“The opera singer?”
“You’ve heard of her.”
“One can hardly be British without having heard of Madame Guillaume, Miss Wylde. Rest her soul.”
Mariana nodded. “Yes. Well, she used to come into our shop. She heard me singing one day and was quite taken by it. She said I had genuine talent.” It was still a magical moment to Mariana, and one she never tired of reliving in her mind. “She offered to give me voice lessons in exchange for bits and bobs to do with her shoes. She did so love her shoes, but she loved gambling even better, and she was often a bit short.”
“How serendipitous. Lucky,” he clarified.
She sucked in a breath. She hadn’t known that word. He was effortlessly astute. She found it both bracing and unsettling. Lord, how he must have frightened the soldiers into behaving.
“She was kind, and I do miss her. She was so sophisticated and good fun—Mrs. Pariseau reminds me a bit of her—and I suppose I learned diction from her. Copied her, like. Cadences, accents, little habits and fancier manners, that sort of thing. From the people I met who came to visit her in her flat, too. Later, in the theater, when I began getting roles, some of the patrons were very well-spoken.”
“Yes. Both Lord Kilhone and Lord Revell, for instance, went to Eton and Oxford, where one is nothing if not well-spoken,” he said pointedly.
She thought of “bewitching” and “beautiful.” Did that count as being “well-spoken”?
She stared at him coolly. “In short, one might say I owe my career entirely to gambling. One never knows what sort of luck a vice will lead to, Your Grace.”
He was still for a moment. Then offered her a slow, sardonic nod. Conceding a point to her.
Dear Mama—the duke’s face is a bit long, and so sculpted it was like he had no choice to go on to be something insufferably important just so they could carve a marble bust of him and install it somewhere public, where it could sit in judgment of all the passersby. I could lay my hands against the hollows beneath his cheekbones, but I might cut my palms on the corners of his jaw if I did. He is regal, but I’m not certain he is handsome. His eyes are very fierce. It’s only just after three o’clock and I think his beard is about to make itself known.
She gave a start when he suddenly dipped his quill and began writing words in a column.
“Who are the woman and the boy in the miniatures?”
It was what she’d really wanted to know from the beginning.
He went still. His eyes flared in surprise.
He leaned back in his chair slowly.
Then studied her with a little speculative scowl that transformed into reluctant and amused respect.
“Do feel free to go on underestimating me, Your Grace.”
He studied her like she’d been studying him. She wondered if her face yielded up anything new or interesting. If it did, he didn’t of course reveal it.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “As I’m a man of my word, I will tell you. My wife, Eliza, who passed away five years ago.”
“Thank you for telling me.” She paused. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”
It was what one said. He’d doubtless heard it thousands of times.
But she was suddenly held motionless by a realization. The war had ended five years ago. His wife had died five years ago.
The things that had formed the foundation walls of his life, in one fell swoop, had disappeared five years ago. She wondered if a man like him had ever felt off balance.
He nodded his thanks. “The boy is my son, Arthur, who is twenty-two. Probably about your age,” he hazarded.
It was pretty risky to guess a woman’s age, but at least he’d come in with a low number.
“I’m twenty-five.” She could not see a reason to be coy about it, as it could be of no interest to the duke.
“Ah,” was all he said. Because that was exactly how much it interested him.
“She was pretty. Your wife.”
“She was,” he said shortly. He’d taken to writing again.
“She must have been a saint.”
“She’d have to be to endure me. Is that the very original point you’re making?” he said dryly. He paused, and then his expression reflected that he’d had another inspiration.
“It’s just that you seem rather intolerant of flaws, and surely only a saint possesses none.”
“Intolerant of some flaws,” he said abstractedly after a moment, with a little smile. He dipped the quill again.
“And I possess the full complement of the objectionable flaws.”
He paused to look at her. “We can use our hour to discuss useful Italian vocabulary, or itemize flaws.”
“Oh, let’s do both.”
His mouth curved slightly. The column of words he was writing was growing lengthy.
“It might not break, you know,” she mused softly, speculatively.
“I beg your pardon?” he muttered.
“Your face. If you really smile. You’ve done it before.”
He paused to, ironically, reward her with a scowl.
She smiled beatifically at him. “I can be amusing, you know.”
“Are you in the habit of writing your own notices for the newspaper, Miss Wylde?” He did, at least, sound mildly amused.
“If only that were an option. You’ve clearly read the last thing written about me, and you and all of London have decided it might as well be my epitaph.”
He ignored this, unless one counted the single twitch of a brow. He dipped the quill again.
“Epitaph has three syllables,” she pointed out. “Good word, that.”
His quill continued moving.
“Your Grace, if I may be so bold . . . what are you writing?”
“I will share it with you in one moment, if you would be so kind as to be patient and perhaps not prate, which I suspect you do when you’re nervous.”
So she was quiet. She tried not to jiggle her foot.
He paused and looked across at her. He seemed lost in thought.
“She wasn’t quite a saint. She had a bit of temper,” he said suddenly. Surprising her. “My wife.” He said this with a sort of rueful affection. One corner of his mouth dented.
She wondered what it would be like to ever be mentioned with rueful affection by a man, who would dent one corner of his mouth.
“Surely this temper was never directed at you, as you’ve no flaws.”
“It bodes well for your success as a pupil, Miss Wylde, that you’re so observant.” His mouth curved at his own joke as he returned to writing.
“You’ve no notion how much I notice.”
“Oh, I’ve some notion,” he said grimly.
He finally stopped writing. He regarded her from across the table, absently tapping his quill.
“I’m curious how you know how to . . . shall we say . . . interpret a song if you don’t speak the language. Aren’t most operas in Italian? Perhaps because Italians are often profligate with their emotions. Excessive with their emotions,” he said suddenly.
“Thank you. I didn’t know ‘profligate.’”
He smiled swiftly.
“Perhaps they are profligate.” She liked having a new word. “Compared to the English. But we ought to be grateful for it, because it results in the most thrilling and glorious music. Perhaps that’s why we have opera. All that excess must go somewhere, and it spills over into beauty.”