Leading Lady by Jane Aiken Hodge

cigars.
    â€˜I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’ Cristabel looked exhausted, drained. ‘I’m ashamed to confess that I overslept this morning. It’s so good to see you, Max.’ She held out both hands to him. ‘Tell me I wasn’t a total disaster as Rosina.’
    â€˜Nothing of the kind.’ But it fretted him that she had used the word they had. ‘You sang it beautifully, as you must know.’
    â€˜But I don’t. I was so tired … I don’t seem to remember … I’m so glad to see you, Max. I needed to ask someone how it went, and you’re the very person.’
    â€˜The person for what?’ Desmond Fylde appeared behind her in the doorway. ‘Greetings, prince. I take it you are come to congratulate our prima donna on the way she shone in that dull piece of work.’ He was dressed, Max saw with distaste, in an elaborate velvet frogged coat that, on a woman, would have been described as a négligée. ‘We are treating you quite as an old friend, you see.’ He must have noticed Max’s look. ‘These late nights at work are hard on a young couple like us.’ He gave Cristabel a Turkish look.
    â€˜And I am sorry to disturb you so early,’ said Max, very formally, knowing it was nothing of the kind. ‘But I am on my way to Gustavsberg.’
    â€˜Ah, the wicked prince of the fairy tale. I trust you will find him suitably contrite – and adequately guarded. But, forgive me, I quite forgot that he is also your father.’ He turned to Cristabel. ‘We must offer Prince Maximilian some refreshment, my queen, if he is off on his travels already. I hope you have been able to comfort the princess, prince, in her husband’s mysterious absence. We miss him sadly here. Petticoat rule does not suit these Lissenberg boors. But, shame on us, we are quite forgetting! Your great opera,
Daughter of Odin.
Has it been greeted, in Vienna, with the acclaim I am sure it deserves?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not.’ Why was Max so sure that Fylde knew already that his opera had failed disastrously? ‘My only comfort in my failure,’ he turned to Cristabel, ‘is that you were not involved in it.’
    â€˜Oh, Max, I am sorry! But – I can’t believe it. Everyone said you were set for a great success.’
    â€˜Everyone was wrong. And, to tell you the truth, Cristabel, I don’t quite know what the trouble was – why they hated it so.’ Warmed by her sympathy, he hardly noticed that he had used her Christian name, as in the old days when they were childhood friends. But then he had called her Bella. If only Fylde would leave them, he felt sure that Cristabel, who had worked with him so long, was such an old friend, would help him to understand why he had failed so lamentably. But it was brutally evident that Fylde had no intention of leaving them. Why should he? He was Cristabel’s husband. Max rose to his feet, civilly refused the offer of refreshment and took his leave.
    â€˜Ach, the poor fellow,’ said Fylde. ‘Let’s go back to bed, my queen.’
    â€˜Frau Schmidt! It’s good to see you at last.’ Martha had been sitting alone, drafting and redrafting a reply to the Austrian demand, when the formidable old lady was announced. ‘How long have you been in Lissenberg? You should have let me know, come to the opera the other night.’
    â€˜Good of you, but I am just this moment arrived.’ Frau Schmidt was as ramrod straight as ever, not a white hair out of place. ‘I have a message for you, highness. We won’t beinterrupted?’ She took Martha’s arm and coaxed her gently towards the window, as far from the door as possible.
    â€˜Not unless it’s a matter of urgency. But – a message, Frau Schmidt? From –’ She looked at her husband’s adoptive grandmother with wild surmise.
    â€˜Yes, from Franz. He’s