Let it be Me (Blue Raven) (14 page)

“Well,” Bridget turned to look behind her, trying to jog her memory of the alley they had just left. “The . . . the cobblestones, I suppose.”

“What about them are so quaint?”

“They . . . they are wet. Either from the rain or from the seawater that seems to permeate everything. They shine in the afternoon light,” she ventured. “And the windows are so high but tumbled, stacked one on top of the other. Waiting impatiently.”

“Exactly!” he cried. “When else would you have seen such a sight, if not for taking the less direct route? When and where else would the light have been right for you to notice the beauty of wet cobblestones and stacked windows?” He sighed then, a sound of utter contentment. “There is always something I haven’t seen before in this city, and I find myself lost at least once a day because of it.”

“Even after you’ve been here nearly five years?” Bridget shook her head.

“Even then,” he replied. Then, thought creasing his brow, “Although, the fault could lie in the fact that I
came
to Venice to get lost.”

Bridget came to a standstill at the top of the little footbridge they happened to be crossing. A narrow canal ran underneath their feet, people propelling themselves forward. “I am afraid I don’t understand. Are you not on an extended European tour?”

“What in the world gave you that idea?”

“Your father.” Her simple reply was met with the most thunderous crashing of Mr. Merrick’s brow that Bridget found herself stammering. “Er . . . that is . . . I met him at a dinner party before we left London. He said . . . or rather, I guess I assumed . . . that you are on your European tour.”

Mr. Merrick took two deep breaths through his nose before he answered, and when he did so, it was with his normal calm, affable demeanor.

“Is that what my father is telling everyone?” He smiled at her, attempting to reassure, but it did not reach his eyes. “Miss Forrester, you are aware that most young gentlemen’s European tours don’t last five years.”

“Most, but not all,” she countered.

“And that those young gentlemen tend to travel to more than one city.”

“It is rare, but not unheard of.”

“
And
that rarer is the young English gentleman who studies pantomime on such a voyage.”

“That . . . that did give me pause, I will admit.” She shared in his smile then, and enjoyed the warmth that it lent her—almost like the warmth of the sun on the waters of the canal beneath them.

“So, you came to Venice to get lost . . . by becoming a clown?” she asked, taking a step forward, slowly propelling them on a more correct path.

“Not exactly. I came to Venice to meet my mother.”

Bridget felt herself stopping in her tracks again, not three steps taken since her last astonished stalling. He turned to her when he realized she was no longer keeping pace beside him.

“Mr. Merrick, I apologize; I was under the impression that your mother—”

“My mother passed, ten years ago,” he answered simply.

“I am sorry.”

“Thank you.” His hazel eyes seemed to grow misty for a moment, but with true English stoicism, he quelled any display of emotion. “While I was growing up, my mother was the buoyant, beautiful light—always singing, always dancing. She would tell me stories about when she was an opera singer in Venice, and how she met my father when he was visiting Europe, and they fell madly in love. Three weeks later they were married, and she was on a ship bound for England, never to return—much I think, to her regret.”

They continued walking again, moving slower now—lest Bridget feel the need to pull to an abrupt stop again.

“So, when Signor Carpenini—Vincenzo—and I chanced to meet, I took the opportunity to come to Venice and find out about my mother’s life here.”

“That I can understand,” Bridget replied. “However, I’m still a bit unclear on how it translates into clowning.”

He smiled again, the residual grimness from their sad conversation leaving him. Bridget realized suddenly that Mr. Merrick was not a man who could be unhappy or dour for very long. In contrast to the Signore, whose mood seemed to swing violently with his passions and fracture her pulse with it, Mr. Merrick’s pleasant steadiness was a decided comfort. And, curiously, infectious.

“Well, my mother
had
worked in the theatre,” he replied, with an impish grin. “I thought, how better to learn about her life than to work there? Luckily, Vincenzo put in a good word for me at La Fenice, and I ended up in the third row of the men’s chorus.”

“So, you are an actor!” Bridget cried, delighted. “I would not have guessed.”

“Because I’m an English gentleman?”

“No because you are so solidly built,” she said, then immediately blushed. “Forgive me, but I always picture actors as rangy, mobile fellows. Not so . . . tall.”

Bridget’s eyes flitted to his wide shoulders, to his reserved English bearing—in spite of his Italian coloring and startling light eyes. Her cheeks raged red at the awkwardly personal comment. But he saved her with a laugh and an explanation.

“That is likely from a youth spent as an English gentleman, pursuing those things my father thought an English lad should. One of which was boxing. When I proved adept at it, he threw me into that wholeheartedly.”

Her eyes again focused on the way his coat fit across his shoulders. Yes, he would have done quite well in an arena.

“But you loved the theatre,” she guessed, and he nodded.

“I boxed to please my father, and sang with my mother to please me.”

“Ah . . . so you must have a marvelous voice.”

“One thing that working in the theatre has taught me, Miss Forrester, is that my voice is depressingly ordinary,” he replied in good humor. “Which is one of the reasons I am no longer an actor on the stage.”

“That seems a shame,” Bridget replied sadly. “Your pantomime was quite amusing.”

“Thank you.” He blushed at the honest compliment. “But not only was my voice not strong enough, I also did not have the hunger for it.”

“Hunger?”

“Yes. There is this strange stagestruck ambition, an overwhelming desperation to be loved, that one must have to be cutthroat enough to be an actor.”

“That sounds rather . . . violent,” Bridget replied quizzically.

“Only to one’s psyche,” he answered jovially.

“So what do you do now?” she inquired. “I cannot imagine that someone who came to Venice and fell in love with the theatre is content to simply take a box for the season.”

Oliver’s eyebrow arched in surprise. “You are far more astute than most people find comfortable, aren’t you?” Then he began to explain that many would assume that a young foreign-born man of means, after a few years of folly upon the stage, would resume his place among his peers of wealthy expatriates who had their own society, and content himself with a box (and a mistress) at the opera. But Oliver could not. It had gotten into his blood, the theatre—or rather, because of his mother it had always been there, just awakened by his time in the men’s chorus. So he did something few men of his station rarely had done.

He had taken a job.

“At first,” he said, “I took whatever job Bruno—the stage manager at La Fenice—decided to torture me with. Stagehand, sweeper, cleaning costumes. Then I began to assist the director. I’m sure Bruno thought it a wonderful bit of folly to have a British lord’s son in service to another, but I loved it. Soon enough, they began letting me take charge of the little comedy bits that come on stage before the opera begins—and then before I knew it, I was helping to stage the main show.”

“Why, Mr. Merrick, aren’t you full of surprises?” Bridget smiled at him. “You are a director.”

“Not right now, unfortunately,” Oliver replied, unable to keep the grimness out of his voice.

“What ho, there is a story behind that statement,” she declared, hopping over a bridge as she did so.

“Really? How can you tell?”

“I have a sister who cannot wait to tell stories, Mr. Merrick. The signs are universal.”

“Yes, there is,” he conceded. “And actually, this story is related to you.”

She cocked her head to the side at that.

“A few months ago, my father wrote me, saying that my elder brother, Francis, had fallen from a horse. It was quite serious, and I was needed at home.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. About your brother, I mean.”

“Thank you.” He inclined his head. “So I resigned my position at La Fenice, packed my bags, and prepared to depart. Carpenini was to come with me.”

“And that was when you wrote to me,” Bridget surmised.

“Quite so. But a day before we were supposed to depart, I received another letter from my father, detailing Francis’s recovery. I was not needed at home after all.” Oliver sighed, his voice surprisingly sad. “I went back to La Fenice, but by then they had given away my position. Other opera houses were similarly staffed. So I am currently what I had claimed to not be—a British man living a life of leisure abroad.”

He smiled ruefully, but Bridget was silent, contemplative. “Well,” she said finally, “I am glad to hear of your brother’s recovery, at least. But it must have been terribly awkward for those few weeks. Preparing to change everything, to go home, and then to be told not to.”

He paused in his steps, his eyes searching her face, her features. As if she had struck at something true—more true than he himself realized.

“Yes, far more astute than is comfortable,” he murmured, and then he cleared his throat. “But I promise you, it is better this way. You must understand, he was the son of my father’s first wife, and as we are nearly fifteen years apart in age, we have never been particularly close. He is the heir, and thus he is the one groomed to a life of being Lord Merrick. The good English son. Currently he has only a daughter, so if he had passed . . . I would have been given the role. But I am a reluctant understudy, and I never learned any of the lines.”

He gave a halfhearted smile at that small pun, and Bridget had to stop herself from reaching out to him. He was such an imposing figure—taller than most men, and with the strength borne of a boxing regimen; he could have come off as hulking, brutish, with his fearsomely dark hair and complexion. But he was so kind and polite . . . and so open with himself that it belied any such mean description.

“It is hard,” Bridget said softly, “living up to the expectations set by elder siblings.”

“Especially when they are better at being who they are than you could ever be,” he commiserated, as he pulled to an abrupt stop. “But my father . . . well, it turns out I was not wanted in any case.”

Bridget looked around herself and was surprised to find that they stood in front of the Hotel Cortile. She had been so engrossed in hearing Mr. Merrick’s tale that she had lost all sense of time and—curiously, for her—direction.

Something haunted Bridget. The sad resignation in Mr. Merrick’s voice, saying he was not wanted. It had sounded so much like . . .

So much like Lord Merrick’s.

“But surely,” she tried again, “without your position at the theatre, you could have gone back to England for a visit anyway—”

“No,” he stated curtly, and Bridget reeled back at his abrupt speech. “I could not. Not now, likely not ever.”

Bridget opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the wave of his hand.

“Please don’t pity me, Miss Forrester,” he said, his smile lightening the depths of their conversation. Impulsively he leaned forward and took her hand in his. It was warm, and she grasped his. “I promise you, I have enough irons in the proverbial fire to make up for the loss of my position at La Fenice. Besides, now I get to listen to you play daily—what could be better?”

Then he leaned over her hand and kissed it before releasing her.

“I can only hope to be so lucky, Mr. Merrick,” Bridget replied cordially, her arm falling gently against her side. “Although I have no intention of getting lost in Venice—I was rather hoping to find my way.”

He chuckled at that. “Well, you made a good start today, with Carpenini.”

“Just as you did, when you met with him in England,” she replied. “So . . . same time tomorrow?”

“Indeed, Miss Forrester.” He touched a hand to his hat by way of a salute. “Give our—mine and Vincenzo’s—regards to your mother and sister.”

“Yes, Signor Carpenini—” Bridget bit her lip. “Is he . . . is he always like that?”

“How do you mean?”

“Is he always so—abrupt?” Bridget’s mind flew back to how they had ended their session, less than a half hour ago. “He seemed very desperate to be rid of me. Indeed, as soon as lessons were finished, he practically shoved us out the door,
desperate
as he was to get to the keys of his beloved pianoforte and compose, as he had been apparently
desperate
to do all day.”

Her tone was light, but it was to cover one simple fact. In that moment, it was as if she hadn’t existed anymore, and that had left her momentarily stunned.

But Mr. Merrick’s tone was not anywhere near as light as Bridget’s. “He meant no insult,” he said softly, reassuring. “Indeed, you greatly pleased him today. He simply takes some getting used to.”

“Really?” she asked, unsure.

A rueful smile spread across his features. “Yes, Vincenzo can be rather, er, focused, when it suits him to be. He tends to forget everything—people, manners, food—when the mood strikes him.”

“If that’s the case, I find it hard to believe that the two of you became friends at all,” she smiled tentatively.

But the smile on his face fell. “Miss Forrester—I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” she asked, her brow coming down.

“That Vincenzo and I . . . we are not simply friends.”

“How do you mean . . .” she began, and then felt her face go up in flames as realization dawned. Utter horror dripped through her body; she had been making a cake of herself all this time! “Do you mean . . . Oh! Oh, I am so mortified, Mr. Merrick, I had no idea. I mean,” she babbled, certain her tongue was running away with her, but unable to stop it in her embarrassment. “I
knew
such things existed. Or at least, Amanda says she once saw my music tutor—ages ago now—kissing a stable boy, but she was so young I thought she was completely mistaken, but then I heard other stories, especially about, er,
theatrical
people, but it never entered my mind that you . . . and he—”
And to think
, her mind reeled,
I had been thinking about the
Signore
in
that
way . . .