Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  "Then don't be," she said.

  The echo of Gideon's words startled me. "That's what he said."

  "How long was he in Sing Sing?"

  "Four years," I whispered.

  "You think he might have learned something from that? You think maybe he's changed?"

  Marry me.

  "And maybe you've changed too." Charlotte smiled. "I mean, look at you ... you ever apologized to anyone in your life before now?"

  I sank onto the bed.

  Slowly, she said, "He ain't gone."

  I froze. "What do you mean?"

  "He's down the hall. In your room."

  "What's he doing there?"

  Charlotte said, "Why don't you go and ask him?"

  CHAPTER 27

  I stopped before the door, raising my hand to knock, then hesitated. Why he was still here, why he was here--I didn't understand any of it, and there again was that dissonance that troubled me, that sense that he was not quite what I knew him to be. I was afraid if I knocked he would tell me to go, or he would not let me in. But more than that, I wanted the advantage. So instead of knocking I turned the knob. Slowly, carefully, I opened the door.

  It was dark. I thought Charlotte must be wrong, but in that same moment I felt him there, I heard his breathing. I didn't move, letting my eyes grow used to the dimness. The daylight crept around the edges of the drawn curtains, glowing through the worn calico. I could see him, sleeping in my bed. I closed the door behind me, a little hard, to wake him, and leaned against it.

  He stirred, groaning a little. "Who's there? Charlotte?"

  "It's me," I said softly.

  He jerked fully awake, sitting up, raking his hand through his hair. "Sabine."

  "The New Brunswick suited you better."

  "I'm used to worse."

  I winced. "Why are you here?"

  "I wanted some time to think. I knew you'd go to the hotel to look for me eventually. I didn't think you'd come here, not after the half-breed came for your things."

  "Duncan knew?"

  He nodded.

  "He never said."

  "I asked him not to."

  "I thought you were gone. I thought you meant what you said."

  "I wasn't as ready to leave as I thought."

  I didn't ask the question that burned, and I kept hope tamped down. Instead I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. "I sent a telegram to Willa."

  "Did you?"

  "I told her I was sorry."

  "That's ... good."

  I hesitated. Then, "I've told Johnny I'd do four performances at the Palace."

  "Four?"

  "I owe him something. It's the least I can do."

  He leaned back against the wall. "It was clever, what you told the Post-Intelligencer. I couldn't have thought of something better myself."

  "You liked it then? I wasn't certain you would. You said they should still wonder a little, so I did the best I could."

  "Amnesia always works."

  "Well, it does in novels. And in opera."

  He laughed. I thought of the day we'd lain in bed and sung the duet, and I had to look away for the longing that rose in me.

  "I haven't told anyone what really happened."

  He went quiet. I felt him waiting.

  "You were right. I am afraid of it. It was easier to blame you than.... It was easier."

  He said, "Tell me."

  Just like that, I was thrown back into the past. The flash of images through my mind like photographs. A broken teapot. A knife glistening with capon fat. Blood. Instead of squeezing my eyes shut and pushing them away, I let them come. It was time for both of us to face what I really was. It was time to remember.

  W hen he came through the door and saw me he stumbled to a stop and smiled, and there was a look in his eyes that made me nervous. He said, "My dear Sabine, how beautiful you are," and then his smile became mischievous, the Alain I knew, and I was reassured both by it and his flattery. And then he came to me and took my hands and kissed me, and it was very gentle and sweet.

  "I've ordered up dinner," I said. "And wine."

  "The dinner I think will wait," he said, striding to the table. "But not the wine." He poured a glass of wine for me and one for himself, which he drank very quickly. He poured another and laughed at my little sip and said, "Come, cherie, drink up, so we can enjoy each other better."

  So I did. I gulped the wine and felt its warmth move through my veins, and he came to me and he was so finely made, with his smooth dark hair and his green eyes and his handsomeness and I knew this would not be difficult. I liked him so very much, better even than I'd liked Leonard. I could even enjoy it. The decision to leave Gideon and go with him seemed right.

  He kissed me and then he jerked me close to him, and I felt his cock against my stomach, already hard, and suddenly he was at my breasts, unhooking the top hooks of my corset and plunging his hands in to lift them free, suckling and biting my nipples lightly, and though I didn't like the biting much, it was bearable. As long as it pleased him, I would let him do it.

  "Ah, how you've made me wait, cherie," he said, lifting his head. "But no longer."

  His eyes were strange, which made me nervous again. He pushed me to my knees. When he unfastened his trousers and offered his cock to me, I did as he wanted. I listened to him moan and I liked that I had this effect upon him. I liked the power of it. Then he pulled me up and told me to undress but for the corset, and so I did that too. He told me to lie upon the bed and spread my legs in just those words--it was not very romantic. I asked him if he had a condom and said if he did not there were some in the drawer and he laughed and undressed and said, "I don't like them, cherie. I want to feel you. I want to feel all of you as I fill you to your lungs." And then he buried his face between my legs, and he was messy and rather disgusting, not how I liked it at all, and I felt myself grow cold, though I lifted my hips to him and moaned to please him. Now that he was here I wished it to be over and done quickly, and I made myself stop thinking it. I meant to go away with him; I meant to be his mistress, and so I must do this a hundred times more if he wished it. Instead I thought of France, of the Theatre Italien, of the crowds who would come, and after that it was all right when he finally raised himself up and thrust inside me, whispering obscenities in my ear, grabbing my breasts roughly, biting me. He twisted me this way and that, and he was crude and coarse and it was so different from what I'd imagined. This was wrong, not what I'd wanted, and as he turned me onto my stomach and pressed my face into the blankets and raised my hips to meet him, I felt like a whore. When he finally withdrew, spending himself onto my back, I was glad.

  But Alain was unsatisfied. He bade me bring him to hardness again, and the second time it seemed to last even longer. It seemed forever before he collapsed onto the bed with a "You were better than even I imagined, cherie. How lucky Price is to have you at his beck and call."

  The comment troubled me, and restored my resolve to put my proposition to him. Quickly I got out of bed and said, "Shall we have some dinner?" and he laughed and said, "Why not? A little sustenance before I fuck you again," and I tried to smile with him. I sliced some capon and offered it to him with some tea, which he pushed away and told me to get him wine instead. I said I wished to speak with him about something important.

  He got out of bed and went naked to grab the other bottle of wine, and uncorked it. "What is it?" he asked me with a very impatient voice, so I was suddenly anxious, but I told him anyway. I said I meant to leave Gideon, and that I wanted to be with him, and would he take me away? I said it all very quickly, to get out the words without interruption, and he drank his wine and listened. I said that perhaps he could keep me in a small hotel somewhere until we could book passage to France.

  When I was finished, he drank from the bottle, and then he shoved a strawberry into his mouth.

  "I am so looking forward to Paris," I told him. "How soon before we can leave?"

  He began to laug
h, which was very confusing. I tried to laugh with him, but I could not because I didn't understand what was so amusing. And then he looked at me with that strange expression again and said, "I'm not taking you to Paris, you stupid cunt. Not you or your pimp of a manager."

  I thought I had imagined the words. I could only stare at him. Then he said, "You've beautiful breasts, cherie, that's all."

  "But ... you said you were looking for a soprano."

  "I found one. A pretty little seventeen-year-old in Boston. I signed her yesterday. She's not as spoiled as you, or as demanding. And she doesn't have a manager to muddy things."

  "I don't have a manager either," I said desperately. "I told you, I want to leave him. You could be my manager."

  He sucked again at the wine bottle. "You're too much trouble, cherie. Stay with Price; he at least doesn't mind your stupidity."

  "But you said you were taking me to the Theatre Italien. You promised it!"

  He shrugged. "I wanted to fuck you." Then he smiled meanly. "So sorry to give you the wrong impression."

  "You son of a bitch," I screamed as I grabbed the teapot and threw it at him. He yelped as it caught him on the hip and crashed to the ground, shattering, sending hot tea splashing everywhere, onto his legs, so he jumped back with a cry. "You stupid whore!" he shouted. His face went red. He picked up a shard of the teapot and leaped over the chair toward me, and I turned and ran, but there was nowhere to run to. He was on me in a moment, jerking me around to face him, his face murderous and only inches from my own. I struggled to free myself, but he held me fast, gripping my chin so hard it hurt. He lifted that shard of the teapot close to my eye.

  "You think your beauty and your voice can get you anything, don't you? What a spoiled little bitch you are. Has no one ever punished you? "He pressed the sharp point of the shard to my temple, and I gasped and cried out, and that made him smile. He held me still; I could not move an inch as he drew that shard down my face, deeply, slicing, the pain like a terrible burn. The tears came to my eyes; the blood ran fast and heavy, and his grin was sadistic and cruel and I hated him. When he reached my jaw he threw the shard aside and pushed me hard to the bed. "Let's see if you can get anything you want now."

  He turned to leave. I was heaving and crying, my face burning, the blood falling into my eyes. When he bent to retrieve his trousers, I pulled myself up. I crawled across the bed, half blinded, toward the table at the end of it. The knife I'd used to slice the capon was just there. I grabbed it just as he turned around, as he saw what I had. He lunged to take it from me just as I lunged for him, but he was stronger. He grabbed my wrist, twisting my arm behind my back, forcing the knife to fall useless to the bed, and then he pushed me forward, onto my stomach. I cried out and he shoved his knee between my legs, and said, "Shall I teach you another lesson, cherie, as the first seems so hard for you to learn? "

  He was on top of me then. I tried to buck him off, but he was heavy and I was hurt, and he kept a firm grip on my arm. And then he was probing at me with his other hand, his fingers shoving into me hard and insistent, hurting, and then suddenly his fingers were gone, and his cock took their place, but not into me where he should, but where no one had ever been, and the pain was like fire; I could not keep from screaming. He told me to shut up and shoved my face into the comforter until I could not breathe and he thrust and thrust, and I was crying and shaking, and then I heard him groan; I felt him go still with his release, and in that moment of his vulnerability, I reached for the knife still glittering on the coverlet; I twisted beneath him. I didn't think; I only reacted to how much I hated him. I was half blind with blood and tears. I thrust the knife. I didn't aim, I hardly knew where I'd stabbed him. I only felt a great satisfaction as I felt it plunge in, as I heard his gasp of surprise, and then there was blood everywhere, everywhere, splashing into my face, covering my hands and my skin, and Alain fell limp on top of me.

  In panic, I shoved him off, and he thudded to the floor. It wasn't until then that I saw where I'd stabbed him--in the throat. It wasn't until then that I saw the way the blood pulsed as it spurted, or the shocked disbelief in his green eyes. He reached for me once, weakly, and then again, and then his hand went still, and I rushed to the basin and poured the water with shaking hands and listened to his final, drowning breath.

  I went quiet, my voice breaking on the last words, scattering, motes of sound that meant nothing, that said nothing, already gone, leaving the memory behind, untouched, unabated, as much as I wished it to be changed, to be gone. But there was relief there too, in finally saying it, in releasing it, in telling him the truth. The burden of that secret was one I wished no longer to carry, no matter that it might turn him from me forever.

  Gideon said nothing. He was very still, and I was afraid to look at him. I was afraid of the repulsion I would see in his face.

  I said quietly, "He was right, what he said. About my being a whore. About my depending on my voice and the way I looked to get what I wanted. I did those things. I was that."

  "You think you deserved what he did to you?"

  I clasped my hands tightly to keep them still. "Didn't I?"

  He cursed beneath his breath. "Bina, for God's sake ... Why did you listen to him? DeRosier was a son of a bitch. He was no better than we were. He meant to hurt you--and me."

  "You?"

  Gideon's face was stark with pain and anger. "Listen, there's ... there's something I never told you. You didn't want to hear about the finances and I obliged. But I should have told you. I should have."

  I began to feel cold. "Told me what?"

  "DeRosier and I had been arguing for months. He wouldn't budge on the damn percentages, and I wouldn't give in. We needed the money too damn badly. Hell, I was selling your jewels left and right to finance things as it was. He signed Elizabeth Masterson in Boston because her fool of a mother gave him what he wanted. She was a good enough soprano, but not in your league. DeRosier knew that too. He was settling, and he was bitter about it, and I only let you go to him that night because I thought he would take the opportunity to show me up. I thought he would take you away, and I knew it was what you wanted. But he wasn't as clever as I'd thought. He didn't see the chance when it offered itself to him. He was too angry with me. Me, Bina, not you. Those things he said to you meant nothing. That"--he gestured bitterly at my scar--"that was because of me. I took the blame for killing him without knowing what had happened. Now that I do ... well, it seems only appropriate that I was punished for it."

  "I'm the one who killed him," I said. "Whatever he might have deserved, it wasn't that."

  "You'll pardon me if I disagree. If I'd known ..." He looked away, as if trying to control himself, and then looked back at me. "The point is that we've both been in prison, it seems. Now I'm out. It's your turn to set yourself free. It's been long enough, don't you think?"

  I met his gaze. "I know what I am."

  "So do I," he said softly. "That is, I know what you were, Bina. I know what I was too. Shall we just accept it and move on?"

  I wanted to cry with relief and hope. "Yes. Oh yes."

  He took me in his arms then, and kissed me and whispered that he loved me, and I let myself dissolve against him. I climbed into the narrow warmth of my own bed beside him, and he held me close that way he used to and I felt his lips against my hair and his breath in my ear and saw the future laid out before me the way it should be, the way we would make it, and I was not afraid.

  CHAPTER 28

  I twisted, trying to see my whole body in the tiny mirror--impossible. The pale blue silk I wore shimmered in the sunlight coming through the windows of Johnny's bedroom. I had not felt silk against my skin for four and a half years, and I could not keep from smoothing it, touching it, even though the roughness of my fingers snagged upon it.

  "I can't see," I complained, twisting again in an attempt to see the bustle with its lace-edged train. "Damn Johnny for a cheap bastard. Why hasn't he a proper mirror?"

  "It lo
oks perfect," Charlotte assured me, adjusting the fall of lace over the bodice. "You're beautiful."

  "My hair is wretched. Look at it: it's striped."

  "I'll agree with you about that," Gideon said from where he sat at the table, watching. "We might have to do something about it before we get to New York."

  "I look like a skunk."

  Charlotte laughed. She glanced at Gideon. "Is she always this way before a show?"

  "Nothing but nerves," he said. He rose and stepped over to me, leaning to kiss my bare shoulder above the cascade of lace. "Charlotte's right. You're perfect."