“So, now that we’ve both admitted the truth,” he murmured, pushing a tendril of hair back from her cheek, “what shall we do about it?”
Chapter 21
Denys knew he’d be sailing close to the wind with this moment, but she was silent so long, he feared he’d just crashed on the rocks.
Still, there was no drawing back. “My opinion is we should marry,” he said, striving to seem matter-of-fact about it all when he was actually nervous as hell. He rolled to his side, propped his weight on his elbow and his cheek in his hand. “It’s the usual thing when people love each other.”
Instead of answering, she sat up, pulling bed linens up from the side of the bed and wrapping them around her, covering herself. It seemed an odd thing for her to do after the passionate lovemaking in which they’d just engaged, and he felt his nervousness deepening.
“Do you remember my first day of rehearsal?” she asked. “That night when you came by with sandwiches and I told you about the sort of dancing I used to do?”
“Of course.”
“You asked me how I ended up in that situation. I didn’t tell you everything.”
“No?”
“No.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “There was a man I met there. He saw me dance. He wasn’t the usual sort who came to the dockside taverns, so I noticed him right away. He was very elegant, very handsome, and very rich. His name was Robert Delacourt. A few nights later, he came back, and he asked me to have a drink with him. As you might guess, I did. I mean, he wasn’t at all the sort of male attention I’d been accustomed to. I fell for him like a ton of bricks. We became lovers.”
Denys had the feeling this was the man who’d been her only other lover, and he really wanted to stop this conversation, but he couldn’t.
“I thought it was all very romantic. He was a railway tycoon. New money, you call it. I didn’t care. I thought he was wonderful. He bought me gifts, flowers, dinners.”
This was sounding far too familiar, far too much like his own seduction of her, and to the man he was now, it all seemed so shallow, and so unsavory. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Go on.”
“We were together for several weeks, and then, one night, Robert told me he was having dinner with a very important man. A senator visiting from Washington. Robert wanted me to come to dinner with them, explaining that he’d told the senator about me, and the senator very much wanted to meet me.”
Denys frowned. It sounded innocuous enough, and yet he felt uneasy. Perhaps he just had a suspicious mind, but when he looked into her eyes, the awful suspicion he’d begun to harbor was confirmed, for though Lola was looking directly at him, he knew she wasn’t seeing him.
“The senator was a very powerful man in Washington, Robert said, a man who could help him put a railroad deal through out west. We were to have dinner with him at the Oak Room. The Oak Room! I was so excited, I was giddy. I was so stupid.”
She laughed a little, laughing at herself, and Denys’s heart constricted in his chest.
“I thought he wanted me there to be the woman on his arm when he made this important deal. His helpmate, you know, or maybe even his future wife. But that wasn’t it at all. He introduced me to the senator in a private dining room, and then, he just . . . left. I asked the senator when Robert would be coming back, and he said Robert wouldn’t be back. I was his now, he said, and that he would be taking care of me from now on. It was as if I had just been traded.”
As he had the night she’d told him about her days in burlesque and what had happened to her as a girl, he felt anger rising on her behalf, but again, he kept it in check. “What did you do?” he asked, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Did you bash him with an Erie?”
Her lips twitched just a little. “They don’t have cast-iron skillets in the Oak Room. At least not on the tables.”
“Ah. Champagne bottle, then?”
She frowned, looking confounded by his reaction. “You seem quite sure I rejected him.”
“I am sure.”
“But how can you be?”
“Because of what you said that day in my office. Don’t you remember?” he went on as she continued to stare at him in bewilderment. “After I kissed you, and you became so angry with me—”
“Justifiably so,” she cut in. “Given what you said.”
He nodded, conceding that point. “Granted, but when you lost your temper, and fired off your guns at me, you told me you’d only been with two men in your life.”
“I said that?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head. “I was so angry with you that day, I don’t remember what I said, to be honest. But given I did say that, how do you know I was telling the truth?”
“Because I just . . . do. I trust you. I believe you.” He kissed her nose. “I love you. And,” he rushed on before she could speak again, “I definitely know that one of those two men is me, quite obviously. The other, I now know, is this Delacourt bastard. Hence my conclusion regarding the senator. So, are you going to tell me what your response actually was to this odious man?”
“I tossed my wine in his face. Then I got up and left.”
He laughed. “Perfect. Ripping perfect.”
“It’s not funny.”
“You’re right.” He sobered at once, giving her a level, steady gaze. “I’m sorry, and don’t think for one moment that I don’t want to find this Robert Delacourt and call him to account, because I do. In fact, what I’d really take great pleasure in doing is thrashing him within an inch of his life. And the same applies to the man who tried to assault you when you were fifteen. And to that senator for thinking for one moment you were the sort of girl who would—”
“But that’s just it, Denys,” she interrupted. “I was that sort of girl. I told you, I used to take my clothes off in those taverns in Brooklyn. Robert saw me do it. The cowboys back in Kansas City used to come into the saloon just so they could watch me pull up the hem of my skirt and give them a peek at my ankles while I sang. I can’t blame any of those men for thinking my virtue was for sale, and neither can you. You seduced me, too, if you recall. You made me your mistress. I’m—” She stopped, and bit her lip. “That’s the sort of woman people think I am.”
Given his own culpability, he couldn’t really take issue with most of what she’d said, but he could take up the last bit. “You talk as if you’re fated for that. You’re not.”
She looked down, her hair falling over her face. “Sometimes, I think I am,” she whispered. “Men have wanted me since I was old enough to wear a corset, Denys. I’ve always known it, and I’ve never had any compunction about using it when I had to.”
“Women have been doing that since Eve, my darling.”
“Most women don’t do it on a stage, but I did. Hell, I made a whole show out of it.” She shrugged, plucking at the counterpane. “After that episode with the senator, I knew I had to leave New York. If I stayed, I was afraid of what Robert, or the senator, for that matter, might do. So I took what money I had, bought a steamship ticket, and went to Paris.”
She gave a deep sigh. “Another ticket out of town and another fresh start. I’d read about the dancers in Paris, and I thought I could do that. French cabaret was an enormous step up for a girl like me. The only thing was, I’d never danced the cancan in my life.” She shook her head, laughing a little as if in disbelief at her own brass.
“But it turned out you were right. You’re good at it.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I thought if this is the sort of woman that men think I am, well, then, why not exploit it? So I did. I changed my name to something I thought sounded deliberately seductive. I made a dance routine, I learned to sing in French, and do the cancan, and how to kick off a man’s hat with my foot. I learned how to make anything I did—a crook of my finger or a wink of my eye or a shrug of my shoulders—seem like a promise to every man in that audience, but I knew it was a promise I’d never have to
keep. And it worked. Men went wild over my act.”
He cupped her face, tipped her head up. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”
“But that’s just it, Denys. You told me you loved me, but you didn’t. You were infatuated with an illusion, something I created, a fantasy. It wasn’t me.”
“At first, perhaps.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “But I knew the first time we ever made love that what you did on stage was pure fiction.”
“How did you know?”
He smiled. “Because until I showed you, you had no idea that a man could make you come with his mouth.”
She blushed, her pale skin flooding with color from her face down to her throat and across her shoulders, down to the white sheet she was holding over her breasts. “Oh.”
She was silent a moment, taking that in, then she said, “Your father knows about the senator.”
“What?”
She nodded. “He came to my dressing room before the show last night and told me. Evidently, he’s had Pinkerton men investigating me since I came back to London. He also told me he sold his half of the Imperial.”
“Yes, I know about the Imperial. He sold it to the Earl of Barringer. They signed the papers yesterday.”
“You know? But if you haven’t seen your father, how did you find out?”
“I stayed at White’s last night, and Barringer was there when I arrived. He told me the news. It wasn’t really a surprise that my father would take that step.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Denys.”
“Don’t be sorry on my account. And Barringer’s not a bad chap. He won’t approve of you, mind, for he’s quite a stuffed shirt, but he can’t out you.”
“Forget about the Earl of Barringer. Denys . . .” She paused and gave a deep sigh. “I’ve quit the play. I’m leaving London, as soon as my maid has made the arrangements with Cook’s.”
Any step forward might have just been obliterated. He took a deep breath. “Why?”
“Denys, I told you, your father knows about my days in burlesque, about Robert, the senator . . . everything.”
“I suppose he threw it in your face?” As he spoke, he felt a flash of anger, and he worked to force it down, reminding himself that no matter what happened today, he and the old man were headed for a reckoning. It was inevitable. “None of that matters, Lola. Not to me. Not at all.”
“I wasn’t the first girl Robert had used to put through a deal,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “He did it all the time, I found out afterward. I was just too infatuated to see what he was.” She waved a hand impatiently. “I was a fool. The point is, your father assumed I had taken the senator up on his offer. If he tells anyone the story—”
Denys shook his head. “He won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he knows full well you could become his daughter-in-law, and he’s not about to let that sort of story get about.”
“But I’m not going to be his daughter-in-law, and we both know it, and so does he—and damn it, Denys, why are you smiling?”
“Because I’m glad.”
“Glad?” She stared at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. “Glad about what, for heaven’s sake?”
“I’m glad you told me about all this. You’ve spiked the old boy’s guns. Now, when he tells me all about your oh-so-sordid past, I shall take great delight in informing him that I already know all about it. But first, is there anything you haven’t told me? Any other chaps out there I need to know about? Any other men you’ve coshed on the head, or run off with to New York?”
“No, Denys,” she said meekly, but he knew she wasn’t going to meekly march into a church with him. Her next words proved it. “Will you please stop ignoring the vital point? Robert thought that I was something to be used, something to be passed around and ultimately tossed aside, like so much trash. In a less crude sort of way, your people think the same about me. They think I’m trash.”
“But I don’t think you’re trash. Do you think you are?”
“No, and we both know I don’t much care what other people think of me, but to your family, to the society you want me to live in, I will always be trash. Marrying you won’t change their opinion of me.”
“I’m not at all sure about that, but even if you’re right, do you really think your alternative is any better?” he asked her. “Another name, another ticket out of town, another fresh start . . . what’s the point? How long and how far can you run from yourself?”
Her face twisted. “What else is there for a girl like me and a man like you?”
Abruptly, he rolled off the bed. “I have presented you with an alternative,” he said as he began to dress. “Twice now, as a matter of fact. But you don’t seem to fancy it.”
“Because it isn’t a viable alternative.”
“Yes, it is. It’s just not a perfect one, wrapped up with a ribbon and a bow.”
“You think I care about that? Denys, here in England, marriage is permanent, until death do us part. My mother was able to change her mind, get her marriage annulled. But here, it’s different. Your sort gets married, there’s no hushing it up.”
“True.” He donned his shirt and tucked it into his trousers, then he reached for his socks and pulled them on.
“Marrying me would be forever. No way you could annul it later, even given my notorious past.”
“That is also true.” He slipped on his shoes and glanced around. “Where the devil is my collar?”
“Your father has already sold the Imperial. He’ll do more than that if you marry me. He’ll disinherit you.”
“Ah,” he said, spying his collar at the foot of the bed. He scooped it up, along with his cuff links, collar studs, and necktie, then he moved to stand in front of the mirror above her dressing table and continued to dress.
“What if he does, Denys?” she asked after a few moments.
He paused in the act of tying his tie and met her gaze in the mirror, pretending not to understand her question. “Worried I can’t support you?”
“That’s not it. I could support us if it came to it.”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t. The ton rather frowns on that sort of thing.” He finished tying his tie and began fastening his collar studs. “Is that your real concern? Giving up acting? Because if it is, feel free to keep doing it. I shan’t care.”
“That’s not it either!” she cried. “I love acting, I do, but if I married you, of course I’d have to give it up. I may not know much about viscountesses, but I’m fully aware they can’t be actresses, too!”
He smiled to himself, noting the shift in her words, the use of the word “if.” Another step forward, he thought, pleased and also a bit relieved she might be willing to give up the stage at some point. He was proud of what she’d accomplished for herself, especially last night, and if she wanted to continue to act, he’d support her decision, but though he was willing to fight that particular battle with the ton on her behalf, he couldn’t say he’d relish the prospect. There would be plenty of other battles for them to fight as it was. “Then what is the problem?” he asked, turning toward her. “I love you. You say you love me. Are you really refusing me because you’re afraid society won’t accept us?”
She didn’t answer, and he went on, “At Covent Garden, the things you told me indicated that you were concerned about what they’d think of me, and you were concerned about my future happiness, and while I think all of that is true, I also think that’s not the whole story. Why don’t you tell me the rest? Why are you really so afraid?”
She still didn’t answer, and he decided to let it go. He had a plan, and he had a great deal more to do in order to carry it out. He picked up his waistcoat, buttoned it, and reached for his jacket.
“I have to go,” he said gently. She nodded, but she didn’t reply and she didn’t look up, and he wondered if perhaps he ought to hold off, give her more time. But then, her voice came to
him from across the room, soft and hushed. “Don’t you know the reason?”
His hand tightened around the jacket in his hand. “I could hazard a guess,” he murmured, studying her bent head and her tumbled hair. “I could say it’s because everyone you’ve ever loved has abandoned or discarded you.”
A faint sob told him he was on the right track. “I could go a bit further,” he went on as he crossed to the bed, “and say that you’re terrified I’ll do the same.” He cupped her cheek and lifted her face. “That I’ll grow tired of you, and fall out of love with you, and take a mistress.”
A tear fell down her cheek, and he brushed it away with his thumb. “I shan’t,” he said, and let her go. “You’ll have to take my word for that, of course, but . . .” He shrugged and slipped on his jacket. “There it is. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“It’s not about trust. It’s about the way the world works.”
“You really think my family won’t accept you if we marry?”
“I know they won’t. Your father . . .” She swallowed hard, and Denys braced himself for more obstacles. “Denys, he called me a whore.”
Rage exploded inside him even though he didn’t move, and it was several moments before he could control it enough to speak. “He never will again. That I promise you. I will make certain he understands that if he utters one more derogatory word about you, he will have crossed the Rubicon.”
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “I never should have told you. I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you choose me over your family.”
“I already did. I made my choice that afternoon in St. John’s Wood, when I walked across that sidewalk and stepped into that cab. I chose you.”
She shook her head, refusing to believe, and he decided it was time to roll the dice and let the chips fall where they would. “Let’s put your lack of faith in my family to the test, shall we? I’m having a private dinner with them this evening, here at the Savoy. Consider this your formal invitation to join us.”
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