Suddenly a young man sporting a riot of dark curls and a modest dark suit appeared in the doorway. In his hand he gripped the neck of a cello.
Delilah and Angelique stared at him, dumbstruck.
The violinist on his heels almost collided with him when he stopped abruptly. They knew he was a violinist because his hand was gripping the neck of one.
Huffing on the heels of the violinist was another violinist.
Delilah craned her head to see how many stringed instruments would appear.
“Where would you like us to set up?” the first young man said briskly.
“I beg your pardon?” Angelique managed.
“Where would you like us to set up?” he repeated patiently. “We’ve been paid to play for Miss Wylde. We know the songs she intends to include.” He fished something from his pocket. “We’ve a program!” he said cheerfully. “And we’ve played for her before at the theater. She knows us.”
Angelique and Delilah stared at him wordlessly.
Then turned to regard each other in bafflement, which they attempted to disguise.
“Why don’t you stand next to the pianoforte?” Delilah finally suggested. “And . . . perhaps play some Bach while we wait for our guests to arrive?”
She felt a bit as though she were commanding a character in a dream, and that there would be no telling what they would do now. Transform into dragons. Disappear in a puff of smoke.
But off they cheerily went.
“Did we pay for them?” Delilah asked in a low voice. “We’ve been so frantic these past few days, it might have slipped our minds.” She was half joking.
“Never,” Angelique said. “When has our budget ever slipped our minds?”
Upon tuning, the musicians at once launched into Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor.
The night was turning out to be everything they’d dreamed. And therefore quite puzzling.
“Someone better go and tell Miss Wylde,” Angelique said. “She may need to adjust her program.”
They were both indescribably relieved they would not need to play pianoforte for her.
They saw Miss Wylde’s little face peep out of a slit in the velvet curtains at the sound of the violins. Then immediately duck back behind it.
Then Delilah and Angelique pivoted toward the doorway again and almost gave a start.
A gentleman—for he most assuredly was—and a lady—for she most assuredly was—hovered there, each wearing evening finery and harried, wary expressions as they approached.
But when they were met by the warm, gracious smiles of two beautiful ladies, one dressed in gold silk, the other in red silk, and when they peered past them into the ballroom, their tense expressions cleared and evolved into a certain puzzled wonder.
And then relaxed into lines of pure pleasure.
“We should like two tickets to hear Miss Mariana Wylde, please. We are Lord and Lady Dovecoat,” he said, briskly confident now.
“Of course,” Delilah said smoothly. “Eight shillings, please. And we do thank you for coming. Here is your program. As you are among the first to arrive, you’re entitled to a commemorative handkerchief, because we feel you will need it when Miss Wylde breaks your heart. We think you’d like a memento, because we feel certain you will want to remember this exclusive occasion forever.”
They were visibly charmed by both this speech and the gift.
“Oh, a handkerchief, Dovecoat!” Lady Dovecoat was delighted about this. “And a broken heart! How novel! What do these initials stand for?”
“The Grand Palace on the Thames, Lady Dovecoat. We are the finest, most exclusive destination for entertainment this side of London.”
Angelique had improvised, and Delilah shot her an amused, approving glance.
“Dorothy will show you to your seats,” Delilah told them.
Dorothy was Dot, of course, who curtsied deeply to them, and led them to the second row and sat them three chairs in. To their evident puzzlement, her face was still, very faintly, blue from the nets, which lent her a bit of an ethereal air.
She went on to amuse herself by seating all the arriving couples by the colors the ladies wore, creating a pattern of blue, red, gold, and green stripes across the rows, sorting mauves in with the blues and pinks in with the reds, and this was often accomplished by seating one couple in the middle of an empty row, squeezing another couple onto the end, and more than once, asking another couple to move. Soon the pattern was part of the scenery and a very pretty sight that greeted all the new arrivals.
What did it mean? they murmured amongst themselves. Surely it was a ranking of some sort. Wasn’t everything?
The cryptic and clearly deliberate arrangement kept the aristocrats unsettled and obsessed for weeks.
Later, Mariana thought she first understood what was about to happen when she heard the first note dragged by a bow from a violin.
Her heart lurched. She’d felt that note like it had been drawn from her own heart.
She was motionless, puzzled.
Suddenly, Mrs. Pariseau, looking very handsome in a dark green silk with long fitted sleeves and a matching turban, peered through the curtain.
“Miss Wylde, are you decent?” she whispered.
“When am I ever decent?” Mariana bent to whisper back.
They both chuckled.
“A string quartet has arrived. Though the sudden Bach probably gave that away. The musicians claim they were paid to play for you. Do you know anything about it?”
While Mariana could not truthfully say she knew anything about it, she’d been smiling to herself since she heard the Bach. She was almost certain she did know how and why they were there.
He’d listened to her. He’d always listened to her. And it seemed he could make some dreams come true, after all.
She had learned her lesson about hope and portent, however. They stirred, of course; she gave them the cut direct. She would not again be swiftly encouraging something that had caused her so much pain.
“Would you like to have a word with the cellist?” Mrs. Pariseau asked. As the cellist wasn’t currently occupied.
“If you would send him over, I’ll just review my list of songs with him to make certain they know what to do. Thank you.”
And just like that, Mariana felt the surge of the excitement that always heralded her most transcendent evenings. She knew, in her very bones, something magical was about to happen.
The trickle of guests became, if not a torrent, then decidedly a flow. They arrived occasionally singly, most often in pairs, over and over again. Delilah and Angelique witnessed virtually the same progression of emotions on every face, all of them at last passing into the building wearing expressions of bemused, delighted anticipation. Which of course was only what the decorations deserved.
Shillings tinkled deliciously into the locked box.
And soon it was clear that not only would every seat be filled, but many members of the audience would be standing, as well.
Guests mingled and murmured, stood and craned their heads to admire the stars and draped fishnet sky and the flowers and to inspect each other, all in all quite satisfied with everything.
And yet not one of them revealed why or how they had come to be here at the last minute. Neither Delilah nor Angelique asked. They wanted everyone attending to believe this was precisely what they’d expected all along.