“Does the crowd bother you?” she asked, hoping to deflect his concern.

“In this case, they are far enough away.  I despise being jostled between people, so I am trying to avoid spaces where people are packed close around me. Here, I’m close to the only person I want to be near.”

She bit back a grin and shook her head, recalling one of the expressions he had used when they first met. “Silver tongue,” she muttered.

“It’s gotten me this far, hasn’t it?”

At that moment, she heard several instruments playing at once, and she looked inquiringly at David, who gave her an enigmatic look and turned forward.

As the musicians began to play, Elena felt every chord resonating throughout her being, as if the tempo created by the strings was a heartbeat that ebbed and flowed through her. She had never heard anyone or anything play like this before, in perfect harmony and accordance.  It made her want to cry for the sheer beauty of it, for the soaring high notes that made her feel as she had that night with David, as if she were more attuned to the world, like she was hearing music or feeling pleasure in a new, more wondrous way. She was struck by what this form of art offered: a feeling of being alive brought on by the fleeting nature of beauty, which was sad in its brevity but joyous for having been at all. For a moment, she wished she could live like that, appreciating life in the moment, without her head and heart stuck in the past. But the past had made her, shaped her into who she was. How could she completely forget it?  Just then, the music ended, and she felt a sudden inexplicable loss, but then the red and gold curtain rose. A specular forest scene was laid before her, and she noted that Irene had not exaggerated the merits of the scenery. A man entered in an elaborate costume and began to sing. Elena was caught off guard by the beauty of his voice, and she felt tears start to well up, not quite spilling over. During the scene, in which a giant serpent appeared to attack the man, Elena was so enraptured that she did not realize that David had taken her gloved hand. She looked up and found him watching her, and she smiled, again unable to express in words everything she was feeling. 

“What are they saying?” she mouthed to him.  He leaned over so his lips were almost kissing her ear, his breath a caress, as Elena kept her eyes on the stage.

“Tamino, the prince, has just seen a portrait of the Queen of Night’s daughter and lost his heart to her. He is saying…” David paused momentarily as if he had to think it through. “This image is enchantingly lovely. Like no eye has ever beheld.  I feel it as this divine picture fills my heart with new emotion.”

Elena felt as if every inch of her exposed flesh was a canvas of sensation, the notes and his words curling softly against her bare skin. She was acutely aware of every touch, every caress of his voice against her ear. She felt her chest rise and fall as she inhaled and exhaled slowly.

He went on. “I cannot name my feeling, though I feel it burn like fire within me.” He paused again, and Elena felt her body will him to go on. “Could this feeling be love?” He waited so long that she wasn’t sure he would continue, but then she heard him go on. “Yes…yes, it is love alone.”

 The intensity of his words and the way he said them against her skin both thrilled and alarmed her. She pulled back and looked up at him, mesmerized but apprehensive of what she would see there. His eyes looked almost black in the dark, full of fire and barely repressed passion. He was staring at her lips, and she heard him draw a ragged breath. Elena was filled with an all-consuming desire to meet his lips, to give in to the passion he had stoked in her through his words and through the music. It was as if it was just the two of them, wrapped up in this moment, in the beautiful, sensual haze of this faraway forest. However, the song ended, and she was suddenly reminded that they were in a room of hundreds of other people, including the judgmental eyes of the ton.  She glanced around, which seemed to break the spell that had encompassed the two of them.  David looked back to the stage but did not release her hand.  Elena turned her attention back to the music, but despite its beauty, it did not distract her from the words she felt were now written across her skin.

While David translated a few more arias for her, he had been correct that she would understand the music without knowing the language.  As they walked out at the end of the evening, she felt as though she were floating on air.

“You see now why I was so excited?”  Irene hadn’t stopped beaming since they had left their box.

“I wish we could do that every night.” Elena linked her arm with Irene’s. “Though…I suppose if we went to the opera every night, we might not appreciate quite so much.”

“I would,” Irene insisted.

“Only you, Renie. The rest of us might grow a little weary of the same thing night after night.” David rolled his eyes indulgently at his sister, and Elena felt a pang in the region of her heart.  How she missed the teasing and comradery of her sisters.  She wished she could tell them about the opera, but she struggled to think of how to explain it. 

As they sat in the carriage, Elena did something she had never done before and set her head on her husband’s shoulder.  She did not know what moved her to do so, but after he whispered those words, she felt a new closeness to him she hadn’t felt before, as if she were compelled just to be near him, to physically touch him. Leaning further against his broad chest, she heard his heart speed up, then gradually ease back to a steady beat. That was an apt description of the man sitting next to her, steady. For all his charm and silver tongue, he was solid and real, and part of her wanted to reach out and grab onto him and never let go.  And yet, the other part of her cautioned not to grow too attached to anyone, that her life could be ripped apart again in a moment. But, oh, how she wanted to silence that side of herself as she was lulled to sleep by the steadiness of his heartbeat.