“The shirt was torn,” Lady Clarissa said with obvious appreciation, “and offered a quite delicious glimpse of his chest.”
“Mama!” Max expostulated. “Such comments are unsuitable for a lady of your years—in fact for one of any age.”
“Don’t be stuffy, darling. Just because I’m over forty doesn’t mean I’ve lost the use of my eyes or that I’m dead from the neck down.”
Over forty indeed! His mother guarded her true age as jealously as her sapphires, but Max could count. He, her only son, was thirty-one years old.
“It really didn’t matter why he was dressed like that,” she continued. “I had no idea what was happening since I don’t understand a word of German. Not that I wish to.”
His mother had put her finger on a major problem. No one had understood the plot. London operagoers, if they weren’t enjoying Henry Bishop’s butchered English versions of Mozart, preferred their opera in Italian. Not that they understood that language either, but they were accustomed to it. Besides, most of the overwrought tragedies on classical themes were so absurd it was a positive blessing not to follow the story. With Beethoven’s masterpiece it was different.
He set aside the concern for later discussion with Lindo. Meanwhile he’d rather not hear any more of his mother’s hideously perceptive comments.
“You summoned me, Mama. What can I do for you?” Some tedious chore, he suspected, not unrelated to an appearance at Almack’s and a dance with the daughter of one of her dearest friends. He steeled himself for resistance at all costs.
Lady Clarissa didn’t trouble with subtlety. “It’s time you married, Max. You’re past thirty and I need grandchildren.”
Max sighed. “We’ve had this conversation so many times I don’t know why you still bother. The answer, as ever, is the same. I don’t wish to wed and have no intention of doing so. Is that plain enough for you? If you’re so enthralled with the state of matrimony why don’t you marry again?”
“No thank you. As you know very well, once was enough for me.”
“I know my father was a wretched husband. Why should I inflict myself on some unfortunate female and treat her to the same joy?”
“You’re nothing like Hawthorne. You take after me.”
He walked over to the window and gazed out onto the rain-drenched grounds behind the Piccadilly mansion. He hated to think of his father, a penniless adventurer who’d cozened a seventeen-year-old heiress into marriage. The fact that he was heir to his uncle’s viscountcy made him marginally acceptable, but the reprobate had made her miserable for ten years until meeting his end in a tavern brawl. With his gambling and women he had little time for his wife, and even less for his only child. Max barely remembered the man and that was the way he liked it.
A certain intensity in his mother’s manner this morning told him she wasn’t going to let the subject of marriage drop. The gloves were off and he needed more than evasive tactics to escape.
He turned to face the room. “Why did you marry him?” He’d never asked before.
“I was young, a fool, and spoiled,” she said. “He was handsome and charming and I wanted him, however much I was warned against him.”
“Why did my grandfather permit it?”
“As I said, I was spoiled. He never refused me anything. I made such a fuss that he gave in. Your father’s birth, at least, was decent.”
Max could imagine his seventeen-year-old mother throwing tantrums, holding her breath until she was blue, making life impossible so that her adoring father caved in from sheer exhaustion. Things hadn’t changed.
“I wish he had stopped me.” The words were spoken so softly Max wondered if he’d misheard. He moved into the room and stood next to her sofa, examining her face intently. He’d never seen his mother look so vulnerable.
“I wish he had stopped me and saved me from disaster. The way I saved you.”
Memories of the occasion when her money had “saved” him came rushing back. How could they not when he’d thought of little else for days, almost spoiling his pleasure in the long-awaited opening of his opera house? He scowled. If he could find a way to blame Teresa Foscari for the poor reception of Fidelio he would.
Lady Clarissa misinterpreted his scowl. “But I shouldn’t say that, darling, because then I wouldn’t have you. Although,” she added with a return to her characteristic acerbity, “we’ve already established that you take after me. Maybe you’d be yourself whoever happened to have sired you.” Her moment of weakness had passed.
“And I take warning from your own experience. I’m not going to tie myself for life to a fortune hunter.”
“You needn’t be as unlucky as I was. Not every woman is after your money.”
“How could I possibly tell?”
This aroused her from her languid pose—feigned, of course. Lady Clarissa Hawthorne had vigor enough for two women half her age. “I don’t understand you.” She pouted, pacing in a cloud of royal blue silk. “What’s the matter with you? Men of your age should wish for a wife.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Don’t you want children? And what about…companionship?”
Max’s lips twitched. “I do very well in that area, I assure you.”
“Singers and actresses!” His mother snorted. “It’s time you grew up and saw to your responsibilities.”
Her stride lengthened and her arms swung in wider arcs as she roamed the vast room, working herself into a rage. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him, pinning him with a fierce stare in her dark eyes, so similar to his own. Even he could detect the remarkable resemblance between them. Perhaps it was why he was so close to his mother, maddening as he often found her. Unlike her, however, he controlled his temper. He hadn’t been spoiled to death as a child.
“I believe I run my portion of the estates competently,” he said calmly, “and I have built an opera house that is going to be the finest Great Britain has ever seen.”
“Only by throwing my money at it.” His grandfather had left him a tidy fortune of his own, a fact that Lady Clarissa liked to forget since it annoyed her that he was independent.
“The Regent is operated on sound business principles and will eventually turn a profit.” He hoped so, though it wasn’t something he’d worried about when he and his architect designed the lavish theater.
“I challenge you, Max. Let’s have a wager. If you can manage your enterprise for two seasons without putting in any more of your capital, I’ll stop hounding you about marriage. If you cannot, you marry a girl of my choice.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Because you know you can’t do it.”
Building the Regent Opera House was the only thing he’d achieved himself, not through inheritance. If he couldn’t make a success of it he wasn’t worth much.
“I don’t need to prove anything,” he said, but he lied and she knew it, evidenced by the quirk of her eyebrows. “And the Regent will be profitable. Soon.”
“In that case there’s no reason not to take my bet. Unless you are frightened.”
She was goading him, pricking at his pride and he ought to resist. Though he suspected he’d regret the effort, he was determined to prove her wrong. And if he couldn’t, he might as well settle down to the life of a dull aristocrat, tending to his estates and producing dull, well-behaved children with a dull, well-bred wife.
He reached out and shook her hand. “Done. Two seasons it is. I have until next summer.”
“And then wedding bells.”
“And then freedom from the importunities of an impossible, meddling, mother.”
“I can’t wait to see the babies,” she said, restored to good humor.
*
Why had he behaved like that? What had she done to Max that he should treat her so, in public too. Tessa had turned over the question in her mind a dozen times since Cousin Jacobin’s soirée and the drive to the City of London, alone in her hired carriage, gave her time to think abo
ut it more.
Since the conclusion of their affair hadn’t been her choice, she could think of only one reason for Max’s hostility: Her triumph at the Tavistock threatened the success of his new opera house. Such pettiness on his part seemed out of character for the younger man she’d known. But so did leaving Oporto without a word to her, and that was what he had done, proving that she hadn’t known him at all.
He’d been trifling with her all along. She was too lowborn to be a suitable wife for the future Lord Allerton. Even the recollection of his rudeness brought on the panicked buzz in her head and something more. The pain she’d suffered in the churchyard of São Francisco and for weeks, nay months, afterward, pierced her anew.
Over the years, whenever her husband made her miserable, she would look back on her short-lived first love and indulge in the foolish fantasy that it had been a mistake and she would wake up from a bad dream and find herself married to Max instead of Domenico. Such fancies solved nothing, so she would return to work, submerging her sorrows in the music that never let her down.
Max Hawthorne, Lord Allerton, had never been worth a single tear. Her half-acknowledged hopes for their reunion had been sheer stupidity on her part, hardly a surprise given her history. When it came to men she was a terrible judge. Blinking hard, she made herself think about the business matters that brought her out this morning.
Something about the premises of the solicitor recommended by Lord Storrington inspired trust: the diligent clerks at work in the outer office; the shelves of law books within; the neat bundles of paper tied with pink ribbon. Mr. Butterworth himself was as solid as his wide oak desk. The knot in Tessa’s chest loosened. This man would surely know what to do.
He perused Tessa’s contract with Bartholomew Mortimer. “Although the terms of the contract are generous,” he said finally, “I would not, had I been consulted, have advised you to sign it. On the face of it a share of the theatre’s profits for the season, with a guarantee of at least two hundred guineas an appearance, should come to a goodly sum.”
“That’s what I thought,” Tessa said. “If I sing thirty times—and Mortimer would like it to be more—I earn at least six thousand guineas by the end of the London season. And likely much more. The house,” she said proudly, “has been full every night. And that doesn’t even include my benefit.”
“What concerns me,” said the lawyer, “is the clause relating to the timing of payments. Are you aware that Mortimer need not pay you a single penny until the season is over?”
“Except for my benefit performance. The other singers and musicians perform without pay and I receive all the profits from the evening. In a theater of the Tavistock’s size it could bring in as much as two thousand.”
“That doesn’t take place until late May. I hope you have sufficient funds to keep you until then.”
The knot tightened again. After a morning spent with Sofie trying to make head or tail of her accounts, she was concerned about covering even the necessities for herself and her little entourage. Let alone putting aside enough money to ensure their futures when La Divina could no longer perform.
“I have earned a great deal over the past years, and I have several engagements for private recitals.” She wasn’t going to admit that her coffers were perilously close to empty. “I shall survive till the benefit and in late June Mortimer will pay the rest.”
“And are you so certain he will be able to pay you then?”
Tessa blanched. “But he must! It’s in the contract.”
Mr. Butterworth looked troubled. “I hope you are correct, madam, but I would be prepared for difficulties. Firstly…”—he raised a finger to count out his points—“you have to trust that Mortimer is a sober and dependable individual and will have such a large sum on hand.”
Sober? Dependable? Not the first adjectives the figure of Bartholomew Mortimer brought to mind.
“Secondly, the contract is worded imprecisely as to the manner of calculating profits. A clever accounting may ensure that there are none. You’d then be left with nothing more than your two hundred a night.”
Mr. Butterworth’s sturdy fingers blurred before her appalled eyes. Two sets of “difficulties” that could set her back years, perhaps even reduce her to penury. Butterworth dropped his hand to the contract.
“Whoever advised you in Paris, madam, was guilty of neglect.”
Advice? She’d taken no advice. Domenico had never used a lawyer and foolishly she’d followed his example. This document, this creation of paper and ink that she’d signed so confidently, was the disastrous result of her own naiveté. Just as her husband had always said, she needed him to take care of her interests.
Not her interests, but his, she reminded herself, lest she find herself regretting Domenico’s departure from her life. Domenico had dealt brilliantly on her behalf with theater managers and made them a fortune. He’d also spent one, on gaming, mistresses, and the Lord knew what else, as she discovered after his death. She looked down at the lap of her expensive Parisian walking dress, thought about the splendid carriage she’d hired for the season in London, and her lavish suite at the Pulteney hotel. Domenico had insisted that such luxuries were in fact necessities. “They come for your voice, yes,” he would say, “but half of them don’t know the difference between Monteverdi and Mozart. They adore you for your beauty and most of all because you are La Divina with your gowns and jewels, your wealth, and your rages with flying china.”
Butterworth’s office lacked breakable objects but she didn’t need them. Far from threatening, the lawyer seemed anxious only to help. She would not be destroyed by Domenico, nor by Mortimer either. “This is outrageous!” she said, tilting her chin like a goddess and trying to sound like one. “Is there no redress? I will take Mortimer to court.”
“I sincerely hope it won’t come to that, madam. A Chancery suit is a time-consuming business that tends to leave the antagonists bloodied and no one the richer save us lawyers. As your adviser I would have to counsel it only as a last resort.”
At least her cousin’s husband had sent her to an honest man. She might have ended in the office of as great a rogue as Mortimer himself. She hoped she had enough money to pay Butterworth’s bill.
“Is the contract binding?” she inquired. “Could I break it and engage myself to sing elsewhere?”
Except that elsewhere meant the Regent and throwing herself on the mercy of the deplorable Max Hawthorne. Never. She would starve, rather. Or flee the country.
“I think not, but if you leave the document with me I will consider the matter further and render my opinion. In the meantime I recommend you try and come to an accommodation with Mr. Mortimer. Make him see that it isn’t in his interest to be at odds with you. You are, after all, responsible for bringing in much of his audience.”
“Thank you, Mr. Butterworth. That is doubtless sound advice. Please let me know if you have any further thoughts on the contract. Meanwhile, there is another matter.” Tessa reached into her reticule and removed a folded sheet of cheap paper.
“My late husband took care of all my business arrangements which entailed correspondence with opera houses all over Europe. Though he was fluent in four languages he used a translator for those he never learned, among them English and Russian. He employed a scholar from the University of Bologna, near our home at Busetto, to read and write letters in those languages.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t have you write in English. Your command of the language is perfect.”
“Thank you.” She nodded her acceptance of the compliment. “English is my first language though I have always lived elsewhere. My father was a scholar and insisted I speak correctly.” A better scholar than merchant, she reflected, since he’d left her almost penniless.
“Signor Foscari didn’t like to trouble me with business,” she continued. “After his death, the translator sent me a package of papers. It turns out he was most meticulous in keeping copies of everything he wrote. I found this.
”
She handed Butterworth the letter.
Busetto, 24th June, 1816
J. Smith, Bristol
Sir
I regret that I cannot assist you in regard to your inquiry addressed to my wife. Teresa Foscari is not the daughter of Jonathan Birkett and Suzanne de Chastelux.
Yours etc.
Domenico Foscari.
“Short and to the point,” was the lawyer’s comment.
“Yes,” she replied. “And untrue.”
“Do you know why your husband denied the relationship? Was he perhaps protecting you from importunity.”
“I have no idea. But I’d like to find out whether the inquiry came from my father’s family. I know nothing of his relations, even if any exist.”
“You grew up abroad, I believe,” Butterworth probed delicately.
“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.
CHAPTER FIVE
Secrets of a Soprano Page 5
