Chapter Thirty-Seven
Maximilian couldn’t bring himself to enter the opera box. No matter that he’d been commanded by the regent. He would be within feet of the stage.
She would be there.
He could hear the music already. The performance had begun, the tenor was singing something or other in Italian, and Maximilian was loitering in the damn hallway because he didn’t want to face her.
At least the hallway was nearly deserted so there were no witnesses to his foolishness.
He wasn’t sure his organs would survive seeing her again. She’d already sliced him to bits—which was ridiculous in and of itself. He’d always known she lied to him. She was a spy, dash it all. Spies lied.
Somehow he’d expected a truthful answer when he’d asked directly. He’d thought he was beginning to translate all those signs and symbols to find Vivienne. They’d made love, had shared something different than he’d shared with other women. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different. Better.
“Back to the opera again, Max?” Highchester stepped out of Prinny’s box, brows raised in feigned surprise.
“Prinny sent for me.” Maximilian was none too pleased about it. He wasn’t fit for company, let alone a regent who was likely drunk. Or nearly drunk. Come to think of it, he wasn’t fit for dealing with his rakehell brother, either.
“I know.” Highchester smiled, but his eyes were crafty. “He’s intent on learning your light o’ love.”
Maximilian wasn’t fooled in the least. It was Highchester who had persuaded Prinny to issue the invitation. Just as Highchester had before, and just as the interest in Maximilian’s “light o’ love” wasn’t from Prinny.
“There’s no one, Highchester. There never was.” He did not look away from his brother’s face.
“No?” Highchester tucked an engraved timepiece in his pocket. “I find myself disagreeing, dear Max.”
His brother strode toward him, purposeful. Even stalking a bit. Oh, yes. Highchester wanted something specific from him. Or a reaction from him.
Maximilian squared his shoulders and braced for the confrontation. “There is no one,” he repeated, quietly and slowly so his obtuse brother would understand.
“Then you will have no problem if I pursue the Mademoiselle La Fleur, will you? She’s a tasty French morsel.” Greed lit Highchester’s eyes as he let out a mocking laugh. “I’ve been waiting an age to see those magnificent breasts—”
Something exploded within him. Exploded and caught fire.
Maximilian rammed his brother into the wall. He set an arm against Highchester’s throat, pressed hard.
“You will not touch her.” His brain had disengaged, instinct gripping him. Vivienne might lie, she might steal, she might even kill. She might have ripped whatever had been building between them into pieces because she wouldn’t tell him the truth, but he wouldn’t leave her to Highchester. “She’s not one of your whores.”
“No.” Highchester coughed, his hands grasping Maximilian’s arm, but he didn’t fight. He never fought, only flapped his lips with foul words. “She’s your whore.”
Maximilian’s vision hazed, the edges going black. He jerked Highchester forward, then slammed him against the wall again. The sconces above them tinkled merrily.
“You will not call her whore.” He bit out the words, barely able to give them voice. There was truth in Highchester’s words, and it sent pain spiraling through him. Maximilian wanted to plow his fist into Highchester’s face, but that wasn’t his way. Not since they were boys.
But by all the gods, the Flower was more than a whore to him.
His fist smashed into his brother’s mocking grin, then again. Highchester’s head snapped back, banging into the wall. Paintings shook, and the wall sconces rattled again. His grin turned to a slack mouth as his eyes widened and rolled back.
“You will not call her whore,” Maximilian repeated.
Another slam against the wall. Highchester coughed, scrabbled at Maximilian’s arms.
“Stop! Maximilian, enough!”
Through the rushing in his ears, Maximilian heard the words. He could barely understand them, but they penetrated the livid haze coating his brain. As did the big hand gripping his shoulder, bringing Maximilian back to the present. To his panting brother, to the aria soaring in the background.
“Enough. Let him go.” Bishop Carlisle’s words were quieter now. His hands pressed hard on Maximilian’s shoulder. A warning. “Do not engage in a public brawl. Your mother is here tonight. The scandal will—”
“No more.” Maximilian interrupted, still staring at Highchester’s face. It was turning from red to purple. He took primitive satisfaction in that. Then Maximilian swung Highchester around and pushed him down the hall. His brother stumbled, recovered, then hunched over to catch his breath.
Hands on his knees, Highchester looked up at him. “There is no woman, Maximilian?” he rasped. The mocking look was back, despite the blood blossoming at the corner of his mouth.
“You will not talk of Vivienne,” Maximilian bit out. “You know nothing about her.”
“Don’t, boy,” the bishop said, putting out a cautioning hand. His mouth turned down at the corners. “Don’t become too involved. Mademoiselle La Fleur is only an opera dancer. Nothing can come of it.”
No. She was so much more than a dancer. More than any of them realized. No one could know all there was to know of her.
Except maybe him.
“You will leave Mademoiselle La Fleur alone, Highchester.” He did not wait for an answer but turned to Bishop Carlisle, who puffed out his chest. A lecture was in the offing.
Maximilian didn’t want to hear it.
“What is between me and Mademoiselle La Fleur is of no one’s concern but ours.”
“It isn’t only yours, Maximilian. It is your family’s concern as well.” The bishop stepped between Highchester and Maximilian. He seemed older than Maximilian remembered, but not smaller. Not weaker. “I know you have enough sense—enough gentlemanly honor—to make the right choice.”
The right choice. Maximilian stared into the bishop’s grave countenance, into the sharp eyes, and saw only Vivienne’s eyes when he’d left.
“Give Mother my regrets that I cannot visit her this evening. As for Prinny”—he slid a glance toward the box—“his message must have gone astray.”
…
Plié, step, step, turn. First position, attitude.
The crowd in the pit was barely watching. It was thus, sometimes. The tenor was not particularly talented that evening, the soprano very new—only a second-rate performance—so the guests in pit and boxes did not care. They busily gossiped and exchange political news.
Vivienne watched them, as she always did.
Lord So-and-So, a Whig, visits the box of a known Tory. Henri would want to know. She would try to remember this.
Demi-plié. Arabesque.
But her muscles were aching and sore. She did not know why exactly. Her body seemed not quite her own. It was very heavy. The soprano joined the tenor, their voices soaring. Around her, other dancers moved and played their parts.
She stumbled a little—recovered. Had anyone seen? A quick glance showed that the other dancers had not noticed. No one looked at her differently than they had before. Costumes swirled around her, the fresh flowers in the dancers’ hair cloyingly sweet.
Her gaze searched the pit for anything remarkable. Henri would expect a report. This was her duty each night. Nothing of note in the pit, nothing interesting in the boxes.
Then she glanced at Prinny’s box.
Maximilian.
Her heart lifted, her limbs lifted. She spun on the stage, her petit fouetté becoming fouetté en tournant. Bigger, more brilliant turns. Her heart thumped in time with it, momentarily glad. The fouetté en tournant was not part of the performance. She would be chastised—but she could not help it.
She would be afraid of Henri’s reaction later. Just now, she only wanted to see Maximilian.
Turning in a pirouette, she quickly glanced at Prinny’s box again. At Maximilian.
Her heart plummeted, belly clutching. It was not him, but the other one. Baron Highchester. He was as tall, as large. The shape of him was similar, but they did not move the same. Eyes were the same shape, but not color, nor did they have the same mouth. Only the same jaw.
She could have wept. So foolish, she was, to dance a fouetté en tournant. It was not Maximilian. And if it were he, he had left her. He would not come back.
Her feet tangled together. She tried—oh, how she tried—to untangle them. A step and another, but they would not listen to her brain. They did not obey her commands. She tripped, stumbled, nearly caught herself—but she did not.
She slammed into the stage, skidding across the wooden boards. Splinters pierced her palms and shredded her gown. The rip, it was audible. As audible as the gasp of the dancers, the groan of the crowd. The tenor’s voice ceased its drone, the instruments trailed off. All that was left was the soprano and the murmur of the crowd.
The soprano’s warble also died, and there was nothing but horror in the theater, along with that unmistakable amusement when someone failed.