Secrets of a Soprano by Miranda Neville Read Free Book Online Page B

for one of any age.”
    “Don’t be stuffy, darling. Just because I’m over forty doesn’t mean I’ve lost the use of my eyes or that I’m dead from the neck down.”
    Over forty indeed! His mother guarded her true age as jealously as her sapphires, but Max could count. He, her only son, was thirty-one years old.
    “It really didn’t matter why he was dressed like that,” she continued. “I had no idea what was happening since I don’t understand a word of German. Not that I wish to.”
    His mother had put her finger on a major problem. No one had understood the plot. London operagoers, if they weren’t enjoying Henry Bishop’s butchered English versions of Mozart, preferred their opera in Italian. Not that they understood that language either, but they were accustomed to it. Besides, most of the overwrought tragedies on classical themes were so absurd it was a positive blessing not to follow the story. With Beethoven’s masterpiece it was different.
    He set aside the concern for later discussion with Lindo. Meanwhile he’d rather not hear any more of his mother’s hideously perceptive comments.
    “You summoned me, Mama. What can I do for you?” Some tedious chore, he suspected, not unrelated to an appearance at Almack’s and a dance with the daughter of one of her dearest friends. He steeled himself for resistance at all costs.
    Lady Clarissa didn’t trouble with subtlety. “It’s time you married, Max. You’re past thirty and I need grandchildren.”
    Max sighed. “We’ve had this conversation so many times I don’t know why you still bother. The answer, as ever, is the same. I don’t wish to wed and have no intention of doing so. Is that plain enough for you? If you’re so enthralled with the state of matrimony why don’t you marry again?”
    “No thank you. As you know very well, once was enough for me.”
    “I know my father was a wretched husband. Why should I inflict myself on some unfortunate female and treat her to the same joy?”
    “You’re nothing like Hawthorne. You take after me.”
    He walked over to the window and gazed out onto the rain-drenched grounds behind the Piccadilly mansion. He hated to think of his father, a penniless adventurer who’d cozened a seventeen-year-old heiress into marriage. The fact that he was heir to his uncle’s viscountcy made him marginally acceptable, but the reprobate had made her miserable for ten years until meeting his end in a tavern brawl. With his gambling and women he had little time for his wife, and even less for his only child. Max barely remembered the man and that was the way he liked it.
    A certain intensity in his mother’s manner this morning told him she wasn’t going to let the subject of marriage drop. The gloves were off and he needed more than evasive tactics to escape.
    He turned to face the room. “Why did you marry him?” He’d never asked before.
    “I was young, a fool, and spoiled,” she said. “He was handsome and charming and I wanted him, however much I was warned against him.”
    “Why did my grandfather permit it?”
    “As I said, I was spoiled. He never refused me anything. I made such a fuss that he gave in. Your father’s birth, at least, was decent.”
    Max could imagine his seventeen-year-old mother throwing tantrums, holding her breath until she was blue, making life impossible so that her adoring father caved in from sheer exhaustion. Things hadn’t changed.
    “I wish he had stopped me.” The words were spoken so softly Max wondered if he’d misheard. He moved into the room and stood next to her sofa, examining her face intently. He’d never seen his mother look so vulnerable.
    “I wish he had stopped me and saved me from disaster. The way I saved you.”
    Memories of the occasion when her money had “saved” him came rushing back. How could they not when he’d thought of little else for days, almost spoiling his pleasure in the long-awaited opening of his opera house? He scowled. If he