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EN ARABESQUE, the Sylph kissed the sleeping James in the first scene of Act One as she did every night. And when he awoke, the mythical creature dashed to the wings.
“That was lovely, ma chérie,” said Pauline, kissing Bria on both cheeks. “How do you make it better every time?”
“You are full of nonsense.” Raising her skirts, she pointed her toes. “My right ribbons have come loose. ’Tis a miracle I didn’t fall on my face.”
“You’d best hasten to fix them...that’s my cue,” Pauline said as the music changed.
“Bonne chance, mon amie. Dance well.”
Bria hastened to the dressing room while the rest of the cast danced onto the stage for the second scene. Not only had Bria’s ribbons come loose, the stitching had worked free yet again and was holding by two tacks. Quickly removing the slipper, she plucked a threaded needle from the pincushion where she kept it at the ready.
It only took a few minutes to whip a half-dozen stitches. She pushed her foot back into the slipper and pulled the ribbons tightly across the arch of her foot. Taking extra care, she wound the shiny satin around her ankle, ensuring the laces were tied snugly, and the knot tucked inside. Rising onto her toe, she tested her repair.
It will hold.
The music indicated she still had a time to spare. She moved to her toilette to freshen her lip rouge and looked in the mirror.
Then she froze.
Mon Dieu!
It wasn’t her reflection that stopped Bria’s breath, it was the fire blocking the doorway.
A spark popped and sailed toward her legs while the flames leaped higher. Spinning in a circle, she frantically searched for something, anything to staunch it. With no other option, she grabbed her cloak from the peg.
“Help!” she shouted, thrashing the woolen garment atop the fire. Heat from the flames burned Bria’s face as she gritted her teeth, furiously working to snuff it. The stench of sizzling wool stung her nostrils. “Help!”
Screams and shouts came from the stage, but Bria didn’t stop. The smoke grew thicker as she worked, her eyes burning.
She gasped for breath, her arms beginning to shake from her effort.
“Stand back!” On the other side of the doorway, a prop laborer wielded two pails of water.
Bria scooted away while the man doused the flames. The timbers hissed and crackled as black water washed over her slippers.
“My God, what happened?” Ravenscar asked, barreling into the dressing room with Mr. Perkins on his heels.
All eyes shifted to Bria while the duke reached for her shoulders, stopping before he touched her. “Miss LeClair, are you injured?” His tone was stately and official, as if they had never shared a kiss or stolen moments alone in his town home. But then the entire cast had congregated just beyond the door.
Bria smoothed her hands down her tulle skirts and felt no pain. “I think not.”
“Nonetheless, we will close the theater for the night.” The duke turned to Mr. Perkins. “Make the announcement. Refund all tickets.”
“No!” Bria caught Mr. Perkins’ wrist before he started off. “Is anyone else injured? I heard screaming.”
“That’s because we saw the fire,” said Florrie.
Turning to the duke, she stretched to her full height. “If it was just me who was in danger, then I assure you I am well enough to continue.”
Ravenscar pulled the singed cloak from her hand. “Are you certain? You’ve had a terrible scare. No one expects you to carry on.”
“I expect to finish the performance, and I am perfectly able.” She stepped over the charred threshold, beckoning Mr. Perkins. “Come with me, sir. I will help you explain to the audience.”
On stage, the theater manager held up his hands, requesting silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, we suffered a small fire outside Miss LeClair’s dressing room. She assures me she is unharmed and intends to continue with the performance.”
Bria threw kisses to the audience. “Mes amis, thank you for coming tonight. Please forgive the interruption. The fire has been doused with no harm done. Please resume your seats.” She gave a nod to the conductor while Monsieur Travere called for places.
***
THOUGH HE LAUDED BRITANNIA’S heroics, Drake sat through the remainder of the performance with every muscle in his body clenched. Britannia could have been badly burned. Christ, she could have died. Who gave a rat’s arse about his theater? The woman he’d come to admire and adore above all other performers had been in frightful peril.
Before the curtain call, he found Perkins. “Bring Miss LeClair to my rooms. I need to have a word.”
“Yes, Your Grace. If it’s about the fire, I assure you I will have an investigator here first thing in the morning.”
“Good man. And we’d best step up the security. Something is afoot. I feel it in my bones and we will not sit idle whilst some dastard plays us for fools.”
Chadwick Theater had a small suite of offices behind the fourth tier of boxes where Drake paced until Perkins showed Britannia in. He gave the stage manager a nod. “Please leave us.”
“As you wish.”
Still in costume, Bria waited until the door closed. “Your Grace, I assure you I am unharmed.”
Releasing a pent up breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he took two steps and pulled her into his arms. “Dash it all, my heart nearly burst to smithereens seeing you there, charred with smoke, a half-burned cloak in your grasp.”
Her hands slipped around his waist as she rested her head against his chest. He cradled her to him. It drove him mad not to be able to hold her like this whenever he pleased. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“You? The fire frightened me, not you...and whoever lit it. My oath, the thought of losing you scares me to my bones.” He strengthened his grip around her, wishing never to let her go. “You must know how dear you are to me.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” It took all his self-control to keep from saying he hadn’t looked at another woman since Britannia had stepped into the theater in April. To stop himself from declaring he wanted to be the man to protect her for the rest of her days, he buried his nose in the curls piled atop her head. Now was no time to turn into a lovesick fool. It was his duty to see to her safety, and he’d just failed miserably.
Drake squeezed his eyes shut and kissed her forehead, not yet ready to release his embrace. “Is there a reason someone might be trying to hurt you? Did you have a bad experience in France you haven’t told me about?”
She turned her face up and looked at him directly without a hint of fear. “Nothing like this ever happened to me in France.”
Yes, those whisky eyes were pure and honest. Britannia’s gaze mesmerized him. Staring at her lovely face made a fire rage in his breast and a tempest swirl in his loins. He had no business holding her in his arms. But for once in his life, he threw propriety out the window. Without another word he shifted his gaze to Britannia’s lips—the color of roses, pert and perfect. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head and met those delicious lips. He’d only intended it to be a light kiss, but the womanly sigh of desire rumbling from her throat drove him straight to the brink of insanity.
In a rush of passion, his mouth opened against her, begging for more. As if consumed by madness, he rubbed his hands up her back, threaded his fingers through her curls, and dove deeper into heaven. His balls were on fire. His cock harder than it had ever been in his life.
And God save him, she turned to sweet, warm cream in his arms. A valiant foe, she matched him swirl for swirl, caress for caress, moan for moan.
It wasn’t until he backed her against the wall that he realized how far he’d gone—how close he was to raising her skirts and taking her where he stood.
A lead ball sank in his gut.
Britannia LeClair was not his to love. And he could not ever break her heart.
With his next breath, he pulled away. “Please forgive me.”
***
THAT NIGHT DRAKE DIDN’T sleep and as dawn rose, he didn’t bother ringing for his valet. He donned a pair of buckskins, top boots, and a morning coat. Downstairs, he found Pennyworth in his chamber, preparing for the day’s work.
The butler immediately rose to his feet. “Your Grace. I didn’t expect you so early.”
“I need a favor.”
“Of course, I am at your service.”
“There was a fire at the theater last eve.”
“My word. Was anyone injured?”
“No, by the grace of God. However, too many things have happened to Miss LeClair to be coincidence.”
“Do you think the young lady is in danger?”
“I do not know yet, but I will no longer sit idle while there is the possibility that someone is, indeed, trifling with her.”
“What do you require of me?”
“I want you to find her a secure apartment. West End, of course. She’ll need a cook, a housekeeper with experience as a lady’s maid, and a butler—I envision the butler to be an ox—someone skilled at boxing. I’d like the arrangements to be made in confidence.”
“With a private exit as before?”
“A private exit, yes. But let me make it clear I am not taking Miss LeClair as a mistress, I am merely taking steps to ensure her safety.”
“Rooms will be difficult to find at short notice, but I have my sources.”
“Thank you.”
“When will she move in?”
“Today.”
“Today?” Pennyworth’s voice cracked.
“Make it happen.” Drake tugged on his gloves and headed for the mews. There, he took his horse and paid a visit to the hackney driver. It only took a few inquiries to find the coachman at a rundown public stable in St. Giles, bent over and picking his horse’s hooves.
Drake stood for a moment, his arms crossed, debating whether or not to kick the lout in the arse. Deciding to take the high road, he spoke in a low growl, “I asked you to report your findings after your hack threw a wheel.”
Like lightning, the man dropped the horse’s leg and straightened. “Yer G-grace. I didn’t expect to see ye ’ere.”
“Obviously. But when I ask a man to do something, I expect it to be done.” Drake placed his palm on the hindquarter of the gelding to ensure the horse knew where he stood.
“I stayed away ’cause I thought ye’d be angry.”
“You thought correctly. And now I’m doubly angry because I had to go to the effort of finding you.”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“That’s right. You sat on your laurels and did nothing. You owe me a report on what happened that night. You told me you checked your hack before taking Miss LeClair and Miss Renaud to the ball. What were your findings the next morning?”
“I tell ye true, I ’aven’t a lick of proof, but the linchpin was missing. It was snug when I set out. I check my gear thoroughly every morn, I do.”
“So you’re saying the pin was tampered with?”
“I reckon so, Yer Grace.”
“You knew this, but you did not come forward?”
“I cannot prove it, I just know. What would ye ’ave done to me if I’d come claiming the linchpin was missing and I suspected tampering?”
Before he answered, Drake took note of the poor state of the stable. Not only was the building in shabby repair, manure covered the floor. Bloody hell, anyone could pick up a shovel and keep the place tidy. “I might have paid you a healthy reward, but now you will receive nothing. Because you did nothing.”
Drake mounted his horse and rode away without a backward glance. No wonder the driver was having difficulty making ends meet. He was his own worst enemy and thicker than ox hide.
After arriving at the theater, he used the stage door. Carpenters were busy making repairs to the fire-damaged timbers.
“Ravenscar.” Perkins stepped around the laborers. “I suspected I’d see you here this morn.”
“What have you found?”
“This.” He held up a burnt cinder and sniffed it. “It has a potent odor of fish.”
“Whale oil?”
“It is.”
“So you have proof then, someone tried to kill Miss LeClair.”
“Or give her a good scare. I reckon the culprit would have lit a bigger fire if he was serious.”
“I want to know who was back here, how did he...or she get in? I want a guard on Miss LeClair’s door whenever she’s in the theater.”
“Already arranged. I hired two men-at-arms. One for the stage door, and one to keep an eye on our ballerina. They start tonight.”
“Good work. And the culprit?”
“I’m still digging into his identity. If the bastard was seen, I’ll know about it by the day’s end.”
“Send word as soon as you learn anything.”
“Straightaway, Your Grace.”
***
BY MIDAFTERNOON, PENNYWORTH had made the arrangements for Britannia’s new accommodations. For discretion, Drake reversed the doors of his town coach from displaying his family crest to solid black. He wanted no one to know what he was up to or where he was going.
He asked the coachman to drive up in the alley behind the boarding house. Wearing an unpretentious Benjamin top coat, Drake slipped in through the kitchens, tipping a lad a half crown to escort him to Miss LeClair’s quarters.
He had to stoop as the boy led him up four flights of rickety stairs.
“This is it here.”
After Drake gave a nod, the lad knocked on the door. “Miss LeClair, you have a visitor.”
“A moment,” she called through the timbers and, after much rustling, she opened the door. “Goodness me, Your Grace. Should you be up here?”
Why on earth did she always make him affect a lopsided grin like a schoolboy? He ran a hand across his mouth. “I am standing here, am I not?”
She popped her head out to the corridor. “Did anyone see you?”
“No, miss,” the lad replied. “I brought him up the servants’ stairs.”
“You did what?”
Drake pointed to his temple. “I only knocked my head once.”
“But why are you here?”
He glanced to the lad. “Thank you, I can manage from here.” He leaned to the side and looked around Britannia. “Where is Miss Renaud?”
Looking sheepish, a red blush spread across her face. “Keeping company with Lord Saye...ah...yes. She is.”
“I see.” He saw only too well. “How long has she been away?”
“Not long.”
“He’s putting her up, is he not?”
Britannia gave a defeated nod.
“That just serves to cement my decision all the more. May I come inside?”
“Must you?”
Drake understood her reluctance. The last time they were together behind closed doors he’d scarcely been able control himself—pulling her into his arms and devouring her with kisses. Well, this time he was in complete control as a duke should be. “I could say what needs to be said out here in the passageway, though I deem a certain amount of confidentiality is necessary.”
She stepped aside and ushered him in. “Very well.”
With no more than two steps, he was in the center of the room with nowhere to go without bumping his head. “Good Lord, you’ve been staying in this hovel? It is smaller than Ravenscar Hall’s china closet.”
“It suits me fine. At least up here Pauline and I have a modicum of privacy.”
“Had I known you were relegated to the servant’s quarters, I would have made other arrangements sooner.”
“Sooner?” Bria scooted backward, managing not to thump her head on the eaves. “What arrangements?”
“I’ve done some investigating. The fire at the theater was not an accident.”
“No?” Gasping, she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Who would do such a thing?”
“My very thoughts as well.” He spotted a portmanteau under the bed and tugged it out. “I also found your hackney coach driver this morning—the miscreant from the Hughes ball. The thrown wheel was no accident. He thinks someone tampered with the linchpin.”
“Heavenly stars. Someone is trying to scare me?”
“Or kill you.” Drake tossed the case on the bed and unbuckled it. “I am taking immediate action. I will not sit idle while there’s a madman out there threatening your life.”
“This is terrible.”
“And that is exactly why we must act swiftly, alerting as few people as possible.” The only place he could stand straight in the damned attic chamber was between the beds, but he did so with command. “Now tell me, is there anyone in the troupe who could be responsible for these crimes?”
Wide eyed, Britannia clutched her fists beneath her chin. “I cannot think of a soul. True, some of the dancers in the corps are jealous, but they wouldn’t resort to attempting murder.”
“What about your understudy?”
“Florrie? I thought she—” Shoving the heels of her hands against her temples, she shook her head emphatically. “No! She was on stage when the fire was lit—so was the rest of the cast.”
“Blast.” He gestured to the open portmanteau. “I have secured private rooms for you where you shall be under my protection at all times. You’ll have a housekeeper, a cook, and a butler who is also able to act as a bodyguard. There will be an unmarked coach available for your personal use at all times.”
Still holding her head, she craned her neck, those whisky eyes filled with shock. “How am I expected to pay for all of this?”
“Chadwick Theater will assume all of your expenses. It is only fitting.”
Without lifting a finger to pack her things, Britannia sat on the bed opposite. “The theater will foot the bill for me to live like a queen?”
“Hardly a queen. A princess, perhaps.” Drake turned full circle, scarcely able to move. “And had I been aware that you were living in hovel too small to be called a room, we would have done so two months ago.” He’d have words with Mr. Perkins about this arrangement—or was it Travere who thought so little of his protégé? Whomever was responsible, Drake would ensure the theater didn’t commit such errors in the future.
“At least I will not be a burden for long.” Bria sat on the bed. “As soon as La Sylphide’s Season is over I will return to Paris. Good heavens, why is this happening?”
Drake’s mouth grew dry. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the end of the ballet and Britannia’s return to Paris. But as the words escaped her mouth, his heart twisted. How could he protect her if she was on the Continent? But on the other hand, how could he keep her in London when there was a madman on the loose?
“Are you afraid?” he asked, keeping his voice steady to mask his emotions.
“Who wouldn’t be? You’ve just informed me I am being stalked. With the scoundrel’s every act, things grow more perilous. I-I’m terrified!” Curling over, Britannia grabbed a pillow and buried her face. “I try so hard. Why does someone want to do me harm?”
As her shoulders shook, Drake slid beside her. “This shouldn’t be happening to you. It should never be you.” He pulled her onto his lap and rocked, clutching her to his chest for dear life. “Believe me, I want to find this scoundrel more than anyone.”
She nestled against him, a tear spilling onto his coat. “But until then, I will be forced to live in fear. M-my freedoms stifled.”
“Not stifled but protected.” He smoothed his hand over her hair. God, she was more precious than any passion or any human being he’d ever met. “Please, Britannia. Let me do this for you.”
An anguished sob caught in her throat while he continued to hold her. “I hate this.”
“I know, my dearest,” he whispered into her hair. “It is not fair that you should suffer. You are the kindest, most selfless person I know.”
Closing his eyes, Drake pressed his lips to her temple—merely her forehead and not her lips. “The devil be damned if I allow one more malfeasance to befall you.”
“No, none of this is your doing.” She slipped her arms around his waist.
“Nor is it yours.” He captured her face between his palms. “Allow me to take care of you—to put an end to this madness.”
“But people will think the worst.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, to me it does.”
“You are a woman of great conviction and I respect that. Wear a veil. My carriage doors have been turned to hide my crest. We shall slip out through the rear entry to the mews.”
As she raised her tawny eyelashes, her hypnotic gaze made Drake’s good intentions fade into oblivion. It took every ounce of strength in his body to resist her pert lips, the lithe, feminine form perfectly molding to his lap. He lost himself in whisky and woman. With an unexpected wildness, Britannia closed the gap and kissed him. Drake’s low growl rumbled through his soul as his heart raced, consuming her with the pent-up desire he’d been suppressing for weeks.
Just one kiss, one bone-melting, savoring kiss and then I’ll apologize and take her away from here.
