Page 107 of How to Tame a Dissolute Prince
And unfortunately, at that moment, the strains of the final aria fromLa sonnambulapierced the vexed silence that had fallen. Brandon winced, quite having forgotten that the famed soprano, Madame Auclair, had accompanied him home the previous evening. Any hopes he’d harbored of bedding her had died when she had begun to snore on the short carriage ride, the chanteuse having apparently consumed far more champagne than he had realized. He had seen her to a guest chamber.
Grandmother’s eyebrows rose. “What is thatsound?”
Dear God. What was Marie doing? The singing—whilst beautiful—was growing nearer. Where was Shilling, damn it? He relied on his butler to save him from such unfortunate circumstances.
Brandon tugged at his necktie. “Ah, opera, I believe.”
“Ah! non credea mirarti,”Marie sang.
The horror etched on his grandmother’s face would have been comical had the situation not been so disastrous. “There is anopera singerin your house?”
She may as well have said there was a rat in his house, so thorough was her disgust.
“Perhaps,” he offered noncommittally just as the drawing room door burst open.
“Sì presto estinto, o fiore.”
Marie was wearing one of his dressing gowns, her long, dark hair flowing in waves down her back. Judging by the swaying of her full breasts and her bare feet and ankles, it would appear she was completely nude beneath it. Her voice warbled at the sight that presented her—an august white-haired woman and Brandon fully dressed, a tea service between them—and then her song died entirely.
“Forgive me,” she said in heavily accented English. “I didn’t realize you had a guest.”
Grandmother’s tea fell to the floor, the delicate porcelain breaking into shards.
