Two Sinful Secrets

by Laurel McKee

  “Yes,” Sophia answered in surprise.

  “He seldom comes to Paris, but I know he has his finger in many businesses in the city. All across Europe, really. He claims it is in his role as agent for his cousin, an English duke, but I have my doubts. Men like him…” Camille frowned. “They thrive on power. They need it. And you say you know him?”

  Camille suddenly took Sophia’s arm and led her to a quiet corner behind a bank of flowering green plants. She opened her reticule and drew out a small gun.

  Sophia gasped in surprise at the unexpected sight. “Camille, why do you have a pistol at a ball?”

  “Because one never knows what might happen, or who might appear.” Camille took Sophia’s hand and pressed the gun into her palm. The delicate inlaid handle was cold through her glove. “I have others, though. You take this one.”

  “Camille, no,” Sophia protested automatically, though the weight of it did feel reassuring in her clasp.

  “Just in case, my friend,” Camille said.

  Sophie didn’t want to take it. She had learned to shoot on her uncle’s estate, but she had never liked guns, the noise and raw power of them. But Camille held it out insistently, and Sophia nodded and tucked the gun away in her own reticule. As Camille said, just in case. She could return it later.

  Chapter Ten

  The Theatre Nationale, where visiting companies from abroad presented plays and pantomimes for theater-mad Parisians, was one of the grandest establishments on the rue Vivienne, and as Sophia looked around her, she forgot where she was for a moment and just lost herself in the beauty. When she was a girl in England, she hadn’t been allowed to see anything but the Italian opera. She avidly absorbed every chance to vanish into the world of a play.

  She leaned her elbow on the gilt railing of Camille’s rented box and studied the lush surroundings. The crimson velvet curtains at the stage were looped up with thick gold cords and trimmed with beaded fringe, which was echoed in the draperies at the boxes. Bright frescoes of the Muses, glowing with touches of lapis and gold leaf in the gaslights, looked out from above the proscenium, and the ceiling was a soaring dome painted to look like the summer sky.

  And the audience was equally grand. A swirling mass of Parisians in their jewels and satins watched each other avidly from the shadowed depths of the boxes and filled the red velvet stalls below. There were whispers that some visiting German prince and his entourage were soon to appear, and there was a French duke or two as well. It was a sparkling, elegant scene.

  Sophia looked down at the embossed program in her hand and saw Dominic St. Claire’s name scrolled across the top. She had heard that in London he was best known for playing Shakespearean villains, but tonight’s play was a modern romantic comedy, newly written just for this appearance in France, and he played the leading man. Sophia thought wryly that he was surely well-suited to such a part—so charming, so handsome, so attentive to the ladies. Yet there was also that flash of steel beneath, that sense that he hid things in his depths. She had seen that darkness when he came to her and demanded that she give him Mary’s diary. Right after kissing her senseless.

  And the terrible thing was he was such a very good kisser. He made her forget that she needed to be wary of him when his lips touched hers, when he touched her.

  Was that all part of a role, too? The perfect lover, a villain underneath. Sophia sighed and closed the program with a little snap. She felt as if the world was nothing but a series of masks, layers upon layers that hid the core of raw truth. Like a never-ending play. She wasn’t sure she would even know the truth if she saw it now.

  “You look pensive tonight, Sophie,” Camille said. She had her opera glasses trained on a box further along the row, intently watching a handsome young man in a gleaming white-and-ivory uniform. “Is something worrying you?”

  “Not at all,” Sophia answered. “Perhaps I am just a bit tired.”

  “You have been working too hard. The maid said your light was burning very late last night.”

  “I was going over the ledgers,” Sophia answered. “I will master how to do accounts yet!”

  “I have told you, ma chère, you should not work so hard,” Camille said. “If you would only…”

  “I know, I know,” Sophia said with a laugh. “If I only married a suitably rich gentleman, my troubles would be over.” Or if she returned to her family.

  “You should not dismiss such a scheme. It has worked for clever young French women for hundreds of years. And you have so many admirers here.”

  Sophia noticed the handsome young officer watching Camille, a soulful look on his face. “Not as many as you.”

  “Ah, yes! Monsieur le capitaine. He is a handsome devil. Though not quite so handsome as the freres St. Claire?” Before Sophia could answer, Camille gasped and turned her glasses down into the stalls. “Oh, look at Princesse d’Artignan’s gown! Such a fright. I do hope that color is not the new style…”

  Sophia peered down to try to glimpse the frightful couture, but her attention was caught by the group moving into the vacant box across the way. It was an Austrian duke she had seen at the Tuileries, along with his dowdy wife in green satin and a few other people in their Viennese fashions. And one young lady who looked as if she had wandered into the wrong spot by mistake, a beautiful, ethereal creature, all silvery-blonde hair and pale blue tulle, who was smiling vaguely at something a young man was whispering into her ear. She seemed as if she was off in her own world, as she always did.

  She was Sophia’s cousin Elizabeth, who had been widowed soon after Sophia ran off with Jack, and she was the first member of her family she had seen in months.

  Sophia’s fist crumpled her program as she watched Elizabeth and remembered the last time they met. Elizabeth had been staying in the house the night Sophia left with Jack. She had glimpsed her blonde head peering down over the banisters as she ran from the house, her father shouting after her, her mother weeping but making no protest. Elizabeth had said nothing. She never did.

  Yet somehow seeing her, a reminder of the past thrust suddenly into the present, made Sophia remember too sharply the wounded feelings of that night. That sense of being utterly rejected for her inability to be what they wanted, while Elizabeth drifted through life being so quiet, so perfect.

  Sophia had thought that pain was gone, buried beneath the tumult of life as Mrs. Westman, of finding herself outside her family’s insular world. But now it felt as if someone prodded at the old scar, and it stung.

  “Sophia? Are you well? You look rather pale suddenly,” Camille said.

  Sophia turned away from her cousin and gave Camille what she hoped was a bright smile. “I am perfectly well. I just saw someone I know—my cousin Elizabeth, just over there.”

  “Your family?” Camille said. She knew something of Sophia’s checkered past with the Huntingtons, and she gave Elizabeth’s box a startled glance. “We can leave, if you wish. I know of a new café that just opened down the street. They are supposed to have lovely oysters…”

  Sophia laughed. “Of course we can’t leave, just because my cousin is here. She probably has not even noticed me. I’m looking forward to this play too much to miss it.” She looked toward the other box and found that, on the contrary, Elizabeth was watching her, her beautiful face very pale and still. She gave Sophia a little nod, and Sophia smiled at her in return. The young man spoke to Elizabeth again and she turned away.

  Sophia studied the stage again, wishing the house lights would dim and the curtain would rise at last, so she could lose herself in the make-believe of the play and not in the past.

  “Everyone is looking forward to the play!” Camille said brightly. “That handsome Monsieur Dominic is the romantic lead? This will give the ladies something to sigh about.”

  “I don’t think he needs a stage role to make the ladies sigh,” Sophia murmured.

  Camille laughed. “Ah, no! Indeed not. And I heard the most romantic, sad tale about him today at the modiste
that only adds to his allure. His poor, dead love…”

  Sophia was startled. “His dead love? Are you sure this wasn’t gossip about one of his plays?”

  “Not at all. The lady relating the gossip was quite sure of it, and she has only just returned from London with all the on-dits. It seems he was engaged to marry a young lady called Jane Grant, after years of amorous pursuits. It was said she was so good, almost an angel, and he has been quite elusive since she died.” Camille sighed and waved her opera glasses in a dramatic gesture. “Is it not terribly romantic? You are quite right—it could almost be a play. The handsome, dashing hero brought low by the tragic loss of his beautiful, fragile heroine.”

  Brought low? Sophia stared down blindly at the stage as thoughts raced through her mind. She remembered how Dominic had kissed her, how his hands felt when he touched her—how she wanted more and more. And he had wanted her, too. Was she merely some fleeting distraction from his grief over his “beautiful, fragile” love?

  Sophia had no desire to be someone’s distraction. Not when she needed to get her own life in order again.

  “A man who has found love once could easily find it again,” Camille said. “He spoke with you for a long time at the park.”

  “Only about the club. There were no whispers of romantic yearnings,” Sophia said.

  “Are you quite sure that is all?”

  Sophia was saved from answering by a knock at the box door. “One of your admirers, Camille? Monsieur le capitaine, perhaps?”

  Camille laughed as she glanced back over her shoulder. “Ah, no. More likely someone wanting to meet you, the mysterious lady in black. Come in!”

  A footman in the red livery of the theater presented a note to Camille, which she quickly read. A smile broke over her face. “An invitation from my old friend Monsieur DuLac, the Nationale owner! He has asked us to a supper party backstage after the play, to meet the actors. You can have more conversation with the oh-so-intriguing Monsieur Dominic. Such fun.”

  Sophia sighed as she studied her cousin’s pale profile across the theater and thought about an evening spent trying to find something innocent to say to Dominic. Fun was not exactly the word she would choose…

  “Are you still enjoying your time in Paris, Mrs. Westman?”

  Sophia smiled at James St. Claire, who sat next to her at the long supper table. The lavish meal was nearing its end. An array of cheeses and sweets had been laid out on the damask-draped table and rich red wines were being poured into sparkling crystal goblets. The conversation was louder than before, echoing with merriment and high spirits after the play. It was extraordinary to dine backstage at a grand theater, under the soaring walkways and in the midst of vivid scenery and a jumble of props. Like an Aladdin’s cave, full of shadows and mysteries.

  She hadn’t spoken much with James after the initial pleasantries when they sat down and found themselves dinner partners. She had mostly conversed with the actor who sat on her other side, an older gentleman filled with fascinating tales of his years in the theater and gossip about London matters, and James was being flirted with by the pretty young redhead next to him. But he had made sure Sophia always had wine in her glass and occasionally whispered a teasing comment in her ear to make her laugh. Whenever he did that, she would notice Dominic watching them from down the table, his face expressionless, and it made her inexplicably want to giggle.

  “I’m enjoying it very much indeed, Mr. St. Claire,” she said. She glanced up at him and saw that his eyes were the same vivid green as Dominic’s. He really was a handsome young man, his features lean and sculpted, his smile open and charmingly shy. Just as handsome as Dominic, objectively speaking. Yet there was no spark within her when she looked at him, nothing like the flame that kindled whenever Dominic smiled at her.

  “Don’t you miss the adventure of traveling the Continent, moving from place to place?” James said. “I would love to travel, see new places and new people.”

  “Certainly Germany and Italy have their beauties, and I am not one to say no to adventure,” Sophia said with a laugh. “But being settled in one place has advantages, too. And one day I may return to London. It can be interesting there, if one knows where to look.”

  James made a scoffing sound as he reached for one of the bottles on the table and refilled her glass. “If one likes rain and fog, I suppose. I am not looking forward to returning there after our play ends its run here.”

  “But surely being in the theater must make it feel like you are in a new place every day,” Sophia said. She took a sip of wine, and her gaze caught on Dominic over the gilded edge of her glass. He was listening to the chatter of the lady who sat beside him, that half-smile on his face that Sophia knew very well now. It was one of his masks to hide his real thoughts.

  For a while that night, as she watched him onstage, she had forgotten he was Dominic. He had drawn her into his magic and convinced her completely that he was someone else. He drew her into the narrative he chose to tell. Surely he did that offstage as well, playing parts in real life that kept his true self hidden, just as she did.

  Had Jane Grant seen behind all that? Had Dominic let her glimpse his true self? Sophia felt a flutter of something unpleasantly like jealousy, and she pushed it away. It was absurd to be jealous of a lady she had never known, a lady who was gone. But from what Camille had said, Dominic had cared for this Jane Grant, and Sophia couldn’t help but wonder what that would be like.

  What it would be like to glimpse Dominic’s secrets.

  He glanced up and caught her staring at him. He raised his glass to her in a mocking salute, and Sophia turned away. She didn’t need to know Dominic’s secrets. That would mean he might see hers in return. She drained the last of her wine and smiled at James.

  His eyes widened at her smile. “To tell you truthfully, Mrs. Westman, I am not sure the theater is really for me. But I hope you won’t tell my family that!”

  “Certainly not, Mr. St. Claire. Does your father want all his children to go into the theater business, then?” Sophia could certainly sympathize with longing to be free of the weight of parental expectations. Being a Huntington had constrained every part of her life, pressing down on her until she was sure she would be crushed. Only running away had freed her.

  She would have thought the theater was a sort of freedom. But maybe it was just another kind of cage.

  “We are all in the business already, in one form or another,” James said. “Dominic and Isabel act, as our parents once did. My eldest sister, Lily, took care of the business side of things, before she married and moved away. Now she and her husband run another theater in Edinburgh.” He paused suddenly and gave a wry laugh. “But you know that, of course. Aidan is your cousin.”

  “So he is, but I fear I haven’t heard from him in a while. I hope he and Lily are happy.” Aidan had once been one of her favorite cousins, a wild spirit who could understand her. When he broke away from her uncle and married Lily St. Claire, he had inspired her to make a bid for freedom, too. But hers had not ended as well as his.

  “They are very happy. Expecting a baby in the winter, even.”

  “A baby!” Sophia cried. “How splendid.”

  “Yes. My mother is ecstatic for her first grandchild.” James took a long drink of his wine. “And I have to apologize to you for my reaction to your conversation the other night, Mrs. Westman. I was merely startled to learn you had been Lady Sophia Huntington. I never meant for Dominic to make such a big thing of it all.”

  “That is quite all right, Mr. St. Claire. It’s not every day one discovers a lost family connection, I suppose, even a distant one. And I don’t really consider myself a Huntington any longer.”

  “Do you not?”

  She shook her head. “Not since I left to marry. I longed for freedom, just as you do. But freedom has a price, too.”

  James gave her a searching glance. “What do you mean, Mrs. Westman?”

  Sophia laughed. How could she tell this y
oung man, so secure in his family, who so obviously looked out for each other, what it felt like to be adrift in the world? To be alone, even if it was by choice? “I don’t mean anything at all. Tell me then, Mr. St. Claire, have you acted yourself? Have you had many roles?”

  They went on to talk about the theater, and about the sights of Paris. Before she knew it, the dinner was over, and Monsieur DuLac, the theater owner, offered to lead everyone on a backstage tour. The walkways behind the scenery were narrow and dark, and everyone laughed and stumbled together, turning one way and then another as if at a carnival.

  Once they made their way up into the rafters high above the stage, Sophia found herself trailing behind the others until she was alone in the silent darkness. It seemed like something in a storybook, something perfect and strange, and she didn’t want to hurry to catch up too fast. She didn’t want to lose the enchantment of the theater.

  She tilted her head back and stared up into the soaring space above the walkway. The darkness was criss-crossed by an elaborate web of ropes and pulleys for the scenery, and they swayed gently in the shadows like ghosts. Far below she could see the stage set, the shapes of sofas and chairs and false fireplaces, the facade that mimicked real life. From here she could see how hollow it all was. From here, everything was dark and half-seen, half-understood.

  Just like life itself. Just like Dominic.

  Sophia wrapped her fingers around the railing and sighed. She knew she should catch up to the others. She could hear their voices from somewhere in the wings, a weird, dreamlike echo. But she didn’t want to be in a crowd again just yet. She moved slowly along the walkway, the heels of her shoes clicking on the planks. Even that seemed strangely loud in the soaring, hollow space.

  A man suddenly moved out of the shadows, blocking her path into the wings. She gasped and fell back a step as she felt her heart pound in surprise. For an instant, she remembered Lord Hammond and how he had reached for her in the casino, his eyes filled with that burning possession. His threats.