The Serenade: The Prince and the Siren [Daughters of the Empire 2] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Hollingsworth, Suzette

  “And she is so kind. Not at all shrewish,” Nicolette had managed to emphasize, forcing her insecurities aside. “I’m sure everyone loves her. I find that a woman’s character quite shapes her beauty, don’t you, Melba?”

  “This girl’s singing is…passable.” Melba stared at Nicolette before returning her eyes to the Marchesi, speaking about Nicolette as if she were not in the room. “Perhaps she will earn some minor notoriety with a great deal of hard work, but she is much too hefty to play a leading soprano role—even if her voice possessed the necessary lightness. Can you imagine her playing the frail, thin Mimi?” She laughed in her lyrical tones—even her laugh was beautiful—before her tone grew sympathetic. “Possibly her voice is sufficient for the chorus. The other voices might cover up her dark overtones.”

  Melba departed the room without looking back, which was fortunate for Nicolette, who felt a single tear rolling down her cheek.

  “Oh, Mama, what if I do not succeed?” she cried to her mother that evening. “I do not think I could bear it.”

  “You have a great talent, my dear. Nothing which others do to you can change that.”

  “Quite the opposite, Mama.” Nicolette shook her head. “This is not a parlor game. It is positively ruthless in the world of opera.”

  “Then why are we having this discussion, my dear?” Lady Ravensdale looked up from her sewing, letting it rest in her lap. “Do you find these affectations useful—or do you not?”

  “Because”—she pursed her lips with determination—“as desperately, deliriously as I want to be a singer on the stage, even more than that I do not wish to become what I saw today.”

  “Very wise, my dear.” Lady Ravensdale nodded in recognizable relief. “Embrace the gift which you have been given, my love, but only a person lacking in character has the need to affect haughtiness.”

  “Once I received the proper voice instruction, everything came together for me. I owe so much to the Marchesi.” Nicolette hugged her grandparents, returning to the present. “And to you.” She had never been so happy. All nineteen of her years had been lived for this moment.

  With Lady Elaina in attendance, Nicolette proceeded to her dressing room to change before joining her family for dinner.

  “I love the role, Grandmamma.” As Nicolette sat at her Rococo-style gold-gilt dressing table, staring into her mirror, she relived the deafening applause. Her eyes rested on the bouquets that filled her dressing room, and she took in a deep breath, wanting to memorize the fragrance of this moment. In her mirror she could see Lady Elaina lounging on a lovely cream-colored fainting couch, her face lit by the light from an Etienne glass lamp. With her auburn hair and aquamarine eyes, she was definitely not one to fade into the background.

  Something in common with her granddaughter.

  “The role loved you, Nicolette,” Lady Elaina replied as she fluffed her pillow.

  “Carmen lives by her own rules, courageously, absolutely true to her heart. In the end, when she is facing death, she does not flinch, and she will not apologize—when it might save her. There is no falsity about Carmen.”

  “And she amuses herself with men as if they were her personal playthings,” Lady Elaina remarked absently, thumbing through the playbill. She glanced up momentarily. “Not unlike you, my dear.”

  “Grandmamma! Imagine using men to fulfill one’s fantasies and then tossing them aside! I assure you I have never done any such a thing!”

  Lady Elaina raised her eyebrows and then returned to her playbill.

  For a moment Nicolette thought of the prince she had met earlier. She had felt something all consuming when she met him.

  He was merely breathtakingly handsome. Why should she care?

  Why indeed? She had seen his true colors. And besides, by now he had realized his error and would have nothing more to do with her. She felt a tinge of sadness when she should have felt amusement.

  Nicolette suddenly realized that her grandmother had spoken. “Oh, pardon me, Grandmamma, what did you say?”

  “I will excuse your inattention on this day—most understandable. I was merely remarking that, thus far, men have written all the great operas. If there is a sensual woman who has power over men in opera, she will die. Guaranteed.”

  “I suppose you are right, Grandmamma.”

  “Of course I am right! In opera or literature, a man who has power over women might at times be forgiven, even allowed to resume a normal life as if nothing had happened, but a powerful woman will be killed.”

  “Or die,” Nicolette agreed. “As if killing off her character will purge men of their lust.”

  “Men want their lust. They have no intention of giving it up.” Lady Elaina set the playbill next to the Etienne lamp.

  It was Nicolette’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

  “Men like to have their fantasies,” Lady Elaina pronounced with finality, shaking her head and arranging her lavender flounces around her. “But the temptress, the woman who has power over men, she will not live to see the light of day.”

  “Let us make the most of the night then,” Nicolette murmured, sniffing from the various jars of perfume on her dressing table and wondering which to wear after her bath. This day was the turning point of her life, and she had had the audience eating out of her hand. Of what possible interest could society’s shortsightedness be to her? “Which perfume should I wear, Grandmamma?”

  “I favor Jacinthe Blanche.”

  “Ummm…there is no complexity to it.”

  “True, it smells like violets with no undertones. I prefer a pure scent,” Lady Elaina remarked. “What about La Bud Parisienne?”

  “Too floral,” Nicolette deliberated.

  “Quality Street?”

  “The name is inelegant. If a perfumery can do no better than that, I cannot be bothered to wear it.”

  “Nicolette! Honestly, why did you ask me?”

  “I think it shall be…Lorenzy-Palanca’s Nuit d’Arlequin.” Nicolette shivered as she beheld her reflection in the mirror. There could no longer be any question: she would take Paris by storm.

  She was determined to be the darling of Paris and the rage of the European continent.

  And to live the life of her dreams.

  “Gardenia and black currant?” Lady Elaina asked as she leaned forward to catch the scent, her rounded skirt forming a deep flounce with its six layers of ruching. She waved her hand in front of her nose, the full sleeves of her gown opening over a yoke of mauve gauze.

  “Yes, along with secondary scents of pink orchid and vanilla.”

  “Sufficiently complex, although one really should add a touch of chocolate as well to the hodge-podge.”

  “Grandmamma!” Nicolette giggled. “Chocolate perfume!”

  “I should like it.” Lady Elaina shrugged her shoulders. “And I suspect men would as well.”

  “Heavens, I don’t wear perfume for men.”

  “You know, my sweet, to add to your enormous singing talent, you are a born actress,” Lady Elaina pronounced. Before Nicolette could protest, her stylish grandmother continued, “Unlike the reserved and demure girls which typify today’s fashionable woman, you hold nothing back. Especially for the audience.”

  “How can I not?” Nicolette sighed, knowing that her course of breaking with the feminine ideal of the day had, surprisingly, paid off for her.

  “I hope that you know how very fortunate you are, Nicolette.”

  “And tortured!” She giggled. “I sometimes wonder what it would be like to not be so compelled. It’s as if I have no choices in life. Every moment of every day is predetermined.”

  “And meaningful.”

  “Yes. Some people never know a moment of pure bliss in their lives. I know what it is with every performance.” She began placing pins in her hair, attempting to tame the wild, but calculated, disarray all about her shoulders. “I must try to give that same experience to my audience. Though in everyday interactions great displays of emotion are fr
owned upon, on the stage it is well received.”

  “More than well received, Nicolette!” Lady Elaina chuckled. “It thrills. It delights.”

  “I cherish my existence, Grandmamma, nothing more. While I am in the music, that is being one with something glorious.” She smiled at her grandmother’s reflection in the mirror. “That is my place. To be in the music. I feel it, and I know that the audience feels it and that we are all one in this experience. That moment when beautiful music is created.”

  She took all the pins out of her hair and resolved to start over. She began brushing her long black hair, and Lady Elaina moved to her to take over the beloved chore. Lady Elaina gently brushed her hair as Nicolette grew lost in her reverie.

  “Grandmamma, this is my first leading role and my debut with L’Opéra national de Paris. In this capacity, I feel myself to be fully realized. I cannot imagine being happier.” She closed her eyes momentarily. “And yet I harbor no delusions. It is absolutely critical that I succeed in this role, or there will be no other. I have to be marvelous, but that is not enough. The audience has to love me.”

  “That was certainly accomplished! How could they do anything else? And although waiting these two years tested the absolute limits of your patience, you see now why it was best that you were forced to fully develop your talent.”

  “I do comprehend it now, I must admit.” She nodded. “If I had peaked too early and fallen on my face, my vocation, and my life, would have been over.”

  Her hair brushed, Nicolette stood and, without any words spoken, Lady Elaina began painstakingly removing the black silk almost plastered to her curvaceous figure.

  “Ouch! Grandmamma!” Nicolette exclaimed. “I believe you have stuck me with a pin.”

  “What shall you wear to dinner tonight, Nicolette?” Lady Elaina asked, ignoring the outburst. “The emerald-green silk?”

  “No, I gave that to Désirée, Grandmamma.” Nicolette moved behind an antique white mirrored dressing screen and began sponging herself with a wet washrag dipped into a white porcelain washbowl painted with blue roses. There was not room for a full bath in her dressing room, so the washbowl and pitcher of warm water would have to do.

  “Désirée? Who is the young lady, and why should she need an emerald silk?” Lady Elaina asked in raised tones so that she might be heard.

  “She is in the chorus. It became her so much, and she has no money for such things.” She began to dry herself with a towel and to put on her underthings. “I think the apricot silk and the pearls would be perfect.”

  “You are an odd type of prima donna, my dear,” Lady Elaina observed as Nicolette moved from behind the screen and began to powder and perfume herself.

  “I live to sing, nothing more.”

  “I know very well that you adore the attention, my dear, so none of your Banbury tales for me,” Lady Elaina stated, tapping her foot. “An odd thing to be giving away your finery, with your disposition.”

  “My disposition? To what do you refer, Grandmamma?”

  “You were made to be before an audience, my dear.”

  “I merely wish to be the one being watched instead of the one doing the watching.” She gurgled as she cast a sly glance upon her grandmother. “That I am well able to accomplish with or without my finery.”

  A knock on the door interrupted their outburst of laughter. Nicolette quickly slipped on her wrapper and moved to open the door. There stood the odd page who had accompanied the prince that evening, a subtle masculine scent of carnation, cardamom, and oak moss accompanying him, which she was now able to identify. He bowed with much more aplomb, and agility, than had the prince.

  The page handed her a note, which Nicolette hurriedly read. It was from Prince Alejandro, asking her to dine with him at Le Meurice on the private terrace of his suite—the Belle Etoile!—that evening. It was all she could do to keep from dropping the note. She was tempted to pinch herself so that she did not stand there reading it over and over like a gaping toad.

  She swallowed hard and looked up. Clearly the page was awaiting her reply.

  It was astonishing! Learning that she performed on the stage had not deterred His Royal Highness!

  Or possibly it was precisely the opening he wished. She remembered well how he had looked at her.

  He would be sorely disappointed if he thought she would be the recipient of improper advances.

  At Le Meurice with the prince of Spain. It would be a crime to forego dining at that grand hotel even accompanied by less notable of a dinner guest. The legendary Le Meurice was located in the heart of Paris, with a prestigious location between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre on the fashionable Rue de Rivoli, overlooking the Tuileries Garden. Queen Victoria, the sultan of Zanzibar, and the grand duchess of Russia were among the hotel’s clientele.

  Nicolette smiled to herself as she reflected that Le Meurice was sometimes referred to as l’Hôtel des Rois, “Hotel of the Kings.” It seemed most fitting given her dinner invitation. The hotel had developed a reputation for lavish entertainment, with dinners lasting from eight in the evening until eight the next morning. And though she had never seen the Belle Etoile, every Parisian knew that the suite featured a three-thousand-square-foot private terrace offering a spectacular 360-degree panoramic view of Paris.

  It is impossible. She was promised to her grandparents. And it was absurd that she would wish to dine with anyone who had slighted her.

  Well, she didn’t, of course, but the Belle Etoile…

  Still, she could not erase the image from her mind. His image. Should she reject so illustrious of a suitor? She was not likely to have an admirer of that magnitude again.

  And he was so very handsome. Dark, wavy hair, a half smile, and a twinkle in those delicious chocolate-brown eyes.

  Something in those eyes entranced her. Just when he appeared hard and cold, he would break into a boyish grin. Those eyes could stab or melt just outside of a second.

  Staring at the note, all she saw was his expression. He had been utterly charming despite knowing that she had been playing him. Until that unfortunate remark.

  She motioned to the page to await her reply. Forcing herself to proceed to her dressing table and to pick up her pen, she unwittingly brought herself back to reality. On a magical evening like this spells were cast and realized, so it was difficult to discern between reality and fantasy—or even to believe that reality existed. And now, to complete the fantasy, her own personal Prince Charming had materialized out of nowhere.

  Well, a prince anyway. Charm was all relative.

  But something in him attracted her despite her reservations…

  She tapped her pen on her dressing table. Dinner with a prince. That was a mere fantasy she could not afford to indulge. It was one thing to create an imaginary world on the stage but quite another to attempt to recreate it in real life.

  Her hand shaking, she began to write a very polite note of rejection, thanking him for the honor but stating that she had a prior dinner engagement.

  “Nicolette?” Lady Elaina asked. “Do you have another invitation? Do not refuse on our account.”

  “No, of course not, Grandmamma.” Nicolette shook her head but continued writing. Her instincts told her that a man of those looks and that wealth was one to be avoided at all costs. Coupled with the fact that her profession led men to think she was unchaste, she had to be wary.

  She sighed. And it was all a moot point: she was promised to her family.

  Did she wish to dine with the prince? Yes. Yes, she did. If she had not had a prior engagement, would she accept?

  Yes.

  She surprised herself. But it was not wise, and it was not meant to be.

  Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she completed her note. Nicolette glanced in the mirror, her sea-green eyes shining, her red lips parting slightly. His image flashed briefly behind her, as if he belonged in her boudoir.

  The prince of Spain in her boudoir? Had she lost her mind? The ex
citement of the evening must have affected her.

  “What is it, Nicolette?” Lady Elaina demanded.

  “Oh, merely a solicitation from an acquaintance,” she replied with as much boredom in her tone as she could muster. “A dignitary of sorts who wishes me to dine with him.”

  The page cleared his throat.

  “You must go then, Nicolette,” Lady Elaina insisted, a hint of disappointment visible in her voice.

  “Of course not! I am promised to you, and there is no one else I would rather be with.” Almost no one.

  She handed the note to the page, who bowed but departed with haste.

  “Who was the invitation from, Nicolette?”

  “A gentleman I only met this evening.” Click. She replied softly as she shut the door slowly, feeling an uncomfortable finality. “We spoke for but a few minutes.”

  “Does he travel in political circles? Would I know him?”

  “I doubt it. Though it is conceivable that he has a certain influence in the arena of politics, I would not expect him to attend London’s political parlors.”

  Lady Elaina opened her mouth, clearly curious, but then closed it as she watched her granddaughter suspiciously.

  Nicolette walked over to the two dozen red roses in an exquisite stained-glass vase. She closed her eyes and inhaled the delicious scent as she took a single rose and let it caress her cheek.

  An unexpected melancholy swept through the room, a sense of something lost.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I need you.

  Stay right here!

  Maybe you’ll think of something

  to clear away my troubles

  —Gioachino Rossini, The Barber of Seville

  “Nicolette, you look stunning. I am going to find Jon.” Having emerged from behind her cream-tone mirrored dressing screen for her grandmother’s final inspection, Nicolette received Lady Elaina’s final pronouncement as she held her hands, smiling warmly. “I shall return shortly.”