No Mistress of Mine

Chapter 11

Two days later, thanks to another session with the accounting clerk and the hiring of a typist at Houghton’s Secretarial Service, Lola came to her meeting with Denys loaded for bear. She had a fully-fleshed-out business plan in her portfolio, and she felt confident, prepared, and ready to defend her idea and fight for her rights. She wasn’t even nervous.

Until she saw him.

He wasn’t behind his desk when she entered his office. Instead, he was seated on the horsehair settee at the opposite end of the room having tea, and as he set aside his cup and rose to greet her, she noted in surprise that he was in his shirtsleeves, his jacket off and his cuffs rolled back. This casual state of dress made him seem less like the ruthless man of business she’d come to expect and much more like the Denys she used to know. Caught off guard, she came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, her hand tightening around the handle of her leather portfolio.

“Good afternoon,” he said, and glanced past her. “Thank you, Dawson. You may go.”

The secretary departed, and Lola felt an absurd jolt of nervousness when she heard the door click shut behind her.

Denys gestured to the tray beside him. “Would you care for tea?”

She’d come for a battle. She hadn’t expected tea. Lola took a deep breath and started forward, but with each step, her uneasiness increased, and she stopped again, still several feet away.

Denys tilted his head, giving her a quizzical look. “Is something wrong?”

“Tea, Denys?”

“Well, we are in England, Lola. Tea’s not particularly extraordinary.”

“No, but it’s . . .” She paused, considering. “Unexpected.”

“I daresay.” He gestured to the settee behind him. “Shall we sit down?”

She glanced at the comfortable leather furnishings and the tea tray laden with sandwiches and cakes, and a poem she’d learned in childhood flashed through her mind. “ ‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ ” she quoted wryly, returning her gaze to his face as she started forward again. “Is that it?”

He smiled a little. “You did ask to walk into this particular parlor,” he reminded. “But you needn’t worry. I don’t bite.”

“No? You could have fooled me.” Lola made a rueful face as she sat down on the settee and placed her portfolio by her feet. “You’ve been baring your teeth at me ever since I got to town.”

“Yes, about that . . .” He paused and sat down beside her. “I have always prided myself on being a gentleman, but my behavior since your arrival has been anything but gentlemanly. And my remark the other day and my conduct . . .” He paused, grimacing. “Both were beyond the pale. I must apologize.”

His words ought to have been reassuring, and yet, they had the curious effect of making her even more apprehensive. Lola tried to shake it off, telling herself not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Apology accepted. So, we have a truce, then?”

“I hope so. That is the reason I requested we meet at five o’clock.”

She frowned, uncomprehending. “What does the time of day have to do with it?”

“Your American Indians smoke a pipe with their former enemies, don’t they, to symbolize a peace accord? We British do that with tea. Speaking of which . . .” He turned toward the tray beside his seat. “You take plenty of sugar in yours, if I recall. And you prefer lemon to milk.”

Astonished, she stared at his back as he added the requisite ingredients to her cup. “I can’t believe you remember how I prefer my tea.”

He turned, holding out her cup and saucer, along with a napkin. “Of course I remember.”

Those words, the low intensity of his voice as he said them, froze her in place, and when she looked up, she could see in his dark eyes a hint of the tender, passionate man who had slipped past all her defenses all those years ago. Her throat went dry.

“Would you like a sandwich?” he asked, and his voice broke the spell, for it was once again properly polite. “Or would you prefer the walnut cake?”

She took the tea things, striving to recover her poise as she laid the napkin across her lap. “Cake, please. What?” she added as he chuckled.

“I don’t know why I even asked,” he said, cutting a hefty wedge from the iced cake on the tray. He placed the cake on a plate and faced her as he offered it. “You always did have a sweet tooth.”

She took the plate, and the moment she did, another memory from early childhood flashed through her mind—sitting at the kitchen table in her Sunday dress, the tulle underskirt scratchy against her legs, and her mother across from her with the blue willow china spread out between them.

No, no, Charlotte. You’ve forgotten to remove your gloves again. Oh heavens, I fear you shall never learn to do it properly.

Heat flooded her cheeks at her mistake, and she glanced around, but there was no table near her on which to put her tea things.

Denys perceived her difficulty at once. “Let me help,” he said, taking back the tea and cake.

“Thank you,” she mumbled as she pulled off her gloves, her cheeks burning. Never had the class difference between them seemed greater than it was right now. “Your English tea is something I’m not used to,” she added, even as she wondered why she felt the need for an excuse. “Even when I lived here, I never could quite get the hang of it.”

That made him laugh, and she frowned, taken aback. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing at you,” he assured at once. “It’s just the way you talk, your colorful American expressions. ‘Get the hang of it,’ for example. It’s charming.” He paused, and his smile faded. “I’d forgotten that.”

She feared she was the one being charmed here. Damn it, she’d come prepared for a fight, not for this. “Why are you being this way?” she whispered painfully. “Why are you being so nice?”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

It ought to be, but it wasn’t. And that was the problem, a problem she’d sensed the moment she walked in the door today. Denys, angry and resentful, was a man she’d been prepared to meet ever since she’d decided to return. She could hold her own with that man any day of the week. But Denys when he was like this made her feel much too vulnerable.

“Of course it’s a good thing,” she answered, forcing a hearty certainty into her voice that she didn’t feel in the least. “I just wish I knew what inspired this about-face on your part.”

“Nothing earth-shattering. I was railing about our situation to my friends—you remember Stuart, Jack, Nick, and James? Anyway,” he went on, as she nodded, “I was expressing my views about this partnership—”

“And peeling paint off the walls in the process, I bet.”

The wry answering look he gave her acknowledged the truth of that. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that my friends found my predicament quite amusing.”

She couldn’t help grinning at that. “Did they?”

“Oh, yes. They pointed out that I was being an utter idiot.”

“And what was your response? Did you tell them to go hang themselves from the nearest tree?”

His mouth twitched. “No, actually. I . . .” He paused and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was forced to agree with them. And with you. Neither of us wants to sell,” he went on before she could express her astonishment at this most unexpected change of heart, “so working together is the only viable alternative.”

“Do you think you can do that?"

“I shall have to.”

“You don’t . . .” She paused over her next question, not sure she wanted the answer. “You don’t still hate me?”

“I never hated you.” He looked away, drawing a deep breath. “Despite how much I wanted to. And,” he went on, returning his gaze to her face, “in trying to decide what to do with you, I realized that resenting you, fighting with you—whether it be about our past as lovers or our future as partners—is a futile exercise. The only thing to be done is to accept the situation and learn to work within it.”

It was just what she’d hoped for, and yet she didn’t find it the least bit reassuring. “Are you sure that’s how you want to play it?” she asked. “You wouldn’t rather take a piece of my hide?”

“An intriguing notion.” His lashes lowered, then lifted. “Which piece did you have in mind?”

Her heart slammed against her ribs, and her teacup rattled in its saucer.

Dismayed by such an obvious display of nervousness, Lola lifted her cup from its saucer and gulped down the rest of her tea, but though it was hot and sweet and strong, she didn’t feel fortified by it. Instead, she still felt as skittish as a colt.

Seated beside her was the man she remembered from long ago, the one man who’d made her break all her own rules about keeping stage-door johnnies at arm’s length. The man whose kisses had made her head spin and her knees go weak, whose tenderness had softened her hard, cynical shell, whose passion had stolen her heart. This was the man she’d fallen in love with. And it had been a huge mistake.

Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and the kiss they’d shared a week ago was suddenly vivid in her mind. Her lips tingled. Her body flushed with heat, and her heart began thudding in her chest so loudly that when he spoke, she had to strain to hear what he said.

“Would you care for more tea?”

Lola stiffened in her chair. “No, thank you. I’d prefer it if we could come straight to business.”

She grimaced at the tartness in her voice, aware of how rude she must seem in light of his hospitality, but she didn’t know how much more of Denys being nice she could handle in a single day. “Sorry if I’m rushing you,” she added, shoving her teacup toward him as her mind grasped desperately for a viable reason to speed things along so she could get out of here. “It’s just that I . . . I have plans this evening.”

He took her cup and saucer from her outstretched hand. “Of course. You’re going to the theater, I suppose?” he asked, turning away to set aside their tea things. “Or the opera, perhaps?”

She had only an instant to decide, for any hesitation smacked of lying. “Opera. By the way,” she rushed on before he could ask what was playing at Covent Garden tonight, “I received those financial statements from your office. Thank you for having them sent over.”

“No thanks are necessary,” he said, and to her relief, his voice was brisk and businesslike, expressing no further curiosity about her fictional plans for the evening. “Is there anything you wish to ask me about the state of the Imperial’s finances?”

“No, everything seems quite in order. I have lots of questions, of course, but I think we can save them for another day. Today, there is something else I would like to discuss. I feel it’s important.”

“Certainly.” He settled back against the arm of the settee, and for the first time since she’d reentered his life, he seemed receptive to hearing what she had to say. She couldn’t predict how long this new cooperation would last, of course, but she knew this might be her only chance to demonstrate her worth as a partner.

She took a deep breath. “You asked me the other day what of value I could possibly bring to a partnership between us. I’d like to use this meeting to answer that question.”

A hint of regret crossed his face. “I would ask that you forget what I said. I was frustrated, and I spoke in anger.”

“But you meant what you said. It’s all right,” she added before he could reply. “Your question was a fair one. I realize that in the normal course of events, you would never have considered going into business with me, and your father certainly wouldn’t. But though I don’t have Henry’s experience, or connections, and I know I have a lot to learn about business, I do have one of the things you asked me about.”

She reached into the portfolio beside her, pulled out the proposal she’d spent the past two days working on, and handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked as he took it.

“A way to make the Imperial more profitable.”

Using his thumb, he flipped through the thick sheaf of carefully compiled documents. “You’ve gone to a great deal of work,” he said slowly, and there was something in his voice she couldn’t quite define. Chagrin, perhaps, or surprise. But when he looked up, his gaze was thoughtful, assessing, and she could only hope that meant he was beginning to see her in a different light. “I hadn’t expected this. I’m . . .” He paused and laughed a little, as if confounded. “I’m impressed, Lola, I admit.”

Pride and a sweet sense of gratification rose within her, but she didn’t have long to enjoy it. “Unfortunately,” he said as he turned and set the sheaf of papers on the table beside the tea tray, “we don’t have time today for a discussion of anything complicated. I only allotted an hour for this meeting, you see, because, like you, I am going to the opera. Unlike you, however, I have to return to the other side of town in order to change to evening clothes.”

She felt a jolt of dismay. “You are going to Covent Garden, too?”

“Yes. I’m sorry now that I didn’t allow more time for our meeting, but all decisions for the current season have already been made, and I did not anticipate that you would wish to discuss new business, particularly something as complex as this seems to be.”

“I see.”

He must have sensed her disappointment, for he stirred in his seat and glanced at the clock.

“I still have a bit of time before I have to return to the West End, I suppose. Why don’t you tell me the gist of what you are proposing? I’ll read the details later, and we can discuss it at our next meeting.”

“Of course.” She sucked in a deep breath and took the plunge. “If we truly want to increase profits, we should expand the acting company, extend the season, and make the Imperial into a repertory theater.”

He blinked, seeming startled, and she feared he was going to tell her she was out of her mind. But he didn’t. Instead, he was silent so long, she couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. “For heaven’s sake, Denys, say something.”

He shook his head, looking as if she’d just poleaxed him. “I don’t know what to say. You’ve just presented me with a very creditable idea.”

She was so relieved he hadn’t scoffed at her and dismissed the idea as ridiculous that she couldn’t help chaffing him. “You needn’t sound so surprised,” she said, making a face. “I do occasionally have good ideas.”

He tilted his head, studying her. “You truly took my doubts about you to heart, didn’t you?”

“I took them as a challenge.”

“I keep forgetting challenges don’t deter you. They just spur you on.”

He sounded rueful, and she grinned. “I am ornery that way. So my idea could work?”

“It could. It’s an idea I’ve considered myself, as a matter of fact. But there are difficulties . . .” He paused and leaned forward as if eager to discuss it further, but as he rested his forearms on his knees, his clasped hands brushed her thigh. She jerked at the contact, an involuntary move that sent her plate with its slice of cake tumbling off her lap. It hit the floor carpet by her feet with a thud—icing side down, of course.

She grimaced. “I’m so sorry. How clumsy of me.”

She leaned down, but as she reached for the plate and its contents, he leaned down as well, his hand closing over hers to stop her. “It’s all right,” he said, a strange, fierce undercurrent in his voice. “Leave it.”

Lola looked into his eyes, paralyzed as the touch of his hand spread warmth through her body, sending it along her spine and down to her toes, to every fingertip and the top of her head. She stared at him helplessly as that warmth pooled in her midsection and deepened into desire. He felt it, too. She could see that in his eyes.

Oh, no, she thought. No, no, no. Pull away, Lola. Pull away now.

She didn’t move.

His thumb brushed back and forth over the back of her wrist, and she recalled their kiss the other day and all the ones before it, of what being his woman had been like. A month ago, she’d feared this partnership wouldn’t work because Denys hated her, but now, she feared it wouldn’t work because he didn’t hate her at all. She couldn’t decide, suddenly, which prospect was worse.

“Reed,” he muttered under his breath, and let her go. “Not oak.”

She frowned, not sure she’d heard him right, for her dazed wits couldn’t see what reading and oaks had to do with anything. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” He rubbed a hand over his face and glanced at the clock. “We’re out of time.”

“Yes, of course.” She jerked to her feet, relieved, and glad to end this meeting before she did something truly stupid.

He also stood up, but strangely, neither of them moved. He wasn’t touching her, but he might as well have been, for she could still feel the imprint of his palm over the back of her hand.

“I hope you enjoy the opera this evening.”

The opera? For a moment, she could only stare at him, then she remembered. “Oh, yes, the opera,” she said with a forced laugh. “Of course.”

He frowned a little, studying her far too closely for her peace of mind, but when he spoke, his voice was perfectly natural. “Have you ever been to the opera before?”

Not with you.

She almost said it aloud, but checked herself in time. It was true that Denys had never taken her to the opera, or the theater, or anywhere else where his family or his friends might see them together, but there was no point in bringing that up.

It doesn’t matter now, she told herself, but that was a lie. It mattered. Even after all these years, it still mattered. It still hurt.

She felt cold, suddenly, afraid he’d see, and she forced herself to paste on a smile. “Of course I’ve been to the opera. I know America is terribly uncivilized, Denys,” she added, making her voice as light as she could manage, “but we do have opera there, you know.”

He smiled, responding to the teasing. “No need to spring to your country’s defense, Lola. I wasn’t being snobbish. And I know you have opera, for I attended one there two years ago. At the Metropolitan.”

“Yes, I’d heard you were in town.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back, for now he might think she had been keeping track of his doings, and she hadn’t been, not really. “Jack was living there at the time, I remember. I never saw him,” she added at once, “but I’d often see his name in the gossip columns. And yours, too, of course, when you came. You and James. And Nick. Some Knickerbocker who’d swindled you—it was in all the papers. I couldn’t help hearing about it.”

She broke off, aware that these completely unnecessary explanations were only reinforcing her fears of what he’d think. Hoping she could at last escape, she retrieved her gloves and bent to reach for her portfolio. “I hope you and your family enjoy yourselves tonight,” she said as she straightened.

“Oh, I shan’t be with the family. I’m—” He stopped, took a breath, and let it out. “I’m attending with a friend.”

The friend was female; his hesitation made that clear, and Lola was suddenly assaulted by a new and different sort of hurt—the sharp, quick sting of jealousy.

She tried to quash it at once, for she’d no right to it, no right at all. She’d always appreciated she wasn’t right for him, aware of the vast difference in class between them. In the end, she’d left him because of it. There was nothing to be jealous about now.

And she could not fault his choice of companions. Unlike her, Lady Georgiana Prescott was born and bred to the world he moved in, just the sort of girl she’d hoped he would find when she left, the sort who could sit beside him at the opera without being a slap in his family’s face. She was glad for him. Glad, damn it.

Keeping her smile in place, she edged toward the door. “I hope you enjoy yourselves.”

“Thank you,” he said as he walked with her to the door. “I expect we shall see you and your companions strolling about the foyer during intermission?”

Lola felt a pang of alarm. “Oh, but surely you and your friend won’t want to come down for refreshments. The concession stalls are always so crowded, and the lines are so long.”

“True, but I like to stretch my legs during intermission. And my friend likes milling about the foyer at intermission.”

“Does she, indeed?”

The acidic question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she wanted to bite her tongue off.

“Why, yes,” he answered, looking at her far too closely for her peace of mind, and when he began to smile, Lola’s cheeks grew hot, and she felt as transparent as glass. Cursing this damnable inclination to jealousy, she worked to again force it away as he went on, “She enjoys seeing who’s with whom, what the ladies are wearing—that sort of thing. I thought all women enjoyed that. Don’t you?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t stroll about. I like to remain in my seat.”

“I see.” He moved to open the door for her, and she breathed a sigh of relief that she was finally escaping. Her relief, however, proved premature, for he stopped, the door half-open. “You’re in a box, I hope? That way, you can have refreshments brought to you.”

Lola had to bite back a sigh of exasperation. One harmless lie, and suddenly she was in a tangle of them. “Oh, no,” she answered. “A box is far too grand. We’re in stalls. You know,” she added, forcing a laugh, “where all the plebeians sit.”

He didn’t laugh with her. Instead, his smile vanished, and he tilted his head to one side, studying her. “You always did have quite a chip on your shoulder about the difference in our position,” he murmured.

“Did I?” Her own smile faltered a bit, despite her best efforts to prop it up. “Or did I just have a more realistic view of my place in the world than you did?”

She didn’t wait for him to reply. “Thank you, Denys,” she said, and held out her hand. “I know you didn’t want this meeting or this arrangement.”

“No,” he agreed, shook hands, and quite properly, let go of her at once. “But I’ll rub along. I appreciate the effort you’ve taken to demonstrate your abilities as a partner, and I shall be interested to read your proposal.”

“You’re not just saying that to pacify me and get me out of your hair?”

“On the contrary. As I said, you’ve brought up an idea I’ve sometimes considered myself. We can discuss it in depth at our next meeting. I hope to see you and your companions later this evening.” He bowed. “But if not, have an enjoyable evening, Miss Valentine.”

With that rather formal farewell, he stepped aside to let her depart, and when she’d crossed the threshold, he closed the door behind her, leaving her baffled by his change of heart, bemused by his new spirit of friendly cooperation, and exasperated with herself for losing her wits so thoroughly.

Why had she ever said she was going to the opera? Denys loved opera. She ought to have remembered that and chosen theater instead. Still, what was done was done.

She’d have to follow through now. The lights were always lit during the performances at Covent Garden so the posh people could see and be seen. If he looked for her and found she wasn’t there, he might conclude jealousy had kept her away, and that notion was just too humiliating to contemplate. And besides, if both of them were seen publicly with other people, Kitty’s prediction about gossip surrounding them might be headed off at the pass.

With that perhaps overly optimistic possibility in mind, Lola tucked her portfolio under her arm, slid on her gloves, and put her wits to work.

If she was going, it was clear she’d need an escort, and if attending the opera was going to dampen gossip about her and Denys, her escort would have to be a man. But as Lola reckoned up the number of single men she knew well enough for such an invitation, she knew finding an escort wasn’t going to be easy. She knew so few people in London these days, although if she were still in New York, she’d probably have had the same problem. On both sides of the Atlantic, she’d been living like a nun.

Lola stared at the panels of the closed door, her mind working frantically. What about James? He might be in town, he was single, and she certainly knew him well enough to invite him to attend an opera. But as she thought of him, she knew she couldn’t ask him. She could not gad about London with one of Denys’s friends even if he’d once been a friend of hers as well. That wouldn’t be right. But there was no one else, absolutely no one.

She might be able to get by with insisting she’d been there, even if he mentioned looking for her and not finding her. Still, he’d no doubt ask how she and her companions had liked the performance. He might even ask her about them, which meant she’d have to invent more lies, and she really did not want to lie to Denys, even about something innocuous—

“Miss Valentine?”

The voice startled her out of her contemplations, and she turned to find Mr. Dawson standing behind his desk, watching her in some puzzlement, and she realized she must have been dithering here for quite some time.

“Can I be of help?” he asked.

Lola took a quick glance over the handsome, sandy-haired young secretary, and he suddenly seemed like the answer to a prayer.

“Why, yes, Mr. Dawson, I believe you can. Tell me . . .” She paused, giving him her prettiest smile. “Do you like opera?”