“Have my carriage brought around in half an hour, would you?” he said and started up. “And have Henry fetch a posy of forget-me-nots from the flower girl on the corner, if you please.”
Thirty minutes later, attired in a gray morning suit and top hat suitable for paying calls, Denys came down to find his carriage waiting at the curb, with a pretty bouquet of forget-me-nots on the seat and his driver standing by.
“To 18 Berkeley Square,” he said, and stepped into his carriage.
He knew it was time to put his priorities back in the proper order and start arranging his future, but as his carriage carried him the few short blocks to the Marquess of Belsham’s London residence, Denys couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that his future was going to be about as exciting as watching paint dry.
During the week that had followed her picnic supper with Denys, Lola immersed herself in the play. Due to Arabella’s arrogant tendency to offer unsolicited suggestions and advice to her fellow actors, Lola in particular, there were several more late nights at the rehearsal hall during that week.
At first, Lola had been worried that Arabella’s near-constant criticism of her abilities would cement the notion that she was only here because of the men she had slept with, but as the days passed, the opposite outcome had proved closer to the truth. The more criticism Arabella heaped on her, the more other members of the company had been inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since Arabella didn’t only pick on her but on them as well.
It was plain the conduct of Jacob’s diva was causing his patience with her to erode, a fact in which Lola couldn’t help taking some satisfaction. By Friday, he’d begun cutting Arabella’s comments off midsentence with terse comments of his own, and actors had started speculating how long it would be before a full-on quarrel erupted. Lola had offered no opinion knowing it was best to keep her mouth closed and her mind on her work. She was not only an actor in the company, she was also an owner, and as Denys had pointed out, owners did not play favorites or take sides.
Regardless of the emotional upheaval, work had proved a blessing. During rehearsals, when she was reciting lines and immersing herself in the play, when she was grinding her teeth in exasperation at Arabella’s latest interruption, or trying to accept Jacob’s vision of her role rather than impose her own, she was able to put Denys out of her mind and concentrate solely on what she’d come here to accomplish.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t work all the time, and in between, there were the gaps, the times when she was alone, and there was nothing to do but think.
She wasn’t used to gaps like that. In New York, she’d had her own show, one that needed the constant replenishment of new songs and new dance routines to keep it fresh and entertaining. Any spare time she had, she’d spent it honing her skill at dramatic acting, and there’d been little time or energy left for things like reflection and contemplation.
But here in London, in spite of Arabella’s desire to keep all of them slaving away, she had far more time on her hands than she’d ever had in New York, and she had few friends here to distract her.
Nights were the worst, for she would lie in bed, wide-awake, thinking of her conversations with Denys at Covent Garden and in the rehearsal hall, the sandwiches and confidences they’d shared, and she’d wonder what had impelled her to be so forthcoming. In the whole of her life, she’d never talked about herself as much as she had during the past few weeks.
How?she wondered, staring up at the plasterwork ceiling that gleamed stark and white in the darkness of the room. How had he managed to wheedle one of the most sordid details of her past out of her? As he had noted, she’d always been very adept at deflecting conversation away from herself, especially with him.
You shared almost nothing with me about what your life was like before we met.
She’d left Charlotte Valinsky behind on her eighteenth birthday, the day she’d bought a steamship ticket from New York to Paris, and when she’d stepped aboard that steamship with a ticket that had Lola Valentine’s name on it, she’d never looked back. During her time with Denys, she had exercised painstaking care and a great deal of ingenuity to deflect any questions and keep her past life hidden from him. Dancing the cancan and singing suggestive French songs was just risqué enough to titillate and intrigue a gentleman of Denys’s class, but that was a far cry from stripping off most of her clothes for the randy sailors who worked the boats of the Bay Ridge Channel. She’d always been afraid if Denys knew the depths to which Charlotte had sunk, it would drive him away. Five nights ago, she’d finally told him the truth—a piece of it, anyway—for that exact purpose.
She’d hoped telling him about it all now might impel him to stop looking at her with the old desires in his eyes, that her confession would ensure he’d make no further attempts to kiss her, or seduce her, or steal her heart again. She’d given him up once for his own sake, and if she had to do it a second time, she feared it would annihilate her.
But her attempt to push him away by throwing some of her past in his face had backfired. He hadn’t been repelled, or shocked. He hadn’t even seemed particularly surprised. If driving him away was her goal, telling him about her burlesque dancing hadn’t been particularly effective. Lola bit her lip and stared at the ceiling. Perhaps she ought to tell him what had finally made her stop doing it. What would he think of her then?
Her heart twisted in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, but if she thought that would blot Denys from her mind, she was mistaken, for her imagination could still conjure his face and remember the desire in his eyes. She could still hear his voice, vibrating with masculine need.
Nice, am I?
Aching warmth spread through her limbs at the memory of that question and an answering desire began to overtake her. The way he’d looked at that moment had been anything but nice. That searing kiss in his office—that, too, had not been nice. Denys, she well knew, could also be very, very naughty.
Her breathing deepened as memories flooded her mind, memories of their afternoons in St.John’s Wood. The unbearable anticipation of waiting by her window, watching for the carriage that would bring him to her door. Of being in his arms, of his mouth on hers, his hands undressing her, caressing her, bringing her to blissful completion.
Lola groaned and turned on her side. She could not go on thinking about him this way. She’d go crazy, or worse, she’d do something stupid, or allow him to do so, and they’d ruin everything. And then what would happen? Another name, another place, yet another fresh start?
Her eyes tight shut, Lola worked, just as she had so many times before, to forget those afternoons in St.John’s Wood, to forget his kisses and his caresses and the one brief blissful time in her life when she’d allowed herself to fall in love.
It was a long time before Lola could finally fall asleep, and after a grueling rehearsal the following morning, during which Arabella chose to be particularly trying, the flower show in Regent’s Park was a very welcome distraction.
“I needed this outing, Kitty,” she said, as they walked the path of the park’s Inner Circle, making their way to the grounds of St.John’s Lodge. “You have no idea how much I needed this.”
“Arabella?” her friend guessed at once, offering a glance of sympathetic understanding.
Lola’s gaze slid away. “Partly,” she mumbled, and made a great show of shifting her white parasol to a better angle. “The woman is just so impossible. She has to stop and discuss everything. It’s quite trying.”
“Oh, I know,” Kitty agreed. “I was there the other day, hanging up the backdrop for Desdemona’s bedroom scene to see how it looked, and she happened to be there at the time, worse luck. She told me at once how completely wrong it was for her scene, and she demanded to know how on earth Jacob Roth had chosen someone to do the scenery who can’t paint for toffee.”
“Did you just want to strangle her?”
“Rather! She’s lucky I wasn’t wearing a necktie that day.”
