Hope Tarr - [Men of the Roxbury House 02]

by Enslaved

  Letting someone tame you and keep you safe and warm—in the end, there was a heavy price to be paid.

  Gavin left her late that morning with a languorous kiss and the promise to do his utmost to hasten home for supper before she had to leave for her first rehearsal. Alone once more, Daisy’s first clue something was different, something was wrong, came when upon rising she found herself putting off her bath because bathing meant washing away Gavin’s scent. Ordinarily after a night of sweaty, acrobatic sex, she couldn’t wait to wash. Even after emerging from the copper-lined tub, she kept coming back to the bed, snatching up swatches of the tumbled sheets and rubbing them against her cheek, inhaling deeply, closing her eyes and reliving every moment of their beautiful night together—how right he smelled, how wonderfully good he tasted.

  Pathetic, Daisy, well and truly pathetic.

  And yet she couldn’t help feeling that more so than any bath making love with Gavin had somehow washed her clean.

  Like the flames of the Great Fire which once had devoured the capital city in four days and three nights, rumor soon spread throughout the London clubs, soirees, and sundry ladies “at-homes” that Gavin Carmichael, heretofore respectable barrister, heir to the St. John legacy, and frustratingly elusive bachelor, had taken an actress into keeping—and not any actress but the scandalous Parisian showgirl, Delilah du Lac. Gavin wasn’t oblivious to the rumor, nor did he have to puzzle over its source. Since encountering her at the Claridge Hotel, Isabel Duncan obviously had been brisk and busy spreading her venom. It occasioned him no great surprise when later that week his grandfather stormed inside his dining room while he was sitting down to breakfast.

  Ignoring him, St. John barked, “What the devil do you think you’re about?”

  Gavin set down his cutlery on the edge of his plate and replied, “At present I’m about breakfast. Would you care to join me?”

  He counted himself fortunate Daisy hadn’t yet come downstairs. Given the hours she kept, she likely wouldn’t be up and about for another hour or more. He gestured to an empty chair. “Won’t you sit down and have some breakfast?”

  “Dash it, boy, don’t play games with me. You know full well what I mean. By now, anyone in London who isn’t wholly deaf, dumb, and blind knows you’ve taken an actress into keeping.”

  Rather than deny it, Gavin said, “Miss Lake is an old friend. We spent more than a year together at Roxbury—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to mention the name of that infernal place in my presence?”

  Gavin promised himself that this time he would remain calm and collected, treat the present situation as if it were a legal case and his grandfather the opposing counsel. Yet the old man possessed a canny knack for penetrating his armor to get at his most vulnerable places—and then twisting the knife for good measure.

  He shot up from his seat. “Bloody fortunate for me a certain gentleman named William Gladstone bore me to that infernal place; otherwise I might be dead ere now or worse, one of those poor charity wretches who live one misstep away from the gallows.”

  The black scowl riding Maximilian St. John’s brow had terrified Gavin as a boy, but now the primary response it prompted was a deep-seated dislike. “Had your mother been a dutiful daughter and married where she should have, you would have been born in comfort and safety.”

  Comfort and safety—Daisy’s coming back into his life had shown him how very much more there was to feel from life than that. “My mother married for love as I shall. For love, grandfather, or not at all.”

  “And I suppose you fancy yourself in love with this … this actress?“ Actress, the old man all but spat out the word.

  This time Gavin had the prudence not to answer, only met the question with silence and a straight on stare. Daisy was adamant that a proper future together was out of the question but were she to change her mind, might he consider marrying her after all? Until now, he’d relegated the prospect of any permanence between them to the realm of fantasy but, if given the opportunity to have more with her, would he find the courage to take it?

  His silence seemed to siphon most of the energy from his grandfather’s tirade. Gaze going to the door, he shook his head. “Young men will sow their wild oats and if you fancy doing so in your bachelorhood, I suppose I can’t fault you for it overmuch. Truth be told, when I first heard the news, I was half relieved to find you were human after all. Keep your doxy so long as she amuses you, but for your family’s sake as well as your own, leave off parading her about in public.”

  “Miss Lake isn’t my doxy, and I resent you speaking of her as such.”

  His grandfather lifted one salt-and-pepper brow. “If not your mistress, then what precisely is the gal to you?”

  What was Daisy to him? A lover who swore she would not fall in love with him? A childhood friend who guarded her secrets with the same ferocity with which a society mama guarded her debutante daughter’s maidenhead? A protégée who more often than not was more teacher than pupil? How he missed those bygone days when she trusted him so completely she hadn’t thought twice before pouring out all the sad little secrets stored in her soul. He’d been her friend, her confidant, and her hero back then. They’d been too young to think of physical love at the time, but had they stayed on at Roxbury House rather than her whisked away to France and him shipped off to boarding school, he’d no doubt they would have become lovers in time.

  “I’ve answered that already. She’s a friend, a very dear friend.”

  “Friend, you say.” His grandfather lifted a brow. “Well, well, my boy, that’s not what we called ‘em in my day, but I suppose it will serve.”

  Apparently Isabel Duncan’s mischief making wasn’t limited to gossip mongering.

  Daisy received the summons from the London Vigilance Committee as one might receive a royal command. She was to report to the Committee’s board the next day at five o’clock in the evening. The hearing would be held in the Great Room at Caxton Hall in Westminster. The charge: that her prior music hall performances contained “lewd and lascivious acts” which threatened the public morality and therefore made her unfit to be a player in the company of a theater that had once held the royal patent for producing “legitimate drama” in London.

  The plaintiff was none other than Isabel Duncan.

  Daisy received the missive while in rehearsal at Drury Lane. She lost no time in seeking out Sir Augustus. She found him in the manager’s office pouring over the accounts ledger. He looked up, smiling when she entered. “Why, Daisy, this is a pleasant surprise.”

  “Not so pleasant for me.” She handed him the summons so he could read it himself.

  Looking up, his face was nearly as pale as the vellum sheet. “Dear God, what next?”

  Taking it back from him, she asked, “What does this mean? Surely any ruling by this so-called Vigilance Committee isn’t enforceable? Why waste time answering to a great lot of hypocrites? I’ve a mind to simply ignore it.”

  Grim-faced, the theater manager shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, m’dear. If you ignore them, they will organize a boycott of the play. Your career will be over before it has begun and the play will be called upon to close. No, you must answer the summons and find a way to ensure you’re exonerated of the charge. Perhaps you could speak to that clever barrister chap, Mr. Carmichael, and see what he recommends? I don’t like to think of replacing you but for the good of the theater, if I must, I must.”

  Daisy entered the assembly rooms at Caxton Hall, Gavin by her side. Combing through the crowd, which must number several hundred, she wasn’t really surprised to see Isabel Duncan sitting front and center of the packed auditorium. Isabel sent a smirk her way and then settled back in her seat.

  Gavin squeezed her hand. “Don’t let her rattle you.”

  “How can I help it? I feel as though she has not only my career but the fate of Drury Lane in her palm.”

  The seven-member committee of men and women sat ab
out a square table except for the chairman who stood behind the podium, gavel at the ready. He called out, “Miss Daisy Lake, approach the platform, if you please.”

  Daisy leaned into Gavin and whispered, “Wish me luck.”

  “Just remember, you’re not alone. I’m here.”

  She sent him a grateful smile. “Thank you.” Leaving him to take his seat, she walked down the aisle of chairs and mounted the platform steps.

  “For the record, please confirm that you are Daisy Lake also known as Delilah du Lac.”

  “Yes, I am she.” She carried herself with great dignity, Gavin thought.

  Balding and sour-faced, the chairman lost no time in calling the session to order. “The character of Dame Twankey was part of the variety show performance at The Palace, was it not?”

  Wondering what a female impersonator’s comic bit had to do with her, Daisy nodded. “Yes, that is true.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that the actor, or rather impersonator, who fills that role is homosexual?”

  Daisy took a deep breath. How different London was from Paris where acceptance of a spectrum of sexual preferences and lifestyles was widespread. She thought for a moment and then answered, “As You Like It, much admired among Shakespeare’s comedies, has the heroine, Rosalind, dressed in drag for most of the play. She even takes Ganymede as her alias, a veiled reference to a gelded horse or castrated young man. In Shakespeare’s time, as I’m sure you know, women were prohibited from acting onstage. Rosalind would have been played by a young man affecting to be a young woman disguised as a young man. Is that truly so different from the present day pantomime dames?”

  Good show, Daisy. Sitting out in the audience, Gavin felt his chest swell with pride.

  The chairman moved on to the next question. “Miss Lake, in your previous variety hall act, you took Delilah du Lac as your stage name.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Doesn’t the name Delilah, the Biblical temptress who brings Samson to ruin, strike you as an overly suggestive name to take for the stage?”

  Daisy appeared to give the question serious thought. Tapping a finger against the side of her cheek as she had when Gavin had first seen her onstage at the supper club, it was obvious to him she was playing to the crowd. “I suppose I wanted to suggest that people should have a good time.”

  Titters traveled through the hall. Gavin tensed. Have a care, Daisy.

  Several more questions were asked and each time Daisy answered with wit, aplomb, and honesty. Gavin had never been more proud of anyone in his life. To answer the charge of whether her act qualified as “lewd and lascivious” she was asked to sing a song from her supper club repertoire. Remembering the seductive heat of that performance, Gavin held his breath. Even dressed demurely, he didn’t see how she could possibly carry it off.

  “I should like to sing two songs, actually.” There was a piano onstage. Facing out to the audience, she asked, “Does anyone here play?”

  When no hands went up, Gavin reluctantly raised his. “I play a little.”

  Smiling, she beckoned him up onstage, putting him in mind of that first night at The Palace. What a long time ago that seemed.

  Opening the portfolio she’d brought along, she handed him the sheet music. “This one first,” she said, pointing to the score for a naughty number, “A Little of What You Fancy.”

  “Are you certain?” he asked.

  She nodded. Flipping through, she marked her second selection. “Play this one last.” It was the imminently respectable drawing room ballad, “Come into the Garden, Maud.”

  Hoping she had a method to her apparent madness, Gavin took the sheet music and slipped behind the piano. Taking a deep breath, he began to play the raunchy burlesque number she selected.

  She sang the racy song standing wooden as a statue and with a perfectly straight face. Afterward, she sang the ballad in such a seductive manner that, glancing out onto the audience, Gavin saw several men pull out handkerchiefs and mop their dripping brows.

  The staid audience exploded in a fit of clapping. Smiling, Daisy dipped into a curtsy.

  “You’ve made your point, Miss Lake.” The chairman knocked his gavel, calling for order. “The complaint against Miss Daisy Lake is hereby dismissed.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “O, thou didst then ne’er love so heartily!

  If thou remember’st not the slightest folly

  That ever love did make thee run into,

  Thou hast not loved …”

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Silvius,

  As You Like It

  Week Three:

  With the Vigilance Committee business behind them, Gavin felt in a celebratory mood. His flat lay within walking distance of his office at the Inns of Court. When his client’s trial was canceled at the last minute, he set his course for home, hoping he’d find a certain cinnamon-haired actress indoors. He didn’t think Daisy had a rehearsal today. Even better it was Wednesday, the day Jamison took the train to Richmond to visit his ailing mother. He and Daisy would have the flat to themselves. They needn’t confine themselves to the bedchambers but could make love in any room they pleased. The circumstances were perfectly aligned for a rainy afternoon spent in the most pleasant of ways. Only a fool would pass up such an opportunity.

  That wasn’t to say he didn’t have stacks of legal briefs, depositions, and sundry client files gathering dust on his desk, for certainly he did. No matter how many hours he put in, there seemed to be an endless stream of lost souls in need of defending. But since Daisy’s reentry into his life, work no longer occupied the epicenter of his universe. He was coming to suspect he used reading the law as a means for avoiding living altogether.

  But such weighty introspections were best kept for another time and place, not when any minute now he would have a warm, willing woman in his arms. He entered the flat, stopping only long enough to shake out his umbrella and set his briefcase down inside the door. “Daisy, darling, I’m home.”

  He stripped off his soaked outer coat and tossed it over the back of a chair, too impatient to bother with hanging it up. When she still hadn’t emerged to greet him, he went room to room calling her name. The last room he came to was hers. She still kept actor’s hours, which meant she liked to stay up well into the night and then sleep well into the morning. On those days when a session with her acting coach or some other commitment forced her to rise early with the rest of the workaday world, she sometimes took a rest in the afternoon. Wondering if she might be napping now, imagining the myriad ways he might go about waking her, he felt himself growing hard. He gave the perfunctory knock and when she didn’t answer went inside anyway.

  The room, including the unmade bed, was empty, leaving him to face the fact that fortune had not favored him as he’d hoped. It was a rare day he could break away and come home and the one time he had she’d gone out on some errand or appointment. Ah, well, that was life. A brisk walk back in the chilling drizzle would take care of the desire weighing between his legs, at least for the time being. Though he missed out on “lunch,” there was always supper to which he might look forward, or rather the interval afterward. On second thought, hang supper. Who needed beefsteak and jacket potatoes when one could dine on ambrosia of sweet lips and silken skin?

  Wondering if a perpetual state of lust wasn’t bringing his brain to a state of mushy rot, he turned to go. He hesitated at the door, oddly unwilling to leave just yet. She’d occupied the room only a few weeks, and yet its four walls bore the indelible imprint of her presence as if she’d been its inmate for a year or more. Breathing in her scent, he found himself loath to leave. He must be far gone in love indeed for he found himself roaming the room, touching the things she recently touched—her pillow, which still bore the imprint of her head, the chased silver hand mirror and brush on her dresser, the latter’s bristles threaded with a few cinnamon-colored strands of her hair, a dog-eared copy of As You Like It with her notes to herself scribbled in the margi
ns. Wondering how she was coming along, he reached down to pick up the play when his gaze alighted on a folded sheet of cream-colored vellum covered with what looked to be the beginnings of a letter. He spotted the Paris direction and his heart fell.

  A few weeks before he would have found the strength to let the thing lie where it was and leave the room. But that was before. Having Daisy in his life had taught him how susceptible he was to temptation in all its many forms. He picked up the letter and sat down with it on the edge of the bed.

  My dearest darling Freddie,

  London is a large, crowded city like Paris and yet so very unlike Paris I would risk running out of ink and paper if I attempted to write down all the many differences. People behave very properly here and even the nicer ones are more than a bit stiff. God willing, you will see it for yourself soon enough. In the meantime, my heart yearns to hear news of you. I want to know every thing you’ve been thinking and doing since I left you. The other day I counted and realized more than a month had passed since I last held you in my arms, and yet it feels like a year.

  The letter, or at least what was so far written of it, ended there. Still it was enough to tell him that whoever Freddie was, he held Daisy’s heart in the palm of his hand. Balling the missive into a tight fist, Gavin cursed himself for a fool. He’d been going about with his head in the clouds as if he were the love struck swain, Silvius, in that damned Shakespearean play Daisy was studying, and yet by her own admission she’d been counting the days until she could be with her Freddie again—and free of him. Should he really be surprised? Reviewing her recent behavior, not only the things she’d said and done but more importantly those she hadn’t, he decided not. She as good as admitted the rumors about her didn’t lie, that she’d been with men in France and not only a few. Not once had she made him so much as a single promise. Far from it, she was the one who insisted on limiting the terms of their living arrangement to one month in the first place. Now he knew why. Her lover was coming from Paris to join her and once their reunion was a fait accompli, she would have no more need of him. She would walk out of his life with nary a backward glance.