Improper Advances (14 page)

Her superior talent had made her famous, but the price of her fame was the loneliness.

Coming to Church Street, she halted, and said miserably, “I can’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“Go to that hotel. My mind was muddled. You’ll get your explanation, but you’ll have to wait.”

“I want it tonight, Oriana. Here and now, if necessary.” His assertiveness, and choice of words, made it seem that he was demanding something more. And in a sense, he was.

“St. Peter’s lies just ahead. I go there to listen to the organist practice, or whenever I want to avoid Mrs. Entwistle.”

“Who?”

“Harriot Mellon’s mother. She has a foul temper and she dislikes me, because my advice to her daughter invariably contradicts hers. And because I’m—for other reasons. She has convinced poor Harri that if she achieves enormous success on the stage, she’ll catch a rich husband to pamper them both.”

Shaking her sparkly head, Oriana said, “It almost never turns out that way. And not just any rich suitor will do, for Mrs. Entwistle says that Harri’s father was a lord—although she refuses to reveal which one.”

She paused when they came to the church steps. “We can talk here.”

“Your friend’s parentage doesn’t interest me,” said Dare, seating himself. “Now—tell me about yours.”

Clutching her scroll of music, Oriana faced him like a reluctant witness forced to give evidence before a magistrate. “Like Harriot, I’m baseborn.”

That possibility had never occurred to Dare.

“My father was George Beauclerk, third Duke of St. Albans. If you’ve studied your English history, or ever read Mr. Pepys’s
Diary,
you know about pretty, witty Nell Gwynn, the actress who was mistress to King Charles II. She bred a pair of sons in quick succession, and insisted that their father provide surnames and titles. The eldest was designated Earl of Burford, and his father was later persuaded to bestow the dukedom that eventually descended to my father.”

Her lineage was not merely noble, he marveled, it was royal—albeit on the wrong side of the blanket.

Earl of Bumfold, Duke of Stallbarn—Burford and St. Albans.

“After a year of wedlock, my father separated from his duchess. Like his great-grandsire, the Merry Monarch, he failed to sire a legitimate heir. His many mistresses proved fertile, and supplied him with bastard children. He preferred to live in Brussels, and while there achieved a brief reconciliation with the duchess, during which he was flagrantly unfaithful—singers were his great weakness. After the failure of his marriage, he paid a visit to London, where his fancy lighted on Sally Vernon, a performer at Drury Lane. She became his mistress, and my mother.”

“You have theatrical connections on your maternal and paternal side,” he observed.

She nodded. “Mother was herself the bastard daughter of the tenor Joseph Vernon. As a child she roamed Covent Garden selling flowers and singing ballads-everyone called her Nosegay Sal. When she was older she provided other services, for an extra shilling. One of her lovers, a popular actor, put her on the stage. The duke was her most exalted conquest, and she made sure everyone knew by continuing to perform for the duration of her pregnancy.” Smiling, she acknowledged, “While still in the womb, I was creating my first scandal. My father bestowed on me the name Oriana Vera, and rewarded Mother with the freehold of a Soho Square house, and an increase in her allowance. My earliest memory is sitting at her harpsichord, pounding at the keys and trying to sing.”

Her appreciation for the music that filled her home, coupled with a uniquely mature voice, convinced the duke and his mistress that they had a prodigy on their hands. St. Albans, opera lover and lover of opera singers, agreed that his tiny daughter’s talent should be cultivated, and promptly departed for Brussels.

“Grandfather Vernon was my first vocal instructor,” she went on. “I wasn’t very old when Mother loaned me to Mr. Sheridan, to fill children’s parts at Drury Lane. At age six I became instantly famous—I quelled a riot in the pit by bursting into song. Sheridan was quick to publicize the fact that I was Nosegay Sal’s little girl, ‘direct descended from Nelly Gwynn and King Charles.’ My popularity was assured.

Before I turned ten, I performed a Vauxhall Gardens concert with my grandfather. The Prince of Wales attended, and the next day he sent me a puppy, a King Charles spaniel. Mother said I must call him Rowley, after my great-great-grandpapa. It was His Majesty’s nickname.”

St. Albans, believing that Oriana was worthy of Continental audiences, invited her—and her mother—to join him in Brussels. Her lighthearted anecdotes of the Rue Ducale household revealed a deep affection for her father, and an awareness of his many faults and vices. Burdened by massive debts at home and abroad, he was so hopelessly insolvent that Brussels shopkeepers refused to extend credit.

Whenever the duke required a fresh supply of beer, or ham, he had it sent over from Glassenbury, his estate in Kent. During Oriana’s public recital at the Theatre de la Monnaie, he’d leaned precariously over the edge of his box—not to obtain a better view of his daughter, but to ogle a luscious female. Sally, restored to favor and alert to possible rivals, had made a scene. Their quarrel, highly entertaining to Belgian high society, had distressed Oriana.

“Undeterred by his lack of funds, he started building a grand castle on the outskirts of the city.”

Fondly she recalled their shared excitement when a shipment of fruit trees and shrubbery arrived from England, destined for his new pleasure garden.

“This was his last gift to me,” she said, parting her cloak to exhibit a gold brooch pinned to her bodice. “I always wear it when I sing, for luck. His family crest—a lion standing guard, wearing a ducal crown and collared with three roses. The motto is engraved below—
Auspicium melioris aevi.
A pledge of better times. He was still waiting for them when he died.”

His grace’s will made no provision for Sally Vernon or her daughter. They had the London house, furnished at his expense and stuffed with treasures from the Beauclerk collection: portraits of the king and the actress, old master paintings, antique jewels—the diamond pins in Oriana’s hair had belonged to Nell Gwynn—rich carpets, fine furniture.

“The next duke died within months of inheriting the title and properties. He was succeeded by a cousin, Lord Vere of Hanworth, an art collector. He came to Soho Square and offered to buy back some of the Beauclerk heirlooms. Mother refused, saying they were my legacy. Cousin Aubrey took an interest in my career, and invited me to Hanworth, near Windsor Castle, to meet his family. He’d lived in Italy, and suggested that Mother take me there for more extensive training.”

“You were there a long time,” he recalled.

“Four years. In London, I had won accolades. But in Naples and Rome and Florence and Venice and Milan, I couldn’t overcome the prejudice against my nationality—my voice and style were too ‘English’ to suit Italian audiences. I wasn’t a failure, but I wasn’t a success. Back to London we went, fully expecting that I was experienced enough for the King’s Theatre. Mr. Kelly, who directs the operas, fed me many compliments but he was blunt: he wanted Italian singers. The King Charles and Nelly Gwynn mythology was no longer useful to me. I was only sixteen, and had spent a decade in the public view—I knew no other life.”

“But you persevered,” said Dare.

“Mother gave me no choice. There were other venues in which I could perform. In summer I sang at Vauxhall and during Lent I performed in oratorios. Herr Haydn urged me to rest my voice, and concentrate on the pianoforte. But Mother was determined that someday I should be a
prima donna.”

He tried to imagine a younger Oriana—well traveled, disillusioned, living in the Soho Square house with her controlling and ambitious mother.

“That’s when you decided to elope with Captain Henry Julian.”

She nodded. “Burford, Cousin Aubrey’s son, played matchmaker at Newmarket.”

“You described your marriage as a rebellion. Against your mother?”

“And her plans for me. She was urging me to marry an Italian—preferably a singer or musician, but almost any Italian would do. As a
signora,
I could conceal my Englishness, and pass as foreign. It was her obsession. I decided to run off with my handsome young captain-salvation in a uniform—and let him fight my battles for me.” After a pause, she said, “Henry’s love for me cost him his life. Please, Dare, don’t make me dredge up that tragedy.”

“You might have shared these facts weeks ago,” he told her. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because I’d wearied of men treating me like a whore—as you did when you found me in your study and decided that I was your birthday present. I’ll not be your Nell Gwynn,” she said with determination, “or your Sally Vernon.”

“I made no such suggestion.”

“It wasn’t necessary. When you were kissing me a while ago, I could tell what you were after. I’ve been fending off improper advances for many years now.”

“Successfully?”

“Yes. Not that it’s any concern of yours.”

“It concerns me a great deal.” Watching her closely, he commented, “Very well, the respectable Widow Julian and the celebrated Ana St. Albans are one and the same. I require clarification on exactly two points. Which one was rolling around on the library floor with Sir Dare Corlett of Skyhill House?

And who left a gift of two dozen quartz crystals behind at Glencroft?”

Pulling her hand from his grasp, she inserted it in her cloak pocket. “If you’d counted, you would have found this one missing.”

In the absence of bright light, the pale stone she held up was lusterless. But it restored his faltering hopes. He kissed her, plunging his tongue into the warm recess of her mouth, and his hand crept beneath the folds of her cloak, seeking her breast.

She pulled away from him. “Do you enjoy making females weep?”

“I never have done—you’d be the first.” He watched her fumble with the reticule dangling from her dainty wrist. “What’s this?” he asked when she handed over a silver coin.

“The price of your seat in the gallery. I want no profit from this great mess I’ve made.”

“A wasted gesture,” he said, and flung her shilling aside. “I’m taking you back to Glen Auldyn.”

Oriana surged up from the bench. “When you see Ned Crowe, tell him how I’ve been using those songs he taught me.”

“Tell him yourself. I won’t sail for Ramsey without you.”

“I don’t belong there. Mrs. Julian’s holiday in the glen has ended. London is home to Ana St. Albans.”

She rose onto her toes, her lips touching his in a hasty, off-center kiss. “I shall enjoy thinking about you, living in your beautiful villa on top of the hill, adding interesting minerals to your collection, warding off all those fortune hunters …”

Watching her walk away, he wished she
had
actually been chasing him to get his money. The motive of greed at least would have made sense to him. Her rejection did not.

Six weeks ago this Oriana, this enigma, had drifted into his life, roused his suspicions, won his affection, made love to him. And yet again, she was leaving before he could express the volatile emotion trapped inside him, roiling and burning like lava.

In some respects her lengthy recitation had enlightened him, but she was as much a mystery as she’d ever been. There was so much more he needed to know. Her love of singing was genuine, but did she derive true satisfaction from her profession? Her strained relationship with her mother, and the loss of her young husband, had scarred her. She was starved for affection, and yet every time he offered it she turned away from him.

She couldn’t leave Liverpool yet, he reminded himself. She hadn’t received her salary. As her retreating figure grew ever more distant, he wondered whether he could rely on the assistance of the oily manager, Aickin, to delay her departure. Failing that, he’d have to steal the theater’s cash-box.

“You’re the most ungrateful daughter in all Christendom, and I the most miserable parent!”

Harriot Mellon, the object of her mother’s fury, clamped her jaws together. It never did any good to defend herself against such a harsh charge; that merely prolonged the tantrum. She stared at the skirt flounce she hemmed and, with shaking fingers, completed a few more stitches.

“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” Mrs. Entwistle shrieked.

Say nothing. Sit up straight. Don’t cry.

“Your selfish disregard for my feelings pains me, Harriot. All your life I’ve worked hard—your stepfather, too—all on your behalf. We rescued you from the drudgery in Mr. Stanton’s theater in Staffordshire, and took you to London and Mr. Sheridan. Through sheer stupidity, you almost lost your chance for a place at Drury Lane. I had to go back to him and debase myself, begging and pleading.”

The incident had occurred four years ago, and Harriot was never allowed to forget it. “There was no vacancy in his company.”

“When people in Hyde Park mocked your shabby dresses, I hoped it would send you back to plead with Sheridan. But no, you were too proud, never mind that your poor parents were beggaring themselves to keep you in the city. And when Drury Lane found room for you, I proved my devotion by accompanying you to the theater and back to our lodging—every day, on foot. And twice a day when you had rehearsals and performances both.”

The constant exercise had proved beneficial, for Harriot’s figure was—in her own estimation as well as her mother’s—overly plump. “Yes, I know,” she responded, thinking back to those early days in London, and the scoldings she’d endured while trudging to and from her place of work, where she’d labored for thirty shillings per week. She’d been relieved when they moved into a house in Little Russell Street, directly across from the theater.

Her progress in her profession was slow. She played secondary roles—merry, warm-hearted country girls-and understudied the popular Mrs. Jordan’s leading parts. She could sing and dance. But because she was so unlike the elegant, sylphlike Oriana, or the majestic tragedian Mrs. Siddons, she shared her mother’s fears that she would rise no farther in the theatrical hierarchy.