It was a Wednesday morning when the invitations returned from the engravers. Cousin Henry happened to be visiting No. 48 when they arrived, and he exclaimed with approval over the gilt edging and the raised lettering along with the rest of them.
“I have a notion,” Henry said as he laid the card he’d been examining reverently back down into the box. “Would you consider delaying posting these until the fifth?”
“Why should we?” Helene asked.
“Because then they will arrive on the sixth, and after they’ve read them, the matrons will want at least one night to consider their answers.”
“Three nights is average,” Helene said. “I’ve looked into the question.”
Henry bowed at this. “It just so happens, however, that the seventh is our company’s premiere of Much Ado About Nothing. I came here fully intending to offer you ladies use of my private box for the evening. It will create, if I do say so myself, a most excellent impression in the minds of those matrons who might be wavering.”
“Oh, Cousin Henry!” Madelene cried. “That would be marvelous.”
“It would be most generous indeed,” Miss Sewell murmured.
“It is a gift freely given,” Cousin Henry said to her. “A favor to my cousin and her friends, nothing more.”
“Well then that is how it shall be accepted.”
Helene was bent over her notebooks, flipping through pages to see how Henry’s invitation tallied with her own plans, and Adele was counting and admiring their cards, so Madelene was the only one who saw the long, deep look that passed between her cousin and her chaperone.
Of course Madelene wondered about this, but she took care not mention it to the others. There were, it seemed, so many more important things to consider and so very much to do. Madelene’s days had developed a blissful routine in which her precious hour with Benedict had come to dominate every other facet of her life.
She went to his studio every day. Of course they wasted no more time on the business of sketching. There was too much to say to each other, and far too much to do. After their first intimate encounter, he replaced his narrow camp bed with a more substantial, and broader, piece of furniture. Sometimes she and Benedict came together in a kind of dizzy madness—a blazing intensity of frenzied sensation, as if they were both striving to see who could drive the other further into their ecstasies. At other times, it was tender, a slow, simmering exploration of each other’s bodies and all the shades of need and desire.
One day, Benedict undressed for her, slowly peeling away each layer of his clothing, from coat and cravat to shirt and breeches, until he stood in front of her, as beautiful and unabashed as a Greek hero. One day, she did the same for him and let him sketch her as she lay on the studio’s divan, draped in gold silk, until he could stand it no more and laid the book aside to ravish her with his mouth and his strong, eager hands.
But there was one thing they did not do, one boundary they did not cross.
“I want to feel you inside me, Benedict,” she told him as he held her close beside him on the bed, still breathless from their recent and wonderfully mutual climax. “I’m ready for this.”
“I’m not,” he said, running his hand lovingly down her arm. “I can’t.”
“There are ways to prevent . . .”
“They fail, Madelene,” he said firmly. “I will not leave you pregnant.”
Because then you’d have to marry me. She hadn’t meant to draw back. He was being considerate. He was being careful. He cherished her and did not want her to risk disgrace.
He seemed to understand her contradictory thoughts. Now that they had been together so often and with such intensity and openness, he could read her smallest glance. “Madelene, I know what you and your friends are doing,” he said. “Being as I am . . . I cannot help you with it, but neither do I wish to interfere with it. When the season ends, when you have fulfilled your promise to your friends and you come back, you will find me here, waiting for you.”
“I love you,” she whispered, because it was the only answer she could make. But there was something in her words that left her uneasy. Why should there be anything wrong with what he said, though? Of course she would come back. Where else did she want to be but here with Benedict?
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “When we are free to be together, we’ll close the door on the whole world and we will love and we will live for each other. I will teach you how much a man may cherish a woman.”
She smiled to see him smile, and to feel the thrill his touch sent through her—warm and slow and all the more welcome because now it was so familiar. “Of course, my love.”
Then it was back home for a nap and a quick lunch and a change of clothes. Mama and Lewis followed society’s custom of sleeping well past noon, so, with a little luck, Madelene could be gone before anyone else in the house was even awake. Of course, her destination was always No. 48. From there, it was off to the round of calls or other social appearances Helene had scheduled. Then home yet again, this time to a supper at which her brother might or might not put in an appearance. But even meals with her family were not so painful as they had once had been. Madelene found she could employ Cousin Henry’s lessons at the table as well as on the dance floor. She could hear the complaints, the passive criticism, and small slights and let them drift over her while she concentrated on how she moved, and sat, and held herself. She enjoyed her food, measured her sips of wine carefully, folded her napkin just so, murmured her words of apology and encouragement as required. It was all appearance, all surface calm and control, just as if she was an actress playing a part on the stage. It didn’t matter who was looking, whether it was Mama or Father or a perfect stranger on the street. They saw what she chose to show. They saw demure and mousy Madelene, whom they tolerated because she was their source of income. They did not need to see the Madelene who was loved and befriended. They did not need to see the Madelene who visited Cousin Henry for light luncheons at a coffeehouse and listened to his stories about rehearsals and all the endless, wonderful, awful facets of life in the theater.
After dinner, it was time to dress in one of Adele’s creations and get into a carriage with Helene and Adele and Miss Sewell, to drive to a public assembly, or the Ancient Music, or the Opera. There she could laugh and she could smile and flutter her fan. She could dance and she could enjoy. She could even talk, and once in a while she could make the men who talked with her laugh. She did not have to be afraid. Whenever she felt her old anxiety, she would simply focus on herself, on her breathing and her movement. Little bit by little bit, concentration turned to habit, and ease and grace began to feel as natural as the old fears. Little bit by little bit, the old fears broke apart and were scattered on the winds of her new life.
It was perfection. It was like nothing she’d ever dreamed of, and for once, it was all her own.