Conyers gave him a searching glance. “It’s a difficult situation. For her. For you. For everyone.”
Denys stiffened, knowing his father’s true concerns had nothing to do with Gladys Latham. “Henry’s death changes nothing, as far as I can see. My unfortunate entanglement with Lola Valentine is long over, Father, and has no bearing on this. I daresay everyone involved will be sensible. The Imperial is one of our most lucrative investments. It makes much more sense to keep it, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t. If we can’t buy her out, I’ll sell her our share. Let her have the whole bloody thing.”
His father’s terse, peremptory words surprised him. Since handing over the control of their family holdings to him three years ago, Conyers had never overridden him on any decision.
“You seem... quite vehement about this, Father.”
“Should I not be?”
“Not for any reason I can discern. I thought you trusted me. Have I given you cause to withdraw that trust?”
The earl’s shoulders slumped a bit. “No, of course not,” he said, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “I spoke in haste. However you decide to handle the situation, it is your decision. I...” He paused and took a breath. “I trust you.”
Denys was relieved and heartened by those words. “You didn’t always.”
“No, but in my defense, there was a time when you made my trust a difficult thing to give. You were quite wild in your youth, you know.”
The reminder pained him, for he was well aware he’d been a rebellious adolescent and a rakish, irresponsible young man. Those less appealing traits of his character had come into full flower on a trip to Paris the summer he was twenty-four.
His only intent had been to visit friends and have a bit of fun. He hadn’t intended to go mad.
Nicholas, the Marquess of Trubridge, and Jack, the Earl of Featherstone, had been sharing a town house in Paris and vying for the attentions of Montmartre’s most famous cabaret dancer. Fascinated by her, they’d dragged Denys off on his first night in town to see her show at theThéâtre Latin, and the moment he’d first set eyes on Lola Valentine, Denys’s heart had been lost and his life plunged into chaos.
Lola, in Paris, kicking off men’s hats with her toe and winking at him as she passed his table and absconded with his drink. Lola, at the house he’d leased for her in London, standing at the top of the stairs and giving him the radiant smile for which she was famous. Lola, moving beneath him in bed, her dark red hair spread across the pillow and her long, shapely legs wrapped around him.
It had taken a lot of time and effort to straighten out his life after she’d forsaken him for Henry Latham and a career in New York, but he’d managed it, and the careless, stupid mistakes of his youth were well behind him now. With that reminder, Denys brought his attention back to what his father was saying.
“...sowing your wild oats, with no mind to settle down and be responsible. I had truly come to despair of you. But you’ve changed, Denys. You’ve paid off your debts, taken on the duties of your position, and done everything I’ve asked of you in exemplary fashion. I’m proud of you, my son.”
With those words, any vestiges of Lola’s memory vanished, and tightness squeezed his chest as he stared back at his father. He was unable to say how much those words meant to him, but thankfully, he didn’t have to say anything. His father looked away first, gave a cough, and spoke again.
“Whatever you decide, it will be your decision. You’re in charge now. I am merely a gentleman of leisure.”
“And you love it,” Denys said, smiling.
“I do. I am quite content to leave the tedious business of keeping our fortunes intact to you.”
“Speaking of which...” Denys glanced at the clock on the wall and stood up, bringing his father to his feet as well. “I’d best be on my way. I have a meeting with Calvin and Bosch at half past nine to sign some contracts, but I have to call at our offices first. All the contract documents should have arrived from our solicitors late yesterday afternoon—”
“Didn’t I just tell you these matters are your concern now, not mine?” the earl interrupted, holding up his hands to stop his son’s flow of words. “All I intend to do today is go to my club and perhaps a race meeting or two.”
The two men departed the study and went their separate ways, but an hour later, as Denys’s carriage took him around Trafalgar toward his offices in the Strand, he recalled his father’s final words of their conversation, and he couldn’t help smiling a little. The earl was bored stiff by matters of business, but Denys thrived on them.
Not that he’d always felt that way. A few years ago, he’d been the sort of fellow who’d spent his quarterly allowance without a thought of where the money came from. The sort who’d found the allure of a beautiful cabaret dancer irresistible.
But his days of being a stage-door johnny were over. Pulled by Nick into a brewery investment three years ago, he’d begun to understand the satisfaction that could come from being a man of business, and the earl, pleased by his son’s newfound sense of responsibility, had handed over management of all the family’s investments to him.
His carriage turned onto Bedford Street and came to a halt in front of his offices. His driver opened the door for him, but after exiting the vehicle, Denys paused on the sidewalk to study the building across the street, and he felt a fierce wave of pride at the sight of the Imperial’s gray granite facing and marble columns.
The Imperial had been a seedy music hall fifteen years ago, when the earl and Henry Latham had first formed a partnership to acquire the place. Henry, already a successful impresario in New York, had been seeking ways to break into dramatic theater in London, and with the earl as a partner, he had succeeded in obtaining the required licenses, finding backers, and garnering a bit of success. But London theater was an exasperating, difficult, competitive business, and the American had eventually grown tired of the project and returned to the States, taking Lola with him and leaving management of the Imperial in his partner’s hands.
The earl had happily put his son in charge of the place, along with all the other Conyers’s holdings, and Denys was proud of the fact that there was nothing seedy about the Imperial nowadays. Today, it was widely acknowledged as London’s finest producer of Shakespearean theater, achieving a level of critical acclaim Henry could only have dreamed of.
Thoughts of Henry inevitably brought thoughts of Lola, and an image of her came to Denys before he could stop it—an image of auburn hair, teal blue eyes, and a body made for sin.
More memories came back to him, memories of how it had all gone wrong. The play he’d financed for her closing in disaster. The house in St.John’s Wood standing empty but for the gifts he’d given her and a note that she’d returned to Paris. His refusal to accept her departure, his journey to the cabaret where she was working, his discovery of Henry with her in her dressing room. And her words, the most shattering part of it all.
