Secrets of a Soprano (8 page)

“I was born in Paris but my parents fled from the Revolutionary terror to Portugal when I was a young child. My father gained employment in the port wine exporting company of Waring and Sons in Oporto. My mother died soon afterwards and my father when I was thirteen. After that I was taken in by his employers, the Warings.”

“Have you asked them if they know of Mr. Birkett’s connections?”

Tessa looked down at her lap. “I’m not in contact with them. They disapproved of my marriage.”

Mr. Butterworth cleared his throat tactfully. “So I take it, madam, you would like to find Mr. Smith.”

“Is it possible?”

“Very likely, though it won’t be easy. Who knows how many J. Smiths reside in Bristol? It could well be a lengthy and expensive inquiry.”

And that, Tessa thought, was the rub. She was in no position to fund the search. Not for the first time since she’d discovered Domenico’s perfidy, she cursed her husband. Not only had he rejected an overture that might come from her father’s family, he’d made sure she was in no financial position to undo the damage.

“The actual subscribers to the Regent Opera House are entreated to observe that their Subscriptions are to be paid at the Office, where they may at the same time receive the Tickets for their boxes.”

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“W
e have to
fill almost nine tenths of the seats at every performance to break even?” Max tried to keep his voice level, not wanting to communicate any hint of panic to Simon Lindo.

Apparently he succeeded. Simon’s response reflected no deeper emotion than mild exasperation. “We discussed the economy of the Regent at great length before the plans were completed.”

True enough, but Max hadn’t been listening, not really listening. What had interested him was the design itself. The Regent was modeled after the European court theaters: elegant; intimate; a jewel box of an auditorium where every action and note performed on stage could be seen and heard from every seat in the house. The opposite of that aging barracks known as the Tavistock.

Right now every one of the nearly three thousand seats in that seedy barracks was sold out. Meanwhile the jewel box, with its modest capacity of sixteen hundred, was playing half full.

He listened intently as Simon went into detail about revenues to be expected from tickets sales in the pit at ten shillings and sixpence a piece and gallery admissions at five shillings.

“What do we need to do?” Max asked, now properly impressed with the urgent necessity to fill the Regent’s boxes and benches, soon.

“For a start we need to collect payments from the subscribers.” People of wealth and fashion paid in advance, at a reduced price, for the right to occupy private boxes for the entire season. Max himself bought subscriptions at every major theater.

“I thought we’d sold almost every box for the season,” he said. “Ours have the best view and most comfortable seats in London.”

The Regent’s manager raised his hands above his grey-streaked head and cast dark eyes heavenward, as though beseeching a higher power to bring enlightenment to his less experienced partner. “Ordering a subscription is one thing,” he said with patience, “paying for it another. That’s why we’ve been placing advertisements in all the newspapers for the past week.” He flipped open a box on the desk.

Max surveyed the contents of the wooden case. He considered the care, not to mention the money, he’d expended in the design of the permanent tickets that subscribers would carry to gain entry to their boxes. Where the older London theaters, including the Tavistock, issued well-worn squares of ivory, the Regent’s tickets were silver, handsomely engraved with the name of the theater and the box number. He’d commissioned a special case for them, of mahogany lined with green felt, with numbered slots for each box. Nobody received their tickets until the subscription was paid for, a theater box being one of the few items in London that the upper classes couldn’t purchase on tick. Unhappily the Regent’s ticket case was far from empty.

“The boxes were full on opening night,” he remarked.

“We had no trouble selling every seat for the first performance. Naturally we weren’t going to let the boxes sit unoccupied. That’s bad business, and it looks bad too. But we need the income from the subscriptions to cover expenses we must pay in advance.”

“Let me look at the subscription book.” Max ran his eyes down the list of names of those who, in the months leading to the opera house’s opening, had reserved boxes. It was a glittering list of the great, the fair, and the merely rich. In short, the cream of London society.

“These people can well afford to pay, most of them,” he said in disgust. Max always paid his bills as soon as they arrived. Or rather his steward did.

“You can be sure they’ve all sent the monies to the Tavistock,” Simon said pointedly. “La Divina is the rage right now. It’s the fashion to be seen at her performances.”

Max had tried to forget Teresa Foscari since their unpleasant meeting but apparently he wasn’t allowed to. He had, after all, promised Simon he’d talk to her.

“I spoke to her at Lady Storrington’s,” he said. “There’s no chance she’ll break her contract with the Tavistock. We’ll have to become the fashion by ourselves.”

Simon looked skeptical. “Without Foscari?” He coughed delicately. “It would be easier to lure her over to our side…”

Max interrupted before his partner could come up with a new, unwelcome plan requiring conversation with the rapacious soprano. He never wanted to speak to her again, or see her. Even on stage.

“Without Foscari,” he vowed. “We’ll have these misers crawling to us, begging to be allowed to enter the Regent. I’m going to make
us
all the rage.”

*

With the goal
of making the Regent Opera House the destination of choice for fashionable London, Max had sifted through the long-ignored litter of engraved pasteboard on his desk. Little as he cared for the distinction, the Hawthorne heir was on the guest list of every hostess who could summon up a claim of acquaintance. He wasn’t happy at the prospect of appearing in salons and ballrooms to talk up his precious opera house like a common street corner shill. But it had to be done. The evening found him attending a rout party at the house of Mrs. Sackville, together with some five hundred of that lady’s closest friends and her one determined rival, the Countess of Storrington.

“I wish, Lady Storrington, that you will seriously contemplate taking a box at the Regent for the season. You won’t want to miss the opening of Signor Rossini’s new opera next week. And we can promise you the best in music, sets and costumes.”

“Your theater is beautiful. I was there on the opening night.” The lady was polite but unenthusiastic.

“You’ll enjoy
The Barber of Seville
even more than
Fidelio
,” Max pressed, the strain of being charming beginning to prey on his nerves. “You won’t regret it. We have several excellent boxes still available, although they are going fast.”

For the seventh time he repeated this particular lie, and each time it got harder. Describing the superior qualities of the Regent’s accommodations and musical offerings was no problem. He believed every word, though he hadn’t expected to have to convince the public one member at a time.

He’d always striven for the common touch in his dealings with people, uncomfortable with the notion that wealth made him inherently superior to others. Still, as a Hawthorne, he wasn’t used to asking for favors, let alone begging for them.

The countess tilted her head to one side. “I would enjoy it I’m sure. But my husband isn’t fond of opera. I’m already trying to persuade him to take a subscription to the Tavistock so I can attend whenever my cousin sings.”

He hadn’t thought the conversation could be any more distasteful. He was wrong.

“But,” she continued, “he’s being a little difficult about it. He’s annoyed with my cousin because she overcharged for her recital.” There was a baleful look in her brown eyes. “I think that is your fault, Lord Allerton. He wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t told him.”

Max raised his hands, palms out, to disclaim responsibility for Lord Storrington’s recalcitrance, much as it suited his own interests. “He asked a question, I answered.”

“I detected some rancor between you and Tessa the other night.”

“I have great respect for Mrs. Foscari as a singer but she does not sing at my theater.” Max flattered himself that he sounded calm and reasonable.

“I think there’s more than that. Antagonism from your previous encounter, perhaps?”

Max didn’t know if Tessa had told her cousin some untruthful version of their past, or if Lady Storrington was on a fishing expedition. Either way he wasn’t biting. “I’m sure you will bring Storrington around to your way of thinking and get your box at the Tavistock.”

She grinned. “I expect I will. And perhaps we’ll take a box at your theater too. At the very least I’ll come to
The Barber of Seville
. Reports from Paris are that it’s most entertaining.”

Relieved to have the conversation back where he wanted it, Max grazed her knuckles with his lips. “Thank you. You set the fashion and London will follow.”

“Don’t let Lydia hear that or you can say goodbye to her taking a box.”

“She already has.”

Though she hasn’t paid for it
. He kept that thought to himself.

What had happened to his comfortable, well-ordered life? Instead of savoring the fulfillment of his plans for the Regent, he was at this damnable rout. Longing to go home and sit in his library with a glass of brandy and a book, he set his teeth and stretched his lips wide.

Ten more possible buyers, he promised himself, and then he’d leave. And most of them had better pay before the week was out.

“Where is Storrington?” He peered through the crush, unable to distinguish the earl. “May I escort you back to him?”

“Oh, he isn’t here. Someone else accompanied me tonight.” She looked toward the double doors separating the gilded saloon from a more chastely designed music room.

Alerted by a lilt of mischief in her tone, Max turned around, followed her glance, and saw the Marquess of Somerville proceeding through the crowd with effortless grace, making a path for the lady on his arm. A lady who raised a rustle of interest as she approached and left murmurs of excitement in her wake.

“Here comes my companion for the evening,” Lady Storrington said with cheer and a drop of malice. “I believe you’ve met my cousin.”

An already horrible evening got worse. The last person he needed to see was the author of his humiliation. Setting aside, for the moment, his mother’s share in his predicament, Max fixed all his resentment on Teresa Foscari. Nothing had gone right since the night he set eyes on her again. No, since the moment she had, unknown to him, decided to invade England and destroy his peace. If the dratted woman hadn’t chosen this season to appear in London, the crowds would be flocking to the Regent without any expenditure of effort on his part.

The fact that she looked magnificent fed his frustration. Why should he even care? He wanted to ignore her but he could not. An unadorned white gown in some clinging material revealed her voluptuous figure without drawing attention from the cascade of golden curls carelessly bound by a filet of woven gold. The singer’s flawless complexion was enhanced with subtle daring by sufficient rouge to make her appear dramatically sensual while remaining on the right side of disreputable. The simplicity of her garb showcased, as doubtless was intended, a necklace of antique cameos in an exquisite setting of worked gold.

Max knew where she’d acquired that particular bauble. Fascinating as the papers found the Tsar’s diamonds, those gems were nothing to the notoriety of La Divina’s gift from the former Emperor of France. As he stared at them, a slender hand carelessly stroked the central gem, as though to draw attention to the spoils of her affair with England’s longtime enemy.

Stiff with outrage, Max sought Tessa’s eyes. Luxuriant eyelashes (discreetly darkened as he had reason to know) rimmed oval aquamarines that glanced around the room and, for just a second, met his stare. He expected the practiced gaze of the courtesan she had become. What he saw caught his breath: vulnerability and the gentle honesty of the seventeen-year-old girl he’d walked home from the opera house in Oporto. Then her attention flickered away and she appeared as haughtily serene as ever. Her hold on Somerville’s arm was surely that of a lover.

He must have imagined what he’d seen in her gaze, conjured it from some pathetic desire to return to the past. Yet he had an unaccountable urge to find out if the glimpse of vulnerability existed. Probably a waste of time, but Simon would be pleased if he approached Foscari again.

*