It wasn’t often Frank got a night off. Or close to it, at any rate.
All he had to do was introduce Alessandra and Cosimo, then he was free to find Andie and enjoy the show until he had to close it at the end. After checking on the lads at the doors, Frank put on his coat and took the stage to scattered applause. “I now have the great honor of presenting a new act. All the way from Sicily, I give you The Spider Dance.”
Frank exited the stage as the drumming began. As it happened, there was nothing new about the tarantella, but even if his audience had heard one before, they never would have seen it played like this. Leaving his coat on its peg in the kitchen, Frank rolled up his sleeves and retrieved a bottle of rum from the cold cellar. Two clean glasses in hand, he took it behind the bar and met Andie at the foot of the stairs. She watched the stage, enthralled. Frank offered his arm. “Shall we?”
She glanced up at him, obviously alarmed. On the stage, Nyra, Diana, and Polly were just getting started. Draped in colorful scarves, they were fully covered at all times, but their sensual movements gave the impression that their clothes were about to fall off.
Frank mentally kicked himself. It should have occurred to him that Andie was likely more sheltered than she seemed. “I’m sorry, is this a bit much? You don’t have to stay.”
Andie noticed the bottle in his hand, and an odd resolve settled over her features. He couldn’t blame her; it was bloody good rum. “No, I’d like to stay. Where shall we sit?”
With a smile, Frank led her to the highest balcony open to the public. It was empty tonight, and they’d be able to see the show but still talk without disturbing anyone. He motioned toward the pink seashell-shaped sofa overlooking the stage. “How’s this? You’re not afraid of heights, I hope?”
Andie shook her head, taking in the Moroccan lamps suspended from the star-painted ceiling. “This is perfect.”
The dance was not like anything Andie had seen before. It started with Nyra, Diana, and Polly dancing to the roll of the drums. This was no waltz, but a kind of awakening that seemed to overtake them an inch at a time. Andie had never seen hips move like that, and when they tossed their shoulders and arms into the dance, spinning gossamer veils in the air, she had to catch her breath. It was beautiful.
Frank offered her a glass of rum and she accepted, the familiar burnt-sugar taste as comforting as her great-grandfather’s profile on the side of the bottle. How would Achille feel about her being here? A proud and accomplished man, his example inspired everything her family did to this day.
Then again, he himself had married an English barmaid from Southwark, so perhaps he would understand.
Acutely aware of the man beside her, Andie focused on the stage without really seeing it. Sitting next to Frank felt natural, and comfortable in a way she’d never experienced. She didn’t have to explain herself or fight to be understood; he saw her and celebrated her the way she was.
Well, as much as he really knew about her, anyway. Would his opinion change if he knew her real name?
The drums sped up, and the dancers moved away from each other. As the song began in earnest, they started to spin, tossing themselves about as if in a storm. They shook and tore at their clothes, warring with the drums for speed. Frank leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “This is the tarantella,” he said. “Have you ever seen it?”
Andie shook her head, leaning toward him to hear him better. “What is it?”
He licked his lip, excited to explain it. “It’s a traditional dance from Taranta that dates all the way back to antiquity. It symbolizes the effects of a venomous spider bite, which in this case is a metaphor for the torture of falling in love. The dance itself is therapeutic; the idea is that if they do it correctly and with enough passion, they can exorcise the venom.”
She frowned. “So they’re doing it to not be in love?”
“Theoretically.” Frank shrugged. “I suspect it’s that all that pent-up energy just needs somewhere to go.”
Andie watched with new insight. The dance was captivating, and the women did indeed look tortured. But as they danced and lost themselves in the music, the anguish took on another quality until the women seemed to enter a state of divine ecstasy. “It’s incredible.”
“It’s for you,” Frank said. Clearing his throat, he clarified, “In the show, your character—you’re based on these ancient mystery goddesses of love and war.”
As she looked down upon the dancers and musicians, she tried to imagine them playing for her favor, and the role did indeed begin to make more sense. If she had the power to heal these women of their affliction, she would. “How do I fix it?”
Frank looked at her askance, the lamps glittering in his eyes. They were as dark as the longest night—clear, endless, and deep enough to fall into. “You don’t. You can’t cure love,” he said quietly, his gaze falling to her lips. “The only way out is through.”
Andie’s breath caught. They were close enough now that she could smell the ginger in his soap. An odd smell for a man, the heat of it diffused with the warmth of his skin, mixing with the starch in his collar and the spice of the rum. Was he going to kiss her?
She hoped to God he would.
A burst of applause announced the end of the dance, and the moment was lost. Andie finished her drink and leaned against the backrest of the sofa, trying to catch her breath. To her surprise, Pietro, Lorenzo, and Andrei joined the women on the stage. Nyra picked up a set of castanets to add to the percussion as she continued to dance. A new rhythm started, and the whole mood of the theater changed. “What is this?” she asked Frank.
“This is ‘through.’ The tammorriata.” He refilled both of their glasses. “You might need that.”
The tammorriata was a couples’ dance, seemingly improvised. Taking turns supporting each other’s weight, each couple leaned back and forth in impossibly deep dips, swinging and swaying and all but climbing each other on stage. Andie might have been inexperienced, but she knew the dance was meant to mimic making love. The dancers took turns taunting each other, pulling away, then embracing each other once again until Andie was sure the temperature in the theater had risen by at least ten degrees. It drew her in but made her uncomfortable at the same time. “Should we be watching this?”
Frank paused with his glass halfway to his lips. “What, together?”
She swallowed the noise of surprise that rose in her throat and was deeply embarrassed when it still sounded like a muffled quack. Of course he heard it. Frank listened to everything. To his credit, he didn’t even smile. Andie clarified, “I mean…this seems…private?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “It’s all performance. Take everything you’ve got and leave it on the stage. Frustrated? You dance the tarantella. Bad day? You walk into my theater and absolutely destroy Der Hölle Rache.” Frank smiled as she fought the urge to hide her face. “You know, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. You singing? I could smell the brimstone.”
Andie laughed in spite of herself. “Is that a good thing?”
“It’s the best thing.” He held her gaze a moment too long, and she felt it.
The spider bite.
Attraction leaked slow and warm into her veins, racing toward her heart. Would she have to dance to expel it, or could she transmute it somehow?
Recognition lit his eyes, and as his expression fell from surprise into a kind of nervous vulnerability, she knew.
He felt it too.
Frank took a deep breath, and it shook as he let it out. “It’s getting late. I suppose I should check on Lu.”
Andie sat up straighter. “Oh, is she here?”
He blinked, confused. “We live just upstairs—didn’t she mention? The door’s right around the corner. Do you, erm…” He swallowed. “Would you like to come up for a minute?”
Is this a proposition? Frank was unguarded about so many things but oddly awkward in others, and she found she couldn’t tell. He’s hardly going to seduce you with his child present, is he? Feeling silly, Andie finished her rum. Surely there was no harm in seeing it for a moment. “That would be lovely.”
Frank stood, straightening his shirt and retrieving the bottle from the floor. With a last look over the balcony to check the progress of the show, he led her to the hall around the corner and up another flight of stairs, pausing to unlock a door at the top. “Lu, are you still awake?”
“Reading, Dad.”
Feeling like an intruder, Andie followed him into the space.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. It appeared to be a maze of rooms leading into each other, more akin to the private quarters in a palace than a modern house. The rooms were much smaller, of course, but no less grand. The door led directly into a warm sitting room paneled in intricately carved walnut. Enormous windows with stained-glass flourishes looked out over the city, while a fire burned invitingly in the hearth. The mismatched furniture was upholstered in deep red velvet. It was beautiful.
Frank stepped easily through the space, no longer noticing the historic details or careful decoration. Whoever had done it had a good eye.
Perhaps his wife had done it before she’d passed.
Or perhaps he has a mistress who did it last week.
Reasoning away the unfamiliar spark of envy, Andie followed. On the opposite end of the next room—a cavernous space full of unusual musical instruments and a cabinet stuffed to overflowing with sheet music—a doorway glowed with the light of the lamp inside.
Frank paused in the doorway, his broad shoulders limned in candlelight. “Miss Archer is here. Would you like to say goodnight?”
“Miss Archer?” Lulu stood and peeked around the doorway in a long nightdress and brilliant purple robe. She looked at her father. “You haven’t done the washing; you’ll frighten her away.”
Andie laughed to herself. “You have a beautiful home, Lulu. Perhaps you and your father might visit mine for tea sometime?” The invitation was out before Andie thought better of it. She still wasn’t sure how Frank would feel about her living in Mayfair.
Lulu’s eyes widened. “Can we?” she asked Frank.
Frank raised his arms, giving up responsibility. “I’ll leave that to the two of you to arrange. Now get some rest. We’ve got the museum in the morning.”
“All right.” She waved from the doorway. “Good night, Miss Archer.”
Andie smiled. “Good night, Lulu.”
Frank kissed the top of her head, then gently closed the door behind him as he returned to Andie in the sitting room.
Clearly relieved that his daughter was safe and everything was right with the world, he still looked ill-at-ease as he paused in front of the fireplace. He looked around, blowing out a long breath. “This is it. Probably not what you’re used to.”
“I love it,” she said sincerely.
Frank nodded toward a closed door on the opposite end of the sitting room. “You haven’t seen the best part.”
Curious, Andie followed him. To her considerable shock, the next room was his bedroom. She hesitated before going inside until he continued through and opened another door on the far wall. Moonlight and cold air spilled into the dark space. “This way.”
Feeling braver by the moment, Andie followed him, sneaking a glance at his room along the way. The light was too poor to make out much of anything, but he appeared to have an old-fashioned canopy bed. It had probably come with the theater and the corpse of an Elizabethan playwright in it. The wall facing the bed seemed to be made of books—hundreds if not thousands stacked in no apparent order on shelves that extended all the way to the high ceiling. Andie wouldn’t have expected an East End musician to have quite so many, but everything about Frank was unexpected.
Closing the door behind her, Andie climbed a narrow set of steps to the roof. It was the same roof Lulu had shown her before, but another way of accessing it. They walked between the chimneys and the edge of the massive thatch roof to the terrace in the center.
Frank took a deep breath of the cool night air and visibly relaxed. “This is my favorite place.”
Above them, stars filled the sky like foil confetti. Below, the lights of the city flickered golden paths along the labyrinth of streets. This high up, it was quiet and still, and the air seemed fresher somehow. It was a secluded piece of heaven in the middle of all the madness. “I can see why.”
Pouring them another two glasses of rum, Frank tapped on the roof with his foot. “You know, most theaters of this period don’t have these. They used to leave the tops open to let in the air and light. The potters kept it that way until it flooded with rain and ruined their clay, so they put up a cheap roof to try to stop it happening. Trouble is, it never really stops raining in these parts, so they didn’t stick around long. When the next theater owner bought it back in 1665, he kept it up for the sake of the people staying here after the Great Fire, and he liked it so much that he put in a permanent roof around 1670.”
“How do you know all this?” Andie asked as she accepted the glass of rum.
“There was a crack in it when I bought the place.”
Almost dropping her glass, Andie took a step back.
Frank put up a reassuring hand and laughed. “Not to worry—we fixed the crack and reinforced the whole thing. I found signatures and dates from the original builders beneath the eaves. They’re still there.” He smiled as he sipped his rum. “That’s when we put in the chandelier.”
A few wooden benches were arranged in a loose circle around the middle. Andie picked one and sat facing the full moon. It didn’t escape her notice that Frank kept saying “we.” She knew she was prying, but she had to ask, “When did Lulu’s mother pass?”
“Pass?” Frank sat beside her and set the bottle of rum on the floor. “Is that what Lu told you? Too many gothic novels. Can’t imagine where she gets it,” he deadpanned. “No, we haven’t seen her for years. I have no idea where she is.”
Andie’s mouth dropped open. “You seem remarkably unbothered for someone with a missing wife.”
“We were never married.” Frank pulled a thin cigar from behind his ear—when had he picked that up?—and lit it with a match. “I suppose I shouldn’t admit that.” He cringed and exhaled a plume of smoke away from her face. “She was a dancer I met on tour in Italy. Mira. I was playing with an orchestra at the time, and we weren’t there for long. She caught up with me in Frankfurt two years later and dropped Lu in my lap. I offered to marry her—seemed the right thing to do—but she told me to fuck myself and went back to Sienna. She named her Lucrezia; I think she was hoping Lu would poison me.”
Andie didn’t know what to say. “I’m…erm, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He took a long drag. “We do all right. Don’t let the kohl and the confetti fool you—this isn’t some sad story about a clueless father and his poor motherless child. Lu goes to school, she eats properly, and she has everything she needs. Since Mira brought her to me, my daughter has been the center of my universe, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Andie didn’t doubt it. Good fathers were so rare. Though her own had been marvelous, most of her friends’ fathers were distant, cold, or outright hostile. It spoke volumes that Frank wasn’t like that. If Andie ever had a husband—and she still very much doubted she ever would—she hoped he’d be someone like Frank.
A faint tickle crept up the back of her neck. Another imaginary “spider.” She gently scratched it. She wasn’t ready to crush the poor thing. “I think that’s absolutely wonderful.”
He met her gaze. “You do?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Lulu’s lucky to have you.”
Frank smiled around the cigar, looking at the moon. “I’m lucky to have her. She’s the reason I do this, you realize. The shows. If not for her, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do it for myself.”
Andie sipped her rum slowly, enjoying the mellow smell of the tobacco. Up here, Frank was the only warmth in the night, and she found herself leaning a little closer to his shoulder. “Perhaps you’re braver than you think.” She sighed. “Most of the people I grew up with did the opposite. My closest friends married and had children young, and they gave up their interests and very identities. These are people who have armies of servants, nannies, and governesses at their disposal—they’re so restricted by what society expects them to do, expects a mother to be, that they moved out to the country one by one and just…faded away.”
Frank didn’t say anything for a moment. With a sinking feeling, Andie realized she’d all but admitted her station.
As his shoulders started to shake, Andie realized Frank was laughing. “What?”
“You look so panic-stricken.” He smiled at her in the moonlight. “I knew you were a lady the moment you walked in the door.”
Oddly, that didn’t calm her a single bit. “You did?”
He stopped hiding his laughter. “Obviously. How many fishwives do you think look like you?”
Andie folded her arms. “What do you mean by that?”
“Beautiful. Elegant. Queenly.” He rolled a hand as if making a bow to a monarch. “Your borrowed clothes aren’t fooling anyone. I’ve known opera singers my whole life, and not one of them brought the light with her when she walked into a room like you do.”
Her breath caught. “You think I’m pretty?”
This was usually the part when tonnish lords fell all over themselves to quote sonnets and praise her with flowery, impersonal cliches.
“Pretty?” Frank emitted an ungentlemanly snort. “No, darling. I’m saying you’re the goddamned sun.”
Andie didn’t know what to say. No man had ever said anything like that to her and meant it. She’d gotten her fair share of awful poetry over the years—as it happened, nothing rhymed with Archambault—but none of it meant half as much as knowing that Frank Creighton saw her like that.
“You just swore,” she said dumbly, kicking herself as soon as it was out.
“I blame the rum.” He stubbed out his cigar. “I blame the rum for this too.” Frank stood abruptly and crossed to the other doorway. He opened it a crack, and music from the theater spilled out into the night. He grabbed the bucket beside the door and brought it back to where Andie was sitting. “How do you feel about birds?”
Andie sat back, bewildered. She’d thought he might kiss her, and now he was talking about birds. “I beg your pardon?”
Frank finished his rum in a single gulp. “Sunflower seeds.” He tipped the bucket in her direction so she could see the contents. It was indeed filled to the brim. “Take a handful. I want to show you something.”
She looked at him with suspicion. What was wrong with this man? “All right…” She reached into the bucket and filled her hand with seeds.
Satisfied, Frank took two great fistfuls for himself. “Hold your hand a little loose and shake them so they rattle. Are you ready?”
Andie wasn’t at all sure about this, but at the joyful urgency in his eyes, she acquiesced. “Ready.”
She followed his lead as he shook the seeds for about five seconds, then they both tossed them toward the edge of the roof.
Within seconds, they were surrounded by a whirlwind of black feathers. It was so sudden and overwhelming that Andie screamed. Dozens and dozens of crows swooped around them in circles until they settled on the seeds, seizing them from the floor and picking them out of the thatch.
Andie doubled over in fits of laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks as she struggled to catch her breath. “I thought you were joking!”
Frank chuckled at her response, looking a little too natural surrounded by a hundred crows under the full moon. “I never joke about crows.”
Andie playfully swatted his shoulder, and Frank grasped her hand and held it to his chest. When she didn’t pull away but stepped closer, he wound an arm around the small of her back and led her around the roof in a sort of improvised waltz to the music coming from inside. Her cheeks ached from smiling as he spun her under the moon, crows fluttering away to avoid her feet. As he caught her in his arms, she met his gaze and she knew.
She curled her fingers into his crisp white shirt and whispered, “You are quite mad, Frank Creighton.”
His eyebrows drew together, and she was treated to a slow, crooked smile. “You have no idea.”
Grasping his collar in her hands, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
It was a bad idea, the worst idea—she couldn’t have explained why she did it other than that she had to. He was the most exhilarating, infuriating, impossible man, and every nerve in her body was screaming at her to kiss his ridiculous face.
Frank didn’t seem to mind. Gathering her up in his arms, he returned the favor with interest. His kiss was like his music—instinctive, passionate, and casually skilled. Though Andie had very little experience with men—and certainly no one like Frank—kissing him felt as easy and essential as breathing.
The chill of the night seemed to disappear as she pressed herself against the heat of his chest, burying her fingers into the unruly waves of his hair. He tasted of salt and rum, the heady scent of good tobacco still hanging in the air.
In the back of her mind, she was acutely aware that this was expressly forbidden; ladies of her class had been compelled to marry for less. If anyone caught them up here, her reputation would be ruined along with her sister’s marriage prospects. Worse, if things went wrong, her career could be over before it truly started.
She knew. She knew, but for now, just for this moment, none of it mattered.
After a lifetime of sacrificing her own wants for the comfort and convenience of others, kissing Frank Creighton felt like a radical act, the first and only time she had not only expressed what she wanted but had outright taken it.
The heavens opened, moonlight spilling over them. She heard the sound of angels’ wings—or perhaps that was still the crows—followed by the sudden end to the music and a deafening roar of applause.
It was the applause that finally pulled Frank away. He held her gaze, the dreaminess in his eyes giving way to mortified horror. “Oh, shit.”
With one last lightning-fast kiss, Frank took off running. Andie had never seen someone move so fast. He flew down the staircase, jumping over the last several steps, and thundered to the central staircase. Andie followed at a rather more sedate pace, reaching the top balcony just in time to see him skid to a stop on the stage below.
Frank straightened his shirt, pulled a brace back up on his shoulder, and ran a hand through the mess of his hair. “The Spider Dance, everyone!”
Clearly knowing exactly what he’d been up to, the cheer that closed the show was at least half whistles and raucous laughter. Frank made a face and laughed at himself, spreading his arms wide and taking a bow. He looked up and met her gaze, and Andie could see his face was red.
She didn’t think it was possible, but she’d managed to fluster Frank Creighton.
Frank milled about downstairs after the close of the show, making small talk and checking in with the bar. Andie stayed upstairs for a time, gradually making her way back down as she tried to inconspicuously neaten her hair. Once most everyone had gone, Frank took her through the side door and walked her through the churchyard at St. Leonard’s across the street. As expected, Toussaint’s carriage was waiting on the other side.
They avoided each other’s gazes, unsure of what to say. Finally, Frank stopped in front of an enormous stone cross near the center and pivoted to face her. “I should apologize,” he said, his voice low. “I shouldn’t have…” He glanced toward the roof of the playhouse. “Well, you know. People around here tend to do what they like, but I know it’s different for the ton. I don’t want to make trouble for you.”
It was good of him to care. She probably should have, but oddly, she still didn’t. She bit her lip, still tasting him there. She wanted to kiss him again. Perhaps it was the rum talking, but she wanted to drag him behind that cross and ride him like the plaster moon.
Instead, she pulled on her gloves and straightened her jacket. “I don’t want to cause you trouble either. You or Lulu. I know if this got out…well, I’m sure you don’t need that kind of press.”
He took a step back, ashamed.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked.
Frank looked up, surprised. “You want to come back?”
Andie laughed under her breath. “To be perfectly honest,” she lowered her voice and stepped closer, “I don’t want to leave.”
His mouth dropped open as understanding lit his eyes. “Why, Miss Archer, that’s a most improper thing to say,” he teased.
She looked down and smiled, oddly bashful. “May I ask…do you mind? That I’m a lady, that is?”
“Why should I mind?” He frowned.
“No one understands about the music,” she confessed, the excitement of the night making it easier to say things she usually kept inside. “They find me strange or cold or stunted in some way. I’m twenty-nine, Frank. Twenty-nine. I’ve forgone marriage and everything society expects of me so I can sing, something ladies are only meant to do in very specific places at very specific times, and then it’s usually only to capture the interest of some loathsome gentleman pretending to care, and I just can’t do it. I’ll not marry and let some useless toff take away the voice I worked so hard to find.”
Andie closed a hand over her mouth, horrified she’d said so much. Ladies were not supposed to be candid.
Ladies were not supposed to drink three measures of rum and kiss musicians on rooftops either, but in for a penny, in for a pound.
“I apologize,” she whispered.
The smile Frank gave her was so patient, so kind, the warmth of it wrapped around her like a blanket and soothed her fractured nerves. “Now, how could I ever disapprove of something like that?” He offered his arm. “I’m forty-two,” he said quietly. “I’m probably too old for you.”
Andie snorted. “There’s no such thing for men. My mother’s friends are trying to marry me off to an eighty-year-old earl in Cornwall.”
Frank stopped in his tracks. “Why on earth would they want to do that?”
“Because the ton thinks I’m past it.” Andie sighed as they continued walking. “Don’t you know women are useless after twenty-two?” She rolled her eyes.
“This is why I don’t want Lu anywhere near it,” he muttered to himself. “You are not past it. You’re not past anything. You, darling, are only just beginning.”
They stopped talking as they neared the carriage, not wanting her driver Thomas to hear. Poor Thomas had no doubt heard much worse in his time, but it wouldn’t do to put him in an awkward position.
Frank tipped his hat to Thomas, then handed her into the carriage with all the gallantry of a gentleman. He softly closed the door behind her and paused at the window, briefly taking her hand in his. “Good night, Miss Archer.”
Andie held in her sigh until the carriage turned the corner, replaying the evening in her mind a thousand times on the way home.
What on earth was she thinking? Frank was odd as anything, a good deal older than she was, and wholly inappropriate for a woman of her station. He was also a musical genius, a doting father, and so absurdly handsome that even greasepaint and kohl couldn’t hide it.
Andie clapped her hands over her mouth, erupting into giggles in the solitude of the carriage. She rarely drank, and here she was, half in love with an East End musician who made sailors laugh for money. If Lady Bodmin could see her now, she’d never recover.
For some reason that notion made her laugh harder. Lost to daydreams, the rest of the journey passed in a heartbeat. Thomas helped her from the carriage, not saying a word about her inebriated state. Once inside, Andie floated up the stairs, tiptoeing past her parents’ room. She could almost imagine their reprimand if they saw her staggering down the hallway, love drunk and merry with rum. What would your great-grandfather say?
Andie closed the door to her room behind her, leaning against it with glee. She whispered to herself, “He would probably say, ‘I know how you feel!’”
Biting back her giggles, Andie spun a few crazy circles in her room, imagining they were dancing again. She fell back into her plush bed, and the last thing she saw before she fell asleep was a spider crawling across the ceiling.
Andie smiled into her pillow. “Frank bloody Creighton.”