Let It Be Me

Eighteen

FOR Oliver, stepping into La Fenice was like coming home.

Teatro la Fenice, which meant “Phoenix Theatre” in English, was a palace to music and opera, a great, lofty space. Row upon row of gilded boxes lined three sides of the interior. Every surface that was not covered with ornate scrollwork or baroque decoration was painted a sky blue, so that when lit with chandelier and candelabra, it looked as close to heaven as its architects could imagine. The fourth wall was of course the stage, its sumptuous velvet curtains hiding a world of mad preparation and moving parts all in the name of the spectacle of a well-told story.

Yes, it was like coming home—but to a place where he no longer lived, and hadn’t in some time.

It was that backstage area that Oliver knew best, and to which he headed now, with a very curious and confused Bridget Forrester in tow.

And unfortunately, so was Amanda.

“Where are we going now? What do all these ropes do?” Amanda asked, dodging women in costume and men carrying props as they squeezed through the narrow passageways that tunneled through the backstage area. Everyone was preparing for the performance. And although she didn’t know it yet, Bridget was among them.

He had met them at the hotel and escorted Lady Forrester and her two daughters via gondola. Much like London with their carriages, good families in Venice kept their own boats, their quality and design a testament to said family’s goodness. Unfortunately, the only gondola of sufficient quality that Oliver could procure in such a short period of time was a borrowed one from Lord Pomfrey.

When Oliver and Pomfrey had begun talking about opera the previous evening, and when he had asked the Forrester ladies to attend, Pomfrey had practically given him the gondola.

At first he thought the man was known to his father and happy to do Oliver a good turn. But no—in fact, Pomfrey was an enthusiastic supporter of La Fenice, and had enjoyed Oliver’s staging of an English play last season—The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman. Pomfrey, as he said, enjoyed a romance.

“And you need an impressive vehicle if you are to wage your own.” Pomfrey had winked.

Perhaps Bridget was right, Oliver had thought. Perhaps he did open his own doors.

However, Lord Pomfrey’s gondola was . . . distinctive. He did not like to have a covered boat, but rather preferred the whole world to see his extravagance and wealth on display in the lacquer of the boat and the distinctive red velvet cushions. But it was not to be helped.

However, the ostentatious gondola was forgotten as soon as La Fenice came into view.

He had felt the awe ripple from Bridget as they were guided up to the steps of the theatre, its stones lit gold by torches, its doors thrown open to a short, narrow street that led to the canal. He had glowed with pride when she stepped into the theatre for the first time, completely enthralled.

And he had been tickled by her shock when he made his announcement.

“If you’ll permit me, Lady Forrester, I have arranged for Miss Forrester to meet the diva of tonight’s opera, Veronica Franzetti, backstage, before the show begins,” he said, as he handed Lady Forrester into her seat at the front of the box. “I know your daughter’s nervousness about performing, and have persuaded Signora Franzetti to impart as much advice on the subject as she can.”

“Oh, what a treat!” Lady Forrester cried, clapping her hands. “No wonder you wanted us to come to the opera so early—why, the common seats are not even filled yet.”

Oliver nodded in acknowledgment. “Unfortunately, yes, Signora Franzetti will be too exhausted to meet with anyone after the performance. If you’ll permit me, I shall escort Miss Forrester backstage.”

“Of course, Mr. Merrick,” Lady Forrester replied, waving them away.

Oliver nearly crowed with triumph as he took Bridget’s hand. This was going exactly as planned.

“Can I go, too, Mother?” Amanda asked suddenly. “I would love to see the backstage of a theatre—the flies and the sets, and the way everything works.”

Of course, Oliver thought. And it had been going so well.

“It may not be the place for someone as young as Miss Amanda . . .” he ventured, trying to be solicitous, but the steely look of shock on Lady Forrester’s face told him he had miscalculated.

“If the backstage of a theatre is not the place for Amanda, it can in no way be the place for Bridget.”

“I did not mean to imply—”

“I think what Mr. Merrick meant, Mother,” Bridget interrupted, “is that it might be rather chaotic back there. People are, after all, attempting to do their work, and not expecting a curious child to wander through.”

Amanda stared such daggers at Bridget, he would not have been surprised if Bridget had bruised from it. “But I will be very, very good,” she said, her gaze never wavering from Bridget’s face. “I will do anything you say, Bridget. Anything.”

Those words seemed to have an effect on Bridget, and Oliver knew he had paid witness to some kind of sisterly blackmail, because Bridget discreetly touched his arm, letting him know to accede.

“Miss Amanda, we would be delighted for you to join us,” Oliver said, holding out his other arm.

“Don’t worry about me,” Lady Forrester called after them. “I like nothing more than using my opera glasses to see who’s who!”

“That’s because it’s the only time you can see anyone clearly,” Bridget said under her breath, causing Amanda to chuckle.

“Oh, I cannot wait! I want to see where all the sets are stored, and the costumes!” Amanda said—and off they went.

But now he had both girls backstage, and Oliver had the rather complicated task of setting up one with her task, while keeping the other oblivious.

Luckily, he could rely on his old friends at the theatre for help.

“You are late!” Veronica cried, throwing open the door to her small dressing room, stopping herself when she saw three people there, not the expected two.

“What is going on?” she asked Oliver in Italian, keeping her smile up so as to not raise any suspicions in the unexpected second Miss Forrester.

“I need you to distract Miss Amanda for thirty seconds, and then I’ll give you Bridget,” Oliver replied, also in Italian. The way he moved his hands at the girls’ names, he made it seem as if he were performing introductions. Veronica shot him a conspiratorial look before pushing her smile even wider and focusing her attention on Miss Amanda.

“Come in, young lady, come in! You must let me see you, and your lovely hair—and you are so tall! I will talk to you first!” Of course, she said all of this in Italian, so Amanda had little to no clue as to what was happening.

Amanda was barely able to get out a curtsy and the words, “A pleasure to meet you,” not realizing that she had met—and ignored—Veronica several times before, in the guise of an old woman, before she was ruthlessly pulled into Veronica’s dressing room and the door shut behind her.

“What is going on?” Bridget whispered as soon as the door was closed. “Why have you brought me backstage?”

“To give you a chance to find out if the stage is something you still need to fear,” Oliver replied in a level whisper, then nodded over to the other side of the stage, where she could see a familiar pair of jugglers practicing their trade.

“You remember Carlos and his brother?” he asked. “Well, they are performing their routine tonight, as one of the acts before the opera begins properly. And you are going to accompany them.”

Bridget’s eyes whipped back to his. “Accompany them? Tonight?” she practically screeched.

“Yes—in about, oh, fifteen minutes.”

“But . . . But . . .” she sputtered, unable to give voice to any of what must be a number of objections.

“Bridget, what did you say to me when I said you should play your own compositions?”

Bridget shook her head, unknowing.

“Well, I remember—you said that you would rather play naked in front of a thousand people. Now you won’t be playing your own compositions—the Bach you practiced with the brothers before should do quite well. Nor will you be naked—in fact, you will all be in disguise.”

“Disguise?”

“Yes, Veronica will help you get ready. The jugglers will be wearing carnival masks as well, so it looks consistent.” Oliver smiled, taking Bridget’s shoulders in his own. “I’ve worked the whole thing out. This way, your mother and anyone watching will not know it’s you—but also, if you fail, no one knows it was you playing. If you succeed, no one knows it is you, either. You do not have to worry about people’s expectations because they will not be able to have any expectations of Bridget Forrester. You will simply be another player.”

“But . . . shouldn’t the musicians be in the orchestra pit? Not on the stage?” She finally managed a weak protestation.

“In general, yes, but I have persuaded them to wheel a pianoforte on stage, just for you.” Oliver smirked at her. Then, unable to resist the moment of being alone with her in the mad crush of people and props trying to arrange themselves for the coming performance, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

It was a mistake, as it was the most physical contact they had been permitted in weeks. All it did was make his body itch for more.

Immediately Oliver drew back, using distance as a means to allow him to regain control over himself. Bridget, meanwhile, was busy blushing to her roots, and she turned her attention to the thick velvet curtain that separated the gathering audience from the clamor of backstage.

“Ah . . . how many people are out there, do you think?”

“Tonight? Not a thousand. But a few hundred at the very least.”

Before Bridget could blanch to a proper white at the prospect of playing for a few hundred people, the door to Veronica’s dressing room flew open, and Amanda emerged, utterly bewildered, wearing a few pounds of paste jewelry, disoriented to the point of dizziness. Veronica chattered behind her in an unending stream of Italian.

“I have no idea what she’s saying, so it’s entirely possible I’m going on the stage tonight as a Grecian goddess,” Amanda said in a giggly rush. “Bridget, what are you two doing out here? I thought you were here to get advice on performing.”

“Si! Signorina Bridget! Advice!” Veronica nodded, grabbing Bridget by the hand and taking her into the dressing room.

Amanda turned and tried to elbow her way back into the room, as all good sixteen-year-olds would. “Tell me, Signora, do you think—”

“Miss Amanda, if you would permit me, I would introduce you to the manager of the house—he can tell you all about, er, how the pulley systems work,” Oliver interrupted. “Signora Franzetti would prefer to give your sister her advice in private, I am sure. She guards her professional secrets, you know.”

“Ohhhhh,” Amanda said, clearly not wanting to disturb the diva. “Of course. And I would love to meet with the house manager! Do you think he will let me up to that walkway, all the way up there?” Amanda pointed to the long, narrow footway high above them.

Oliver steered her away, with murmurings of dissuasion from going anywhere near any ladders leading up. But as he did, Bridget called him back for one last moment.

“Oliver, do me a great favor?” she asked, as he stepped toward her.

“Anything.”

She exhaled a long slow sigh. “Make certain Carlos knows to catch on the downbeat.”





Bridget was too much in a whirlwind to feel anything about her upcoming performance. And that whirlwind’s name was Veronica.

“You will be boy, si?” Veronica was saying as she stripped Bridget out of her beautiful jade green silk evening gown and threw it over the back of a chair. There in her chemise and stockings, she had an adolescent boy’s costume from the last century—richly embroidered brocade, three-quarter-length coat and knee breeches, shoes with heels and buckles—shoved into her arms.

“Go!” Veronica waved her hands, jolting Bridget into movement. “Put on!”

Apparently there was no screen for privacy here—indeed, there was barely space enough to accommodate Veronica, let alone her—so Bridget had little choice but to get dressed in front of the actress.

She pulled the breeches on over her stockings and hopped into the unfamiliar—and alarmingly tight—garments. Stuffing her chemise into the breeches, Bridget caught sight of herself in Veronica’s looking glass. “Oh heavens, you can see everything!” She turned in the mirror. Her calves, her thighs—her rear end!—all of those lines were perfectly visible in the boy’s knee breeches.

“Si, but no one see you—they see Carlos and his brother Dominic.” Veronica breezed away her objections and approached her, a long strip of cloth in hand.

“What is that?” Bridget asked. “A cravat?”

Cravat was apparently not a word in Veronica’s limited English vocabulary, because she just tilted her head to the side and said, “Is cloth. Now, put arms up.”

Bridget looked askance but did as she was told, and Veronica wound the cloth around Bridget’s chest, pulling it tighter, binding her breasts down. “Ow!” she cried.

“You must be boy, Signorina!”

Understanding dawned on Bridget, and she submitted herself quietly after that. Once her chest was bound down to an unappealing, and constricting, flatness, Veronica handed Bridget the three-quarter-length coat and motioned for her to put it on. Apparently the costume did not have a shirtwaist to go under it, but as the collar of the shirt was high and the coat sleeves were edged in lace, no one would know the difference from the stage. Veronica reached over to her little table, where a powdered wig from the last century, with side curls and a little bow at the back, rested.

“But my hairstyle!” Bridget protested. It would be impossible to get back to its original style. This was all wrong. She could not go out there with her hair as it was, set into an intricate updo with braids and side curls that had taken Molly nearly an hour to perfect. She would be recognized, no matter what Oliver said . . . she would be recognized and she would fail, and there were hundreds of people out there, and she was meant to accompany Carlos and Dominic in a routine with a piece she had not practiced with any regularity in the past months, all of her time taken up with the No. 23, and—

Apparently, Veronica could see some of Bridget’s mounting hysteria finally catching up with her, because she leaned forward and gripped Bridget’s hand, hard. So hard that the pain distracted her from her train of thought.

“We will fix the hair after—I promise,” Veronica said clearly, calmly, holding Bridget’s gaze in hers. “Now, turn.”

Bridget did as she was bid and let Veronica place the wig on her head, stuffing up her coiffure underneath it.

“I used to fix hair, you know. When I was in chorus. It will be fine,” Veronica was saying. “That was where Signor Oliver spot me. I was in chorus. Then I sing for him, and he say, ‘Bruno! Veronica should have role!’ Now, I am diva.” Veronica moved around to face Bridget again. “I do anything for Signor Oliver for that. Dress you as boy, play Auntie . . . and he do anything for you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bridget mused, uncertain. “Besides, you are the one doing me the favor. I’m not imposing, am I? On your preparation for tonight?” Veronica gave her a quizzical look, and Bridget knew she had spoken too quickly. She repeated the question in the best broken Italian she could manage.

Veronica snorted in reply. “No—it is Herr Klein’s opera. Five hours of music, much singing for tenor and baritone, but soprano? Not so much.” She turned Bridget around and began to adjust the wig from the front. “I am Calypso, lead, and I have one aria in act three. One!” Then her eyes met Bridget’s, slyly. “And why you not so sure—about Signor Oliver? I am very sure for you.”

“Herr Klein?” Bridget asked, fear lancing through her. “Is he here?”

“No—the composer does not come to every performance”—Veronica shook her head—“and you did not answer, Signorina.”

“Oh . . .” Bridget replied, turning redder than she liked. “I know that he likes me . . . but I don’t know how he likes me.” Veronica gave her that uncomprehending look again, so Bridget tried a different tack. “He likes me as a person, but he . . . we hadn’t had the opportunity to be alone in weeks and when the chance came he kissed me on the forehead, like my father would.”

Veronica’s eyebrow went up, muttering something under her breath in Italian—the only words of which Bridget managed to catch were men and idiot.

“Signorina, you come to me for advice, so I will give to you. Oliver, he likes you. Very much. More than he knows. But if he treat you as child? You must make him see you as woman.”

And with that, Veronica took a bauta carnival mask, with the stern male face, and slipped it over her head. Bridget could see well enough out of the eyeholes, so she could see Veronica’s smile as she said, “But that is for later. Now you must play.”





“And so the entire Trojan horse is only three pieces of thin board?” Amanda was saying from the wings of the stage, where she had cornered Bruno, the theatre’s manager, who was being incredibly patient with the youthful curiosity in front of him and confined his annoyed comments to Italian, so only Oliver could hear them when he played translator for all of Amanda’s unending questions. He was about to distract Amanda to see if she was ready to return to her seat, when he heard it. Laughter from the audience. And underneath it, a pianoforte.

It was Bach. It was Bridget.

She was playing, and playing well, judging by the way the crowd laughed and cheered at the right times with the routine’s bigger moments. Most people did not pay all that much attention to the opening acts—indeed, most of fashionable Venice would not even have arrived yet—but the crowd that was there was enjoying the performance.

Oliver wandered away from Amanda and Bruno, edging his way to the front of the wings, where he could see.

She was there. Not in the spotlight, like Carlos and Dominic, but there all the same. On the stage, and playing Bach with verve and grace. And in front of a few hundred people besides.

Something curious shot through Oliver as he watched her in that decidedly interesting costume, her back to him, as her arms worked the length of the keys, her head occasionally coming up to make sure the similarly masked and costumed jugglers were on beat with her.

She was doing it, she had no fear, and he was so proud. But some little part of him was bereft at the idea that she would not need his encouragement, his lessons for much longer.

But that was not what mattered in that moment. So Oliver let himself watch, and let her playing wash over him, joining with the crowd in enjoying the show.





Returning the ladies to their seats as the curtain was coming up on the first act of Klein’s operatic Odyssey was not as difficult as expected. In fact, Oliver had managed to wrangle Amanda and get her back to her seat while Bridget was still changing back from her boy costume to herself. Once Amanda had exhausted the stage manager Bruno with her questions, she didn’t have much to do backstage anyway. Although, she seemed oddly satisfied to simply hang about and occupy Oliver.

“So . . .” she had begun, “what is taking my sister so long?”

“I do not pretend to know the performing secrets of Veronica Franzetti, or how long it takes to impart them,” Oliver ventured, as he squeezed back against the narrow hallway to allow a retinue of ballet dancers through so they could change into costume. Bridget had darted back into Veronica’s dressing room after the jugglers took their bows and had not yet emerged. Luckily Amanda’s attention had been drawn to something Oliver had pointed to in the other direction at that moment. “If you like I can escort you back to your seat and come back for your sister.”

“Well, that would defeat the purpose,” Amanda replied pertly.

“What purpose?” he asked.

“Why, playing chaperone to you two.” She cocked her head to one side and, for a moment, looked uncannily like her shorter, more freckled sister. “You do need a chaperone, don’t you? She has not said as such, but I have a feeling she’s been leaving things out of our conversations. Such as how she calls you Oliver.”

Damn, but were all the Forrester girls so observant?

Before Oliver could appreciate his opponent’s canniness, he was knocked back against the wall of the narrow corridor again; this time Amanda was squeezed up against her own wall, too. All to accommodate a passing shop facade that had to be moved to the other side of the stage before the curtain went up.

And Oliver had seen his opportunity.

“Miss Amanda, this really will not do. We cannot simply linger in this busy thoroughfare; I insist on taking you back to your seat.”

Pert Amanda fell away, leaving sixteen-year-old Amanda, who knew little how to argue with such a command. Therefore he managed to get her back to her mother in her box before having to answer any of the child’s eerily on-target probes.

When he returned to Veronica’s door, he let himself in after a perfunctory knock. There, he found Bridget having pins stuffed into her hair by a hasty Veronica.

“Come, we haven’t much time,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “The curtain is about to go up and your mother will grow suspicious.”

“What about my sister?” she asked.

“She is already suspicious,” Oliver replied drolly. “But she is back in her seat.”

“Uno momento,” Veronica said, putting a final pin in Bridget’s dark curls.

Bridget quickly examined the diva’s work in the mirror. “It looks nothing like it did,” she murmured, “but at least it is respectable.”

“Bridget, if your mother could not tell me apart from Veronica in an old woman’s costume, then she will likely not notice your hair,” Oliver remarked, impatient now. “Come, we must go back.”

“Grazie, for everything,” Bridget said, embracing Veronica. For her part, Veronica pulled back and smiled enigmatically at Bridget.

“Do not forget advice,” she replied. Then Oliver could take no more waiting and pulled Bridget out the door.

He had moved quickly out of necessity, but part of him wanted to linger for just a bit, knowing that this was as alone with Bridget as he was likely to get for the rest of the evening.

Then again, he was about to be surprised by her for a second time that night.

“You played very well,” he whispered to her as they darted through the backstage corridors. “I was quite proud of you. You were in no way nervous?”

“My heart is still pounding from the experience. I confess, I did not have much time to be nervous,” Bridget replied on a blush. “But I think that was the idea behind the exercise.”

“Maybe,” Oliver replied with a smile. “Perhaps I simply thought having a performance under your belt would be worth your while.”

“Or perhaps you wanted to see me in breeches and stockings?” she asked, her tone shifting into something new. It was frank, alluring. And it piqued Oliver’s interest.

“Actually, I had no idea what costume Veronica had picked for you. You could have been in a druid shroud, for all I knew about it.” He turned to her. They had crossed the threshold from the backstage to the front of the house, where fashionable people milled in the ornate entryway, seeing and being seen before retiring to their boxes for the performance. Oliver slowed his pace and released Bridget’s hand, forcing himself to a more decorous distance. His voice, however, was everything that was intimate. “It was a happy benefit, however, to find you otherwise attired.”

“I’m so pleased,” Bridget replied, her gaze unwavering, knowing. “You do know how to arrange a surprise for a lady, don’t you?”

“I suppose . . .” he replied, careful to keep his gaze straight ahead as they walked genteelly toward their box for the evening.

“I am afraid I must beg one more arrangement of you.” She turned to him, serious.

“Of course,” he replied automatically, his brow coming down.

“You will be returning us to the hotel after the performance tonight, correct?” she asked, a little quaver in her voice betraying the nerves behind the boldness.

“Yes . . .”

“I think that after, say, a half hour, you and your gondola should return to the hotel.”

They paused at the door of their box, Oliver unable to tear his eyes from Bridget’s.

“I should?” he asked, his voice a rumble of anticipation.

“Yes.” She stood on tiptoe, to let her lips reach his ear. “I think you would find it worth your while.”