“Allerton?” The name came out more sharply than Tessa intended. “I know Nancy hopes to become Somerville’s mistress. I had no idea she was interested in Allerton.”
Sofie cast aside her bonnet and settled on the end of Tessa’s sofa, obviously ready for a lengthy session. “For years, it seems, the two men have been rivals for different singers.”
Pushing aside the shawl, Tessa swung her legs off the chaise and sat upright. “You mean both have had many singers under their protection?”
“Yes. Allerton prefers great voices and the marquess is more attracted to…” Sofie moved her hands in exaggerated curves. “Allerton had Isabella Cavatini as his mistress for two years. A good voice, that one, but no bosom. Also some others I hadn’t heard of. English singers,” she explained dismissively. “Often he and the marquess fought over the same woman. Both were after Nancy—flowers, gifts, supper parties, the usual.” Tessa nodded. She was familiar with the negotiations of backstage liaisons, even if she’d never conducted them herself. “Nancy expected to gain excellent terms from whichever man she chose. Then—” Sofie paused for dramatic effect. “Then you came along. It’s bad enough that you are winning all the best roles. Now she’s afraid you’re going to get all the best men too!”
“Really?” Tessa said, ice in her heart dripping into her voice. “And which does she favor? Who usually wins this contest for the favor of sopranos?”
“Both men are rich, among the richest in England, but more often it is Somerville who has come out ahead. You remember Maria Tosti? A beautiful girl, though her voice is no more than mediocre. She was in London three seasons ago and they were both mad for her. She chose Somerville.” Sofie’s thin shoulders shrugged. “It seems strange to me. For myself, I would prefer Allerton. Perhaps you agree with me after today.”
“My dear Sofie, I am not remotely interested in entering a competition with Nancy Sturridge, or anyone else, for the privilege of being bedded by an idle nobleman engaged in a contest of masculine dominance with one of his peers. I know everyone believes my body is available to the highest bidder, but I assure you only my voice is.”
“Don’t look at me like that, Tessa. Of course I know that. You would never go to a man for money. But what of marriage? You are of good birth. Why shouldn’t he wish to marry you? Allerton, I mean. Or Somerville. But Allerton looks more the marrying kind to me.”
Yes he did. She’d thought Max the marrying kind before, and been proven wrong. How foolish she was to hope he’d changed. He’d only ever wanted to get into her bed and, to her shame, she’d given him reason today to believe he might succeed.
“Marriage?” She tried to keep her tone amused. “Do you think I’d ever fall into that trap again, after Domenico?”
“Not all husbands are like that. Think how happy I am with Sempronio! Wouldn’t you like to have children?”
Domenico had never wanted children. Early in their marriage she’d concurred, and they had taken precautions to make sure she never conceived. Later such measures had been unnecessary. Only at the end had her longing for a child made her resume conjugal relations with her faithless husband, the worst mistake of her life.
Damn Domenico. The legacy of her marriage was one of endless problems. Even if her reputation and finances could recover, her soul was permanently damaged. With no chance of happiness for her, she had been a fool to even think about Max.
Disguising her pain, she raised the most obvious objection to Sofie’s ridiculous hopes. “This discussion is fruitless. You of all people know that noblemen don’t marry singers, especially ones with my reputation. Thanks to Domenico everyone thinks I’ve been bedded by half of Europe. A respectable man would never offer for me.”
Sofie tried to console her, though she knew as well as Tessa how Domenico’s machinations had fed the prima donna’s notoriety. “As the owner of his own opera house, Lord Allerton must be more liberal in his views than others of his rank.”
It was the wrong thing to say, or perhaps the right one. Contemplation of Max Hawthorne’s sins—past, present, and future—aroused Tessa from self-pity to anger. “He would want me only as a new pearl on his string of operatic mistresses. No thank you, Sofie. He can keep his money and his opera house. I want nothing to do with either.”
*
He should have waited till tomorrow, Max thought as he bounded up the stairs to the hotel’s best suite. She would be resting for the evening’s performance, assuming she hadn’t taken a chill despite his best efforts. But he needed to assure himself. And he had a perfectly good excuse. To settle the matter of the hospital benefit. She hadn’t given him an answer. He’d never even completed the request.
Other events had driven the matter from his mind.
Despite the civility of their conversation in the park, his resentment had yet lingered, mingling with his anxiety for her health. When he’d entered the spare bedchamber with the towels, any kind of amorous encounter with La Foscari had been the furthest thing from his mind. From the moment he saw her barely clad—and then just bare—it had been the only thing.
He grinned. The truth was he couldn’t wait to see Tessa again. Tessa. Two fervent embraces and a kiss, and he was as enthralled as he ever had been. She’d seemed to reciprocate, at least physically. Was it possible that, at long last, he would be able to have Tessa Birkett? Exactly what “having” her would entail he didn’t know.
The maid with the crooked nose greeted him in the vestibule and took his card. Hearing voices within, he stiffened. There was someone with her already. A man? Perhaps Somerville or another admirer. Without waiting to be announced he followed Angela into the room.
Tessa rose from the sofa looking magnificent in a midnight-blue dressing robe. Hardly typical dress for receiving guests. The look on her face was far from welcoming. Beautiful as a goddess, she resembled neither the sensual creature who had melted in his arms a few hours earlier, nor the shy girl who’d thanked him for his kindness as he sent her home in his carriage. This goddess was displeased. Apparently he’d interrupted something. He scanned the room.
Not, thank God, a tryst. Signora Montelli was the other occupant.
“Tessa—” he began. She glared. Maybe not. “Madam,” he started again, off balance at the contrast between his expected reception and her current frigid demeanor. “I called to assure myself of your good health.”
“I am quite well, thank you, my lord.”
“No ill effects from the rain?”
“None.”
“Then you are well?”
She didn’t even bother to answer and he couldn’t think of a thing to say. Why did he have to be such a dullard? Usually when pursuing a woman he could converse adequately if not with brilliance. But then usually the women he approached were eager to be pleased, happy to encourage the advances of a wealthy man. Tessa might be as interested in money as the average singer of his acquaintance, but at the moment she clearly wasn’t interested in his.
She was tapping her foot. What the devil had occurred since they parted earlier? He glanced at Mrs. Montelli for help. She’d appeared to favor him in the past but her expression was impassive if not hostile.
“Madam,” he turned back to Tessa. “May I speak to you alone?” Without the Austrian woman’s unblinking observation he could perhaps find the words to ask what was wrong, to rekindle the warmth of the morning.
“Anything you have to say, my lord, can be said in front of my companion. I cannot conceive that you have any offer to make me in private that I’d wish to consider.”
Mrs. Montelli sat down, signaling a resolution to remain.
Since it was impossible to bring up their recent intimacies in front of her, to discuss what he really wanted, he fell back on business.
“The rain interrupted my request this morning. I was inviting you to sing at the Regent on the twenty-fifth of this month.”
Tessa stared at him as though he’d sprung a second head. Her fingers reached for a vase of flowers on
a nearby table and he prepared to duck. But she snatched back her hand. Her fists clenched repeatedly. What had happened? If he read the signs correctly, she was furious. Or insane.
“It isn’t, of course, a lucrative engagement but…”
“Lord Allerton,” she said, her voice brittle. “I wouldn’t sing a single night, not so much as a single song, at your opera house. Not if you offered me a thousand pounds. Not even for two! I have too much pride ever to take anything from you for any reason.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The new method of lighting the house answers perfectly. Every object, either on the stage or in the different parts of the theatre, is as distinct as in the clearest daylight, whilst at the same time, unless we look upwards, we are not conscious of from whence the light proceeds. The beautiful form of the interior of the new Regent Theatre is seen to the utmost advantage.”
The Morning Chronicle
“She said what?”
Max again repeated Tessa’s words for Simon Lindo’s benefit, eliciting a whistle of disbelief from the theater manager. On leaving the Pulteney, Max had wasted no time tracking down Simon at the Regent to report the failure of his mission.
“Two thousand pounds?” Simon said. “Surely she must have been joking.”
“I believe she may have been exaggerating, but she otherwise appeared quite serious in her refusal to sing.” Unlike Tessa, Max was understating the case.
Simon paced. “It’s a pity,” he said. “The article in today’s Morning Chronicle was most favorable on the subject of the Regent’s design and facilities. Following it with the announcement of La Divina’s appearance would be timely. Are you quite sure she won’t change her mind?”
“Quite sure.” Neither would he ask. Ever.
Hardly knowing what he said, he’d excused himself from the hotel suite and staggered downstairs and out into the street. He had wanted to believe she was different now. Fool that he was, he had for a few hours wanted to love her again. He could make no sense of her behavior today—in the park, in his house, or in the Pulteney—but he knew that she would always disappoint him. The woman’s dominant character trait was greed and it always had been, as he learned on his last day in Oporto. The walk along Piccadilly to the Regent had been spent revisiting that long ago morning.
*
Portugal, 1807
Max’s traveling companion, the Reverend Jasper Eldon, always lay abed late, usually sleeping off the effects of enthusiastic sampling of the local wines. His mother had selected the clergyman as Max’s bear-leader not because of the man’s status with the church, but for his eligible birth and worldly knowledge. Lady Clarissa had never been very interested in religion, though she certainly expected Mr. Eldon to protect Max from the pernicious lure of Papists, a breed found in large numbers on the continent of Europe.
So Max spent the morning scouring the Oporto shops for a gift for his beloved. That provincial city offered little in the way of quality gems but though he would happily have showered his Tessa with diamonds, he wasn’t concerned. Once they were wed a large portion of the Tamworth jewelry collection would be his to adorn his bride. His sweet Tessa would prefer something unusual.
In a small, dark shop in the old quarter he found it: a rectangular plaque of ivory, exquisitely carved, depicting a couple dancing in a field of flowers and birds. The shopkeeper told him it was very ancient, and Moorish, from the time of the caliphs in the Iberian Peninsula. The carefree movement of the lovers—somehow he knew they were lovers—seemed to express the joy he and Tessa found in each other’s company. He could scarcely wait for their agreed meeting in the churchyard of São Francisco.
But first he had to face Mr. Eldon who had chuckled appreciatively when Max had confessed his infatuation. Young men of good family who’d only just begun to shave, Eldon explained in his jovial fashion, did not wed. And more particularly they did not wed opera singers. Miss Birkett, he said, would make a splendid mistress, a very suitable petite amie for a young man just starting his amorous career. She was a dashed pretty girl and a lovely songbird. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to expect marriage.
Max, well aware of his lack of savoir faire in such matters, had accepted his preceptor’s advice without demur. He burned for Tessa. God, he burned for her. Just as her voice thrilled his soul, her beauty inflamed him physically so that he could scarcely sleep. Sheltered by his protective mama and without a father to provide masculine guidance, his sexual experience to date consisted of two kisses from one of the dairymaids at Tamworth.
When he’d finally plucked up courage to kiss Tessa he’d nearly exploded on the spot. Silky and sweet, she’d tremulously opened to his inexpert demand and murmured in shock at the tentative exploration of his tongue. When he’d dared reach a hand to her breast she’d flinched, then relaxed and, to his enchanted surprise, moved a little closer.
Even now, he remembered every second, relived the ecstatic sensation of her soft form in his arms, the evanescent scent of Oporto’s mimosa in his nostrils. Impatient for further intimacies than could be achieved in a public place, he’d wrenched himself from her lips and cradled her against him while he’d explained his plan: meetings in a discreet inn, then passage to London where he’d find her a house. Despite his innocence, he’d learned enough from his more worldly schoolmates to understand the basics of keeping a mistress.
The ashen pallor of shock had apprised him instantly of his mistake. Speechless for a moment, her expressive face had conveyed her distress and humiliation.
The words had come in a whisper as she’d pulled away and stared at the ground. “How could you think of me like that?”
He was ashamed. And distraught that he’d insulted the girl he adored. Silently he cursed the cynical assumptions of Mr. Eldon. He’d assured her he would make things right if she would meet him again later in the same place.
His shopping expedition completed, he dashed into the hotel, ready to confront the clergyman and insist he perform the marriage ceremony as soon as possible. Thankfully Tessa was a Protestant, but that meant they couldn’t be wed in a Portuguese church. He was ready to muster his best arguments so that he could return to his darling and formally propose marriage that afternoon.
Mr. Eldon was not alone. Tessa’s guardian and his son were in the hotel parlor and all three men looked grim. Surprised that she had spoken to Mr. Waring, Max was ready to assure the man of his honorable intentions. Protective toward her, he was grateful that she had someone to see to her interests.
Eldon broke an uneasy silence. “Max,” he said. “It seems you have insulted a young lady. Mr. Waring and his son have called to register a complaint on her behalf. But I believe we have reached an accommodation to satisfy all parties.”
*
Simon Lindo continued to pace the room until Max’s frayed nerves could no longer endure it. “Sit down and show me the receipts from last night.”
Examining the figures from the second performance of The Barber of Seville—they had, for the moment, agreed not to repeat the unsuccessful Fidelio—distracted Max from unwelcome memories though the numbers hardly improved his mood. Once again, the opera had played to a half-empty house.
Despite the bad news, Max found the process fascinating. He was almost ready to thank his mother for making it necessary for him to take an active part in the financial management of the Regent. It was a good deal more interesting than his normal daily pursuits. With little taste for gambling or sports, he’d often found time hanging heavy on his hands. He mused that he might have been a happier man had he been born into the merchant class. He could have married Tessa… But he would never have met her and in any case he had had a lucky escape.
“You seem preoccupied,” he remarked to Simon, who had been discussing the reports with less than his usually razor-like concentration.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lindo said, “that La Divina has a veritable genius for arousing the interest of the press.”
“What of it? Since
neither of us looks like Aphrodite or have engaged in love affairs with emperors I don’t see how we can hope to rival her in that respect.”
Simon’s lips twitched. “You could take up crockery smashing.”
“Would anyone care?”
“Probably not. But it occurs to me that we could turn her notoriety against her. The denizens of Grub Street are ever fickle in their affections.”
“Not where Teresa Foscari is concerned. There isn’t a writer in London, from the music critics to the society reporters, who doesn’t adore her.”
“Supposing they discovered she’d done something despicable. It would certainly be noted in the press. And where the newspapers lead, the public will follow.”
“What has she done? Are you going to inform the Morning Post that she cheats tradesmen and beats her servants?” A vision of Tessa’s maid with her crooked nose flashed though Max’s mind. Surely not. The pair of them seemed on affectionate terms and nothing he’d read suggested that La Divina was a danger to people as well as dishes.
“It’s not like you to be so slow, Max. We have evidence of La Divina’s callous disregard for poor wounded soldiers.”
“The Chelsea Hospital benefit,” Max breathed.
“Precisely.” Simon paused significantly. “I think her admirers need to be informed that Teresa Foscari, whom the English people have welcomed to their collective bosom as though she were one of their own, refuses to sing a note to raise money for the gallant victims of our war with France.”
“Surely that would be dishonorable?”
“You’re thinking like a gentleman, Max. Businessmen can’t afford such scruples. Besides, where’s the dishonor in speaking the truth? The woman refused, in the most insulting way, to lend her services to a worthy cause.”
Insulting indeed. Surely it was no accident that she’d named two thousand pounds, the very sum Mr. Eldon had paid for his so-called “insult” to her.
Secrets of a Soprano Page 9