The Serenade: The Prince and the Siren [Daughters of the Empire 2] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (17 page)

“But one cannot be blamed for attempting to learn.” She steeled herself and made another attempt at civility. She was not her father’s daughter for nothing. She did not wish to offend a great star. “I have heard all the great singers, and no one who has heard you sing can deny that your performance is exquisite, Madame Melba.”

Melba shrugged, staring at her with ennui. She raised her nose into the air and turned away, irrefutably shunning Nicolette.

In an instant, adoration turned to shock, followed by acceptance and, finally, amusement. Nicolette smiled warmly at Melba. “And to be quite honest, I prefer Madame Calvé’s performance in
Mignon
. She is sublime, don’t you think? And yet, you appear to have almost replicated some of the easier points of her technique, Madame Melba.”

“Certainly not!” Melba’s grandiose expression of superiority expressed its own surprise and just as quickly transformed into calculation. “Her rendition lacks polish—and fails to thrill.”

“I was positively breathless to hear her!”

“She is too short to be on the stage,” Melba remarked, her eyes starting at Nicolette’s hair and moving slowly to her feet. “And fat,” she added with emphasis.

Nicolette had been momentarily startled as Melba’s words struck a chord, causing her to consider for the first time that she might not succeed on the stage.

She envied the beautiful blonde’s height and deceptively soft appearance in contrast to her own darkly exotic looks and hourglass silhouette. Compared to the ethereal Melba, everything about her was too strong and too much, except her short height, where more would have been a blessing. Even her overly round face did not sufficiently soften her strong presence. She could not compete with Melba’s finely aristocratic facial features displayed beautifully on a perfect oval.

“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 frowned 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.”