“I am not allowing you to walk alone, and I don’t care if your hotel is only a few blocks away. This is not a debatable point, Lola,” he added, as she began to argue.
“Denys, you can’t do this. The Strand is a busy street, filled with carriages carrying your sort of people back and forth to the theater. And the Savoy is just the sort of hotel where someone you know is likely to be out front getting in or out of a taxi. We’d be seen.”
“It’s a bit too late to worry about that. I’m sure we were seen together that day at the Savoy when I dragged you into that lift. And at Covent Garden, too. We are living in the same city, working together, seeing some of the same people. I agree that we shouldn’t draw attention to our partnership if possible, but it’s pointless to duck and hide. If we’re working together, we’re going to be seen together—sometime, somewhere, by someone. You said it yourself the other night: When we were having an affair, we tried to be discreet, and everyone knew. If we make no effort to hide this partnership from the start, it won’t stop people from thinking things, but perhaps they’ll grow tired of speculating about us more quickly and move on to some other scandal.”
“I doubt your family will see it that way.”
“Leave my family to me. I’ve informed my father that I intend to carry through with this new arrangement, and if he doesn’t like it, he’s well within his rights to take back control of the company. He has chosen not to do that. He trusts me.”
Even as he said it, Denys felt a flicker of uneasiness, for he suspected it was going to be a long time before he was worthy of that trust where Lola was concerned.
She sniffed. “I’m sure Conyers doesn’t consider you the problem. I’m the one he doesn’t trust. Either way, I still think it’s best if we aren’t seen sashaying along the Strand side by side.”
“Very well. You will at least allow me to escort you to a taxi stand and see you safely into a hansom. It would be unconscionable for me to allow any lady, even if she were not a friend of mine, to walk home alone at night.”
“Friend?” She tilted her head, giving him a dubious look as if she might not have heard him right. “Are we becoming friends now?”
Friendship would make the partnership easier and more pleasant. His gaze lowered. But only if he could manage to remember it was platonic.
He jerked his gaze back up to her face and forced himself to say something. “I don’t know. We could make the attempt, I suppose. We’ve been everything else, after all,” he added, striving for a nonchalance he didn’t feel in the least. “Why not try being friends?”
She smiled that wide, radiant smile, and as always, he felt as if he were standing in the warmth of the sun. “Friends it is, then,” she said. “But—” She broke off, drawing her brows together in a seeming attempt to look stern. Given the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the attempt failed utterly. “But if we’re to be friends, you can’t call me MissValinsky ever again.”
He laughed. “I have been duly warned. May I call you Charlotte?”
Her stern expression dissolved, and her nose wrinkled up. “Not if you expect me to answer.”
“Don’t you like the name Charlotte?”
“It’s not that. I meant just what I said. I’ve been Lola Valentine for a long time now. If someone called me Charlotte, I’m not sure I’d realize that person was talking to me. In fact,” she added softly, ducking her head, “I’m not sure I even remember who Charlotte is anymore.”
“I think you do.”
She looked up, seeming startled by the certainty in his voice. “What makes you say that?”
“If you didn’t think that girl was still somewhere inside you, you wouldn’t have told me I didn’t really know you.”
“Maybe.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. But, either way, I’m accustomed to being called Lola, so perhaps you should just continue to address me by that name.”
“If that’s what you prefer. And it does make things easier for me. Fresh starts are all very well, and I’m trying my best to adapt to this new situation, but calling you by a different name would take some getting used to.” He gestured to the alley behind her. “Shall we?”
“Why don’t I wait here, while you hail me a cab?”
He agreed to that compromise, and a short time later, he was standing at the entrance to the alley, watching her walk to the hansom at the curb. Fresh starts and being friends were all very well, but as he studied the brilliant fiery glints in her hair beneath the streetlight and the graceful dancer’s sway of her hips as she moved, Denys could feel his desire for her still lurking deep within him, and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to think of Lola Valentine as just a friend, even if her name was really Charlotte Valinsky.
Chapter16
Denys knew Lola was right about the gossip, and that it would be best if they avoided each other as much as possible when they were not conducting actual theater business.
Given his determination that her return would not be allowed to change his life in any way, avoiding her ought to have been an easy thing for him to manage, especially since the last thing he’d wanted a few weeks ago was to be anywhere near her. But in the days that followed their picnic in the rehearsal hall, steering clear of Lola proved to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
He often found himself staring out his office window at the Imperial, wondering how she was getting on. Twice, he almost changed his dinner plans with friends so that he could dine at the Savoy, just on the chance that he might see her there. It was a fortunate thing that St.John’s Wood was not within the proximity of his daily round, for if it were, he’d have been unable to resist having his driver take him to the office via that route.
Every day, he invented excuses for why he ought to go across the street—he could ask Jacob how the play was coming along, or examine the premises, or discuss possible maintenance issues with the janitors—oh, his imagination fashioned many reasons why the Imperial needed his personal attention right now, but fertile as his imagination became, he forced himself to stay away. For both their sakes, that was the best course.
He could not, however, stop himself from thinking of her. She entered his thoughts countless times—in the middle of business meetings, on the street if he chanced to pass a woman with red hair, or when his carriage took him past Covent Garden.
He’d actually thought being near her would help him get over all this, but as the days passed, he began to fear he’d been far too optimistic about the ability of familiarity to breed contempt.
