And then there was actual leather, which could be ascribed to the Hessians standing next to the hearth as erect as if he was still in them. They were considerably shinier than the toes of her satin slippers.
She was a cobbler’s daughter. She knew Hessians like that cost the earth, relatively speaking.
It was ridiculous, but suddenly, the beautiful boots, and the great distance between where they stood at the hearth and where she stood at the doorway, underscored their stations in life. This room was vast, and she could only imagine what his actual home looked like.
She took in a breath, feeling absurdly shy.
The settee was long and tall-backed and looked shiny and plump. Perhaps the finest piece of furniture she’d met in person, and this belonged to a room in a boardinghouse.
“If you’d like to have a seat there, we’ll have a look at the letter together.”
She took his suggestion, and discovered the fine settee was nicely sprung. She could not resist giving a gratuitous bounce.
He sat down beside her, almost gingerly, close but a decorous distance away. So close to touching, but not yet touching.
She wondered if he was nervous.
“What have you been able to read?”
She flattened the letter in her lap and pointed to a scrawled paragraph. “I think he is inviting me to Paris to work? A role in a new opera? But I do not know what this part means. Aragosta? His handwriting is a bit unusual.”
He read the letter carefully. “Excellent. Yes, you are being invited to work, and I believe your role will be . . . you will be a . . .”
He turned to look at her, his expression carefully blank. “A lobster.”
She stared at him, dumbstruck.
“A . . . l-lobster?”
“Yes,” he said gently, as if breaking the news of a death in the family. His eyes, however, glinted. “I believe you’re being asked to play a singing lobster.”
She was speechless.
“Operas don’t have to make sense, Miss Wylde,” he reminded her, his tone entirely sober, his eyes pure, dancing wickedness.
Dazedly, she slowly raised one arm, bent at the elbow.
Then the other.
He watched her face, taut, then trembling with some suppressed emotion.
Slowly, experimentally, she turned her hands to face each other, like claws.
And then clacked them.
They both gave shouts of laughter. And then they doubled over with it.
“Oh, oh, no. Oh, dear,” she sighed happily, and wiped her eyes. “Oh, my goodness.”
“Hold.” He held up a hand importantly, catching his breath. He coughed. “Now let’s think a moment. It could be very poignant. Think about how lobsters wind up in cages . . . there could be an injustice done . . . perhaps it will be like Lobster Newgate!”
That set them both off again.
He referred back to the letter. “Before you get too excited about your role . . . wait one moment . . . let’s be sure.” He cleared his throat and scanned the page. “It’s possible I was mistaken. It’s possible he means for you to be a mermaid. He mentions a sirena, and I believe that’s a mermaid . . .”
She dropped her jaw. Then made an indignant sound.
“But . . . that’s . . . are you sure?”
He referred to the letter again and squinted, as if he could bring the man’s scrawl into better focus. “Yes, I believe it does. The lobsters are . . .” he frowned “. . . merely . . . stage dressing? I believe? Or they might be minions. Ye Gods, was this man drunk when he wrote this? His handwriting is abysmal. It might be a chorus of lobster minions. Please let there be lobster minions,” he muttered.
She studied his profile as he read. He still had tears in the corners of his eyes from laughing. She stared at the glint of them. She stopped breathing from the sheer, untenable happiness.
“A mermaid is much better,” she said, distractedly.
He turned to her in all seriousness. “Is it?”
“Well, I could have a very pretty tail for a costume. Just imagine! Perhaps done in net and paste jewels. And a magnificent wig,” she said dreamily.
As he studied her, his face settled into that bemused wonderment.
“Even so, Mariana, no matter what . . . you’d be the most riveting lobster to ever grace the stage.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
He gave a soft laugh.
They sat in the kind of silence Mariana had never known. It was perfect.
“You are gifted,” he said.
“I know.”
He smiled at that again, and damned if he didn’t look pleased with the answer.
“But that’s precisely it, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s a gift. I hadn’t much to do with it. I’m a . . . vessel for that voice. I got lucky.”
“No. You’re wrong,” he said firmly but ruefully. “One person might look at a little cloudy rock and say, ‘What a nice rock.’ It’s the dedication, the determination, the instinct, the . . . spirit . . . that ultimately tumbles that rock into a glittering diamond.”
She knew he was right. He delivered it as if it were gospel. What must it be like to be so certain of things? What would it be like to be able to rely upon him as a rudder through life? He was so often right.
“If that is in fact true,” she said carefully but firmly, “you may have to contend with the notion that you are in fact a hero deserving of statues and accolades. Not just a man with the conveniently right temperament for an impossible job. Because the same concept applies.”
He was still. Then his head went back a little, thoughtfully, and then came down in a nod.
And then he smiled at her, and that’s how they sat for a moment or two, enmeshed in a bemused glow of mutual appreciation.
He stirred abruptly and handed the letter back to her. “Why don’t you read this paragraph aloud. I think you’ll be able to translate all of the words in it. The one at the bottom of the page. I’ll help if you need it.”
“Very well. I shall give it a try.” She cleared her throat. “‘We . . . should like to’ . . . this word that looks like . . . prove?”
“Prova. Prove. Rehearsal. Rehearse?”
“‘. . . three weeks . . . cominciando’? Beginning?”
“Yes. Very good. Beginning.”
“‘We should like to commence rehearsals in’ . . . oh my . . . that’s nearly three weeks away. I’ve only a very little time to get there! And here are the words ‘Signor Antonio Grieco’—oh, I do like his work! He’s a fine composer. And look at this. The money is good! Am I reading this correctly?”
“Oh, yes. That’s what he’s offering to pay you.”
They had begun by sitting a few inches apart. Somehow, as if they’d slowly been melting, their thighs were now touching, and their shoulders were touching, and suddenly James could no longer think.
A few strands of hair lay against her throat. They glowed like filaments in the firelight. They might as well have been actual gold.
Tension spooled. Tighter and tighter.
Her words grew quieter, faltered, trailed off, stopped.
Her eyelids had shivered closed. And now the little tendril of hair behind her ear fluttered with her breathing. He could see the pulse beating in her throat.