Chapter 4 #2
“Marrow,” Simon said, beaming, and Thalia knew immediately she would not be able to brush past them without at least a brief conversation. “I did not know you were a fan of the opera.”
She could have sworn his gaze slid to her face, then away again. “I am not, ordinarily.”
“Well, you could’ve fooled me, being here like this,” Simon said.
Thalia smiled at Lydia. “Have you been to the opera before, Miss Parsons?”
“No, this is my first time! Don’t you think that it’s shockingly exciting?”
“Yes, I can recall how exciting it felt the first time I attended a performance,” Thalia said. “I love the theater. It’s one of my favorite places to be. Does His Grace have a box?”
“Oh, did you not know?” Lydia giggled. “Yes, he does. My first time at an opera, and I will be in a box.”
Before Thalia could respond, Elliot walked up to them, dressed very finely in a burgundy waistcoat, a box of snuff in his hands.
“My dears,” he said to Thalia and Anna. “Mozart’s Don Giovanni tonight! Are we not in for a treat?”
Thalia’s smile broadened. “Have you seen it before?”
“Of course! Do you think me a philistine?” He noticed the Duke, finally, and did a slight double-take.
The next glance he sent Thalia was condemning, although it was hardly as though she had any chance to avoid him when she had encountered him on the stairs.
“Then tell me,” she said, restoring his attention to her. “Do you consider Giovanni a tragic figure rather than a libertine?”
Elliot considered the question. “There is no doubting he is a libertine, certainly, but he is compelling. Listen to ‘fin ch’han dal vino.’ No mere villain sings with such brilliance.”
“Brilliance?” Thalia laughed. “He is a man burning the world down for sport.”
“And yet compelling despite it all. We come to the stage to watch him—let us be honest with ourselves. He is universally derided, and yet we still all come to watch him make mischief.”
“Perhaps we come to see justice,” a deep voice interrupted, and Thalia glanced up to find the Duke standing beside her, evidently having listened to their entire conversation thus far.
“There is a particular satisfaction that comes from condemnation when it is justified. Mozart knew that. When Giovanni refused to repent, do you recall the dissonance in the orchestra? Mozart gives him damnation by harmony before he gives him damnation in the most literal form.”
Thalia blinked, though she was surprised he could reach such a conclusion. Not that she believed him incapable, precisely, but that he knew the opera so well to have remembered the orchestral score…
Well, she had not expected it.
“You think that people come to see Giovanni descend into hell?” she asked archly. “Is that where you derive your pleasure?”
“A villain aptly punished? Yes, that is certainly pleasing. Do you not think the same?”
She had always thought the Commendatore, the supernatural figure who at the end of the opera summoned demons to collect Giovanni and send him into hell, was an unrealistic figure.
If life worked like that, there could be no villains; there would always be a Commendatore knocking at the door and demanding repentance or damnation.
“It is the resolution we all hope for,” she said slowly, “and yet I find it somewhat convenient.”
“Are you getting technical again?” Anna asked, hanging on to Thalia’s arm. “Come, we must go to our box, or we will miss the opening. Mr. Calloway, please do join us.”
Elliot beamed, evidently pleased to have been invited, and the Duke’s jaw clenched.
Thalia had to fight a smug smile. Thwarting the Duke, somehow, made her feel powerful, even though she had done nothing.
“Come, Miss Parsons,” he said to his young charge, who had been speaking with Simon. “Lady Rivenhall. We too should find our box.”
The two parties dispersed, and Thalia took her seat at the front of the box. She hadn’t watched Don Giovanni in quite some time, and although she remembered the opera well, she felt oddly raw, as though someone had scraped at her emotions.
I must be thinking of my father, demanding I marry with no concern for my wellbeing at all.
Thalia frowned heavily and tried to shake off the thoughts as well as the peculiar sensations accompanying them.
The curtain rose, and the opera began.
Opposite, she could make out the Duke in his box. Miss Parsons sat at the very front wearing her opera glasses. The girl looked riveted to the stage, dreamy and lost in the music.
Despite herself, however, Thalia couldn’t quite concentrate. The Duke was sitting a fraction back from Lydia, largely concealed by shadow, and although she should have known better, she kept imagining his gaze fell on her.
Then, Act Two began, and the music wrought its usual magic on her. Donna Elvira’s broken heart made Thalia’s ache, and when they came to the scene in the graveyard, Thalia’s heart contracted.
She had not been to a graveyard since the death of her brother, Adrian.
Even now, she could recall the way her hands had trembled as she had touched the headstone.
Everything would be different now if Adrian were still here. The four years since his death had crept by, and she felt as though there was a great hollow in her heart.
On stage, Don Giovanni taunted the statue of the Commendatore, and Thalia remembered the way she had wept at her brother’s gravestone, begging him to return.
Tears sprang to her eyes. Unwilling to be seen crying, and at such a scene, she murmured to Elliot, “I need some air. I’ll be back soon.”
With that, she left the box.
Outside, the corridors were all but empty, and she wandered along them until she found an outdoor balcony. The night air greeted her, drying her cheeks.
“Oh, Adrian…” she sighed, wiping the tears that flowed down her face. “You had to go and get yourself killed.”
Adrian had shielded her from her father and all his gambling, conniving ways. He had been only twenty-three when he died, a mere year older than her now. Soon, she would have more years on this earth than he was ever granted, and that felt so awfully, horribly, terribly unfair.
She sniffled, wiping her cheeks and sucking in a deep breath.
“Lady Thalia?” a voice said from behind her, and although she didn’t immediately turn, she knew precisely who it was.
Her stomach twisted.
Of all times for the Duke to find me, why now?
“What are you doing here?” Her voice came out hoarse, and she cursed inwardly for exposing herself so easily.
“Something upset you.” He came closer, standing beside her on the narrow balcony. Below, London spread before them, tiny bobbing lights marking the carriages that wove through the streets. “What was it?”
“Leave me alone.”
“My lady—”
“Do you make it a point of ignoring the requests of the ladies you meet, or am I an exception?” Finally, she turned to him, looking up into his shadowed face. “Did you truly come here because you saw me leave?”
“I saw something had upset you, and no one else in your box left to check on you.”
“They would have done if I had asked them to, but I had no wish to be followed. I am not a china doll, liable to break at any given moment.”
“I never said you were,” he said evenly. “But you have also been engaging in activities that have the potential to be dangerous. I would not be surprised if something like that were to catch up with you.”
“And what concern would it be of yours if that were the case?” she demanded. “I told you the last time we met to stop interfering in my life.”
He pinched his nose. “Must you always be this contrarian?”
“Pardon me for having reservations about a man who’s been constantly hounding me. We barely know each other. Do you think the fact that we almost married entitles you to feature in my life?”
“I have seen you in an unsafe environment several times now, my lady.” He leaned in closer; she refused to back away, and he pressed her against the wrought iron railings. “And because my sense of duty and justice refuses to let things be.”
“I wish you would,” she snapped, but her voice was breathier than she would have liked.
This, right here, was why she wanted to keep her distance from the Duke. Because something about his proximity was making her stomach flop in nervous, excited anticipation. He carried with him a slight sense of danger, but she had no fear for her own well-being.
Well, unless he were to kiss her.
Then she very much feared it would be a good kiss and make her yearn for more.
She could not afford to let that happen.
“I wish you would leave me alone,” she said, tilting her chin to face him.
Immediately, she realized her mistake; she was closer to him now. That leather, masculine scent surrounded her, and she sucked in a long, slow breath.
“Is that what you truly want?”
“Yes,” she insisted, although her mind was telling her something else entirely.
There were plenty of things she could do with this gentleman on a secluded balcony where no one else could see them.
Thalia! What is wrong with you?
“Thal?” Anna called from further down the corridor. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
Horror drowned her senses. She could not, under any circumstances, be discovered with the Duke here. Even by Anna, who would never breathe a word of it to anyone, but who would see past all her defensiveness and see the truth: that she had not truly minded his proximity at all.
“Stay here,” she hissed, stepping away from the Duke and moving toward Anna.
To her relief, the Duke didn’t seem to move a muscle, but she could feel his gaze on her back the entire time she walked away.