Chapter Text
The lights came up, signalling intermission. John stretched in his seat, then turned to the man on his right. “So, what do you think of the new theater so far?”
Henry, by his own admission, was not a great lover of opera. However, like most people in New York’s upper class, he attended as often as he could, if for no other reason than to be seen attending. Now he pursed his lips, looking around the room with a speculative expression. “It’s certainly new,” he finally replied. “And grand. That chandelier is something else. Hopefully the cables don’t snap under the weight of all that crystal, I’d hate to be underneath it if it fell.” He shook his head. “I don’t know that the acoustics are any better than at the Academy — they may actually be worse, but they’ve not managed to diminish Christine Nilsson’s performance, so I suppose that’s all that matters.” He turned his eyes upward. “It’s a pity we couldn’t get a box.”
John laughed at that. “A box? Why would you want a box? You won’t attend more than five shows in the season.”
Henry shrugged. “The view is better.” With a smirk he leaned it and whispered in John’s ear, his lips nearly touching the shell, “And imagine all of the things we could do if we hid in those curtains.”
Covering his surprise with a cough, John raised his eyebrows at the other man. He got a rakish, unapologetic grin for his efforts. He liked the idea, of course, although he wasn’t certain he could actually be that bold. To suggest it in public, though, even in a whisper…
Oscar would have never dared.
“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose it is a pity.” John turned his eyes to the boxes above them. They seemed fuller than they had been at the start of the night, late comers trickling in over the course of the production. He spotted Mrs. Fish, who had been absent earlier, making no doubt irreverent comments to the party in the box next to hers. John pitied them. Two boxes over were the Fanes, sharing their box with a small party. Despite himself, John frowned. He would have expected Oscar to be with them, but he was nowhere to be seen.
John started scanning the other boxes and the surrounding stalls in earnest for the familiar face. True, Oscar had just suffered a terrific financial blow, but surely he’d have purchased tickets months ago, or at least wormed his way into an invitation to a friend’s box.
“Looking for someone?”
The question brought him back to himself and he found Henry giving him a quizzical look. The lights caught in his grey eyes, causing them to pick up a blue tinge from the dress of the woman next to them. He smiled. “Simply seeing who has migrated over from the Academy. There is one face I expected to see who isn’t present.”
If Henry had any guesses as to who that missing face might belong to, he kept them to himself. Instead he looked up at the center box where Mrs. Russell sat like a queen, resplendent in her finery, next to her family and the Duke of Buckingham. “How many people do you think only came to say they saw an opera in the same theater as a duke?”
“Most of them, probably.” John was familiar enough with the whims of society that he was willing to bet that if the duke had been at the Academy, the Metropolitan’s opening night would have been dismal, Christine Nilsson be damned. He lowered his voice. “Although I just wanted the excuse for a night out with you.”
Henry smiled, the flattery clearly doing its job. “Shall we go and get some champagne?”