Secrets of a Soprano Read Online Free PDF Page A

only offspring he was subject to the same voracious curiosity.
    As a naïve nineteen-year-old traveling in Europe, he’d been alarmed and repelled by the sycophantic fawning of others. Berlin, Vienna, Madrid: Denizens of society in each of these capitals knew all about the Hawthorne heir. It had seemed absurd to him—and still hardly made sense—that his acquaintance was desirable because the wealth of two great-grandfathers made the legendary fortune of Croesus look like a modest competence. The daughter and sole heiress of a banker had wed the heir to the earldom of Tamworth. A city fortune, whose sheer size dissipated any scent of the shop, merged with one of the country’s vast landed estates to form England’s greatest fortune. Max and his mother were the sole descendants of that marriage.
    As far as Max was concerned it could stay that way, a sentiment his mother was far from sharing.
    “Hm,” she said, looking around. “A very worldly company tonight. I don’t see any eligible unmarried girls to present to you.” It was positively frightening sometimes how she seemed to read his thoughts.
    “Since I’m not interested in meeting them, the dearth leaves me indifferent.”
    This was the beginning of a discussion they’d had often since, aged twenty-two, he’d flatly turned down an arranged marriage with the daughter of a duke.
    “Will you come to the country with me next week?”
    Max fought off irritation at her request. The one thing that tempted him into matrimony was the prospect of presenting his mother with a brood of grandchildren to divert her exhausting attention from him. She could teach them to take snuff and cheat at brag and wear tiaras at breakfast.
    “The Regent Opera House opens this week, as I’m sure you’re aware. I can’t leave London now.”
    She gave him a hard look, accompanied by the poignant sigh she used to induce guilt when he failed to meet her demands. “Always opera singers,” she said. “Your pursuit—for whatever reason—of Madame Foscari is inevitable. Always opera singers.”
    His heart missed a beat, thinking, as no doubt she was, about a particular opera singer. He couldn’t help scanning the crowd, not really expecting yet still dreading to see the face he’d once known so well. Though the large saloon was thronged with the powerful, the clever, and the merely ornamental cream of the ton , they were all figures he’d encountered any time these ten years.
    No one dared approach to pierce the golden aura that set Lady Clarissa and her son apart from other mortals and save him from his controlling parent.
    “Let me escort you to a seat, Mama,” he offered in desperation. “In this crowd we’d better move now if we want to be near the front.”
    “No thank you. I may want to leave early since my tolerance for music is limited. I can view those gemstones from a distance through my lorgnette. Something in the back row will suit me very well.”
    Rescue came in the unlikely form of a man who made a habit of being impressed by nothing. Under the circumstances Max was pleased to see the Marquess of Somerville threading his way effortlessly through the throng and into the Hawthorne orbit.
    “Somerville,” he said in his friendliest manner. “What brings you here?” As though he didn’t know very well.
    “To gaze on the beautiful Lady Storrington, of course. Why else?”
    Lady Clarissa gave a crack of laughter. “You’ll catch cold at that one, Somerville. Storrington wouldn’t have married his cook if he hadn’t loved her.”
    Somerville raised her hand to his lips. “Indeed, Lady Clarissa. That is why I only look. Besides”—Somerville was now gazing at her with his legendary blue eyes and giving Max another demonstration of his legendary technique with women—“I’ve found a better, and I dare hope more susceptible, object of my admiration.”
    Lady Clarissa actually simpered at this flattery from a man a decade younger, if not two. Max