“Ser-en-dip-i-tous,” Dot breathed. “Thank you, Miss Wylde. It’s ser-en-dip-i-tous to meet you in the hall.”
They stifled giggles and parted.
Chapter Seven
The duke graciously and sincerely apologized to everyone for his unkindness to Mariana in the sitting room that night. Everyone generously forgave him.
“I expect writing a book would make anyone go a little mad,” Delacorte said sympathetically, later, in the smoking room.
The duke fixed him with a level stare.
Bolt and Hardy just smiled.
The duke half wished he could get Delacorte to write his own memoirs, which the duke would then submit to his publisher as The Untold Story of the Duke of Valkirk.
“We’ve all been . . . churlish . . . a time or two,” Lucien said slyly.
One and all beamed approvingly upon the new accord between the duke and Miss Wylde, which so far consisted mostly of the duke doing what he normally did in the sitting room, and Miss Wylde doing what she normally did in the sitting room, and the two of them not talking much to each other at all, really, but not in a rude way.
“Miss Mariana Wylde is a spirited girl and very talented, and I do feel she has been hard done by,” Madame LeCroix told the London Times. “I found her to be responsible and kind, and if a girl has plenty of work, why, she won’t have time to get into mischief, will she? I think the gossip is exaggerated and that young men are always underfoot when you’re a pretty opera singer. A little champagne never killed anyone. I hope we’ll have many chances to hear her beautiful voice for years to come. She is not to blame for anything. She’s certainly not a harlot. That nonsense must be forgotten.”
Suffice it to say, it was not quite everything they’d dreamed of when it came to reputation repair. And Mariana wasn’t precisely thrilled at seeing the “h” word printed in the newspaper yet again.
And reading gossip was one thing, some of which was made up out of whole cloth and designed to titillate and inflame.
This was undeniably the truth, and it still was just a trifle wince inspiring.
What did that say about her?
Though she was actually rather touched that she’d made an impression on the great diva at all. She would send a little message of thanks over.
“I’m concerned that ‘spirited’ is code for ‘likes gaming hells,’” she said to Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand and Lord Bolt and Captain Hardy, who had gathered around in the reception room to read it.
“Nonsense,” said Lord Bolt, who suspected the same thing.
They would just have to wait to see if her name finally disappeared from the gossip page. Lord Kilhone’s and Lord Revell’s families would have liked to see the end of the matter, of a certainty. They’d scraped the blame off on her the way one might scrape their boots and diverted everyone with the exciting word “harlot.” Perhaps their work was done.
She sighed and closed the newspaper, only to be confronted by another article on the front page.
Valkirk Blesses Charity with Generous Donation
Well. It seemed the duke had donated two hundred pounds to the Society for the Protection of the Sussex Poor.
She goggled. Imagine having two hundred pounds to just give away.
“His contributions will feed the hungry and keep the desperate in their homes,” said a certain Mrs. Sneath in the article. “We are singularly blessed in our patron, one of England’s greatest heroes, whom we can never hope to fully repay.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Nevertheless, it was a rather lovely thing to do with money, considering the kinds of debaucheries that could be purchased for two hundred pounds. Gambling, mistresses, high flyers, champagne, all of which she knew about because—how had Madame LeCroix put it?—fast young men were always underfoot when one was a pretty opera singer.
But the plans for the Night of the Nightingale continued apace. Delilah and Angelique approached it doggedly, and with a determined optimism.
Mr. Delacorte, whose work selling remedies to apothecaries took him into London’s nooks and crannies both bright and dark, happened to know the owner of a stationer, who, after a bit of haggling, agreed to part with a large quantity of silver paper in exchange for a discount on some of the rice papers the Triton Group was importing. They would use this to fashion into roses for their garlands and urns—some of which would be gently colored with watercolors to hues of red and pink—and to fold into little puffy stars that they would then affix with a small quantity of silver spangles and hang from fishing line from the ceiling. The spangles could always be pried off and reused should the day arrive when they wanted spangled gowns or shawls instead of ceiling stars. No one felt that day would arrive soon.
“The effect will be haunting. Haunting!” Mrs. Pariseau declared.
Although they still hadn’t decided how they would make the ceiling appear like a night sky, as they certainly didn’t intend to paint it black, and they weren’t quite sure how they were going to hang all those stars, Mariana was admittedly quite pleased with it.
Then Mrs. Hardy presented an idea that enchanted all of them speechless.
“Commemorative handkerchiefs,” she said on a hush. “Can you picture it? Embroidered with the initials of The Grand Palace on the Thames. Because there won’t be a dry eye in the place when Miss Wylde sings!”
It was a deucedly clever and profoundly impractical notion. Plain linen handkerchiefs cost about four shillings each, and they fervently hoped to sell one hundred tickets, which made the cost outlandish.
“Perhaps providence will step in,” Angelique suggested gently.
They would need it. They were going to need to rely on providence to find one hundred chairs for the ballroom, too. They hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin for that.
As for the tickets, Lord Bolt had arranged for a popular jeweler in Bond Street to sell them, which would make it more convenient for gentlemen to purchase. They were printed in elegant script on a palm-sized card: four shillings for a seat, or two shillings if one preferred to stand, or, in the case of the drunk man who liked to lean against the building near The Grand Palace on the Thames, lean. The name of the jeweler was to be printed on the handbill along with the address of The Grand Palace on the Thames, and the handbills would then be distributed about London and posted primarily in places where opera enthusiasts might be found, near Haymarket and Covent Garden and Piccadilly. This ought to make it easy for people with money and a love for opera to learn about it and buy tickets, if the scandal didn’t stop them.
Mariana’s name would be tall enough on the handbills to see from at least ten feet away, if one didn’t need spectacles. Or opera glasses.
She began to feel hopeful. At least things were progressing a little.
And she’d studied her Italian, of course, as though her life depended on it.
She might be a “spirited girl,” but damned if she would let the Duke of Valkirk think she was anything like a fool.
“Buonasera, Miss Wylde.”
“Buonasera, Your Grace.”
Next to his arm was what seemed to be the same stack of foolscap—his book—she’d seen yesterday. Alongside it was a veritable mound of what looked like correspondence, some opened, some still sealed with various wax blobs, and next to that pile was what looked like a miniature tower of crisp, snowy, engraved invitations and calling cards. She’d never received or sent either of those things.