Huntingtons, and she gave Elizabeth’s box a startled glance. “We can leave, if you
wish. I know of a new café that just opened down the street. They are supposed to
have lovely oysters…”
Sophia laughed. “Of course we can’t leave, just because
my cousin is here. She probably has not even noticed me. I’m looking forward to this
play too much to miss it.” She looked toward the other box and found that, on the
contrary, Elizabeth
was
watching her, her beautiful face very pale and still. She gave Sophia a little nod,
and Sophia smiled at her in return. The young man spoke to Elizabeth again and she
turned away.
Sophia studied the stage again, wishing the house lights would dim and the curtain
would rise at last, so she could lose herself in the make-believe of the play and
not in the past.
“Everyone is looking forward to the play!” Camille said brightly. “That handsome Monsieur
Dominic is the romantic lead? This will give the ladies something to sigh about.”
“I don’t think he needs a stage role to make the ladies sigh,” Sophia murmured.
Camille laughed. “Ah, no! Indeed not. And I heard the most romantic, sad tale about
him today at the modiste that only adds to his allure. His poor, dead love…”
Sophia was startled. “His dead love? Are you sure this wasn’t gossip about one of
his plays?”
“Not at all. The lady relating the gossip was quite sure of it, and she has only just
returned from London with all the
on-dits
. It seems he was engaged to marry a young lady called Jane Grant, after years of
amorous pursuits. It was said she was so good, almost an angel, and he has been quite
elusive since she died.” Camille sighed and waved her opera glasses in a dramatic
gesture. “Is it not terribly romantic? You are quite right—it could almost be a play.
The handsome, dashing hero brought low by the tragic loss of his beautiful, fragile
heroine.”
Brought low?
Sophia stared down blindly at the stage as thoughts raced through her mind. She remembered
how Dominic had kissed her, how his hands felt when he touched her—how she wanted
more and more. And he had wanted her, too. Was she merely some fleeting distraction
from his grief over his “beautiful, fragile” love?
Sophia had no desire to be someone’s distraction. Not when she needed to get her own
life in order again.
“A man who has found love once could easily find it again,” Camille said. “He spoke
with you for a long time at the park.”
“Only about the club. There were no whispers of romantic yearnings,” Sophia said.
“Are you quite sure that is all?”
Sophia was saved from answering by a knock at the box door. “One of your admirers,
Camille?
Monsieur le capitaine
, perhaps?”
Camille laughed as she glanced back over her shoulder. “Ah, no. More likely someone
wanting to meet you, the mysterious lady in black. Come in!”
A footman in the red livery of the theater presented a note to Camille, which she
quickly read. A smile broke over her face. “An invitation from my old friend Monsieur
DuLac, the Nationale owner! He has asked us to a supper party backstage after the
play, to meet the actors. You can have more conversation with the oh-so-intriguing
Monsieur Dominic. Such fun.”
Sophia sighed as she studied her cousin’s pale profile across the theater and thought
about an evening spent trying to find something innocent to say to Dominic.
Fun
was not exactly the word she would choose…
“Are you still enjoying your time in Paris, Mrs. Westman?”
Sophia smiled at James St. Claire, who sat next to her at the long supper table. The
lavish meal was nearing its end. An array of cheeses and sweets had been laid out
on the damask-draped table and rich red wines were being poured into sparkling crystal
goblets. The conversation was louder than before, echoing with merriment and high
spirits after the play. It was extraordinary to dine backstage at a grand theater,
under the soaring walkways and in the midst of vivid scenery and a jumble of props.
Like an Aladdin’s cave, full of shadows and mysteries.
She hadn’t spoken much with James after the initial pleasantries when they sat down
and found themselves dinner partners. She had mostly conversed with the actor who
sat on her other side, an older gentleman filled with fascinating tales of his years
in the theater and gossip about London matters, and James was being flirted with by
the pretty young redhead next to him. But he had made sure Sophia always had wine
in her glass and occasionally whispered a teasing comment in her ear to make her laugh.
Whenever he did that, she would notice Dominic watching them from down the table,
his face expressionless, and it made her inexplicably want to giggle.
“I’m enjoying it very much indeed, Mr. St. Claire,” she said. She glanced up at him
and saw that his eyes were the same vivid green as Dominic’s. He really was a handsome
young man, his features lean and sculpted, his smile open and charmingly shy. Just
as handsome as Dominic, objectively speaking. Yet there was no spark within her when
she looked at him, nothing like the flame that kindled whenever Dominic smiled at
her.
“Don’t you miss the adventure of traveling the Continent, moving from place to place?”
James said. “I would love to travel, see new places and new people.”
“Certainly Germany and Italy have their beauties, and I am not one to say no to adventure,”
Sophia said with a laugh. “But being settled in one place has advantages, too. And
one day I may return to London. It can be interesting there, if one knows where to
look.”
James made a scoffing sound as he reached for one of the bottles on the table and
refilled her glass. “If one likes rain and fog, I suppose. I am not looking forward
to returning there after our play ends its run here.”
“But surely being in the theater must make it feel like you are in a new place every
day,” Sophia said. She took a sip of wine, and her gaze caught on Dominic over the
gilded edge of her glass. He was listening to the chatter of the lady who sat beside
him, that half-smile on his face that Sophia knew very well now. It was one of his
masks to hide his real thoughts.
For a while that night, as she watched him onstage, she had forgotten he was Dominic.
He had drawn her into his magic and convinced her completely that he was someone else.
He drew her into the narrative he chose to tell. Surely he did that offstage as well,
playing parts in real life that kept his true self hidden, just as she did.
Had Jane Grant seen behind all that? Had Dominic let her glimpse his true self? Sophia
felt a flutter of something unpleasantly like jealousy, and she pushed it away. It
was absurd to be jealous of a lady she had never known, a lady who was gone. But from
what Camille had
said, Dominic had cared for this Jane Grant, and Sophia couldn’t help but wonder what
that would be like.
What it would be like to glimpse Dominic’s secrets.
He glanced up and caught her staring at him. He raised his glass to her in a mocking
salute, and Sophia turned away. She didn’t need to know Dominic’s secrets. That would
mean he might see hers in return. She drained the last of her wine and smiled at James.
His eyes widened at her smile. “To tell you truthfully, Mrs. Westman, I am not sure
the theater is really for me. But I hope you won’t tell my family that!”
“Certainly not, Mr. St. Claire. Does your father want all his children to go into
the theater business, then?” Sophia could certainly sympathize with longing to be
free of the weight of parental expectations. Being a Huntington had constrained every
part of her life, pressing down on her until she was sure she would be crushed. Only
running away had freed her.
She would have thought the theater was a sort of freedom. But maybe it was just another
kind of cage.
“We are all in the business already, in one form or another,” James said. “Dominic
and Isabel act, as our parents once did. My eldest sister, Lily, took care of the
business side of things, before she married and moved away. Now she and her husband
run another theater in Edinburgh.” He paused suddenly and gave a wry laugh. “But you
know that, of course. Aidan is your cousin.”
“So he is, but I fear I haven’t heard from him in a while. I hope he and Lily are
happy.” Aidan had once been one of her favorite cousins, a wild spirit who could understand
her. When he broke away from her uncle and married Lily
St. Claire, he had inspired her to make a bid for freedom, too. But hers had not ended
as well as his.
“They are very happy. Expecting a baby in the winter, even.”
“A baby!” Sophia cried. “How splendid.”
“Yes. My mother is ecstatic for her first grandchild.” James took a long drink of
his wine. “And I have to apologize to you for my reaction to your conversation the
other night, Mrs. Westman. I was merely startled to learn you had been Lady Sophia
Huntington. I never meant for Dominic to make such a big thing of it all.”
“That is quite all right, Mr. St. Claire. It’s not every day one discovers a lost
family connection, I suppose, even a distant one. And I don’t really consider myself
a Huntington any longer.”
“Do you not?”
She shook her head. “Not since I left to marry. I longed for freedom, just as you
do. But freedom has a price, too.”
James gave her a searching glance. “What do you mean, Mrs. Westman?”
Sophia laughed. How could she tell this young man, so secure in his family, who so
obviously looked out for each other, what it felt like to be adrift in the world?
To be alone, even if it was by choice? “I don’t mean anything at all. Tell me then,
Mr. St. Claire, have you acted yourself? Have you had many roles?”