“It’s odd how differently we see the situation.” He paused, his gaze skimming over her, a long, slow perusal that seemed to burn right through her clothes and made her want to bolt for the door. “You might be right about when you were living in Paris, since I was in London and traveling back and forth to see you whenever I could, which wasn’t nearly often enough. But here in London, it was different. Here, you and I spent a great deal of time together. That was why I brought you here.”
“Yes, and there we were, meeting in secret in an illicit affair, with your having to sneak in and out of that little house in St. John’s Wood.” As she spoke of their arrangement, she tried to sound dismissive, but with his heated gaze roaming over her, her words came out in a breathless rush. Mortified, afraid he might guess what she was feeling, she forced a little laugh, hoping to make light of it all. “We were trying so hard to be discreet. I can’t think why we bothered since everyone in society already knew all about us.”
“And you say we’ve spent no time together? We spent nearly every afternoon in that house, Lola.” He stirred, moving a bit closer. “Alone, together.”
“Yes, but . . .” She paused, her face growing hot, but it wasn’t the close, stuffy confines of the storage room that made her feel as if she were melting into a puddle. It was his heated, knowing gaze. “If you’ll recall, we didn’t spend much of our time there engaged in conversation.”
He gave a caustic chuckle, acknowledging the truth of that. “No,” he murmured, his gaze pausing at her mouth, his amusement fading. “I suppose not.”
The gong sounded, indicating that intermission was nearly over, but neither of them moved.
Their gaze met, and locked, and suddenly, the past six years seemed to vanish as if they’d never existed, and the erotic summer afternoons they’d spent together were as vivid in her mind as they’d ever been.
He was standing a foot away, not touching her at all, and yet, in her imagination she could feel his hands on her, untying laces and unfastening buttons, gliding down her bare arms and over her hips, pulling her closer. She could feel his arms, wrapping around her and holding her fast. She could taste his mouth, opening over hers, arousing her.
Lola jerked back, flattening her back against the door, fighting desires that were supposed to be long gone, desires that had almost been the ruin of both of them.
But here, now, with him standing right in front of her and all the raw passion of the old days suddenly in his eyes, those desires seemed impossible to suppress. She did it, though, by using other, more ruthless memories, memories of what their affair had cost them both and the wreckage it had wrought. Her dreams and his finances in ruins, her heart and his pride in pieces, her self-respect shredded, and his, too. And all for what?
He eased closer. “Lola,” he began, but she interrupted, for she knew whatever he’d been about to say wouldn’t be good for either of them.
“We’d better go back, or our companions will think we’ve vanished off the face of the earth. And God knows what people will say if they notice we’ve both been missing during the entire intermission.”
Her words seemed like the fall of a stage curtain. The desire in his face vanished, and yet, she knew it was still there, concealed by the polite demeanor of a gentleman.
“It’s probably too late to worry about that,” he said, sounding resigned to the fact. “I have no doubt our mutual absence has already been noted, and stories about us are probably being invented as we speak. It’s my fault,” he added. “I cornered you back here. I wasn’t . . . thinking.”
“Don’t apologize, not on my account. My reputation’s long gone, so gossip about us wouldn’t affect me. It’s different for you.” She hesitated a moment, wavering, then she said, “You should tell Lady Georgiana about this conversation before she hears gossip about our mutual absence from others. If you care how she feels, and what she thinks of you, and if you . . . if you . . .” Her voice failed suddenly, but she took a breath and forced herself to say the rest. “If you intend to marry her, you don’t want her hearing malicious rumors about us and thinking the worst. Ours is a business partnership and nothing more. Make sure she understands that.”
As she spoke, Lola felt leaden. Doing the right thing was supposed to make one feel good, wasn’t it? So why did she feel so awful?
Desperate to leave and end this conversation, she turned her back. “As for Mr. Dawson,” she added over her shoulder as she reached for the door handle, “you’re quite right that it’s inappropriate. I won’t see him again.”
An easy promise to keep, she knew. With her body on fire because of Denys, any notions of another man’s easy, friendly companionship had already burned to dust and ashes.
She opened the door, but Denys’s voice stopped her before she could get away.
“You’re wrong, you know.”
She stilled, her fingers on the handle. “About what?”
“I did love you.”
Her heart twisted in her chest, joy and pain and overwhelming sorrow. She squeezed her eyes shut. A sob rose in her throat, but she caught it back before he could hear it, thinking of the girl who’d taken off her dresses and pranced around in a corset and netted stockings for the men in a Brooklyn saloon. In Paris, she’d actually worn a dress, and the men had been wealthier, and the drinks wine and absinthe instead of Irish whiskey and rye, and all the songs sung in French instead of English, but the woman had been the same: a bold-as-brass femme fatale with a kissable pout, a sultry voice, and great legs, who tucked money into her garter with a wink and a smile. Denys believed what he said, she knew, and yet, she also knew he believed in a lie. Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him over her shoulder
“What you loved was the illusion of me, an illusion I invented years before I ever met you. The real me, however, is someone you don’t know at all. Hell, Denys,” she added with a brittle laugh as she opened the door and walked out, “you don’t even know my name.”
Chapter 14
In the days that followed, Lola spent a great deal of time reflecting on her conversation with Denys at the opera, but no matter how many times she considered it, she still couldn’t fathom her own sudden burst of frankness. In returning to London, she’d known she would have to explain to Denys why she’d left, but she certainly hadn’t intended to tell him anything about the life she’d had before they met.
You don’t even know my name.
What on earth had impelled her to point that out? Doing so had probably piqued his curiosity, and she feared she may have kicked over a hornet’s nest. Now, he’d keep asking questions, delving into her background, perhaps discovering the girl underneath Lola Valentine’s bold and brassy façade. Lola didn’t want him to find that girl. In fact, there were times when she didn’t even want to remember that that girl had existed.
During the next few days, she spent a lot of time wishing she’d just kept her mouth shut, and it was a good thing her first rehearsal came on Monday, for it provided an excellent distraction. Even if she did have to put up with Arabella Danvers.
“Really, Jacob, is it necessary for Miss Valentine to be quite so zealous in her reading?”
The actress’s voice from the other side of the table yet again overrode Lola’s reading of her part, and she stopped, managing to stifle an exasperated sigh as she lowered the script in her hands.
“I appreciate that in light of past events, Miss Valentine wants to offer us some reassurance regarding her abilities,” the other actress went on, and Lola didn’t know which she found more irritating—Arabella’s tendency to talk about her as if she weren’t in the room, or these continual reminders to her peers of her inexperience. “But we’ve already had a full day, and if she insists on speaking her lines with such painstaking histrionics, her small part may keep us here all night as well.”
Lola had to bite down, hard, on her lower lip to stop herself from pointing out that Arabella’s almost continual interruptions to discuss the nua
nces of the plot and her criticisms of her fellow actors were the real reason all of them were still here well into the evening. But she did not want to earn the reputation of being difficult to work with, and she couldn’t afford to be seen as arrogant. Unlike Arabella, she didn’t have a long line of successes under her belt to mitigate such behavior.
She could only hope Jacob Roth would take Arabella to task, but the director was either a tactful man who didn’t want his star performer storming out in a snit on the first day of rehearsal, or he’d worked with Arabella often enough that he didn’t find her behavior irritating. Either way, he’d been choosing to ignore the woman’s remarks all day, and he did so again. Without comment, he gestured to Lola that she should resume.
Arabella, however, gave her no opportunity to do so.
“Miss Valentine’s enthusiastic rendition is commendable, I am sure, but hardly necessary. Today is just a table read, after all.”
“Since it’s only a table read,” Lola countered before she could stop herself, “then why are you making such a fuss?”
Beside her, Blackie Cowell gave a stifled snicker, and when she glanced sideways at him, he gave her a wink. Blackie was dark and witty, every bit an Irishman, and he was also a talented actor, and she was glad he’d been chosen to play Cassio, Bianca’s love interest. Blackie was one of the few people here who didn’t seem to mind she’d been cast. Grateful to have him as an ally, she gave him an answering wink, but before the table read could resume, they were interrupted.
“Good evening, everyone.”
At the sound of Denys’s voice, chairs instantly scraped the floorboards as those seated around the table stood up. “Lord Somerton,” Jacob greeted him as he entered the rehearsal hall. “Good evening.”
“Jacob.” He paused beside the other man and glanced around, his gaze flitting past her without a pause. “Working late, I see.”
“You as well, it seems.”
“Unfortunately, yes. From my window, I noticed that the lights were still on over here, and I wondered why you were being such a slave driver toward these poor actors on their very first day.”
Jacob did not enlighten him. Instead, he smiled. “They can discover how amiable I am at a later date. Still,” he added, pulling out his pocket watch, “it is almost eight o’clock. Let’s stop for today, everyone. We’ll resume tomorrow morning.”
Sighs of relief greeted this decision, though Lola suspected from Arabella’s face that she wasn’t among those happy to end for the day.
She started to join those leaving the room, but Denys’s voice stopped her. “Miss Valentine? If you and Jacob would be so good as to remain behind, there’s something I wish to discuss with the two of you.”
She remained by her seat as Denys talked to Jacob, and her fellow actors began heading for the door. All but one.
“My, my,” Arabella murmured, pausing beside Lola on her way out as other actors streamed past them, “the grass certainly doesn’t grow under your feet, does it, dear?”
Lola looked into Arabella’s hard, beautiful face, saw the derision there, and realized the other woman was aware of her true position here. “I see you know of my good fortune.”
“Everyone knows.”
Lola sucked in a breath, feeling as if she’d just been punched in the stomach. “Already?”
Arabella smiled, seeming to sense her dismay. “There’s a word for women who accumulate a fortune the way you have, you know.”
Lola tamped down any hint of what she felt, for she refused to give Arabella that sort of satisfaction. “I’m sure there is,” she murmured with a shrug, and was rewarded for this show of indifference by the frustration that flashed across the other woman’s face. Thankfully, Arabella let the matter drop, stepped around her, and walked out of the room without another word.
“Ugh,” Lola muttered, shuddering as she turned away. “What a poisonous woman.”
Those words were barely out of her mouth before she noticed that Denys and Jacob had stopped their conversation and were standing by their chairs waiting for her, and they must have overheard at least part of the conversation. Reminding herself that it was probably best not to voice her opinions out loud, she resumed her seat. “What is it you wish to discuss, my lord?”
Denys took the chair opposite her and waited until Jacob had also resumed his seat at the head of the table before he spoke.
“I have a decision to make,” he said at last, “and I am honestly not sure which way to proceed. Jacob knows about your participation in the Imperial already, Miss Valentine. I told him myself that day at the Savoy.”
“I daresay many people know,” she answered with a sigh.
He didn’t seem at all surprised by that announcement, and she didn’t know if that was because he and Jacob had overheard her entire conversation with Arabella a moment ago or because he was already fully aware of the gossip. “My question is, should a formal announcement be made?” He glanced from Jacob to her and back again. “I’d like opinions from both of you.”
Before either of them could reply, however, a door banged in the distance, and footsteps sounded in the corridor. “That must be Dawson,” Denys explained. “I asked him to fetch some sandwiches before I came over. Given the lateness of the hour, I deemed it unfair to detain the two of you without at least providing some sustenance. Good evening, Dawson,” he added, looking toward the doorway as the secretary came in with a large basket in his hands. “That didn’t take long.”
Dawson nodded to Lola as he circled the table to Denys’s side, but he didn’t give her his usual smile of greeting. “Miss Valentine,” he said, and looked away again at once.
His reticence didn’t surprise her. When they had parted company after the opera the other night, they had agreed it would be best if they did not fraternize, as Denys had put it, in the future.
“Rosetti’s only had ham and tongue sandwiches remaining, sir. No chicken or watercress. Understandable, since it is quite late. Will there be anything else?”
“You might be sure all the gaslights are turned off in the theater, then you may go. Leave one burning by the door on your way out. I’ll extinguish it when we leave.”
“Very good, my lord.” The secretary departed, and Denys opened the basket. “So,” he resumed as he pulled out two paper-wrapped sandwiches and handed one to Lola, “should the company be told formally of Miss Valentine’s position? Jacob?” he added, holding out the sandwich in his other hand to the director.
Jacob waved it aside, shaking his head. “Thank you, my lord, but I am dining shortly with friends,” he explained. “As to your question, it might be best to let sleeping dogs lie. If Miss Valentine is to be merely a silent partner—”
“Miss Valentine has no intention of maintaining such a limited role, Jacob,” Denys said, and there was an unmistakably wry note in his voice. “On the contrary, she intends to be involved in every aspect of running the theater.”
The director’s heavy dark brows rose, then fell. “Ah,” he murmured, and there was a wealth of implication in the word and in the meaningful glance exchanged between the two men. Clearly, that afternoon at the Savoy, both of them had thought she’d be long gone by now—or at least shunted off to the side—and Lola couldn’t help feeling a bit of satisfaction that she’d upset that particular applecart.
“What are your thoughts, Miss Valentine?” Denys asked, turning to her. “Should we announce your position to the company or not?”
“Since they already seem to know,” she countered, “why bother with a formal announcement?”
“It might diffuse further speculations.”
“Or make them worse,” Jacob put in. “I must confess, I have been concerned about the possibility of gossip ever since Lord Somerton informed me of the situation. A formal announcement could underscore and perhaps inflame an already awkward situation.”
“The awkwardness will probably be temporary,” Denys pointed out. “After all, ours is not a situation wholly wi
thout precedent. Henry Irving manages the Lyceum, for example, and acts in many of his own productions.”
“Henry Irving does, yes,” Jacob said, and as if fearing she might take offense, he turned to her. “I don’t doubt your abilities as a performer, Miss Valentine,” Jacob said at once. “If I had, I’d never have cast you in my play. But don’t be surprised if there is a perception among your peers that you are being favored for roles because you are an owner. And because—”
He broke off, but his glance at Denys told her what he had not said, and suddenly, her prior relationship with Denys seemed like a giant elephant in the room.
Jacob sensed it, too, for he gave a cough. “My point,” he hastened on, “is that Miss Valentine needs to be prepared for some hostility.”
“I understand that, Mr. Roth,” she said, “but I came into this knowing full well what I was getting into. The news of Henry’s bequest to me was already beginning to circulate in New York when I left, and it was bound to arrive here sooner or later. Even if I were not intending to be actively involved, we could never have hoped to keep this partnership a secret for long. I realize that I will be the subject of much gossip and speculation, but other than performing to the very best of my ability, there’s little I can do about it. I can only hope . . .” She paused and swallowed hard. “I can only hope my performances prove worthy enough that people will come to see there’s more to me than my position or my past.”
“Either way,” Denys put in, “neither of you seem to feel a formal announcement is necessary?” When both of them shook their heads, he nodded in acquiescence. “Very well then, we will leave the situation as it stands.”
“If that is all, my lord,” Jacob said, shoving back his chair and standing up, “I shall be on my way.”
“Yes, that is all. Thank you, Jacob.”
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