Masks and Shadows (17 page)

He turned his gaze to Baroness von Steinbeck. Now that the pageant was over, her expression had turned inward and grave once more, her eyes downcast. Her powdered hair was dressed high and smooth, curled only at the back, with no ornamentation but a single black ribbon above the curls. Her fingers pleated and unpleated a fold of her black silk skirts.

She had barely spoken to him in the past two days, since their recital. He had intentionally refrained from speaking to her. Yet he had felt her gaze upon him often. His eyes seemed drawn to her with an irritatingly mesmeric force. Worse yet were the emotions that she inspired. Why should he feel concern when she looked abstracted and melancholy? What matter was that, to him?

He expelled a sigh and gave in. “Does something worry you, Baroness?” he asked softly, as the others conversed.

Her brown eyes flashed up to meet his. “Oh . . . no, I thank you. It's nothing.” Her lips curved into a rueful half-smile. “I fear I grow nervous and maudlin, in my age.”

“Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “I've felt that tendency in myself, of late. What were you musing over?”

“Those soldiers.” She shook her head. “Nonsensical, I know. They play at war, and it is glorious to see . . . but for some of them, like those poor singers three nights ago, it will be nothing like a game. And I was warned . . . no.” She laughed, although it sounded forced. “Never mind my wanderings! You see, signor, I am in truth unbearably morbid in my private thoughts.”

“I would not describe you so.” He took a breath. “I don't believe I ever thanked you for your accompaniment of my singing, madam. I was most grateful.”

“To me?” She shook her head. “Signor, I was honored to be included in such a performance. It was truly heavenly.”

Her light brown eyes looked straight into his. Carlo found himself unable to look away. Her cheeks colored as their gazes held.

“Heavenly,” Carlo repeated softly.

Her chest rose and fell, but the laugh she gave sounded almost breathless. “So . . . you were not too misled by the effusions of my old music master, after all?”

Carlo raised a hand to discreetly wipe a bead of sweat from his neck. “On the contrary, madam. Should I ever have the pleasure of meeting him, I will compliment him on his acumen.”

“Lotte!” Frau von Höllner turned from the others to summon her sister's attention. “We are making plans for Saturday night's ball!”

The moment was broken. Baroness von Steinbeck turned to listen to her sister, and Carlo leaned back in his seat, fighting to maintain a composed expression.

The court of Eszterháza proved far more dangerous than he'd expected. There were some dangers, though, that he knew better than to court. From this moment onward, he would avoid intimate conversations with Baroness von Steinbeck at all costs.

He'd reached six-and-thirty years on his last birthday. He might well be growing maudlin, but no one could accuse the foremost musico in Europe of being a fool.

Backstage, Anna was shaking as she leaned against the thin wooden wall. A jumble of music and phrases ran meaninglessly through her head. The singers around her paced up and down, whispering lines to themselves and gesturing sweepingly. Spirit lamps had been carefully placed at each wing of the stage to send hot beams through the air and illuminate the coming performance. Anna couldn't even make herself move. Would they have to carry her onstage?

An unfamiliar footman walked past her to carry a sealed note to Franz Pichler. The singer paused in his pacing to rip it open. Anna watched, caught by the fierce satisfaction that lit his face. A smaller, separately-sealed note sat inside the first; Herr Pichler slipped the enclosed note inside his waistcoat, unread, as his gaze ran across the larger, open message.

“Beginning positions!”

Monsieur Delacroix clapped for their attention. A sudden hush in the audience preceded a round of applause. Herr Haydn and his musicians must be filing into the orchestra's benches.

“Pichler and Kettner, ready yourselves!” Delacroix shot a look of pure loathing at the younger man as the orchestra struck up the overture's first chord.

Herr Pichler stepped up to Frau Kettner, his face turning pale and set as he straightened his injured back. With his movement, the unsealed piece of paper slipped out of his wide, ruffled sleeve and fell to the floor.

Delacroix turned, frowning. He leaned over to pick it up—but Anna darted forward and snatched it first. It had fallen partially open on the floor.

She folded it before whispering, “Herr Pichler? This is yours, I think.”

His eyes flared open in shock as he turned and saw what she held out to him. He snatched it roughly from her hands and tucked it into a pocket. The music sounded his cue, and he strode onstage without a backward look.

Anna glared after him. Would it have injured his precious dignity to give her simple thanks?

“The man is a scoundrel,” Delacroix hissed. He spared Anna a sour look. “Did you happen to see, Fräulein Dommayer, what that note said?”

“I would never read another's correspondence, monsieur,” Anna said primly.

She wouldn't, truly. At least, not by intention. The first line of the message had meant nothing to her, anyway.

We are most pleased by your release. Your first instructions . . .
The rest had been maddeningly hidden by the folds of the paper.

Anna lowered her gaze demurely and stepped away from the theatrical director, leaving him to simmer.

Who was sending Herr Pichler instructions? And for what purpose?

But the opening duet came to an end far too soon, and then it was her turn to walk past the hot spirit lamps, onto the stage.

Charlotte leaned forward in her seat to watch as Anna walked onstage.

The hero had left, swearing to return, and the heroine paced around the stage, while the rippling music showed the confusion of her thoughts. At Anna's entrance, she looked up and sang, “
Sorella!
”
Sister
.

Charlotte tightened her fingers around the arms of her chair. Only let Anna do well, let her not be embarrassed . . .

Anna's voice soared up, high and confident. Her blush was just right as she sang of the handsome stranger she'd just seen from her window. She'd sent a servant running after him to discover his name and invite him to dinner . . .

The audience groaned in sympathy for the shock and dismay on her older sister's face.

“Perhaps,” Anna/Carolina sang, in heavily accented Italian, “Papa will let him marry me, as we have given up waiting to find you a husband!”

Charlotte bit back a laugh at the byplay of looks that passed between the two women.

She didn't have to fear for her erstwhile maid after all. Instead, Charlotte leaned back in her seat and abandoned herself to enjoyment. If, every so often, the Italian phrases blended an inch or so too far in Anna's German mouth—well, what matter was that, when compared to the ringing beauty of her voice?

And she arranged my hair every day of the last six years
, Charlotte thought, during the applause. She hardly knew whether to feel shamed or proud.

At the intermission, Prince Nikolaus nodded gravely to her. “Our thanks, Baroness. Your Fräulein Dommayer is indeed an asset to our little company.”

“Her voice is lovely, is it not?” Charlotte had rarely spoken directly with the Prince, but now she was overflowing with relief. “I believe it must be what she was born for.”

“It is a great fortune for us that you brought her here and relinquished her from your service.”

“How
is
your new maid, Lotte?” Sophie tapped the Prince's arm with her fan. “I told Niko he ought really to have given you two or three maids in exchange for the inconvenience to you. I vow, it took my maid three months just to learn how to arrange my hair properly.”

“My new maid does very well,” Charlotte said. “I do thank you, Your Highness. She seems admirably efficient and hard-working.”

“But no singing voice?” Signor Morelli asked. There was an edge to his voice, but whether of amusement or irritation, Charlotte could not tell.

“Not that I've yet heard.”

“And a good thing, too.” Sophie sniffed. “It would be too absurd for Lotte to have to give up another maid! But really, how likely is it for that class of person to come up with such an astonishing voice?”

“Anna's voice is beautiful,” Charlotte said.

“Yes, but that must have been a freak occurrence. Think of it! She didn't even come from a musician's family. Not that musicians are worth so very much themselves, but at least—”

“If you'll excuse me.” Signor Morelli stood up, smiling, but with a dangerous glitter in his eyes. “Your Highness, might I take a breath of fresh air before the second act?”

“Of course, signor.”

At the Prince's nod, Morelli strode outside.

“I'm afraid you've offended our guest, my dear,” the Prince said mildly, once Morelli had disappeared.

“I? Oh, pooh. I said nothing except—”

“You said he was beneath us!” Charlotte's nails dug into her hands. “Sophie, how could you?”

“I was talking about ordinary musicians, obviously. And anyway—”

“Do we even know what his family was? Perhaps his parents were servants, too. Perhaps—”

“Don't be ridiculous! Lotte, your nerves must be shattered. Look at the signor! Of course he isn't at our level—you know that as well as I do!—but does he look to you like a servant?”

“Wouldn't we, if we wore their uniforms?”

There was a thundering silence. The Prince, his niece, and Sophie all stared at her, openmouthed in shock. Charlotte, trembling, was belatedly aware that she had gone too far. And made a scene, too—other faces had turned to look.

She stood up, smoothing down her skirts. “I'm—I'm afraid I don't feel very well, Your Highness,” she said. “Please forgive me my intemperance.”

The Prince nodded stiffly. Sophie was glaring at her, with red spots flaring high on her cheeks. Charlotte swept past them and past the eager whispers of the Prince's niece and her companions.

She hurried out of the royal box, down the two sets of stairs, down the long, ornately decorated corridor and through the main entrance into the blessedly cool darkness outside. As the night air met her face and she stepped onto the shell-lined path, she fought down a wave of dizziness and anger. Coming to a halt, she clenched both hands around the cool, wrought-iron railing of the steps that led up to the balcony and took a long, shuddering breath.

“Baroness?” Signor Morelli's tall figure emerged on the balcony above her in the darkness. His face looked pale and forbidding in the glow of the torches, but his high, pure voice rang with concern. “Are you unwell?”

“No. Not really.” Charlotte straightened and gave him a weary smile. “But I won't be able to stay and enjoy the rest of the performance.”

“Then you are unwell.” He ran lightly down the steps to meet her, frowning. “Do you need—”

“No.” She sighed. She should devise a polite fiction—a headache, perhaps. But she felt too weary and disgusted, with herself and everyone else, to lie to him. “I left because I'd lost my temper, I'm afraid. I said some foolish things.”

“That sounds unlikely.” He looked down at her from the first step, only a hand's-breadth away. She imagined that she could feel his breath, warm on her cheeks. “You are truly loyal to your dependents, madam.”

“My—oh, you mean Anna?” His eyes were dark wells in the greater darkness. Her chest tightened as she looked into them. “We did not argue about Anna,” she whispered.

His eyes widened. She bit her lip and looked down, suddenly conscious of her slip. She shouldn't have said anything, should have let him think what he would. She—

She realized that his gaze had lowered and fixed on her lower lip, still held lightly between her teeth.