Secrets of a Soprano (23 page)

At times like this a suitable match arranged by Lady Clarissa didn’t seem so bad. Until recollection of an interrupted embrace left him aching and eager to summon his carriage and return to London as fast as a coach-and-six could make it.

Could he persuade Tessa to be his mistress? Why not? He was at least as rich as most of her lovers. Not quite up to emperor standards, but he could outspend the average duke. Of any country.

He didn’t want to be that kind of lover. He only wanted Tessa if she wanted him back. For himself, not for money. She claimed to have forgiven him. She’d let him kiss and caress her. They’d have made love on Cousin Sarah’s sofa if that footman hadn’t been sent by his damned interfering mother.

Tessa
did
want him, surely. He hadn’t forced himself on her and she had returned his kisses. Hadn’t she?

The truth was, he wasn’t certain. She hadn’t rejected them. She hadn’t struggled in his arms or pushed away his fevered caresses. But neither had she been an active participant. Some women weren’t of course. He’d had bedmates who preferred to lie still and let him do all the work. Not the most satisfactory arrangement, and he couldn’t believe a woman as warm and passionate as Teresa Foscari would be that kind of mistress. She had kissed him back and they’d hardly got started on other things.

And yet.

Just before the interruption she’d asked him to stop. It hadn’t seemed like the “I don’t want to do this” kind of objection.
We should stop
. Those were her words. They could have meant anything from “we’re at an assembly in your mother’s house and this isn’t the time and place” (a fair argument) to “the state of our relations has not yet reached the bedding stage.” He’d been trying to persuade her to continue—with every confidence of success—when the footman arrived. But he could be wrong.

His horse snorted, demanding his attention. The compulsion to storm the Pulteney Hotel and sweep her into his arms subsided, leaving him unsure and frustrated.

On his return to the house he found a letter from Simon Lindo informing him that while the receipts at the Regent continued respectable, there was a distinct leakage of audience back to the Tavistock, especially among the members of the
ton
. Max read the notice of Nancy Sturridge’s benefit and learned that Tessa was to sing in it. If Sturridge, as shrewd a woman as he’d ever met, thought it advantageous to advertise Foscari’s participation in her evening, then La Divina’s popularity was on the rise again. His debt to her was paid. They were back to where they’d been a month ago, their interests in direct opposition.

Except everything had changed. He no longer resented the past or wished her ill. He’d be perfectly content if both Teresa Foscari and the Regent Opera House could prosper. More that that, he wanted success for her. She deserved every plaudit because she was a great artist and a woman of character.

Damn it, why was he trying to fool himself? He wanted Tessa but he wasn’t sure he could or should have her.

*

Tessa snatched the
card that accompanied the white roses. Were they from Max? Had he remembered the very first flowers he’d ever given her?

It was just a card. “The Viscount Allerton” engraved in copperplate on a rectangle of pasteboard. Eagerly she turned it over. “Best wishes” in a plain, upright hand. That was all. Not even a signature. With slumped shoulders she gave it a last look, as though those two words might transform into something warmer, more substantial.

That was it then. A few kisses, a threat—or promise—of a repetition then nothing for days. Seven days to be precise. How shaming to have counted.

The gossip around the theater was all about the conclusion of Nancy Sturridge’s long negotiation with Somerville. With the marquess no longer in competition, Tessa’s appeal to Max must have diminished. It was nothing but a game to him and, without an opponent, no longer worth the playing.

But he had been interested. Tessa hadn’t been so long without masculine company that she couldn’t recognize arousal when she felt it. She rather feared things would have reached an unstoppable conclusion if the footman hadn’t interrupted them. She wouldn’t have long resisted Max; at least she didn’t think so. She’d been enjoying herself as much as she had with Domenico, in the days when she’d thought she loved him. Before the incident. A tiny seed of hope that she might once again be capable of love kindled and was resolutely extinguished.

“Angela,” she called, tossing the card aside along with such futile reflections. “Do you have the jewels?”

One thing hadn’t changed. Tessa had no desire to be a mistress, a kept woman, Max’s or anyone else’s. Never again would she place herself and her future under the control of another. Now that she had another chance to repair her fortune, she’d make certain she did not squander the takings.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing the Tsar’s diamonds for that
Weibsstück
.” That Sofie, recovered from her cold, had used a somewhat impolite term for Nancy Sturridge bespoke the force of her indignation. “Watch out for her. Instead of being grateful to you for singing at her benefit she’ll do her best to undermine you.”

“And how, precisely?” asked Tessa with exasperated affection. “It’s not as though we shall be on stage together.”

“No. She’s out there now singing your role,” Sofie said with a sniff.

“She’s always wanted to sing the Countess and I suppose it’s her right at her own benefit.”

“She’s not doing herself any favors,” Sempronio broke in. “We’ve just come from the front of the house and her performance suffers by comparison with yours.”

Tessa tried to not to feel satisfaction. Usually happy to lend her services for the benefit of her fellow artists, helping Nancy Sturridge stuck in her gorge. Her fellow singer—she disdained to call her a rival—had been all too obvious in her delight at Tessa’s troubles. But not to have appeared on this occasion would have informed the world that La Divina refused to support the other soprano and confirmed every lie about Tessa’s prima donna histrionics. Nancy, equally aware of her power, had exercised it with glee, relegating her adversary to the minor, albeit prominent, role of entr’acte performer.

Tessa had no choice but to agree for another reason. She couldn’t risk the Tavistock company refusing to perform at her own benefit, scheduled for two weeks hence. Artists performed without pay at benefits and all the receipts went to the honoree. Mortimer had to pay her the proceeds of the benefit immediately, and she was counting on it. Lady Clarissa’s handsome fee would just about keep her solvent until then.

Angela fastened the necklace around Tessa’s neck and arranged the tiara in her curls. The bracelets went over her gloves and the double-headed eagle brooch was pinned to her red velvet bodice. On stage not even a jeweler would be able to spot that they were fakes. Tessa surveyed herself in the dusty mirror and knew she looked magnificent. A major role or a single aria, it didn’t matter. La Divina’s ten minutes on stage would be noticed.

*

Somerville greeted Max
in the entrance lobby of the Tavistock Theatre with his usual mocking smile. “Still in pursuit of La Foscari?”

“I’m here because I want to see what Miss Sturridge makes of the Countess’s role.”

“Really, Max? You’re a poor liar. Did you know that I installed Nancy in a very comfortable house this week?”

Max hadn’t heard and didn’t care. About Sturridge.

“Congratulations. Why did you give up on La Divina?” His curiosity on this subject wasn’t to be repressed.

“I decided the pursuit would be too fatiguing,” Somerville said.

“You aren’t usually so easily deterred.”

The marquess shrugged. “In this case I deduced that the lady wasn’t to be had—”

“Indeed?” That Tessa had rebuffed the incorrigible marquess gave Max intense pleasure.

“Wasn’t to be had,” Somerville continued, “by me or likely by anyone else. There was perhaps a moment when I thought otherwise, but I soon saw that this soprano reserves her passions for the stage. It’s a wonder she has such a reputation as an
horizontale
. Perhaps our continental brethren prefer their women cold.”

“Are you sure?” Every instinct told him Somerville was wrong, despite his own doubts about Tessa’s response to him.

“Quite sure. You see, Max, I understand women. It’s the secret of my success.”

“I thought it was good looks, charm, and deep pockets.”

“Many men have those. Yourself, for example.” Somerville stroked the tip of his nose thoughtfully. “Indeed, you are much richer than me. But more often than not I win the woman. Think about it.”

As far as Max was concerned, it meant he had a chance with Tessa. According to every report, Somerville was the kind of man upon whom she’d bestowed her favors in the past. Yet she had repulsed a worldly and generous lover whom she could have had by raising a finger.

But she hadn’t repulsed Max.

He wondered if she remembered the significance of the white roses he had sent her this evening.

*

Max enjoyed his
view from the center of the pit, toward the front, despite the discomfort of his perch on a cushionless bench. Since box holders had to pay for benefit tickets, just like less favored patrons, he’d decided to let his box go for the evening and purchase a single ticket where he could see better. Pity the performance wasn’t better. The absence of Foscari displayed the Tavistock company in all its mediocrity and couldn’t help but please the co-owner of its rival house. Sturridge sang well but she’d have been wiser to stick with the role of Susanna.

The house was full, partly because Nancy Sturridge was a popular singer, but also because the audience was curious to see La Divina in an unaccustomed role. As the second act drew to a close there was a distinct restlessness among the patrons, a sense of anticipation. How intriguing it was to be in the belly of the beast, to feel the emotions of the crowd packed into the floor of the old house. What he couldn’t sense was whether the beast was friendly. He suspected the audience wasn’t sure itself. The individual members were waiting for the consensus reaction to decide whether the foreign prima donna would be accepted back and granted her former adulation.

The denizens of the beau monde in their boxes, softened by Lady Clarissa’s imprimatur, would receive Tessa politely. The pit, open to anyone who could afford a five-shilling ticket—or cajole or bribe a check taker into a free pass—was a different matter. It was hard to predict the reaction of a miscellany of merchants, professional men, ladies of the night, and gentlemen unencumbered by their female counterparts.

Tessa had taken a risk in her choice of music. “The Soldier Tir’d of War’s Alarms” was perhaps the most famous single piece of English operatic music, a bravura aria from Dr. Arne’s
Artaxerxes
. Though the opera itself was less popular than it had been in the last century, the aria was often performed alone, most notably by Mrs. Billington who lived in the affectionate memory of London’s theater-goers as the most beloved and most English of sopranos. Max felt a twinge of alarm at Tessa’s audacity. The crowd might accept it as a compliment. But if they saw it as a foreign insult to a national heroine, her reception would be terrible.