The tripartite power of Lady Caroline’s literary reputation, her alluring air of fashion, and the reference to European travel proved immediately irresistible to Margaret, who opened her mouth eagerly, and stepped a little forward as if to immediately engage Lady Caroline in conversation—until Eliza laid a cautionary hand upon her arm. They had not yet been formally introduced.
“May I introduce you to my very dear friend, Lady Somerset?” Lady Hurley said, and Eliza forced herself to remain calm. Melville would surely recollect her request for his discretion at their last meeting—but as he turned and their eyes met, Eliza gave him a look of great meaning just in case. Melville raised his eyebrows, a faint smile at his lips.
“Lady Somerset,” he said. “We meet again.”
Oh, lord.
“You are already acquainted?” Lady Hurley asked immediately. “How so? Lady Somerset, I did not think you had visited London in many years.”
“Would you like to tell the tale, or shall I?” Melville asked, a glint of mischief in his eyes. Eliza’s heart began to gallop. “It is most amusing.”
“We met very briefly many years ago, at a—a ball,” Eliza blurted out, before Melville could utter another word.
“That does not sound very amusing,” Lady Caroline said.
“Surely that cannot be the whole story,” Lady Hurley agreed, with an intrigued flutter of her fan.
Eliza felt as if she were standing under a very bright light and tried desperately to think of a response to the question that would satisfy their curiosity, leave her reputation blemishless, and avoid insulting Melville all at once—but no such magical answer presented itself to her. Fortunately, just at that moment they were interrupted by the Master of Ceremonies, who indicated it was time to be seated.
“Shall we lead the way, Lady Somerset?” Melville said, with a flourish of his hand.
After a beat of hesitation, Eliza took it.
“I do not consider myself a forgettable man,” Melville said, as they made their way to the concert room. “Perhaps you so frequently find yourself in carriage crashes that my memory has faded into insignificance?”
“I—I do not—it h-has not,” Eliza stammered out. “It is just that—I should not particularly like the—the circumstances of our meeting to become public knowledge. Their being so particularly unusual, you understand, they would easily become gossip fodder. R-recollect I did mention the need for discretion, on the day in question!”
This last remark was said a little defensively, and Melville smiled.
“So you did,” he agreed, escorting her toward the front rows of chairs rather than the retired location Eliza had planned. “My lamentable memory. May I compliment you upon your charming toilette, this evening?”
“Oh—yes,” Eliza said, startled. “Yes, I suppose you may.”
“I think it a great improvement that I can now see your face,” Melville said. “It suits you.”
“My face . . . suits me?” Eliza repeated slowly.
“Fortuitous, is it not?” Melville said.
Fleetingly, Eliza wondered if Melville were flirting with her before dismissing it immediately as improbable. Melville’s flirts were usually found amongst the most dashing and charismatic ladies of the ton—Lady Oxford and Lady Melbourne, if gossip were to be believed—which Eliza most certainly was not.
As the rest of the audience filed in behind them, their row was the recipient of eager glances and craning necks, though as Melville did not appear perturbed, Eliza assumed he must be well used to such notice: the Melvilles, born to both Indian and British nobility, had been a source of national fascination since they were born.
Even as Madame Catalani appeared, the audience’s attention seemed terminally divided—staring just as much to their row as the stage—until the moment the soprano began to sing, when her voice, so clear, so pure, so heavy with emotion, enraptured them all.
“Do you understand Italian?” Melville leaned toward Eliza so he could whisper close to her ear.
“No,” Eliza admitted.
“Nor I,” he said. “Of what do you think she sings?”
“I do not know,” Eliza said limply, though this was not true. Catalani invested each note with such meaning, such sorrow, that Eliza did not need to understand the words to know of what emotion she was singing: heartbreak. One could not hear her without being reminded of times of such melancholy within one’s own life and Eliza’s mind went, inexorably, to Somerset, before she forced the thoughts away.
Too soon for Eliza’s liking, it was the interval, and so distracted had Eliza been by the glorious music that she only remembered her intention to remain piously seated once she was already in the tearoom, and Lady Hurley had concluded the rest of her introductions. Fortunately, it seemed the mystery of how Eliza and Melville had met had been discarded in favor of a new line of interrogation.
“How long have you been in Bath?” Mrs. Winkworth had the first volley.
“A day,” Lady Caroline said.
“And a half!” Lady Hurley interjected.
“Yes, you ought not overlook the half, Caroline,” Melville chastised.
“And is this your first visit to our town?” Mr. Berwick asked.
“Oh no,” Lady Caroline said. “I once spent a whole month here in my girlhood, on a whim from my mother to see me formally schooled.”
“Oh, the Bath Seminary for Young Ladies?” Mrs. Michels asked. “Miss Winkworth, were you not educated there?”
“Yes, she was,” Mrs. Winkworth said, speaking for her daughter as if she were a child.
“Why only a month? You did not care for it?” Admiral Winkworth said, moustache bristling in anticipatory offense.
“Rather, it did not care for me,” Lady Caroline said, with an eloquent and elegant shrug of one shoulder. “But as I already knew everything in French a woman ought to know, my mother allowed me to withdraw.”
Eliza badly wanted to ask exactly which French phrases in particular Lady Caroline thought essential, but refrained; whatever the answer, it would surely only end in Mrs. Winkworth clapping her hands over her daughter’s ears.
“And are you pleased with Bath, on your second visit?” Margaret asked her, eagerly joining the fray.
“In so much as one can be, in only a day,” Lady Caroline said coolly.
“And a half, Caroline,” Melville corrected. “That is twice now you have neglected the half.”
“How long do you plan to stay?” Margaret asked.