She spread her hands open, tipped her head to one side, and began the first song.
“How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandle shoon.”
To her relief, McGraw didn’t laugh, but read the next lines that belonged to Queen Gertrude, and then, further along, to King Claudius, too. As the scene continued, she forgot her first nervousness, forgot McGraw, and forgot the importance of this audition. Instead she became the pitiful Ophelia, grieving her much-loved father and scorned by the prince who had seduced and abandoned her. The further she went along, the more the old-fashioned words seemed to describe her own situation with Rivers.
“Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;
By cock, they are to blame.”
Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.”
“So would I ha’done, by younder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.”
Of course she was no noblewoman and Rivers would never have promised to marry her, but she now keenly understood the loss and betrayal that Ophelia must have felt. By the time she spoke the last lines of her scene and made her exit in a melancholy daze as the part required, she felt both drained and overwhelmed. With a shudder of emotion, she closed her eyes for a long moment to recover, and then turned back toward the two men who were her audience.
Without thinking she sought Rivers’s reaction first. She hoped for a nod or a smile of approval, the judgment she’d come to expect. The smile was there, but in his eyes she saw her own emotions reflected: pain, loss, confusion, and love.
Love.
“Mrs. Willow, you were marvelous,” McGraw was saying, the sharp crack of his applause enough to make Lucia finally look away from Rivers. “If you can repeat that on my stage, I shall have crowds weeping in the stalls.”
His praise was far more than she’d dared hope for, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks with amazement.
“Thank—thank you, Mr. McGraw,” she stammered, crossing the room to join the men. “That is, I am most grateful for this opportunity.”
“Nonsense,” the manager said, tucking his playbook back into one pocket of his coat, and pulling a well-thumbed almanac from another. “It’s I who must be grateful to his lordship for recommending you to me. I’ll admit that I was skeptical, my lord, but this lady has made fools of all my doubts.”
“I did not exaggerate,” Rivers said, his gaze not leaving Lucia. “Mrs. Willow’s gifts are worthy of the highest of praise.”
“That they are,” McGraw said absently, flipping through the pages of his almanac. “I do not ordinarily approve a full staging of a play for a single-night benefit, but under the circumstances, I will have the costumes and scenes from our last Hamlet brought from storage. Mr. Lambert will be your Danish prince; he could speak the role in his sleep. Will Thursday next be an agreeable date to you, my lord?”
Lucia gasped. Next Thursday seemed so soon.
“Thursday next,” Rivers repeated, the earlier edge that had been in his voice gone, and replaced by his usual well-bred reserve. “That’s six days from today.”
“It is, my lord,” McGraw said, frowning down at the almanac. “Thursday evening for the benefit, with rehearsals on Tuesday and Wednesday. In your letter you had mentioned that you wished the performance to take place before the end of the month.”
Of course Rivers had wanted the benefit then, for the sake of the wager. However could she have forgotten the purpose behind all of this? But in six days, he’d no longer have a reason to be with her. Everything would be done, finished, exactly as they’d both agreed from the beginning.
“Thank you, Mr. McGraw,” Rivers said evenly. “If the date is acceptable to Mrs. Willow, then we shall agree upon Thursday.”
“It is acceptable,” Lucia said, for what else could she say?
“Excellent.” McGraw made a final note in the almanac, then tucked it away. “I shall send word of the details to you when I return to London, which I fear I must do directly. My lord, I remain your servant. Mrs. Willow, it has been my pleasure.”
He bowed his way from the room, and the footman closed the door gently after him, leaving Lucia and Rivers alone with the sound of the rain and the awkwardness of the silence yawning between them.
She hadn’t seen this room before. It was chilly, even in June, and forbiddingly filled with the dead, preserved trophies of long-ago hunts and long-ago Fitzroys, too. Unlike the rest of the Lodge, there didn’t seem to be so much as a trace of Rivers in this room—except, of course, he himself, standing there before her. He was impeccably dressed in subdued clothes fit for the country, the model of an English nobleman, and yet she was far more conscious of what simmered beneath all that expensive elegance. He stood coiled and tense, his shoulders bunched beneath the tailoring and his jaw tight.
Now it wasn’t the furious possessiveness that he’d shown toward McGraw that had him on edge, but the same wariness she herself was feeling. Uncertainty did that. She didn’t know if he was considering sending her back to London today, or tumbling her here on the carpet. Neither would surprise her.
Yet still she stood before him, letting him break the silence first.
At last he cleared his throat. “You were magnificent, Lucia,” he said. “No, you are magnificent.”
Her smile blossomed with relief. At least for now he seemed willing to move beyond their uneasy parting earlier this morning. “Truly?”
“You were, without question or doubt,” he said. “Now all your talent and hard work will most certainly be rewarded.”
“Truly?” she said again, wincing inwardly at her repetition. She’d imagined this moment as being filled with wild elation and joy, and yet because of the awkwardness hovering between them, it didn’t feel that way at all. “That is, I hope Mr. McGraw will continue to be pleased with me after the benefit.”
“He will,” Rivers predicted. “You have captured him, and you’d have to be very bad indeed for him to turn against you now. I would not be surprised if he offered you a more lasting place in the company.”
“That is my dream, isn’t it?” Her smile faded and turned bittersweet. That had been her dream—to become a primary actress on the London stage, applauded by all, celebrated and independent—but much of the luster of it had dulled because going to London in a handful of days meant the end of her idyll here at the Lodge with Rivers. She knew from the beginning that this day would come, knew she shouldn’t mourn over it, yet here she was, granted the one thing she’d claimed she desired most and unable to take any joy in her achievement.
“Lucia, what is wrong?” Rivers said when she didn’t continue. “Tell me.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” she answered automatically. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie,” he said, then sighed, raking his fingers back through his hair. “Please. When I listened to you just now I felt as if you were not reciting lines, but speaking directly to me. Your sorrow, your grief, your loss—have I done that to you?”
She shook her head, startled. How could he have guessed what she’d been thinking? What had she done to betray her thoughts so easily?
“It was the play,” she said quickly. Her aristocratic accent slipped away with her uneasiness, and she paused to recover it. “My lines. That was Ophelia speaking to you, not me.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he insisted, “because I saw the same look in your eyes this morning before you spoke a word, and earlier, when you left me on the roof.”
“I am concerned about the rehearsals,” she said, avoiding the truth. “Working with the other actors and actresses on a true stage as their equal. What if they resent me? What if they believe I’ve no place among them?”
“The only complaint they shall have of you is that the audience will see only your glory, and be blind to their pitiful efforts.” He was trying too hard,
his manner forced. “You’ll see, Lucia. After next week, the world shall be your oyster, to open as you please.”
She shook her head, not so much denying the compliment as being unable to trust it. She wished he wouldn’t speak of next week. Of course she was excited about the rehearsals and the benefit, but at the same time she didn’t want to think of how swiftly her time with Rivers was coming to an end. The more he spoke of London, the more she couldn’t help but think he was eager to leave the Lodge, and be done with her as well.
It was painful for her even to look at him now, and she shifted her gaze away from him, up to the glass-eyed buck’s head looming overhead.
He sighed again, his frustration clearly growing. “Don’t retreat from me, Lucia. What have I done to upset you? What have I said? What can I do to make things right?”
Hastily she looked down at her clasped hands, hiding the eyes that had betrayed her.
“You’ve done so much for me already,” she said. “My training, this audition, the benefit next week. I owe you everything, and have no right to expect more.”
“There’s nothing owed,” he said firmly. “Nothing. It’s all been given to you freely, with no obligations. I’d give you so much more if only you’d let me.”
Silently she shook her head, too aware of how every last thread and stitch on her body had been his gift. She’d already resolved that, if Mr. McGraw did offer her a place, that she’d put every farthing toward paying Rivers back. She had to do it. She could never have what she truly wished from him, which was to be with him always. She’d known that from the beginning, and there was no point in arguing over things that could not be changed. She knew, too, what he was offering her now: more clothes, jewels, perhaps even a house and a carriage, the gifts men like him lavished on women like her in exchange for warming their beds.
She wanted none of it.
“No more, Rivers,” she said, unable to keep the sadness from her voice. “You’ve been more than generous to me this last month, but I can’t accept anything else.”
“You’ve only to say what you want, Lucia,” he said slowly, as if that alone could change her mind, “and it will be yours.”
“I told you, Rivers,” she said. “No more things.”
He frowned, clearly not understanding. “My love isn’t a thing.”
She hadn’t expected that, and it made her catch her breath. It was so easy for him to make statements like that, devastatingly lovely statements, as if they truly had a future to share. How could he know how they tore at her heart?
He took a step toward her, his hand outstretched as if she were a wild animal to be coaxed. “I promise you, Lucia, once we’re in London—”
“I beg you, Rivers, do not speak of London!” she cried unhappily. “Whatever became of us living minute by minute and day by day, instead of making endless, empty plans for the future?”
He let his hand drop. “I have not forgotten,” he said. “What fate and the stars decree, yes?”
She nodded, short, quick jerks of her chin. “It’s what makes us who we are, not what we might become, with no guarantees of certainty.”
“Very well,” he said slowly. “If that is what you desire, then I’ll do my best to oblige.”
He called for the footman. “Grant, have the carriage readied, and have Mrs. Willow’s maidservant bring her a cloak against the weather.”
“Where am I going?” No matter how brave she tried to be, her voice rose with trepidation, and she hurried toward him with her hands pressed together. “Rivers? Are you sending me away?”
He raised his brows with disbelief. “Why in blazes should I do that?”
“Because—because you have tired of me,” she said, faltering before the truth. “Because you wish me returned to London. Because—”
“Hush,” he said softly, taking her by the arm and drawing her close. “I wish no such thing. I’m taking you with me, not sending you away.”
She settled close to his chest, comforted by the rightness of it. They had been apart for less than three hours, and yet it had felt like an eternity. “We’re not going to London?”
“Not at all,” he said, curling his arm around her waist. “You want my trust. I’ll give it to you now, in this minute. We’re going to my father’s house. I’m taking you to Breconridge Hall.”
It had come to Rivers suddenly, this notion of taking Lucia to see Breconridge Hall, and following her plea, he’d acted on it suddenly as well, making the impulsive decision to bring her to the house where he’d spent most of his time as a boy. Impulse or not, he’d time to reflect on the short drive, sitting with Lucia close and snug beneath his arm and the last of the rain splattering on the carriage’s roof.
Even that wasn’t enough to reassure him. If only he’d taken another moment to consider, he would never have suggested such harebrained foolishness. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of the Hall, which was generally regarded as one of the most beautiful and impressive private houses in the country. The Hall had been the center of his childhood, the destination of school holidays when he’d been an adolescent, and remained the heart of his family’s major celebrations. It was the gilded, luxurious symbol of the power and good fortune of generations of Fitzroys, which was much of the reason that he’d decided to take Lucia there. How could he not be proud of it? Even His Majesty had admitted a twinge of envy when he’d visited.
And it certainly wasn’t that he was ashamed of Lucia. He would be proud to have her on his arm anywhere, and after her performance today and the grace and presence she’d shown, he doubted that anyone would question her right to be a guest of the Duke of Breconridge.
Nor could he be ashamed of his own family, who were, as families went, quite presentable and good-natured. Unlike most noble families, they harbored no feuds, dark secrets, or regrettable choices in their midst. His father was publicly proud of his three sons, and Rivers counted his two older brothers as his closest friends.
No, his unsettled feelings regarding Breconridge Hall were more complicated than that, and all of his own doing. He had the Lodge and the house in Cavendish Square for his own, and thanks to his mother’s family, a handsome income. He was free to do what he wanted, when he wanted, without any obligations. His life was exactly as he ordered it, and most men would eagerly trade places with him.
But the inescapable fact of his existence was that he was a third son: necessary, but ultimately extraneous. From birth he’d known he was the third son, and the likelihood of him ever becoming the next Duke of Breconridge was remote. He wouldn’t wish it otherwise, of course, because the cost would have been the deaths of his father and his brothers. But Breconridge Hall was the glittering, golden prize for every generation’s duke. It would never belong to Rivers or his sons, and as welcome as they’d be to visit, it would never truly be their home, either.
It was no wonder, really, that he couldn’t begin to explain this incoherent jumble of loyalties to Lucia, especially since he couldn’t really sort it out to his satisfaction within his own head. Thus he did what he’d always done when confronted with similar puzzles: he turned pedantic and tedious.
“There was an old manor house on the site when the land was initially granted to the first duke a hundred years ago or so,” he said, talking not so much to Lucia, who was still curled against him, but intoning to the air over her head. “Most of that was torn down in the 1690s when William Talman designed the south façade, with interiors overseen by Nicholas Hawkesmoor. Talman is not well-known today, but he was a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, and his sense of proportion carried the master’s gravity, evident in the Palladian influences of the window bays.”
“Rivers,” Lucia said. “Please.”
“Please?” he repeated, though he could guess what she meant.
“I mean, please don’t,” she said softly, twisting about to face him. Her maid had brought her a short blue cape embroidered with silver flowers, and though it had covered her from the raindrops as she’d ste
pped into the carriage, the front kept parting as she moved, granting him tantalizing glimpses of her pale skin beneath. “You only become a schoolmaster like this when you’re uneasy, and you needn’t be with me.”
He frowned, knowing she was right but not quite ready to admit it. “I am not being a schoolmaster.”
“If any mere schoolmaster spoke of such lofty things as proportion and window bays, then yes, you are,” she said. She ran her fingers lightly across the breast of his coat as if to smooth away any harshness from her criticism. “I am certain that these gentlemen you mention were most esteemed in their time, but I care far more about what the house means to you than to them.”
He sighed, striving to think of things to tell her. “It was my home when I was a child,” he said. “My mother believed that children should be raised in the country, not in London. While my parents remained in town, my brothers and I were kept here with a phalanx of nursery maids, governors, and tutors attempting to mold us into proper young gentlemen.”
“That must have made for an enjoyable childhood,” she said, and he didn’t miss the wistfulness in her voice. Compared to her first years, his own had been positively idyllic.
“It was,” he admitted. “My brothers and I were—are—close. Being older, they led the way in the mischief, and I happily followed. There was much potential for mayhem for three boys in a house of that size.”
“That is what I wish to hear,” she said, and for the first time that day she smiled with the eagerness that he loved so well. “Master Hawkesworth is well enough—”
A Reckless Desire Page 23