13. Chapter 13
An even light cast its glow over the stage, the pit, and the seats—the cheapest, brightest light for the longest days. Odette knew these days as the hardest days. They were days of frustration, of tension, of sweat and chill as the theatre ran both too hot and too cold.
Ezra paced the length of carpet before the front row seats, rubbing his jaw. ‘Not right. Something is not right.’
‘It will never be right,’ Cassius roared from his podium. ‘That is the point. You write music. Of course you aren’t happy. The orchestra makes it work. The singers sing. The audience applauds. This is the theatre.’
Even for Cassius, it was a brittle dismissal of the composer’s concerns, and the man stared up at the stage, forlorn and lost, searching the scene for an answer as to why he wasn’t satisfied.
But they were only ten days away from opening, and his constant interruptions had meant that they were yet to rehearse past the second act with the entire ensemble.
If he continued to chase perfection like this, they would all see the show fail.
Ezra clenched and unclenched his hands, flinging his fingers out and back into his palm in agitated bursts.
Mrs Crofts rose from her seat, hovered for a moment, then sat back down.
Karl shoved his fingers between the short lengths of his grey hair to tug at them.
For a moment, Odette was certain he would wrench great tufts from his scalp and throw them into the sky.
Ezra was a good composer.
He had written a good opera.
What was missing?
‘Mr Northcote. Ezra, if I may.’ Odette made sure to take every step to the front of the stage at a measured pace.
She watched his eyes as she moved, tracked them, and in the way they lingered on her face, she got the measure of him, learnt him as she’d learnt a dozen men before.
‘Join me onstage. Show me what’s worrying you. ’
Ezra trudged the path through the side door and up the stairs, then fought his way through the curtains.
Once up on the stage, he scanned the half-assembled backgrounds and the cast. He shook his head like a man desperate for an answer who was drowning in confusion.
Then he spun in a slow circle, taking in first Fernandez, then Freya, and finally Odette.
For a moment, she swore he would say what she’d feared for so long—that she’d been out during a song.
That she was the problem. Even if she hadn’t noticed a slip-up, the composer most certainly would.
He raised his gaze from the score. ‘It’s the dance. Between Marietta and Willem. It’s too formal. Yes, he maintains his distance because they aren’t married. But he also…’ Ezra wrung his hands. ‘I don’t know how to say it without sounding crass.’
Odette pressed a hand to her mouth to suppress the laugh, but could not contain it.
When she next spoke, it was in a quiet tone that she knew would not carry beyond the edge of the stage.
‘Despite what your patron wants to believe, the rules of propriety that hold sway out there don’t apply in here.
Our world is built on stories of love and lust. You can just say it. ’
‘Willem, he… he maintains his distance not to be proper but because he knows he will have her. He’s savouring the wait. It’s the promise that drives him. The tomorrow. He captures and releases her at the same time.’
Odette glanced at Fernandez to see what he made of the composer’s concerns, but he only shrugged.
‘Show me.’ Odette raised her palm. Ezra scrunched the paper into his coat pocket, then placed his hand against hers. She nudged him into place, and he stepped into the circle of the dance. ‘You want more fire between them?’
‘From him. He wants her. All of her. More than he can say. But not fire, that isn’t quite right. At least not from her. She’s too innocent.’
‘More innocence,’ Odette said. She hummed a few notes and adjusted her stance as they continued the dance. Step, step, step, step. ‘Like this?’
Ezra nodded. ‘Willem, he loves her. But he knows if he forces his suit on her too fast, he will lose her. I’m worried that people will think he’s just a boy in love, when I want it to be so much more.
’ Step, step, step, step. ‘And Karl is worried about bookings,’ he muttered.
‘I overheard him. And about the set getting finished on time. And the cost of the orchestra.’
‘Karl is always worried,’ she said, as they swapped hands and changed direction.
‘Tomorrow it will be ushers squabbling with each other and which noble family has reserved a box. The following day, the lights and the costumes. It’s what makes him such a good manager, not just of the building but of its people.
It means that the rest of us, the soprano, the contralto, the conductor, and yes, even the composer…
we do not have to think about tickets and reviews while we rehearse.
We can focus on our work. When you come to the theatre, do you stay until the end of the show?
Do you join in when we give thanks to everyone who made it possible? ’
‘Sometimes. And sometimes I leave before curtain call, to avoid the crush,’ Ezra confessed.
‘You are a fool. Because the man who directs the spotlight, I owe him my career. The new bassoon who has not faltered a note holds up my world. From now on, you will stay to applaud them all, because in the theatre, we are one. We trust one another. We need one another.’ With a tip of her head, she beckoned Fernandez closer.
He was tracing Ezra’s steps, but hopefully he would be learning much more.
About his character, about the music, about how to placate an influential man.
One more turn, then Odette swapped partners, abandoning Ezra to flow into the dance with Fernandez.
The music joined them. Percussion, then strings.
A prickle ran down her spine at the realisation that Cassius was watching, following along with the score, and was now giving them the song to match their movements.
Ezra stepped back to watch, his head tilting in contemplation.
‘I suppose.’ Ezra looked out towards the auditorium, then back to her and Fernandez. ‘What I really want is for Willem to look at Marietta the way Mr Zadora looks at you.’
Fernandez rolled his lips, clearly attempting to suppress a smile.
Not daring to look away from her dance partner in case her distraction sent Ezra into another spin, Odette continued with her steady steps.
The full orchestra was playing now, matching their pace.
This song was called ‘The Lovers’ Dance’, and Cassius must be paying attention, because he slowed the tempo of the orchestra a little, keeping the light innocence of the flutes, but deepening the sensuality of the cello.
He was watching. Watching them. Watching her.
Every adjustment beneath the stage that vibrated through her bare feet was proof that he was pulling the threads connecting two worlds, and right now, he was pulling them for her.
Marietta might be innocent, but Odette was not.
She might have lost herself in the pit, but onstage, in her world, she would conquer him.
She curled her fingers into a creeping rhythm, one two three four, each beat synchronising with a finger to raise her skirt an inch higher.
The orchestra would not be able to see what she was doing, the cast would not notice, but Cassius, midway between the pit and the stage, suspended above ground, would witness the performance.
Perhaps he would even guess it was intended for him alone.
On the next turn, Odette flipped her skirt, revealing more ankle, more calf, but also turning the muslin to drape over her hips and thighs.
Then, on the next turn, she dared to steal a look.
Hands raised, baton arcing, Cassius was moving so fluidly to the music that it was impossible to tell if he was in charge of it or it of him.
Normally, there was such a stiff, angular edge to his conducting, but today he moved like water over stone.
Odette took one more turn, eight more steps, then she played the dance of her skirts again.
Her skin tingled where her hems brushed her leg and lace trailed over her muscles, and every hum from below the stage sent little tremors through her feet and into her body.
Fernandez caught her about the waist and tipped her back into a familiar pose so that the lights would penetrate the sheer fabric of her skirt and create shadows of her body underneath.
A pose to make men desire what they could not have.
Odette raised her arm in an arc, and as the man who played her fiancé staged a kiss on her neck, she cast her eyes towards the man who had dragged her onto his lap and played her like a harp.
In a small moment of triumph, she spotted it—lust and longing, bright in his eyes.
Complete longing, as if it consumed him.
Fernandez still held her, his palm running along her torso, but she held Cassius’s look, and for the last few beats of the song, he did not look away.
At last, she had mastered the conductor.
One final line of music from the violins, and the orchestra fell silent.
‘Break!’ Cassius roared. He leapt from his podium and disappeared beneath the edge of the stage.
Ezra stared at the empty space where Cassius had stood. ‘Take… take ten, I suppose? Have a… a rest? We’ll move on to act three, after.’
Odette crossed the stage to make her own escape downstairs.
In her dressing room, she took a breath to still the frantic beating of her heart, then froze as she saw Cassius—imposing and stern, his nostrils flaring with each breath—waiting for her.
He threw his coat onto the chair. Heat pounded in her chest and face.
‘If you aren’t having your needs met by anyone else’—he unbuttoned his collar—‘and neither am I. What harm is there in… in… seeing to each other’s needs.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice all breath. ‘I mean, none. No harm. Fuck me.’
Cassius obliterated the space between them with two fast steps, pushed her against the wall, and brought his mouth to hers.
No teasing, no control, his kisses came with unfettered abandon, and she met each gasp and bite with her own hunger.
He was already hard, his cock pressing firm against her thigh.
As he tugged her skirt up, she found his waistband, undoing buttons and guiding him free.
He slid a finger along her slit and then inside her, moaning against her neck as he discovered what she already knew.
‘So wet,’ he growled. ‘So ready.’ And with a slight heave, he raised her off the floor, cupped her arse to adjust her as it suited him, and buried his cock inside.
Odette swallowed the moan, turned it into a gasp, and tried to stretch her thighs wider.
Each breath and thrust from him came as one, and she caught them with a kiss, trying to steal the air and hunger of this Cassius she had never known, of Cassius completely undone.
He controlled nothing now, not even his grunts—and certainly not her.
Each stroke felt so good, hard and relentless as he abandoned himself to the moment.
The wall rubbed against her back, pressed against her shoulder blades, the slight pain only amplifying the pleasure.
She wrapped her arms around his neck for better purchase, tried to curl her ankles around him for better balance, but could not reach high enough.
Cassius gripped her thighs, his fingers digging into her arse. ‘I won’t drop you,’ he murmured. ‘Trust me.’ Then he kissed her to stifle a moan as he plunged into her again.
Odette could only surrender in reply. Rock in time with his movements and hold him close.
She hated the shirt and her dress, how they separated her from the rawness of his body, and yet a wicked pleasure sparked at the simplicity of a hitched skirt and unbuttoned trousers, of Cassius inside her, thrusting, each small movement sending tremors through every nerve and along every vein.
Bumps from the other side of the wall and tapping sounds from overhead served as scattered reminders to keep quiet, even though she yearned to make the ceiling echo with her moans and wicked words.
Instead, she forced fuck me harder into a breathy yes, and deeper, faster, more, into nothing but a gasp.
Cassius buried his face against her neck and inhaled, his own transmuted moan vibrating against her skin.
‘A little more,’ she dared to whisper against his ear. ‘Almost, almost… yes.’
He had been slowing on each stroke, but as she arched her back and bared her neck, biting her lip hard to keep quiet and failing…
as she released a desperate moan, he grunted and dropped all restraint.
Thumping so hard his knees knocked the wall, Cassius pounded into her.
Odette clung to him as he wrung her climax from her in his fervour, nearly wept with how good it felt to be so consumed.
And when, at last, with a grunt and a trembling breath, he pushed in deep to spend inside her, she welcomed his abandon.
Then, with lips as light as silk, Cassius kissed her.
So soft, so gentle, like a sweep of petals on the wind…
Her breath caught at the gentleness as she sank into the feeling, as it held the air in her lungs captive until they were screaming for release.
And when she sighed at last, she pushed her fingers through his hair and allowed his curls to cling to them.
Cassius was everywhere. Inside her, holding her, surrounding her, in her lungs and against her, heavy as ballast.
Cassius was everything.
‘Moja muzyka,’ he said, and she had to grope through all the forgotten words and broken letters of her early years to find its meaning.
My music.
Their laboured breaths began to slow, then eased. Cassius lowered her to the floor, and with a swift movement, withdrew, and tucked himself away. Her skirt fell.
‘Better?’ she asked.
He laughed and nipped her ear. ‘Much better.’
Someone thumped on the door. ‘Miss Delaney? Have you seen Mr Zadora?’
He buried his face against her neck and bit playfully at the skin. Snickered. Pressed a kiss there. Warm. Gentle. So different from the man she’d known for so long.
‘No,’ she called. ‘Zadora is not here.’