15

Everyone who’s left, you’ll be the willow chorus.” Bellini’s statement left no room for argument.

I blinked, looking from the six chosen soloists to the long line of dancers—myself included—who had not yet received assignments.

That is, until now.

Willow chorus? The dancing trees who flitted in circles, waving tulle-wrapped arms around the dancers with actual parts?

It was a precautionary measure, they said. A decision to have fewer soloists to pay, more small parts in groups. I’d never heard of such a thing—a sujet dancing in a group of trees like a quadrille or even a corps dancer.

Minna’s eyes blazed with pride from where she stood with the other chosen dancers. Bellini had given her the role of the advising angel, because the theater was rich with irony, and this had her face glowing with delight.

And I was to be a tree. I steeled myself against tears and tried to summon the merits of willows. Perhaps a reviewer would spot my dancing and call me elegant and refined, legendary with a—

No. Perhaps nothing. No one noticed the willows. They were props. Glorified props, for heaven’s sake.

A bewitching Italian girl named Giuseppina Esposito was hired on contract to dance the lead, likely in hopes that her recognizable name would bring in enough ticket sales to balance out her fees. “None of the dancers at Craven are ready for the responsibility . . . yet.” Bellini’s voice carried more warning than hope when he announced this, but we all hung on the meaning. All eight sujet in that greenroom looked at him with lifted chins and gleaming eyes, seeing the possibilities for our futures.

There was a hushed, expectant silence among us as we shuffled to the wings to watch the soloists try out their new parts in the first act.

“They make a fine pair, do they not?” Tovah slid up beside me and sat down. The principals, Philippe and the spirited Giuseppina, filled the floor with their pas de deux.

A thick swirl of disappointment sickened me. Even on my best day I could not dance with such poise and conviction. Philippe kept his eyes on her with a stunned sort of admiration as she spun circles around him, using him on occasion to turn beneath his arm or to leap higher. His gaze followed her everywhere, and even though it was supposed to, it felt different. I turned away as my heart twisted in my chest.

I could hear Mama Jo’s words, pulsing through my miserable mind: she never liked the woman with whom he fell in love. I closed my eyes. No, it was ridiculous. Absolutely absurd to see Mama’s story in every turn of my own. It simply wasn’t reality.

“There’s always next show,” Tovah said with a hand on my arm.

Next show. Yes, there would be more chances. But that buoy hardly managed to get off the floor of my heart.

I danced my part through six and a half weeks of rehearsals and two weeks of performances, but it was the final night while watching Philippe and Giuseppina romancing each other with their eyes, seeing Minna dance in all her glory, finding another man in the seat my father had occupied before, that reality settled heavy on my chest. My dreams were slipping from my grasp and I could not clench my fist tightly enough.

I went through the motions on that final night, pasting on my smile and focusing on precision, my pointed toes, my balance. The line of willow trees danced out and formed a circle around a poised Minna the angel, all those long tulle willow fronds rippling down from my arms. I lifted them higher, but still the fronds dragged on the ground. Round and round we went, twirling and flapping our branch arms.

Then my foot caught, something pulled, and—rrrrip. I stumbled, feet tangling. I yanked my arm higher and my feet went up, backside hitting the stage.

I groaned. Willow felled.

The other trees danced around and over me, continuing the dizzying circle. I rolled out of the way and sprang up to rejoin the line, forcing myself between two other willows and resuming the paces even while I trembled. I was so tightly bound after all these years, the external narrative of my demanding trainers somehow becoming internal. That’s what happened when you worked so hard, wanted something so badly. You took every criticism deeply to heart and let it live there, echoing back every time you performed.

Ballet had become the worst part of my life, I realized with a start—a source of anxiousness and fear, a huge brick wall between me and God. I’d barely thought of God since coming here, and that wasn’t like me. Not at all. Theater had eclipsed most everything—and I couldn’t even remember why it was so all-important. I was empty.

God . . . where are you? Where have you gone?

I felt the cool release of nerves as I leaped behind the curtain with the others and gave myself over to heated exhaustion, collapsing against a beam. I stood heaving for breath as perspiration pattered on the floor and my body vibrated to the thump of my heart. Jack Dorian strutted about among the wilted dancers, his white smile visible even in the dimness. His gaze settled on me as I looked away, standing straighter, poise intact.

For a moment, at least.

He ambled over, offering a crooked smile meant to charm me. “Not to worry, I once landed clean on my backside as well. I’d been forced to leap through a raging fire, clearing the flames by no more than an inch, and I was very fortunate indeed.” His arrogant voice rattled my sensitive nerves. “Only, my coattails caught the flame just before I landed on them, and . . . well, I couldn’t sit right for a week.”

“At least you managed to save the little child from the burning building.” My voice was saucy. I couldn’t help it.

“What child?”

“Isn’t that what comes next in your sensational escape story? Some gallant rescue?” Heavens, I was irritable.

He eyed me.

“Not every dancer swallows your tall tales, you know.”

“I’m hurt.” He put a hand to his chest. “Hurt.”

“Good.” I spun and stepped quickly into the shadows. I closed my eyes and focused on taking long, calming breaths to solidify my jittery limbs that were cool with drying perspiration. One more act to go in this wretched night.

Another breath, and the air became charged with the presence of another person, the scent of something strong and familiar. I turned, heart pounding, to face the chest of the towering man who decided my fate. “Signore Fournier.”

His steady gaze passed over me for endless minutes while I waited for him to speak. The cigar aroma lingered, even on the rare occasion that the vile contraption was missing.

“It won’t happen again. It was a terrible mistake and I’ll never—”

“Indeed.” He squinted. “Miss Blythe, to what have you given your heart?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who or what owns your heart? What do you love to distraction?”

Why was he asking this? “I love to dance.”

God. I should have answered, “God.” But I hadn’t, and the reply had been an honest one.

Fournier’s steady gaze remained, as if digging past my layers of poise to the truth.

“Please, sir. I’ve worked harder than anyone, spent every spare minute on my paces. Truly, I do love the ballet, and I’ve poured everything into it.” I’d often worked past the point of what I thought was exhaustion, but I’d fallen further instead of climbing.

“Then it should not be so hard. True love never leaves you this way.” Fournier shook my arms gently to limber them, and I wondered what other decent profession allowed a man to put his hands on a woman whenever he wished. Perhaps they were right, what they all said about the ballet, about dancers. A sweeping sense of I don’t belong here washed over me.

“Real love makes you like that.” He turned me so I could see Philippe and Giuseppina just past the curtain, bodies delicately twining, dancing a romance under the lighted chandeliers.

With that, the Great Fournier turned back into the shadows and down the steps, leaving me to stare at the magnificent dancers who were just beyond my reach. I breathed slowly even as the pieces of my heart shattered around my slippered feet.

I would never be enough.

Before the curtain opened again for the final act, I knew I had two options. I could find the enchanted scarlet shoes and show the world how gloriously I could dance in them, or . . .

Jack.

The image of his smiling face followed me home that night where I lay in my bed, trying to snuff the glow of lights, the pounding music in my head. In the morning, I couldn’t bear to see the reviews. But when I emerged in the dining room, there was not one review lying on the table. With a frown, I hurried over and peeked on the seats, beneath the table.

Then I saw Minna, tending the rather large fire. Blackened newsprint curled in the hearth, then crumbled with a few jabs from her poker. “What are you doing?”

She frowned. “Reading reviews is terrible for the constitution.”

“Unless they’re positive.” Hers had been outlandishly so since she’d danced this role. Surely today’s were no different.

She scrunched her nose. “Those are worse than the bad ones. Praise is a quicksand, you know. The more you get, the more you need.”

“How . . . how true.”

“Go on, take your tea. There’s nothing here to see.” Then she turned her back on me, poking at all the lovely words they’d said about her—and the likely wretched ones written about me. I laid a hand on her arm. “Thank you, Minna.”

She sniffed.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t look, but I would have.

After a hasty breakfast, I asked a stagehand cleaning the theater for directions and slipped out with a veil over my face toward Jack Dorian’s Winchester address. It was a stately three-story brick affair with bright green doors and tall, showy windows. I should expect no less of Jack Dorian. Yet when I knocked at the front door, the manservant blinked in confusion and pointed me toward a narrow stair running up the side of the building to the third floor. Obediently I climbed, my heavy skirts and wraps leaving me huffing by the end, and I rapped on the little door. I had no speech prepared, no shield for his barbs, no perfectly worded explanation.

As it turned out, I didn’t need them. He stood framed in his narrow doorway in shirtsleeves and suspenders, wiping his hands on a white linen towel as he considered me. “About time.” He tossed the rag into the room, grabbed a key and jacket from a hook, and slammed the door behind him. “Come along.”

Then his arm was about me and we were hurrying headlong down the steep stairs toward who knew what. I pulled the veil more firmly over my face.

“I assume this means you intend to hire me after all.”

I tensed. Hire? “Perhaps we should discuss the exact payment you require.”

“Later.” He propelled me forward with his very nature. “And you needn’t worry, it won’t be coin I request of you.”

I did worry, but I still went. What choice did I have?

Only once I’d boarded a stagecoach alone with the man did I realize what he likely had in mind for his reward. Either a letting go of my sacred privacy, or . . .

“Some even . . . place bets. You do understand my meaning, don’t you?”