She nodded. “You are right. I have this odd wish to be respectable, finally.”
“Marry me! Not only for that reason but because we love each other. We should wake up every morning together, read the newspapers at breakfast, have children if we can, and live in the country.”
“Max. I am a singer.”
“We don’t have to live in the country. We’ll be in London during the season, or anywhere else you wish.”
“That was not my point. You can’t marry a singer who has bedded Napoleon Bonaparte as well as half the nobility in Europe.”
“You haven’t.”
“What’s the difference? Everyone believes I have. I will never be fully accepted.”
“I don’t care. We’ll put it about that it was all an invention of the French newspapers. The English love blaming the French for anything. And I don’t care. All I want is you.” The last was true. Her other arguments had some merit but he welcomed the challenge to overcome them. There would be talk and even scandal when Lord Allerton married the notorious La Divina. There’d be the devil to pay with his mother, but after a horrendous row he’d bring her around because she cared for him.
“I have influence,” he said. “No one will dare to snub you.”
“I’m not sure I want to be accepted by people like Sir Henry Waxfield, who despises a delightful, intelligent man like Simon Lindo because of his race.”
“I’m certainly not giving up Simon’s friendship. Waxfield is a buffoon and we won’t have him in our house.” Our house. How immensely satisfying it would be to have Tessa here all the time. In this bed, but also in his library and dining room and entertaining guests of all kinds, chosen for their characters and abilities, not merely for social position.
“He is hardly alone in his prejudices.”
It had never occurred to Max that his place at the highest pinnacles of the English aristocracy, which he took for granted and never thought about, could be a disadvantage. What Tessa said was true—he’d thought of it himself in the past as a reason not to marry her—but he wouldn’t admit it aloud. He wasn’t going to let any obstacle, let alone the petty opinions of other people, get in his way. He had a lot of Lady Clarissa in him.
“Tessa, my darling,” he said, taking her hand and holding it against his chest. “Please marry me. I can’t bear to lose you again.”
Hope beat a tattoo in his heart as she examined his features. She touched his cheek, then an elegant finger traced the line of his brow, his too-prominent nose, sealed his lips as though to silence further argument. Tears gathered in her beautiful, expressive eyes. “I wish I could, Max. I wish others didn’t matter but they do. I’m too famous to ignore the world because the world will not ignore me. I don’t have the strength to face more notoriety. I cannot be Lady Allerton.”
“I’ll protect you from the scandalmongers. You told me you didn’t know where you belong, that you felt empty because you had no home. Let me be your home and belong with me. We’ll make our lives the way we want them and to hell with everyone else.”
She fended off his movement to embrace her, descending from the bed, glorious in her nakedness, and snatching up the same silk dressing gown she’d worn the day they were caught in the rain.
“I didn’t tell you earlier,” she said, “but I am leaving London tomorrow. I am traveling to Somerset to see my grandmother.”
“Good idea. I shall escort you.”
“No.” She buttoned the garment with an air of finality that matched her voice. “I must go alone and find my father’s family.”
“Don’t give me an answer yet. I’ll wait.”
“Maybe I will decide to be a proper country lady like the characters in the novels by the author of Emma. I shall live out my life in happy obscurity.”
Max refrained from snorting. Despite the natural charm and simplicity that lay beneath the public face of the operatic diva, Tessa hadn’t spent years in the theater without acquiring her share of dramatic foolishness.
Happy obscurity? Pah!
First it was ludicrous to think of a musical genius like Teresa Foscari rotting in a provincial English village. Secondly, he wouldn’t let her. If she wasn’t tired of it and back in London within two weeks, he was going to fetch her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“It has come to our attention that a Lady of Rank will purchase the lease of the Tavistock Theatre.”
The Times
Simon Lindo had become accustomed to the baroque grandeur of Tamworth House. He’d visited the Piccadilly mansion many times since Lady Clarissa Hawthorne made her offer to buy the Tavistock and employ him as its manager. As he made his way up the grand staircase, his conscience pricked him. He wasn’t sure Max had taken his mother’s plans seriously; Simon had scarcely believed the willful lady would go through with the purchase and construction of a brand new theater in the middle of London. Since Max had other matters on his mind, Simon had decided not to bother him.
Which was nonsense and Simon was not in the habit of lying to himself. He’d wasted his time with Lady Clarissa Hawthorne because he couldn’t keep away. By the time she convinced him her plans weren’t castles in the air, it was too late. He couldn’t warn Max about the Tavistock Phoenix Theatre, as its owner had fancifully decided to rename it, because he might not be able to disguise the dismaying fact that he was in love with Max’s mother.
A fact that he intended to keep a secret, especially from the lady herself. Not drowning in her whims took all his resolve, without giving her any other advantage. For his inconvenient passion could come to nothing. Any connection, beyond a business one, between a Jew from the City of London and the richest and most aristocratic woman in England was too ludicrous to even consider.
His palms were damp, like that of a very young man instead of a sober middle-aged father of two grown sons. He stopped in front of a massive Chinese-style mirror at the top of the stairs to make sure his features were composed and suitably inscrutable for engaging in the final stages of a negotiation with a woman who would maul him to death if she could. Love had spared him any illusions about the character of the beloved.
Lady Clarissa was seated at the table in the splendid library, papers arrayed before her on her colossal desk, an ormolu-encrusted French masterpiece that must have cost his year’s income. Impeccably attired and coiffed as ever, she stood up and smiled at him.
“Simon! I have all the papers prepared for the final purchase of the Tavistock site, the architect’s designs, and your contract.”
“I shall read them with care,” he said, giving her a hard look. “I will not sign anything unless it’s all in order.”
“My attorney is in the house to make necessary changes. I sent him downstairs to wait so that we can talk in private.”
He wished the lawyer were present. She insisted on leaning over his shoulder as he read and her proximity made it difficult for him to think clearly.
When he finished, he put away his spectacles and told her to sit down.
“Come and sit by the window. I don’t like the hard chairs at the desk.” The hard chairs she used every day while attending to the affairs of her fortune. She moved purposely to a sofa and patted it. “Here.”
For once he allowed her to address him like a dog; she wasn’t going to like what he said next. “Before we go any further, my lady, I want to know something.”
“Yes?” She fluttered her lashes in a doomed attempt to look innocent.
“What has the new Tavistock to do with Max?”
“Why, nothing. He scarcely knows about it.”
“That is my concern. I have a nose for chicanery and something doesn’t smell right. What are you up to? Max was my patron and colleague before you, and he is also my friend. I won’t have any part in a plot to harm him.” He punctuated the statement with a stern frown.
“Max is my son. Why would I harm him?”
“Because you like to have your own way. And because you may not think of it as har
m, though you are almost certainly wrong.”
Her eyes narrowed and she pouted—both affectations adorable to his infatuated gaze. “Very well, I will tell you. I had a bet with Max that he couldn’t run the Regent Opera House for two seasons without spending more of his own funds than his initial investment.”
Interesting. It explained a few times when Max had not offered money when Simon expected it. He decided not to mention the small matter of Teresa Foscari’s benefit. “And what was the stake?”
“Max’s marriage. If I win, I choose his bride. If not, I stop nagging him.”
Simon nodded and kept his mouth grave. “Very wise of you,” he said. “I married a young woman chosen by my parents and we were happy until the day Leah died.” She beamed at him. “And really the point is moot. If you should win, by no means a certainty regardless of what happens at the Tavistock, you will choose the bride he wants.”
“I will?” With satisfaction he noticed that his answer surprised her.
“He wishes to marry Teresa Foscari and you will embrace the match.”
“I will not!” She folded her arms.
“Of course you will. He’s madly in love with her. You want your son to be happy and no other lady will do. She is a brilliant talent and of excellent character. I happen to know you like her. That is important between mother and daughter-in-law.”
“But she’s a singer! Her reputation!”
Her face set into a stubborn look, reminding him of her son when he’d tried to persuade Max to offer a contract to a second-rate baritone. He’d lost that battle but he knew just how to handle the mother.
“I didn’t think you cared for the opinion of the vulgar. I’m a little disappointed to hear that Lady Clarissa Hawthorne would sacrifice her son’s happiness and her own wishes because she is afraid of what people will say.”
“Never! I can do anything I want and other people be damned.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow and waited, letting her puzzle it out for herself.
“I am going into the theatrical business,” she said.
“True.”
“And it would be useful to have the most admired performer in the world in the family.”
“I agree.”
“It’s not as though she’s an ordinary singer. Her mother belonged to a French noble family.”
“You make excellent points that I hadn’t even thought of myself. We are agreed, then?”
“I suppose.” She still looked sulky but he knew she’d keep her word. He was pleased to have done a favor for Max, whom he liked almost like another son. Also because he was a little guilty about the Tavistock.
In one of the mercurial changes of temper he found so fascinating, she settled down and regarded him with an inquisitive look. “Why did you never marry again?”
“I never met a lady I wanted to marry. And you, my lady? You’ve been widowed longer than I. You must have had many offers.”
“Dozens, but they all wanted my money. Like my husband.”
“Surely not all,” he said, struck by an unwonted vulnerability behind her eyes. “You are a very beautiful woman. You’ve been alone for a long time.”
“I had Max but then he moved out of this”—she indicated the vastness of their surroundings—“and into his own house.” She pinched her lips together. “Once I tried a less formal arrangement for a while but for one reason or another it didn’t satisfy.”
“Not the right gentleman, eh? And none of the others tempted you even a little?”
“If they aren’t fortune hunters they are frightened of me. Am I so terrible?”
“I’m not frightened of you.”
“That’s why I like you so much.”
He gazed at her strong, handsome face. Very like her son’s but in a softer, feminine version. She wasn’t strictly beautiful but she possessed an animalistic quality, a vigor and lust for life that he found endlessly appealing. She was headstrong and spoiled but possessed a core of decency that she did her best to hide, the same way she disdained to show fear. Max had told him a little about the scoundrel who had married her and sired her son. By all accounts Hawthorne’s death had been a mercy and the risk of finding another such man might have kept her from remarrying.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Simon was far gone to compare her to Cleopatra, but Shakespeare’s famous words expressed the fascination he had for her. Desire stirred, something he usually kept under control. He was not a religious man, but he did regard himself as a moral one.
“Simon,” she said, reminding him improbably of a shy girl. She lowered her eyelids and tilted her chin a little. If he didn’t know better he’d think she was inviting him to kiss her.
Incredible.
She swayed a little.
She was inviting him. An invitation impossible to refuse or resist. He had no idea what he was letting himself in for and he didn’t care.
As soon as their lips touched all resemblance to a girl, shy or otherwise, vanished and the tigress returned. Five minutes later—or ten or an hour—they were horizontal, breathing hard with clothes in disarray.
Needless to say his insane love was not discomposed for long. She sat up, patted her hair and smiled at him, a new happiness in her voracious eyes that found an answer in his heart. “Shall we marry?” she asked.
Would she always have the power to astonish him? He hoped so.
“No,” he said. “You are mad to even think of it.”
“Why?”
“I’m a Jew.”
“You told me you left your synagogue.”
“Like my friend Isaac Disraeli, I had a disagreement with the Bevis Marks congregation. Also like him, I had my sons baptized so they could go to university. But I have no desire to renounce Judaism for Christianity and see no need to do so. If I ever remarry, which I will not, it will be to another Jew.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Let us not argue about an irrelevancy. Even if I became a Quaker or a Methodist or a member of the Church of England I’d still be a Jew in the eyes of the world. For me to wed someone like you would be a scandal beyond description.”
“Lady Clarissa Hawthorne can do anything.”
“And my people have not survived the centuries by looking for trouble.”
“Yet you would have me accept Foscari as a bride for my son?”
“Max and Teresa are young and in love.”
“I’m in love with you.” The dear termagant had no idea of the realities of life.
“And I, God help me, am in love with you. Luckily our arrangement in running the Tavistock gives us reason to meet alone that no one will object to, beyond Lady Clarissa’s eccentricity in conducting such a venture.”
Her eyes widened and her lips formed an eager O. “We can be secret lovers. How delicious.”
“Where are you going?”
“To lock the door.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Many notables have now left Town, including the PRINCE REGENT and Madame FOSCARI.”
The Morning Post
Tessa’s post chaise rattled up the narrow street of Stoke Newton, her spirits matching the gloomy day. The hard labor and emotional turmoil of her months in London had left her exhausted. The pretty village, so unpretentious, so English, posed no threat to her tranquility. She looked forward to a few weeks devoid of alarms and crises.
The final triumph of her benefit had been put behind her. Its miraculous aftermath was harder to forget but she managed. Whenever she thought of Max she returned to her book. She had spent the two-day journey reading Emma again, the anonymous author of the novel her only companion.
At Rose Cottage, which did indeed have pink roses climbing up the stone front, two ladies hurried out, fluttering with excitement.
“You must be Tessa,” said the elder, a neat little lady with tidy gray curls covered with a delicate lace cap. “You look just like Jonathan. You may call me Grandmama.” She embraced her tende
rly and introduced Aunt Hester, who was about sixty and quite unlike her dainty mother.
“How was your journey?” Aunt Hester, tall and raw-boned, lurched more than she fluttered. “You must be very tired. Such a tedious drive from London, not that I’ve ever been there. Did you stop at an inn? Of course you did. I hope the sheets were dry. Did you have a good dinner?”
“Hester,” Mrs. Burkett said quietly, laying her hand on her daughter’s arm while keeping hold of Tessa’s hand. “You are quite right that Tessa must be tired. Let us go inside.”
Over teacups in the tiny, perfectly tidy parlor, they exchanged stories. Her grandfather had been vicar of Stoke Newton and his widow and daughter had moved to the cottage after his death. They did not appear to be prosperous. Tessa guessed that it must have taken a good portion of their resources to trace the long-lost black sheep of the family. She could improve their fortunes, she thought, then remembered that unless she returned to the fatiguing round of endless performances she would not be able to do so.
“You see, my dear,” Grandmama said, “Jonathan was studying for the church but he became infected with French ideas.” Her genteel voice dropped to a whisper. “Atheism. His father told him to leave and never come back, but a son is a son and I never stopped missing him. Perhaps it was disrespectful to Mr. Birkett’s memory but I had to find him.” Something in her voice told Tessa that the vicar had not been a pleasant man, also that his widow was far too loyal ever to say so. “We were distressed to learn of his death in Portugal. And equally so when we had the letter from Mr. Foscari saying that you were not our granddaughter. Was that a mistake? Perhaps your husband didn’t understand English.”
Tessa muttered a vaguely worded agreement. She didn’t want to explain Domenico’s falsehood, or his many crimes. She was putting that part of her history behind her. “The important thing is that I have found you.” Tears pricked her eyes. She had a grandmother and an aunt. She belonged somewhere. “It means so much for me to have found my family. I have no one else, apart from my cousin Jacobin in London. Her father and my mother were first cousins.”
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