Dante seemed to be hoping that if he sulked above-stairs for long enough, he might be accidentally left behind, and I can’t imagine Helena is very quick in dressing without a maid, so I assume I’ll be the first one down. The study door is shut, and I pause beside it, tempted to try the handle.
My fingers brush the latch when, from behind the door, I hear Dante’s voice, pitched in a whine. I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Why does it matter if we keep them here?”
“We need to wait . . . ,” I hear Helena say, but the rest of her sentence is drowned out by Percy starting up with the violin again from above. I wish dearly I could throw something at him through the floorboards. I lean in to the door, pressing my ear flat against it.
“Perhaps they can—they can be persuaded. Into silence. Or they aren’t interested.”
“They’re obviously interested.”
“But they seem so reasonable.”
“Haven’t you learned yet that many seemingly reasonable people are far from it?” There’s a shuffling click, like pearls sliding against each other as a strand is tugged. “You’ll see him tonight. We’re running out of time.”
“What if he isn’t—”
“I’m certain he’ll be there—he always goes to play with the magistrates.”
“Then you—”
“He won’t speak to me anymore. I’ve pestered him too often. It has to be you.”
“But . . . I don’t . . .”
“Please, Dante. If he could only come home . . .”
A shuffling. Dante mumbles something I can’t make out.
“You’d let him rot away without trying everything?” Helena hisses. “We keep them here until—” The door opens suddenly and I about go face-first into Helena’s breasts, an impropriety so grand it might distract from my being caught eavesdropping. I catch myself on the door frame and straighten, making a fruitless attempt at playing casual. Helena and Dante are both at the threshold of the study, Helena with one hand down the front of her dress, adjusting the tucker. Her sacque gown is pale pink, the color of rose quartz, with a pannier beneath and her waist pulled so narrow that everything else is pushed upward. Suddenly, nosing into her breasts doesn’t seem like such a terrible fate.
“I thought you were above,” she says.
“No, just . . . waiting.” We stare at each other for a moment longer. I adopt my best I was certainly not eavesdropping smile. Helena’s eyes narrow.
“Coach,” Dante murmurs, and darts down the hallway. The front door slams so hard the vials in the study cabinet tremble.
Thank God Percy appears on the stairs behind me at that moment, his violin case under one arm. “I think I’ve—Oh, where’s Dante gone? I thought I heard him.”
“Hailing a coach,” Helena replies, shouldering past me and into the hallway. “We need to go.”
“Yes.” Percy sets his violin inside the study door. “Felicity should be down soon.”
Helena is still staring at me. “That coat,” she says suddenly.
Fashion was the last thing I expected her to remark upon. I shift in the shoulders, and the whole thing settles upon me like a snowdrift. “Bit big.”
“It’s my father’s.”
“Oh, Dante said I could—”
“I know,” she says, turning down the hallway before I can see her face. “Just a statement of fact.”
We arrive at the opera too early to be fashionably late. The singing hasn’t begun, but the footlights are being trimmed. The opera house is bright and chaotic, far less gaudy than the one in Paris but twice as loud. The chandeliers glimmer like sunlight on water. The footman’s gallery is stuffed, aisles crowded with young men coasting up and down for company. In the boxes, women play cards and eat cream-filled pastries brought to them on silver trays. Men are discussing politics. When the singing begins, the noise is amplified as everyone raises their voices to be heard over it. The standing crowd on the stage kick their legs and shuffle from foot to foot, already weary.
Percy and I don’t go to the Robleses’ box—instead I drag him to the gambling hall attached to one of the upper galleries, looking down over the audience, so we can have a private chat about what I overheard and conspire on what to do.
Felicity put up a fuss at being left behind, mostly in whispers as we climbed the stairs with her hand on my arm, so Dante and Helena prancing ahead wouldn’t overhear. “I want to come with you.”
“Well, you can’t. Ladies aren’t allowed.”
I nearly stepped on her train as she cut the corner of the landing in front of me. “If you are scheming about the alchemical cures, please do it where I can hear.”
“We aren’t scheming. We’re . . .” I didn’t get to a fib fast enough, and Felicity’s eyes narrowed. She darted up the step in front of me, cutting off my progress.
“You are scheming!”
“Just stay in the box and keep an eye on Dante, won’t you? See if he goes anywhere.”
“Don’t give me some nonsense task to make me feel included.”
“It’s not nonsense, just . . .” I didn’t know how to finish, so I just flapped a hand at her.
Felicity tore her fingers from my arm, straightened her dress, then stuck her nose in the air. “Fine. Don’t include me. Perhaps I’ll scheme on my own, then.”
“I look forward to it,” I said, then grabbed Percy by the hand and dragged him away.
The gambling hall is gauzy with smoke and hotter than the summer air outside. It’s a great effort not to loosen my cravat as soon as we enter. As we wait at the bar for whiskey, I recount to Percy what I overhead.
“From what I gather, they’re meeting someone here tonight,” I finish. “Do you think we could find out who it is? Maybe we should get back to the box and follow Dante if he goes anywhere. Bit conspicuous, though, I suppose. What if it’s the duke he’s rallying with? Maybe that letter I found was instructions for a meeting time. I’d bet it’s the duke—what if he followed us here from Marseilles?” I resist the urge to look around, as though he might suddenly materialize at our side.
I look to Percy, hoping he might lend some shears to my intellectual hedgerow, but he’s pulling at his coat, fanning the collar against his neck. “God, it’s hot in here.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Course I am. But I think you’re getting excited over nothing.”
“Hardly nothing—”
“Just because you found one letter from Bourbon doesn’t mean they’re on familiar terms.”
“Then who else would they be meeting?”
“Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the alchemy. Or their father. Or us.”
“Helena stopped awfully short when she realized I was listening.”
“Well, you were being rude.”
“I wasn’t being rude!”
“You were eavesdropping.”