by Lisa Torquay
It would be another long, long night.
Next afternoon, Hester entered her father’s office, still reeling from the encounter with her former keeper the previous evening. The veritable tornado of emotions the blasted man erupted in her was beyond enduring.
“Did you want to talk to me, papa?” she asked her father as she sat.
After the play ended yesterday, she’d taken refuge in this very room, reluctant to return to her empty house and stew on the image of Drake and Lady Millicent, or how they matched in looks and rank. She’d taken her boots off as they’d seemed to be squeezing her own heart. But everything became even more muddled when he found her. The remembrance of their time together and the steamy reactions he still arose in her made it nearly impossible to say no to his biddings. The temptation to go with him shredded her to pieces. For a moment there, her body was an inch away from convincing her mind to throw caution to Hades and follow wherever he took her. She faltered when he came too close with talks of sleep and nights.
She had to fight this irrational pull. The meek mistress needed to go. Hester would strive to retrieve her life, her work, herself. It hadn’t been healthy to give it all up, allow Drake to take up all the space in her thoughts, her body, her very will-power. Rumour or not, his alleged betrothal had fairly worked as an alarm bell to her. And she’d make sure she woke up to the reality that mixed ranks invariably ended in disaster to the weaker side.
“I did,” Oliver answered. And rose his head to the door behind her. “Oh, right on time.”
She turned to see who the newcomer was and collided with brandy-eyes fast on her. “What is he doing here?” She demanded, standing abruptly.
From the top of his six-four down to his feet, he dressed a dark blue suit cut to show off his broad shoulders, massive chest and long legs. Those perfectly tailored breeches hugged the tapered waist and lean hips. In the night, he used his hips to probe her legs open to the most wicked caresses she’d ever experienced. She wondered if she might ask an apothecary for a potion that’d dull her memory and her traitorous body.
“Miss Green.” He greeted, and something in those magnificent eyes told her she was in the proverbial hot water.
Oliver also stood and bowed to the giant. “Lord Worcester approached me with a proposition.”
“Another?” She blurted unable to eliminate the sarcasm in her voice. Anything coming from him was suspicious, especially as he looked like the cat that caught the fish from the bowl.
Mr Green motioned for them to sit. The blasted man took the seat beside hers, and she had no choice but do the same. This close, the bathed scent of him laid siege to her nostrils, a note of rosemary entangled with his own like a waltz. His skin bore the fragrance of leather mixed with the wind that awoke every nerve in her body.
“Sorry, I’m late.” Her brother, Eli, came in bringing a chair for himself as the office contained only three. Eli didn’t inherit their father’s eyes, but her mother’s brown ones though the siblings shared the light brown hair. He counted three years more than her own twenty-four.
The presence of her brother indicated that money would be involved here. He took care of the finances of the theatre and proved to be very good at it. This gathering became fishier by the minute. Hester sat spine even straighter, preparing herself for what might come.
“Lord Worcester proposed to invest in our next play.” Her father began.
“But we don’t need any investment, we’re solvent.” She countered. The insufferable man was up to something.
“We are.” Eli agreed. “But an investment means better pay for the actors and the people who work with us, better costumes and more elaborate scene devices.”
Her brother didn’t need to spell it out, she had grown up in the business. “And how much are we talking about?” she asked. The man would never be poor, his estates yielded a fortune every year. He could buy ten theatres if he so wished.
Eli named the sum, and Hester almost lost her breath. It was a small fortune, enough to buy a luxurious carriage and four thoroughbreds. Her accusing glare turned to him. His sole reply was the hitching of an eyebrow, daring her to voice her misgivings.
“And his returns,” she questioned.
"One per cent over the invested amount," The marquess's tenor sounded for the first time.
“One,” she echoed as the ludicrous information hit her. It seemed nothing short of charity, he’d get nothing from it.
"But he has a few demands concerning the play," Oliver added.
Oh, now came the catch.
“You’re to have the main role as your father already stipulated.” Drake took the word. “And I am to direct it.”
This made Hester bolt from the chair as if struck by lightning. “That is outrageous!” Her father used to have that position, and he did an outstanding job of it. Their plays attracted a full house every night.
“Why?” He asked silkily, too silkily. “You’re well aware that I possess a consistent knowledge of theatre.”
He did, and it had surprised her when she first learned of it and listened to his insights. "Lords don't direct plays." She argued. "Not even as a pass-time in house-parties." That would concern women as in-house entertainment.
“You should know by now that I don’t fit the average ton’s frame.” He clasped those luminous orbs on her, almost level with her even if he remained seated.
No, in fact, he behaved rather differently, which caused his mother to go haywire with his innovative attitudes. No one had ever heard of a lord who allowed his mistress to renovate his country seat's greenhouse to her own taste, or stand by his side in a soiree full of lords and ladies mixing with artists, scientists and poets. Drake and Hester even received the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick for dinner in Hampshire soon after their wedding. Philippa had become a dear friend of Hester's.
“As an investor, he’s entitled to make a few demands.” Eli tried to placate her.
“Of course, he is.” She rebutted, “As I have the right to refuse to be in the play.” He could act the eccentric aristocrat as much as he wished. It didn’t mean she had to go along with it.
She admitted to herself she was behaving like a temperamental diva. But how would she succeed in forgetting him, moving on, coming to terms with the fact he would marry a lady of his world to produce pure-bred heirs to his old and dusty lineage? Dealing with him daily would threaten her resolve, test it to unbearable levels.
Oliver and Eli looked at her as if she’d spoken a dialect from the confines of the Empire.
“Hester…” Eli started.
“My investment will have the highest chance of paying itself off if London’s best actress is in the play.” Drake reasoned though his eyes launched vexed shards at her.
If he meant to appeal to her vanity, he should have thought better of it. Acting came naturally to her. Drury Lane considering her the best was merely the consequence of it. It didn’t inflate her simply because she didn’t possess a single vain bone in her. Peering at him, she realised he just stated a fact.
“Look.” Her father intervened. “I understand you have history, but I trust both to keep your personal life out of this.”
“It won’t be a problem for me,” Drake said, his expression daring her to run and show everyone she wasn’t a true professional.
The damned rogue!
Hester’s eyes fulminated him as though she’d burn him to cinders before she turned to Oliver. Father deserved a break to enjoy the fruits of his work. The investment came as his chance of laying back for a while. Even if he’d not own to it, traces of weariness often marred his stance. Selfishness would get her nowhere.
With a long, audible sigh, she spoke. “When do we start?”
CHAPTER THREE
“You flatter me, Your Grace." Hester knelt at the centre of the stage in the middle of scrubbing an imaginary kitchen floor, eyeing the duke pleadingly as he stood before her. The kneeling screamed at
their difference in stations. “Should you allow me a choice,” her head turned to the rows of empty chairs in the audience then back to Duff, playing the duke. “I must decline your generous offer.” The ‘duke’ gazed at her with an adoration that exceeded his role.
“The second line isn’t in the script.” Worcester cut in. He’d been sitting in the first row of chairs inspecting Hester’s every move, printed play in hand. The blasted man had instructed on starting the rehearsals the very next morning.
She'd felt like an insect in a glass jar but overcame it as she concentrated on her lines and looked at the chairs in the back to avoid his gaze. The power to blank everything out came in useful when they had a full house or royalty in attendance. Tensions rose sharply in those circumstances.
From her kneeling position, she stood up, too straight spine, while the blasted marquess climbed the wood-planked stage in large strides. He neared her, and Hester had to deal with the hot flip her stomach gave at his proximity. Dressed in grey, no coat, impeccable cravat and waistcoat, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, those thick forearms begged for her touch. They'd be hard muscle, smooth skin, the peppered hair would tease her palms as she slid them up to his bunched shoulders.
Her head bent back to meet his brandy imposing gaze. “It isn’t but it must be.” She defended. Or she could convey it without a word, with only a look or a gesture.
“Do you make it a habit to change the playwright’s work?” The heat that surfaced on her cheeks was a mixture of vexation and the horrible need to take him by the waistcoat and pull him close.
Her hands bracketed her waist as she attempted to keep in mind that this should be exclusively about work. “Not when the playwright sympathises with the fact that the scullery maid is the humblest servant at the mercy of a powerful lord.” Fortunately, the director chose Duff as the duke. Both actors had a good rapport on stage.
“That’s why he doesn’t have to give her a choice.” His baritone had lowered but acquired a steely tone.
“But the scullery maid can claim the right to choose.” Hester countered, looking him straight in the eye.
Drake braced his lean hips too, his head coming down to glare at her. “You’re saying the author wrote a flawed play.” He taunted, and Hester wondered if they were only talking about the play.
“No.” Her negative held the certainty and experience of a lifetime in the theatre. “I’m saying it’s a man’s voice disregarding the maid’s ambiguous position.” Servants held no rights. Everyone knew that a woman servant held even less, and lords regarded her duties to extend far beyond cleaning or cooking.
As a whole the play brought about the nuances of the relationship between servants and lords. But undeniably, it focused mostly on the men’s side of it. Sometimes, she wished she had the skill to write so she might include women’s voices to be heard and understood. Considering anyone would accept to put such plays that weren’t comedies like Hannah Cowley’s ones on stage. Under a man’s pen name, perhaps, as many women writers had done.
“Hester’s ability to act in empathy with her characters makes her a great actress.” Duff defended her, admiration and warmth coating his words.
Worcester cut an acid look at the actor, narrowing his eyes to a threatening point. Seconds later, he latched his scrutiny back on her as though he aimed at reading her very soul.
“And what else does he have to say about your abilities?” The blasted marquess growled, though only she heard it.
“None of your damned business!” She fired back in the same tone.
Without taking his ogle from her, he spoke again. “Mr Flynn, take a break, will you.” The arrogant command didn’t escape her ears. And caused her anger to soar together with something else which she wouldn’t acknowledge but heated her insides all the same.
The actor hesitated for a moment, but soon his footsteps touched the floorboards in distancing sounds. The hour proved too early for the others to have arrived yet. The three of them had set to begin first thing in the morning.
"You and this Flynn fellow seem very familiar with each other." Drake's inflexion came dripping in malice.
Hester tilted up her chin, her gaze launching daggers at him. “What are you suggesting?” Clearly, she had a full understanding of what he meant, but she wanted to defy him to put it into words.
“You are too comfortable with him.” At that, his gaze perused her from hair tight in a bun to simple day dress, to worn boots. “Even with kneeling before him.”
The implication hit her with the full force of her fury. The dirty-minded blackguard! “You could say that. I’m familiar with kneeling, aren't I?" She defied and watched his features escalate because she meant their unbridled intimacy.
He might have reliable insights about the metier of theatre, but he'd not lived or breathed in one. He had no clue of what actors' daily life was. Repeating a kneeling scene day after day was more likely to give her a knee pain than arouse her in any way. And in fact, it did.
For those looking from the outside, from the audience, acting may appear fun, or the actors might look like they felt the same outside the stage. Most revellers thought an actress crying for her lover on stage, had in truth had that lover—the actor in this stance—outside the stage. They confused fiction and reality.
Acting, however, comprised hard work, and deep understanding of the characters' soul and dilemma. A wide view of their environment and what the playwright intended to prove or demonstrate with the story. And, more than that, good actors translated it all in their acting and were able to make the audience feel and understand the characters’ universe. Viewers thought it simple for actors, it was overly complex, hence their prejudices with the women working on the stage. They conceived the actress, her role, and the ease with which she used her body to act as proof of her loose morals. No actress ever offered her body on stage, this fantasy lived in the audience’s head.
And in this blasted man’s mind, by the looks of it. Because her taunt must have hit its mark as his irises darkened, and she had the impression he’d come even closer to her. The way he dwarfed her always acted like a kind of salacious aphrodisiac with everything in her becoming blurry, and receptive, and avid. He did this to her even before they met, just by standing tall in his box and staring at her as though there was no one else in the theatre.
“You seemed not to mind.” He rasped in that deep tenor that invariably took her to new heights.
Mind? Her mind had nothing to do with it! She had merely to set eyes on him for the need to take over and direct her actions and her body. She could take it as a measure of how much it had absorbed her in him. And the amount of space he occupied in her thoughts, her life.
But he’d just been a powerful man full of that misconception about actresses. The wake-up alarm kicked in and turned her to ice, giving her the chance to pull her lips in a scornful half-grin. “Did you?” With which she turned the tables on him. His rugged features washed with ruddy colour at the same time his nostrils flared with an intake of air.
Quickly, though, he recovered and breathed a laugh full of hidden meaning. “You brought me to my knees if memory serves.”
At that, a lightning of a full-blown arousal took her by storm. Her core heated and melted, and yearned. And they weren’t even touching, for pity’s sake!
Their glares locked and plunged in that kind of underlying communication that required no words and no lies. Bared and raw, they had no way of hiding the true conversation taking place since they began this morning. The tension in their bodies, the eagerness of their gazes, or the gust of awareness clouding the air.
Her acting training came to her rescue though as she arched her brows. “Score set, I’d say.”
“Not as yet.” He rebutted. “You changed the scene and didn’t answer my question.”
About her and Duff, naturally. “If you think life on the stage is a mirror of the backstage, then you know absolutely nothing about me or
my world.” And she gave a step back to put distance between them before she acted on her desires.
“You may be right.” He compromised. “But I do know when another man is drooling over my woman.” Came the gruff remark.
Oh, that got her blind with rage all over again. Granted, she’d been his mistress. He’d owned the house she lived in, the clothes she dressed, her time, her body. But she ended it, put a stop to the vicious cycle of owing him her very self. She had yet to feel as free as she should though. If anything, she appeared to be caught in some invisible bondage where the treads still tied her to him. She kept looking for ways of undoing the knots, but they must have been tied by pirates or seamen because they were too complicated to untangle. But she would, of that there must be no doubt.
“You’d do well to recall I ditched the mistress arrangement.” She insisted, nonetheless. “I’m not yours and will never be.” ‘Again’, she completed in her mind.
He shrugged as though he cared not a whit. “If you say so,” but his tone dripped with that arrogance of someone who knew differently.
She decided it better to pass on answering it. Too many denials and all that. Instead, she opted to resume their purpose here. "Shall we go back to work?"
His features sobered as he nodded curtly. “I’d like you to go over the play and note down its inconsistencies. I’ll contact the author about them.”
Her eyes flew to him unable to hide her bafflement. Bottom-line, what he asked was for her to add the women’s voices to the text. Her jaw fairly fell as her gaze widened on him. “I’ll do that,” she answered before she collected her jaw and left the stage.
“It’s positively surprising that the weather helped matters, my lord.” Lady Millicent at his side on the curricle he drove commented as a means to break the silence, he reckoned.
That afternoon, he left the theatre torn between staying and being flayed alive by the impossible woman or putting as much distance between her and his uncivilised impulses. He’d chosen the latter before he gave in and proved to be the entitled aristocrat Hester believed of him. And entered home to a note from the debutante asking him if he wouldn’t be amenable to a ride in Hyde Park for their ruse’s sake. In need of fresh air and a distraction from this morning’s charged rehearsal, Drake accepted. Both sat in his vehicle while her lady’s maid walked by it as the seat accommodated only two.