After the excitement of the day before, Rivers and Lucia were in no hurry to rise the next morning. The rain had left their retreat on the roof too wet to use, and they had spent the night in the large, old-fashioned bed in Rivers’s rooms. She had been quiet, even subdued, but she also had been so passionate during their lovemaking that he’d put aside any worries that she might be unwell. She loved him, loved him as he loved her, and that had been all that mattered.
It was nearly noon when they finally wandered downstairs for a late breakfast, still in their dressing gowns, and going no farther than the small parlor Rivers had converted into a library. He hadn’t bothered to have Rooke shave him, and she hadn’t called to have her hair dressed, letting it tumble luxuriantly around her shoulders, the way he liked best.
There was no talk of any further lessons. After Lucia’s successful audition the day before, there seemed no point. Whatever additional instruction she might require could come later, once she’d rehearsed with the other players for the benefit. He didn’t suggest returning to Breconridge Hall, either, despite the urgings of his stepmother and sisters-in-law. Although that surprising visit had gone better—infinitely better—than he ever would have expected, he wanted to keep Lucia to himself as their days together dwindled.
Nor did either of them speak of their imminent departure from the Lodge to London. They had this day left to enjoy and another besides, and then they would return to town, and this part of their lives together would be done. Everything would change, and they both knew it. It seemed that they tacitly agreed that they would savor these last two days in the country and not talk yet of the future, as Lucia had always begged Rivers to do.
But silence on the subject did not mean that Rivers was not considering their shared future. Far from it. He had no intention of giving Lucia up simply because the wager would be done, and they’d have a change of scenery. He loved her too much for that. In these short weeks, she’d become the best part of his life, and he easily envisioned a pleasurable and overlapping existence for them in London.
After her audition with McGraw, he was certain the manager would offer Lucia a permanent place in his company, as she deserved and as she wanted. He regretted having to share her with so many others, with the other actors and people of the playhouse as well as with the audiences who would surely adore her, but he would not dream of denying her the success that she’d wanted for so long. As much as he loved her, he couldn’t selfishly expect her to give up that dream to dote upon him, nor did he want the guilt of her squandered talent upon his conscience, either.
He would simply occupy himself as usual with his own affairs during the day, and then she would again be his by night and on days when the playhouse was shut. He had already instructed his agent to find a small but elegant furnished house for her, one that was convenient to both the playhouse and his own home in Cavendish Square, and where he could visit her whenever he pleased.
True, she claimed not to want anything else from him, but a house would be different. Because of his wager, she’d been forced to quit her last lodgings, and in a way he felt he owed her a new residence. Besides, the dream of gathering her up from the playhouse each night after yet another brilliant performance was very sweet indeed, and he was already imagining endless cozy suppers and intimate evenings together in the delightful little house.
He smiled fondly at her. They were sitting together on the sofa, or rather he was sitting, and she was lying curled upon it with her head resting against his thigh. Her hair was loose and tumbled around her shoulders, and her rose-colored silk sultana draped sensuously over her naked body, falling open to reveal her bare, pale calves and ankles and feet in green beaded heeled mules, all of her a sight that he’d never tire of.
He was pretending to read the newspaper that had come with the morning mail, while she was intent upon the small, fat book in her hand: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Sir Henry Fielding. Given the freedom of his library, she’d surprised him by becoming a voracious reader; he intended to surprise her with a subscription to one of the lady’s lending libraries in town so she’d never be without books again. It pleased him that they shared this, too, and he loved watching her as she read, with one finger pressed to her lips and her brows scowling in fierce concentration.
“It’s a novel, sweetheart,” he said mildly. “It does not merit that much agony from you.”
Her brows unknitted, and she looked up at him. “But it does, Rivers,” she said. “Once again Tom nearly finds Sophie, and yet again they miss each other.”
He brushed an unruly lock of her hair back from her forehead. His hand trailed down her cheek to her shoulder, and slowly eased the silk away from her collarbone. “If they found each other as easily as you wish, then the book would be only fifty pages instead of six hundred.”
“I know,” she said, “but still I wish to know how it ends, so I need to finish the book before we leave.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, thinking more about the softness of her skin than the book. “Take it with you. I would never deprive you of the unbridled bliss of Tom and his Sophie.”
“It will be bliss.” She wrinkled her nose, but smiled at the same time to show she wasn’t truly upset with him. “You shouldn’t treat their love so lightly, Rivers.”
He slid his hand lower, to find and cup her breast. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
She let the book drop from her hands to the floor and reached up to slip her fingers into his hair, cradling his jaw with her palm. She made a contented purr deep in her throat as his mouth moved over hers, deepening the kiss. Perhaps they should go back upstairs again, or perhaps he should just join with her here on the sofa.
He didn’t hear the front door open, and at first the voices didn’t register, either. But as those voices—a man and a woman—came closer, and grew louder, he realized he’d no choice but to pull away from Lucia.
“Hell,” he muttered, as she sat upright beside him, modestly pulling the sultana back over her breast. “This is twice in two days I’ve had my privacy interrupted. If this is more of my infernal family, I mean to send them on their way before they—”
“Rivers, you dog,” exclaimed Sir Edward Everett, throwing the door to the library open himself and striding boldly into the room. “Your man told me you were not at home, but I know you too well to believe that nonsense. At home, my foot! You’re at home, oh, yes, home with this divine little creature.”
He leered at Lucia, clearly not remembering her, nor recognizing her.
“Blast you, Everett, you can’t come barging in here without warning,” Rivers said, standing and putting himself between his friend and Lucia. “At least no gentleman does such a thing.”
But Everett ignored him, trying to get a better look at Lucia. “Sir Edward Everett, my darling, your ardent admirer and a friend of this dry old philosopher.”
“Asino sciocco!” exclaimed the woman, a few steps behind Everett. “Foolish donkey! Cannot you see who she is?”
The rustle of too many silk ruffles and too much perfume entered the room as well, and even without looking Rivers knew who it was.
“Magdalena!” cried Lucia, and not happily, either. She scrambled swiftly to her feet, clutching her sultana more tightly about her body. “Why have you come? Why have you followed me here?”
Everett drew back uneasily. “You know her, Magdalena? Do I know her?”
“Of course you do, Everett,” Rivers said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. How in blazes had the earlier blissful peace of being with Lucia in his library turned into this farcical circus? “Or you should anyway, considering she is going to be the reason you have lost a hundred guineas to me.”
“And a sorry business it is, too, my lord,” Magdalena said with an unconvincing show of indignation, the oversized plumes on her hat twitching with it. “The proof is here, yes? You have ruined my little cousin, haven’t you, made her your giocattolo, your plaything?”
“Hah, I see it now,” Everett said uneasily, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “The chit’s the serving-girl from the playhouse after all. But what the devil is this game, Rivers? When we made the wager, she was as plain as they come. Now she’s—”
“Ruined,” Magdalena said succinctly, stepping so close to Rivers that it felt as if she were swaying against him. “You will be made to pay my family in return for my poor cousin’s maidenhead, my lord.”
Rivers stepped back, wanting none of the intimacy that her nearness suggested. Without looking, he felt Lucia beside him instead, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm. At least she didn’t believe herself to be ruined, and he covered her fingers protectively with his own.
“You should not be here, Everett,” he said, ignoring Magdalena’s accusation. “By the rules of our wager, you were not to interfere with my instruction or with Miss di Rossi—”
“ ‘Miss di Rossi’ my lord!” exclaimed Magdalena, dramatically pressing a hand to her bosom. “Did she dare call herself that to you, my lord? A tiring-girl who has never so much as danced a single step on a stage with the company!”
“No, I haven’t, Magdalena,” Lucia said, each word as clipped and well-bred as Rivers’s own. “That is the reason I no longer go by that name, but by Mrs. Willow.”
“You’ve duped me, Rivers,” Everett said indignantly. “Listen to the girl! She’s no more a serving wench than I am. She’s an utter sham, that’s what she is.”
Rivers smiled. He couldn’t help it. “I thank you for the compliment, Everett, and your concession with it. Mrs. Willow’s accomplished speech is the winning proof of my lessons, and her diligence.”
“Aye, ’tis that, Sir Edward,” Lucia said, instantly slipping back into her old accent. She huddled her shoulders, clutched her hands together, and ducked her head; even dressed in the luxurious silk sultana, she once again became the shrinking tiring-girl. “No one’s a better schoolroom gov’nor than his lordship.”
Rivers’s smile widened to a fully fledged grin. How could it not, when she showed Everett up as neatly as this?
Everett jabbed his finger in the air, encompassing both Lucia and Rivers. “I still say it’s a trick, a low and dirty trick, and the two of you have somehow contrived to make me look the fool. It’s a good thing I came down here to see for myself, Rivers, before you made me the laughingstock of the entire town.”
“I would never do that to you,” Rivers said evenly. “No one will laugh at you, so long as you admit that you’ve lost the wager fairly.”
“Blast you, Rivers, it’s not right,” Everett said, his outrage spilling over into petulant anger. “McGraw has already been boasting how he’s to have this Mrs. Willow in his playhouse. Who is she? Where did you find her?”
“Stupido, she is my cousin!” Magdalena grabbed Everett by the sleeve to claim his attention, her voice turning shrill. “Do you not see what his lordship has done? He has made my innocent cousin prigioniera del suo desiderio—a prisoner of his desire! He has seduced her, debauched her, ruined her. You must help me, Sir Edward, help me to save her and our family’s honor and pride, and to rescue her from—”
“Magdalena.” Lucia deftly removed her cousin’s hand from Sir Edward’s arm and drew her away; she’d years of managing Magdalena, and it showed. “Let us leave the gentlemen to speak together alone, while we shall walk in the garden. Come, this way.”
Glaring, Magdalena jerked away from Lucia. But though she pointedly pulled back, making a faint hissing sound between her teeth, she still sailed from the room in the direction that Lucia had suggested. As she followed her, Lucia smiled over her shoulder—a smile that was both warmly reassuring and conspiratorial, and reminded Rivers all over again of why he loved her so.
Magdalena was already through the door to the garden when Lucia hurried after her. Without a hat, she grabbed the cream-colored silk parasol she kept furled in the stand by the doorway, and followed her cousin into the garden.
“Magdalena, wait, please,” she called, opening the parasol against the midday sun and tipping it back against her shoulder. She fell into the familiar Italian that was always used among the Di Rossis. “Wait for me.”
But Magdalena didn’t wait, rushing ahead toward the rose garden. From vanity, she’d always worn her skirts short enough to display her ankles and feet, and the high, white heels of her fuchsia-colored shoes crunched briskly across the stone path. Lucia could tell her cousin hoped the gentlemen were watching from the window: not only did she twitch her skirts higher with one hand while she walked, but she also made her hoops bounce and sway invitingly over her backside with each step.
“Magdalena, please,” Lucia said breathlessly, finally catching up with her.
Her cousin turned to face her, swirling her skirts as she studied Lucia up and down.
“A parasol, Lucia?” she asked, her black painted brows arching with scorn. “With a silk dressing gown, too? So you mimic the manners of a fine lady as well as the speech. How amusing to see you like a chattering little ape, trying to copy the airs of your betters.”
Lucia raised her chin, determined not to falter and sink beneath Magdalena’s hateful words. Her cousin had always done that, used mean-spirited criticism and little untruths that were sharp as knives to make Lucia bow to her wishes, but Lucia refused to do it any longer. Rivers’s lessons—and his love—had done more than change her speech and her clothing. He’d given her confidence in herself, and this might well be the greatest test of it.
“The parasol protects my complexion against the sun,” she said, purposefully mild instead of defensive. “As they say, my face will be my fortune on the stage, and I cannot let it be ruddy and coarse.”
Magdalena’s eyes narrowed beneath the curving brim of her hat.
“Lah, if your face is your fortune, Lucia, then you must have no more than a farthing or two in your pocket,” she said. “I cannot believe that a gentleman like Lord Rivers would ever take notice of you. Look at how slatternly you are dressed, with hair trailing down like a rat’s nest. It only proves how tedious life in the country can be, that he would seek amusement with you.”
“We have amused each other, yes,” Lucia said, striving to keep her composure and not to wince in the face of Magdalena’s casual cruelty. “But that does not answer why you have come here, too. If the country is so tedious, then why did you come with Sir Edward?”
Magdalena smiled smugly. “Because he invited me, of course. He is a gentleman of wealth and rank, and such gentlemen are not to be ignored. But then, you have already learned that with Lord Rivers.”
Lucia had learned many things from Rivers, none of which she intended to share with Magdalena—who of course took Lucia’s silence as agreement.
“Yes, once I confessed my concern for your welfare, Sir Edward was most kind to offer to bring me here,” she said. “Very kind.”
“You didn’t care at all when I left the company,” Lucia said, twisting the ivory handle of the parasol in her fingers. “How did you even know where I was?”
“Because all the town knows you are here,” Magdalena said airily. “His lordship has as much as announced it.”
Lucia frowned, thinking how very unlike Rivers such an announcement would be. “I doubt that.”
“You shouldn’t.” Magdalena stopped before one of the rosebushes, idly cupping a blossom in her hand. “His lordship has assumed all the costs for your benefit, including the use of the Russell Street Theatre and the company. McGraw has told everyone. He is, of course, putting a brave face on the benefit by saying you will be his next great actress, but everyone knows his puffery comes from his lordship’s purse, and not through any talent of yours.”
“He has paid Mr. McGraw?” Lucia asked, stunned.
“Oh, yes,” Magdalena said, breathing deeply of the rose’s fragrance. “I cannot guess what it must cost to hire a playhouse for a night. Far more than the wager, that’s certain.”
“But I auditioned for Mr. McGraw,” Lucia protested. “He would not have agreed to the benefit if he did not judge me acceptable.”
“He would put a donkey on his stage if a rich man paid for it,” Magdalena said. “You know you’ve no talent. If you did, you’d already be with our own company.”
“I never could dance, because I cannot hear the music,” Lucia said. “But I’m not dancing now. I’m acting.”
Magdalena gave her wrist a dismissive little twist. “It is all performing. Either one has the gift for pleasing an audience, or one does not. You, Lucia, do not. Doubtless your precious benefit has cost his lordship a pretty penny, especially considering you are no one.”
No one: for the first time Lucia was unable to brush away her cousin’s gibe. Rivers had invited the manager to watch her audition, yes, but he’d also let her believe that it had been her talent alone that had won her the offer of the benefit. She had wanted it so badly to be so that she hadn’t questioned the unlikelihood of McGraw’s offer. Rivers had made everything else happen for her, so she’d simply accepted this, too.
She could feel her newfound confidence crumbling away beneath her. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; he didn’t trust her talent, her gift, which somehow seemed infinitely worse. It hurt. She’d believed she’d accomplished so much, but perhaps she hadn’t after all. McGraw had been so quick to praise her performance, and she’d been just as quick to accept his praise as her due. Of course he could pretend she was the most marvelous actress he’d ever witnessed. He was an actor himself, wasn’t he? Oh, how easily she’d been gulled!
“Yet that is what a gentleman does when he is beguiled with a woman, isn’t it?” Magdalena continued. She snapped the rose’s stem, and began to walk slowly with it, tearing out the velvety red petals one by one and letting them flutter to the ground behind her. “He will do anything to find his way between her legs. His lordship is simply rewarding you for what you have granted him, and the more he gives you now, the easier it will be for him to justify casting you off when he is done with you. New clothes, a silk parasol, a playhouse benefit. You must have pleased him very much, cousin.”
“It—it is not like that between us,” Lucia stammered, denying what now seemed painfully obvious. “Not at all.”
“No?” Magdalena paused, and ripped another petal from the rose. “You do not please him?”
“His lordship and I please each other,” Lucia said, her voice small. “There are many things we enjoy in common.”
“Things in common?” Magdalena repeated with scathing incredulity. “As I recall, his lordship was exceptionally ardent as a lover.”
“You didn’t love him,” Lucia blurted out, unable to help herself.
“No, I didn’t, any more than he loved me,” Magdalena admitted with a careless shrug. Now that she’d found Lucia’s weakness, she was clearly enjoying herself. “There was an excitement between us, an allurement, but when I said we were lovers I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Lucia said quickly. “It’s different for Rivers and me.”
“What, all sighs and Cupid’s arrow, bleeding hearts and cooing doves?” Magdalena teased. “If that is what you believe you have with him, then you are a fool.”
“I know what I have,” Lucia said. What she had with Rivers was deeper, richer, more perfect than anything her cousin could ever understand, nor would she try to explain it.
But Magdalena didn’t expect her to. “Most likely any attraction he has felt for you came simply because you were here in this wretched place, away from all other opportunity, and you made yourself available.”
She tugged out several more of the rose’s petals at once, carelessly tossing them aside. “If you wish to stay in his lordship’s favor once you return to London, you must do better than—”
“Stop,” Lucia said, snatching the battered rose from her cousin’s hands. “Those roses belonged to his lordship’s mother. All the flowers here are hers.”
Magdalena’s laugh was harsh and mocking. “If you are as sentimental as that, then he will weary of you even faster than I thought. I vow you will be forgotten in a month, Lucia. You are a passing amusement for his lordship, nothing more. But he does have a conscience, rare for a gentleman. You must make the most of that, and take all you can from him before he tires of you.”
Lucia shook her head, clutching the rose protectively in her hands. The pieces all fit together too neatly to ignore.
“I’m not you, Magdalena,” she insisted doggedly. “I won’t do that with his lordship.”
“You’re an imbecile if you don’t,” her cousin said bluntly. “You may think you’re better because he’s taught you to sound like a lady, but it’s a false parrot’s trick. You’re no different than before, not in the ways that matter most to him.”
“He says I am,” Lucia said defensively. In her heart, she didn’t believe it herself, but she would never admit that to her cousin. “Yesterday we had tea with the ladies of his family at Breconridge Hall, and they all treated me as if I were Mrs. Willow.”
“But his lordship himself doesn’t believe that you are, does he?” Magdalena said shrewdly. “If you truly were a lady in his eyes, then you would not be here alone with him in his house, and you would still be a virgin. Gentlemen like him do not spend their lives with women like us.”
Lucia flushed, for what her cousin said was painfully true. Again. She knew it herself. No matter how many times Rivers said he loved her, it would never be enough to make her his equal, like Lady Augusta and Lady Geoffrey.
Magdalena leaned close, her expression turning uncharacteristically earnest.
“Do not waste this opportunity, Lucia,” she said. “His lordship is the son of a duke, with an income beyond our imagining. You must seize what you can, for yourself, for your family. You are by blood a Di Rossi, yes?”
“Yes,” Lucia said, reluctantly. By birth she still was a Di Rossi and always would be, but that was in spite of the way the rest of her family had treated her after her father had died, not because of it.
Magdalena nodded, her dark eyes glittering like flint beneath the brim of her hat.
“Then you know what you must do,” she said. “Di Rossis look after themselves first.”
“Magdalena, I can’t do that,” Lucia said. “I won’t.”
“You will,” Magdalena said, “or you are even more useless than I’ve ever thought before. Take every farthing, every jewel, every silk gown that his lordship offers you, because you will not be in his bed for long.”
Here in the bright sun, Lucia saw tiny lines around her cousin’s eyes and mouth, lines that might not show beneath the theater’s paint and lights, but were inescapable anywhere else. She was still beautiful, but there was a desperation to her beauty that had not been noticeable before.
Lucia knew it was this way for all the women who danced in the company: their faces hardened and their jumps grew shorter, their knees gave way and their waists thickened, and before long they were relegated to character parts and dowdy costumes, and the rich gentlemen ceased to send them flowers or invite them to dine. Not so long ago, Magdalena would have scorned a lowly baronet like Sir Edward. Now, at twenty-eight, she was doing exactly as she advised Lucia to do: taking what she could before it was too late.
“Magdalena!” Sir Edward stood beckoning from the garden steps, Rivers behind him. They were once again smiling, as friends should; at least they hadn’t come to blows, which is what Lucia had feared would happen.
“I must go,” Magdalena said, waving gaily to the men. “But consider what I’ve said, Lucia, and if you’ve any wits at all, you will follow my advice.”
She didn’t wait for Lucia to answer, but hurried back to rejoin Sir Edward, greeting him as fondly as if they’d been parted a week instead of a quarter hour. Lucia followed more slowly, the parasol on her shoulder. Rivers was waiting for her, his smile every bit as happy as Sir Edward’s was for Magdalena, and she’d no doubt his welcoming kiss would be equally warm.
But after her conversation with Magdalena, her thoughts were in turmoil. She knew that her cousin often said things simply to torment her, and she wasn’t above invention and outright lies, either. Yet much of what Magdalena had said this time held the ring of unfortunate truth, so much that she couldn’t put it from her mind. The world of rich gentlemen dabbling among actresses and dancers was a familiar world to Magdalena, and she spoke from experience that Lucia herself did not have. She couldn’t deny that, as much as she wished to.
And one of Magdalena’s barbs had struck her to the quick. To learn that Rivers had paid Mr. McGraw to praise her and agree to the benefit had wounded her pride and shaken her confidence, but most of all it had hurt to learn that Rivers had so little faith in her and her talent. His praise, his compliments, had meant the world to her, and had helped to bind them closer as friends as well as lovers. Yesterday she’d wanted so badly for him to trust her, but if what Magdalena had said was true, then she was the one who’d lost all trust in him.
She slowed her steps further. Magdalena and Sir Edward had already disappeared into the house, while Rivers continued to stand on the top step, waiting for her with his legs slightly apart and his hands clasped behind his back, a quintessential Rivers pose if ever there was one. Because they hadn’t been expecting guests, his hair was loose and untied, as bright as gold in the sunlight, and his jaw unshaven. His dressing gown had loosened, the front gaping enough to allow the breeze to ripple it over his bare chest. He was smiling still, smiling at her, and the entire sight of him made her chest tighten and her heart grow heavy.
Because she did love him, and likely always would. Nothing Magdalena or anyone else said could change that. Yet she needed to ask him about McGraw, no matter how difficult it would be to find the words. She had to know.
“What is that in your hand?” he asked curiously as she climbed the steps to join him.
She stopped one step below him, the difference in their heights exaggerated all the more. She looked down into her hand, realizing she’d forgotten she held the mangled rose, half the petals torn away and the yellow stamen crushed in the center.
“It’s a rose,” she said softly, opening her fingers so he could see.
“Or what’s left of one,” he said. “My God, what happened to it?”
“Magdalena.” She sighed ruefully, thinking how her cousin had scorned her for being too sentimental. “She was tearing it apart, and I couldn’t bear to see her do so, because it’s one of your mother’s flowers. So I took it from her.”
“How very like Magdalena,” he said. “And how very like you as well.”
Even earlier today, she would have accepted that as a compliment. After what Magdalena had said, however, she wasn’t as sure, and all she did was smile uncertainly.
He didn’t give her any clues, either, just held his hand out to her. “Come, let’s see them off before she finds something else to destroy.”
She closed the parasol and took his offered hand, and together they joined the others in the front hall. The farewells were brief and a little strained, yet for Lucia the discomfort did not end when Sir Edward’s carriage drew away from the house.
“Clearly I’ve forgotten how Magdalena can be,” Rivers said, watching the carriage. “When I see you side by side with her, I can scarcely believe you’re cousins.”
Neither could Lucia, especially not when she recalled how fashionably her cousin had been dressed. Perhaps she had become a slattern, as Magdalena had accused her of being, and self-consciously she smoothed the silk over her breast and tightened the sash around her waist.
“But then, some might wonder why I am friends with Everett,” Rivers continued as they walked back inside the house, back to the library where they’d been earlier, back to the same sofa as if nothing had changed, when everything had. “He really can be quite an ass.”
“You are not much alike that I can see,” Lucia said carefully, believing that was safe enough. There was nothing controversial there, for it was true, too. She’d never understood how the two men could be friends, thoughtful Rivers with boorish, bullying Sir Edward.
“No, we are not,” Rivers agreed, dropping back down onto the sofa. “But he was the very first boy who befriended me at school, and we’ve remained friends ever since. We’ve always made foolish wagers, too, over everything and nothing, and this one’s no different. Do you know he remains convinced that you will falter during the benefit, and he will win?”
“Truly?” It was all she could think to say. She didn’t sit with him, but remained standing, her arms folded and her hands tucked inside the full sleeves of her sultana. “Sir Edward did not seem convinced of that earlier.”
“He is now,” Rivers said, smiling as he remembered. He patted the cushion beside him as a hint for her to join him on the sofa. “While you were walking with your cousin, I made sure of it by dropping a few choice words and hints to let him think he still has a chance to win. None of it was true, of course, but the last thing I wish is for him to withdraw from the wager altogether, and end the sport before it has begun.”
None of this felt like sport to her, and she remained standing, her back stiff and her hands hidden in her sleeves. “What did you tell him?”
“Only enough for him to forget whatever nonsense McGraw has begun braying about the town,” he said blithely. “Everett is easily distracted, you know. He certainly was by your pretty face. But then, so am I.”
She turned away and went to stand at the garden window, ostensibly gazing at the flowers. She didn’t want to hear about having a pretty face, not now. She wanted to know that she’d talent enough to earn an honest role on the London stage, and not have it bought for her like a sugary, iced sweet at the confectionery. It was inevitable that she’d lose Rivers, but she’d consoled herself by knowing she’d be able to support herself on the stage. Without that, she’d be left with nothing, absolutely nothing.
Unaware of her thoughts, Rivers came to stand behind her at the window. He slipped his arm around her waist to pull her close, and she couldn’t keep from tensing.
“You’ll prove to him and the rest how fine an actress you’ve become,” he said softly, sweeping aside her hair to whisper in her ear. “No, how fine an actress you’ve always been. You’ll show them your mettle, sweetheart, and let them see your magic.”
“You’re very certain,” she said, her voice sounding brittle. The heat of his chest against her back, the warmth of his breath on her ear only served to muddle her more. “How do you know I won’t turn mute with stage fright, and forget my lines before an audience, exactly as Sir Edward predicts?”
“Where has this worry come from, eh?” he asked. “What of not looking too far into the future?”
She didn’t answer that, because she had no answer. She closed her eyes, trying to lose herself in the rightness of him behind her.
“I cannot help it,” she said. “I think of all the other actresses who’ve come to London, and how most have failed. Why should I be different?”
“Because they’re not you, Lucia,” he said, feathering a kiss along the side of her throat. “That’s the reason.”
She longed to believe him, yet her doubts remained. What would she do if he admitted he’d paid McGraw? What would she do if he didn’t?
“I’m not sure that’s reason enough,” she said. “All those other actresses thought the same of themselves.”
“But without your merit, Lucia,” he said. He’d shifted his hand over her breast, gently cupping it in his palm and teasing her nipple through the silk with his thumb. “Once the world sees you in Hamlet, I guarantee you’ll be the toast of the town.
“Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.”
She closed her eyes, the pleasure of his caress turned bittersweet by his words. If he hadn’t quoted from the play again, she might have been able to put aside her doubts and give herself over to his lovemaking.
But having him fall back into quoting the play made that impossible. Only Rivers could transform a random line from Hamlet into something that was both intensely personal and seductive. What had started out as a lesson had become a kind of game between them, like a secret lovers’ language, flirtatious banter that they’d made their own.
It had made her feel clever and witty, but also made her realize how special Rivers had become to her. She thought of the first time they’d worked together on that particular scene, of how patient he’d been with her, of how he’d explained that “orisons” was simply an old-fashioned word for prayers, and how they’d laughed together over the funny sound of it. He’d treated her with respect and regard, and in these last short weeks, she’d come to love and trust him as she’d never done anyone else. He was her lover, but he was also her friend, and the thought that she might soon be neither to him was unbearable.
“I…I must go,” she said, pushing away from him.
“Go?” he repeated, surprised. “Where are you going?”
“To my room,” she said, already at the doorway. “I…I need to begin packing my things for London.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “That’s for Sally to do, not you. Please, Lucia. Come back.”
But she was running up the stairs, her eyes awash with tears. She heard him call her name again, yet still she ran, straight to her bedchamber. The door was open, and the young chambermaid was sweeping out the grate. She curtseyed to Lucia as all the servants had been instructed by Rivers to do, but even that simple gesture of unearned deference seemed like a mockery to Lucia.
“Go, please, at once,” she said, her voice breaking. “Leave me alone.”
The chambermaid scurried to obey, gathering up her brushes and bucket, but before she could close the door, Rivers stormed into the room, slamming the door shut after him.
“What in blazes is wrong with you, Lucia?” he demanded. His blue eyes were flashing, managing to look both angry and wounded at the same time. “Why did you run from me?”
“Nothing is wrong,” she lied, backing away from him until she bumped into the bed, the mahogany rail pressing against her calf. “And I didn’t run.”
“Oh, yes, you did,” he said, following her. “Clearly something has upset you, and I don’t want you pretending otherwise. You were fine this morning. Was it Magdalena? Did she say something to distress you?”
She looked down, unable to meet his gaze, and realized she was still holding the battered rose. “Is it true that you paid McGraw to tell me I could act?”
“My God, is that what she told you?” He raked his fingers back through his hair, but he didn’t answer her question, nor did he deny it; she wasn’t surprised, for he was far too honorable to lie, even to save himself.
She raised her eyes to his. Now that she’d begun, she was determined not to back down until she knew everything. “Is it true?”
“What, that I paid McGraw to praise you?” He shook his head, again not in denial, but incredulity. “You would take that woman’s word over mine?”
“I would take her word because it’s the only one I have,” she said, her own anger beginning to rise. “Until you tell me otherwise, I have no choice but to believe it’s the truth.”
His face flushed. “We both know that Magdalena will say whatever the hell she pleases.”
“While you have said nothing,” she shot back. “Tell me otherwise, Rivers. Tell me the truth.”
He didn’t answer, his jaw tight.
“The truth,” she repeated. “Just—just tell me.”
He took a deep breath, and let it burst out in an oath.
“Very well, then, I did pay McGraw,” he said, biting off each word. “I’ve paid him for the use of his theater for a night, for rehearsals and other actors. I’ve paid for the playbills, and I’ve paid for the musicians, and yes, I paid for the carriage to bring him here for your audition. Is that enough truth for you?”
She gasped, her fury fueled by disappointment, and by fear, too, for a future that had abruptly lost all its bright possibilities.
“Why did you lie to me, Rivers?” she exclaimed. “Why did you tell me I had talent and a gift, when you didn’t trust me enough to win my own praise, but instead had to buy it, like one more foolish bonnet I didn’t want or need?”
“Because, damnation, Lucia, I love you,” he said, his voice raised and his anger a match for hers. “I did it all for you, and I’d do it again.”
“Love!” she cried in frustration. “How can you say you love me? How can you claim to do these things for me, for my sake, when you did not tell the truth to me about the one thing that mattered most?”
She hurled the crumpled rose at his chest and spun around, unable to face him. The last thing she wished now was for him to see the anguish and despair that she knew must show on her face.
But he caught her by the arm and yanked her back around, trapping her close against his chest with one arm. With his free hand, he caught her jaw and tipped it up so she was forced to look at him.
“I never lied to you,” he said, his voice rough, more a command than a confession. “Not once. I never flattered you with empty praise. I never told McGraw how to judge you. It was up to you to impress him or not, and you did, exactly as I knew you would.”
“But you paid him,” she said, her breath coming so short and fast she was almost panting. “When you paid for the theater and the playbill and God knows what else, you bought his opinion of me, too.”
“I never intended it to be like that, Lucia, I swear to you!”
“Then what was it like?” she demanded. “You didn’t trust my talent enough to let it stand on its own, or to let me earn McGraw’s praise. You cheated me, Rivers, and I can’t see it any other way.”
“But why would I do that?” he asked, his voice rough with urgency. “Why would I do that to you, Lucia, when from the beginning I’ve believed in you, praised you, been in awe of everything that your talent and gifts have driven you to achieve? Why would I undermine all that now?”
She didn’t answer, her thoughts so confused that she didn’t know what to say. But she felt: she was acutely aware of his fingers gripping her jaw and the strength of his grip and his will. She’d never seen him like this before, and it excited her, and frightened her a bit as well. She’d never been so aware of the difference in their size, of the raw strength he usually kept carefully hidden away beneath his scholarly gentility. Her breasts crushed to his chest with only two thin layers of silk between them, and there was no mistaking how aroused he was with the thickness of his cock pressing against her belly.
Beyond their own ragged breathing, she heard a bored dog barking in the distance as well as the house sparrows chattering from beneath the eaves outside her open window, ordinary sounds that somehow served to exaggerate the tension between her and Rivers. She tried to push free, and he jerked her back.
“Listen to me, Lucia,” he said sharply. “I could have done what Magdalena said, and forced McGraw to take you whether you deserved it or not. I could have done just enough to win the wager. I could even have paid McGraw to make certain you failed. But I didn’t. I kept my part of our bargain, and gave you the opportunity you wanted.”
She sighed, a deep, shuddering gulp of a sigh that was halfway to a sob as her anger slipped away. She could feel it go, fading beneath the bright truth of his words. She knew he was right. She knew she’d been wrong. But far worse was knowing that she had wronged him, and she didn’t know how to begin to apologize.
“Oh, Rivers,” she whispered haltingly, regret and remorse sweeping over her as she shook her head back and forth. “I never meant—”
“No more, Lucia,” he said roughly. “No more words.”
He bent to kiss her, still holding her jaw captive as he slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue plunging and searching and marking her as his. His unshaven face scraped against her lips, burning them. His anger hadn’t lessened: his kiss was demanding and possessive, and just short of punishing. If his words had failed to make her understand, then he clearly intended to do so this way.
But she could do that, too, and she reached up to hold the back of his head, her fingers tangling into his hair as she held him as steady as he’d done her. She freely gave herself up to the kiss and to him as well. She should never have doubted him, never have questioned his trust, and she kissed him in hungry abandon to prove that she was completely his. Off-balance, she clung to him, and together they toppled backward onto the bed.
Still joined to her by the kiss, Rivers shoved open the bodice of her sultana, not bothering to untie the sash as he exposed her from the waist. Immediately he bent to lick her bared breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth and rolling his tongue against it, a pleasure that was velvety-deep and streaked straight to her core. He ran his hands along the sides of her rib cage, caressing her but also holding her in a way that was every bit as possessive as the kiss had been. Lucia arched into him to seek more, and blindly tried to unfasten the silk frogs on his dressing gown.
He pushed her hand aside and impatiently tore at the fastenings himself. She’d a fleeting impression of Rivers in all his perfection, of focused power and hard muscles and a lion’s mane of blond hair. His eyes were dark with lust, his entire body taut with it, and she could tell he’d crossed the point of self-control. Not that she cared; she’d crossed it, too.
“Hurry,” she said breathlessly, whispering her legs apart in invitation. She felt heavy and full from wanting him, already wet with desire and longing. “Please.”
There was too much tension in his face to answer as he settled between her legs, and she sighed as he eased his cock into her passage. She always loved the moment of joining with him, of becoming truly his, and she caught her breath as he sank deeper and filled her all the way. He hooked his arms beneath her bent knees to open her even farther, and began to thrust in steady, forceful strokes that pushed her back across the bedcover. She reached up to hold his shoulders, the rose-colored silk sleeves slipping back and pooling around her arms, and crossed her legs over his back. Their bellies struck together with each thrust, and she loved that, too, arching her hips from the bed to meet him.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered. “Damnation, Lucia, look at me. Don’t hide. Don’t run away again.”
She hadn’t even realized that her eyes had been closed, but she opened them now, wide, her gaze locking with his and her lips parted. With each plunging stroke she felt the tension building inside her and growing in shimmering, heated waves that melted away the last of her doubts. He was relentless, giving her everything she needed and more, and she writhed beneath him, doing the same for him.
It was always like this between them when they made love. Here there were no doubts, no suspicions, no secrets, no difference of ranks. Here everything was reduced to the essence of love, and the two of them bound together.
“I love you,” she said raggedly, her words punctuated by the rhythm of his thrusts. “Oh, Rivers, yes!”
“Yes,” he repeated, a single raspy, guttural syllable as he bowed his head against her shoulder. “Yes.”
She came before he did, clawing at his shoulders, with her cries of release echoing in the bedchamber. Still she shook beneath him as he joined her, tensing as at last he spent in waves that shook them both.
Afterward they lay close together, their arms and legs entwined. She held him, and he held her, neither wishing to relinquish the other. It had as much to do with peace as with love: peace, and love, and trust, and contentment, all woven together so perfectly that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.
She shifted just enough to pull the coverlet over their bodies, and then curled against his body. She smiled down at him, lightly tracing the bow of his lips with her fingertip.
Without opening his eyes, he caught her finger to stop its roaming.
“You’re tickling me,” he protested mildly. He turned her finger to kiss the tip, then swiped it wetly with his tongue.
She laughed, thinking of how impossibly dear he had become to her. It wasn’t just their bodies that were joined, but their souls as well.
“What you said about McGraw and the audition and the rest,” she said softly. “Why did you do that for me?”
He opened his eyes, as blue and clear as truth itself.
“Because I love you, Lucia,” he said. “Because I love you, I will give you whatever makes you happy.”
“You make me happy, Rivers,” she whispered, bending down to press her lips to his. “You make me, oh, so, so happy, and you must know I’d give the world for you to feel the same.”
He smiled. “You already have.”
She smiled, too, and bent to kiss him. So it was as simple, and as complicated, as that. It was love, and she felt the tears well up clear from her heart.