Captain Hardy, who knew how much handkerchiefs cost, had eyed them askance on his way into the smoking room.
So far he hadn’t asked any questions.
The duke was out. Perhaps dining with a family who were blessed with a pretty daughter or two. Mariana could hardly stop it. Why wouldn’t he enjoy their company?
But she’d excused herself from the sitting room earlier than usual that evening, to be alone with the enormity of the things she felt that she had no business feeling.
She settled gingerly in at the little desk in her room and stared at the foolscap, her old friend, and thought:
Dear Mama,
I hope this finds you well.
Help me. Oh, help me please. I need help. I am worried.
I think you would be pleased to know that the duke called me extraordinary. I was so proud. He would know, wouldn’t you think? Because he is.
But how can I be? He has already endured so much. He can be a bit of a bastard, but he is practically a bloody national saint. He is expected to be good, and he is. He is a very fine man. I am grateful to know him.
Oh, but Mama. When I am with him . . .
The way I feel about him is neither small, nor wise, nor bearable.
I so wanted a very different life. A life like the one we had. At the moment, I’ve no business wanting anything at all, unless it’s a paying job.
I suppose some would call me a fallen woman. But I still feel just like myself—just Mariana. No different inside. So I am worried that what I did with Lord Revell was not so much a mistake as simply my nature. And then, what does that say about me? Am I what the newspapers say I am?
Is that why I want to tempt the duke? Is that why he is tempted? Would I be his downfall?
But what are bodies for, if not for this?
The next afternoon, Dot tapped on her bedroom door just as Mariana was drawing heavy lines through a sentence she’d written that she didn’t dare allow anyone to see.
She’d just heard the clock downstairs chime out two o’clock.
“Miss Wylde, a gentleman has arrived who wishes to speak to you. He talks very quickly and has very white teeth. And his name sounds like ‘eeneenee.’”
Mariana shot to her feet. “Oh! Mr. Giannini is here?”
“He’s very handsome, Miss Wylde,” she whispered. She fanned herself. “Cor! Italian! Like Queen Charlotte’s lover!”
“He’s a charming rogue, Dot,” she said firmly. “Don’t lose your heart. Thank you for telling me. If you would bring in tea? Would that be all right? And will you kindly tell him I’ll be down presently.”
Dot darted back down the stairs.
Mariana rubbed a bit of shine from her nose, pulled a few tendrils of hair down to trace her jaw, bit her lips, and rubbed her cheeks. It wasn’t Giancarlo in particular she was attempting to impress. But she knew he would tell the world how he found her.
She gracefully made her way down the stairs. She took the descent at a regal, leisurely pace, as if she were mistress of the manor.
Thusly, Giancarlo was able to admire her as she passed beneath the crystal chandelier.
He looked the same, of course: lean and elegant, all flashing dark eyes, teeth like pianoforte keys, a cravat tied with Gordian knot intricacy, and a perfect swoop of Byronic dark hair.
He covered his heart with his hat as she approached, and bowed.
“Mariana, tesoro mio, luce dei miei occhi—I have found you.”
“Giancarlo! So you have!”
“I ask at every inn in every town. Where is she, the most beautiful girl in England? You must tell me.”
She’d almost forgotten how absurd he was, and how amusing, in his way.
“Only in England?”
He smiled. “In all the world. I would have said it properly, but my charm, she has some rust since I do not see you every day I have no need to use it. NO one else is worthy.”
She snorted. He flirted liked he breathed, and she had no doubt he did indeed suffer if he had no current target.
It wasn’t unpleasant to see him. Or to bask in extravagant compliments.
“And then I ask at this inn and my prayers are answered,” he concluded. Ignoring that Mr. Delacorte had sent him.
“Are you about to answer mine?”
“I am here on business, cara. I bring you gifts.” He reached into his coat and, with a smile that began slowly and grew wide, retrieved something that rustled promisingly.
He held it out to her.
She tried not to be too eager about snatching it. She realized at once the stack was a good deal thinner than she’d anticipated.
“Seven pounds! That’s . . . only a third of what you owe me! Did you think you’d blind me with a smile and I’d forget how to count?”
“Mariana, believe me when I say I wish I could pay you all now, but I have only been paid for part of what I am owed, and it is . . . it steals my sleep. I am truly sorry. I cannot yet pay you all of it.”
She believed him.
Mostly.
“And we will make it all—it will rain down like leaves in autumn, the money—if you were singing. But La Fleurina . . . she is not you. While she once was the queen of all sopranos, she no longer has the range, and certainly not yours, mi amore. And my beautiful opera, it needs it. And she is”—he lowered his voice and whispered, as if confessing a shameful secret—“getting old.”
“Well, so are all of us. So is the audience for opera, for the most part. Surely they can’t see a line or two in her face from where they sit.”
She could feel herself aging as she sat there, no closer to diva-hood than before, or to that one thousand pounds a season Elizabeth Billington once made. No closer to ever being employed again.
He put his fists up to his eyes and mimed looking through them. “With the . . . how you say . . . costosa . . .”
“Expensive glasses.”
“. . . sì, the expensive and beautiful opera glasses.” He mimed a rich audience inspecting the singers on the stage. “They can see if I miss a whisker beneath my chin.” He scraped his hand beneath his chin illustratively. “They will see her lines in her face, and the powder she covers over them with, as she sings of being an innocent virgin, and they will not be kind in the papers. And they will mock. She does not deserve it, but neither do we.”
“It’s a beautiful score, Giancarlo, but I’m hardly an improvement at the moment, am I? They will throw fruit and worse things and hiss at me. They might not go at all if I’m in it. They will not hear a word of your beautiful opera or all the controversy—‘trouble,’ that word means, that is—”
“I think they are all now deciding to, how do you say . . . pretending you never were?”
He said this appalling thing so blithely.
“Shunning me?” she said weakly.
Her heart flipped.
This boded ill for any more ticket sales for the Night of the Nightingale. Or any other work of hers, for that matter. It went a long way toward explaining the quiet, though.
“So I have heard. They do not want to kill you or maim you, just ignore you!” he said brightly. “But soon they will forget it happened, and then I can hire you once more. You are my muse, my angel.”
“Forget it happened? Are you new to London, Giancarlo?” She was a little frantic.