No Mistress of Mine

Chapter 16

Denys knew Lola was right about the gossip, and that it would be best if they avoided each other as much as possible when they were not conducting actual theater business.

Given his determination that her return would not be allowed to change his life in any way, avoiding her ought to have been an easy thing for him to manage, especially since the last thing he’d wanted a few weeks ago was to be anywhere near her. But in the days that followed their picnic in the rehearsal hall, steering clear of Lola proved to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

He often found himself staring out his office window at the Imperial, wondering how she was getting on. Twice, he almost changed his dinner plans with friends so that he could dine at the Savoy, just on the chance that he might see her there. It was a fortunate thing that St. John’s Wood was not within the proximity of his daily round, for if it were, he’d have been unable to resist having his driver take him to the office via that route.

Every day, he invented excuses for why he ought to go across the street—he could ask Jacob how the play was coming along, or examine the premises, or discuss possible maintenance issues with the janitors—oh, his imagination fashioned many reasons why the Imperial needed his personal attention right now, but fertile as his imagination became, he forced himself to stay away. For both their sakes, that was the best course.

He could not, however, stop himself from thinking of her. She entered his thoughts countless times—in the middle of business meetings, on the street if he chanced to pass a woman with red hair, or when his carriage took him past Covent Garden.

He’d actually thought being near her would help him get over all this, but as the days passed, he began to fear he’d been far too optimistic about the ability of familiarity to breed contempt.

What you loved was the illusion of me, an illusion I invented years before I ever met you. The real me, however, is someone you don’t know at all.

Was that true? Denys stared down into his breakfast plate, pushing around eggs and bacon with his fork as he considered her declaration in light of what he now knew about her. But as he contemplated the things she’d told him about herself, he feared the knowledge didn’t help him much, for the more he knew her, the more he wanted to know. The more deeply he explored, the deeper he wanted to delve. And if he went too deep, he feared it would sink him for good and all.

The voices of his family flowed past him, but lost in thought, he didn’t hear a word, for he was thinking of a play six years ago and a callow chap who’d mortgaged his estate in order to seduce a girl.

He closed his eyes, sinking into memories of their afternoons together—the scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her skin. All as vivid, and as erotic, as they’d ever been.

“Denys?”

The prompting voice of his mother broke into his reverie, and Denys looked up, appalled that he was now having passionate thoughts about Lola at the breakfast table. “I beg your pardon, Mama,” he said after a moment, “but I was woolgathering. What did you say?”

“I asked if you would be joining us in the brougham tomorrow, or taking your own carriage.”

He stared back at her blankly, for he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Tomorrow?”

His mother’s gaze slid sideways, toward her husband, and the uneasy glance the two exchanged wasn’t lost on him. He’d forgotten something important, he realized, some social obligation, but for the moment, he couldn’t remember what it was.

“Oh, Denys won’t ride with us, Mama,” Susan put in before their mother could answer his question. “He’s always working in that office of his, even on Saturdays. Surely he’ll take his own carriage from Bedford Street to Regent’s Park.”

“I suppose.” Lady Conyers gave a sigh and turned to him. “You work much too hard, dear. And during the season, why, it’s absolutely uncivilized for a gentleman to slave away in an office.”

Denys looked from his mother to his sister, utterly at sea. “Regent’s Park?”

Susan laughed. “Oh, my, you have been working too hard, dear brother, if Mama’s flower show has slipped your mind. And with Georgiana helping her make all the arrangements, too.”

Good God. Georgiana. He’d forgotten all about her.

Aware that the other members of his family were staring at him, he felt impelled to fashion a reply. “I didn’t forget,” he lied, careful to keep any hint of his dismay off his face. “I just couldn’t remember for the moment where they’d decided to hold it. After all,” he added hastily, “Georgiana was suggesting so many possible locations for you to consider before she left for Kent, that it was impossible to keep track. Now, the various venues are all a jumble in my mind.”

It was a poor excuse, and he knew it, for he saw his parents exchange another meaningful glance, but thankfully, they seemed inclined to accept it at face value.

“It was all very confusing, I know,” his mother remarked. “We had quite despaired of finding somewhere suitable.” She picked up her tea and took a sip, looking at him over the rim of her cup. “I believe they returned from Kent on Wednesday, did they not?”

He had no idea. But his mother’s limpid, inquiring gaze suggested it would be wise to dissemble about this as well. “I believe so, yes. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to call, however.”

“Of course.” There was a hint of reproof in her voice he chose to ignore. “As I said,” she added, setting down her teacup, “you’ve been working far too hard this season.”

With that, she turned her attention to Susan, but as she inquired about the girl’s dress for an upcoming ball, Denys found little relief in the change of subject, for he was forced to face the fact that during the past three weeks, the woman he was considering to be his future wife had occupied none of his attention. He hadn’t answered her letters; he hadn’t even read them. In fact, other than a brief consideration of her during his conversation with Lola at Covent Garden, he hadn’t spared so much as a thought for Georgiana during the entire time she’d been away.

Of course, many things had been going on in his life of late. Any man might find himself a bit at sixes and sevens in consequence—

He stopped that attempt to justify his lapse of gentlemanly conduct straightaway, for he knew there was no justification. He was thinking to marry Georgiana, for heaven’s sake. How could he have forgotten about her so completely?

Even as he asked himself that question, he knew the answer.

Denys set down his knife and fork, shoved back his chair, and stood up, intending to remedy his lapse in gentlemanly conduct at once.

“Forgive me, ladies,” he said, bowing to his mother and sister. “But I must be on my way. I have a great deal to do today if I’m to take tomorrow away from the offices.”

He turned to go, but then paused and looked at his mother. “You are quite right, Mama. I have been spending too much time working. Will you be so good as to inform my secretary which events you would most like me to attend in the coming weeks? I shall make every effort to fulfill your wishes on that score and spend more time enjoying the season with our family and friends.”

That accommodation pleased her, he could tell, but it didn’t make him feel much better. As he left the dining room, he was still dismayed by his own forgetfulness, aggravated by the reasons for it, and feeling guilty as hell. He’d vowed that he would not allow this partnership with Lola to have any effect on his private life, and so far, he was not doing very well at keeping that particular vow.

“Be a reed, Denys,” he muttered, raking his hands through his hair as he traversed the corridor to the front of the house. “Not an oak.”

As he turned toward the stairs, he noticed the butler in the foyer, and he paused, one hand on the newel post, one foot on the bottom step. “Monckton?”

The butler turned from the mirror on the wall he was attempting to straighten. “My lord?”

“Have my carriage brought around in half an hour, would you?” he said and started up. “And have Henry fetch a posy of forget-me-nots from the flower girl on the corner, if you please.”

Thirty minutes later, attired in a gray morning suit and top hat suitable for paying calls, Denys came down to find his carriage waiting at the curb, with a pretty bouquet of forget-me-nots on the seat and his driver standing by.

“To 18 Berkeley Square,” he said, and stepped into his carriage.

He knew it was time to put his priorities back in the proper order and start arranging his future, but as his carriage carried him the few short blocks to the Marquess of Belsham’s London residence, Denys couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that his future was going to be about as exciting as watching paint dry.

During the week that had followed her picnic supper with Denys, Lola immersed herself in the play. Due to Arabella’s arrogant tendency to offer unsolicited suggestions and advice to her fellow actors, Lola in particular, there were several more late nights at the rehearsal hall during that week.

At first, Lola had been worried that Arabella’s near-constant criticism of her abilities would cement the notion that she was only here because of the men she had slept with, but as the days passed, the opposite outcome had proved closer to the truth. The more criticism Arabella heaped on her, the more other members of the company had been inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since Arabella didn’t only pick on her but on them as well.

It was plain the conduct of Jacob’s diva was causing his patience with her to erode, a fact in which Lola couldn’t help taking some satisfaction. By Friday, he’d begun cutting Arabella’s comments off midsentence with terse comments of his own, and actors had started speculating how long it would be before a full-on quarrel erupted. Lola had offered no opinion knowing it was best to keep her mouth closed and her mind on her work. She was not only an actor in the company, she was also an owner, and as Denys had pointed out, owners did not play favorites or take sides.

Regardless of the emotional upheaval, work had proved a blessing. During rehearsals, when she was reciting lines and immersing herself in the play, when she was grinding her teeth in exasperation at Arabella’s latest interruption, or trying to accept Jacob’s vision of her role rather than impose her own, she was able to put Denys out of her mind and concentrate solely on what she’d come here to accomplish.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t work all the time, and in between, there were the gaps, the times when she was alone, and there was nothing to do but think.

She wasn’t used to gaps like that. In New York, she’d had her own show, one that needed the constant replenishment of new songs and new dance routines to keep it fresh and entertaining. Any spare time she had, she’d spent it honing her skill at dramatic acting, and there’d been little time or energy left for things like reflection and contemplation.

But here in London, in spite of Arabella’s desire to keep all of them slaving away, she had far more time on her hands than she’d ever had in New York, and she had few friends here to distract her.

Nights were the worst, for she would lie in bed, wide-awake, thinking of her conversations with Denys at Covent Garden and in the rehearsal hall, the sandwiches and confidences they’d shared, and she’d wonder what had impelled her to be so forthcoming. In the whole of her life, she’d never talked about herself as much as she had during the past few weeks.

How? she wondered, staring up at the plasterwork ceiling that gleamed stark and white in the darkness of the room. How had he managed to wheedle one of the most sordid details of her past out of her? As he had noted, she’d always been very adept at deflecting conversation away from herself, especially with him.

You shared almost nothing with me about what your life was like before we met.

She’d left Charlotte Valinsky behind on her eighteenth birthday, the day she’d bought a steamship ticket from New York to Paris, and when she’d stepped aboard that steamship with a ticket that had Lola Valentine’s name on it, she’d never looked back. During her time with Denys, she had exercised painstaking care and a great deal of ingenuity to deflect any questions and keep her past life hidden from him. Dancing the cancan and singing suggestive French songs was just risqué enough to titillate and intrigue a gentleman of Denys’s class, but that was a far cry from stripping off most of her clothes for the randy sailors who worked the boats of the Bay Ridge Channel. She’d always been afraid if Denys knew the depths to which Charlotte had sunk, it would drive him away. Five nights ago, she’d finally told him the truth—a piece of it, anyway—for that exact purpose.

She’d hoped telling him about it all now might impel him to stop looking at her with the old desires in his eyes, that her confession would ensure he’d make no further attempts to kiss her, or seduce her, or steal her heart again. She’d given him up once for his own sake, and if she had to do it a second time, she feared it would annihilate her.

But her attempt to push him away by throwing some of her past in his face had backfired. He hadn’t been repelled, or shocked. He hadn’t even seemed particularly surprised. If driving him away was her goal, telling him about her burlesque dancing hadn’t been particularly effective. Lola bit her lip and stared at the ceiling. Perhaps she ought to tell him what had finally made her stop doing it. What would he think of her then?

Her heart twisted in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, but if she thought that would blot Denys from her mind, she was mistaken, for her imagination could still conjure his face and remember the desire in his eyes. She could still hear his voice, vibrating with masculine need.

Nice, am I?

Aching warmth spread through her limbs at the memory of that question and an answering desire began to overtake her. The way he’d looked at that moment had been anything but nice. That searing kiss in his office—that, too, had not been nice. Denys, she well knew, could also be very, very naughty.

Her breathing deepened as memories flooded her mind, memories of their afternoons in St. John’s Wood. The unbearable anticipation of waiting by her window, watching for the carriage that would bring him to her door. Of being in his arms, of his mouth on hers, his hands undressing her, caressing her, bringing her to blissful completion.

Lola groaned and turned on her side. She could not go on thinking about him this way. She’d go crazy, or worse, she’d do something stupid, or allow him to do so, and they’d ruin everything. And then what would happen? Another name, another place, yet another fresh start?

Her eyes tight shut, Lola worked, just as she had so many times before, to forget those afternoons in St. John’s Wood, to forget his kisses and his caresses and the one brief blissful time in her life when she’d allowed herself to fall in love.

It was a long time before Lola could finally fall asleep, and after a grueling rehearsal the following morning, during which Arabella chose to be particularly trying, the flower show in Regent’s Park was a very welcome distraction.

“I needed this outing, Kitty,” she said, as they walked the path of the park’s Inner Circle, making their way to the grounds of St. John’s Lodge. “You have no idea how much I needed this.”

“Arabella?” her friend guessed at once, offering a glance of sympathetic understanding.

Lola’s gaze slid away. “Partly,” she mumbled, and made a great show of shifting her white parasol to a better angle. “The woman is just so impossible. She has to stop and discuss everything. It’s quite trying.”

“Oh, I know,” Kitty agreed. “I was there the other day, hanging up the backdrop for Desdemona’s bedroom scene to see how it looked, and she happened to be there at the time, worse luck. She told me at once how completely wrong it was for her scene, and she demanded to know how on earth Jacob Roth had chosen someone to do the scenery who can’t paint for toffee.”

“Did you just want to strangle her?”

“Rather! She’s lucky I wasn’t wearing a necktie that day.”

Lola laughed, smoothing her own dark blue necktie against the base of her throat, taking a moment to wickedly imagine possibilities. “I’m just glad we were able to end work today when we did. As it was, I had to run all five blocks back to the Savoy in order to have time for a bathe and a change of clothes.”

“Well, it was worth it, for you do look a treat,” Kitty said, sliding an appreciative glance over her flounced white skirt, blue-and-white-striped bolero jacket and blue-dotted white waistcoat. “Are these puffy sleeves the newest fashion?” she asked, fingering one of Lola’s dark blue gauntlet cuffs.

“Yes. Leg-o’-mutton sleeves, they’re called.”

“They make your waist look so tiny, don’t they? I do hope the fashion lasts.”

“It won’t,” Lola assured, and they both laughed.

It felt good to laugh after a sleepless night and a trying morning. And to be outdoors on such a fine day. She breathed in deeply, noting with heartfelt appreciation that the air up here in Regent’s Park was fresher and sweeter than the dank air down by the river. Being here, her heart already felt lighter, and all the tumultuous feelings of the night before slid into their proper perspective. Her worries about the future and what disasters might happen down the line seemed to just float away, carried on the warm May breeze.

By the time they arrived at St. John’s Lodge, the flower show was already fully in progress. The wrought-iron gates of Lord Bute’s private residence had been thrown back, inviting anyone who had purchased a ticket to enter the grounds.

Once their tickets had been properly punched by one of Lord Bute’s footmen, Lola and Kitty were able to join the throng strolling amid the white tents that had been erected on the marquess’s lawn.

Though the show was open to anyone who had been able to afford a ticket, there was nothing crude about the arrangements. A string quartet played the music of Mozart and Vivaldi, liveried footmen carried trays of champagne, lemonade, and canapés. Lola felt as if she’d stepped into a duchess’s garden party. It was lovely.

In honor of the fine day, the walls of the tents had been rolled up, and beneath their shade, long tables covered with pristine white cloths displayed the finest flower specimens from London’s finest gardens in glittering crystal vases. A card written in an elegant hand identified each bloom, the garden in which it had been grown, and the name of the person responsible.

“The Countess of Redwyn,” Kitty read, as they paused before a stunning pink peony. “Heavens, you’d think she grew the bloom herself. Why doesn’t her poor gardener receive any credit, that’s what I’d like to know.”

“He should,” Lola acknowledged. “It’s a lovely thing.” Glancing over her shoulder, she spied a tent displaying vases of her own favorite flower. “C’mon,” she said, pulling Kitty’s arm. “Let’s go look at the roses.”

They walked across to the rose display, admiring the blooms for some time before the heat impelled them to a search for a footman with refreshments.

They spied one handing out flutes of champagne to an elegantly dressed group of ladies and gentlemen near the first tent, and they started in that direction, but they were still a couple of dozen feet away when Lola spied one man in particular amid their circle, a man whose back was to her but whose tall, wide-shouldered frame made him easy to recognize.

She froze, suddenly paralyzed. Her heart leapt in her chest, a sensation borne of dread, excitement, and something else—something a lot like longing. She knew she should turn around before he saw her, but her feet could not seem to obey her mind’s command.

He turned his head toward a slim brunette in pale blue silk who stood beside him, and when the girl leaned closer, putting her hand on his arm as she murmured something close to his ear, the gesture of familiarity told Lola the woman must be Lady Georgiana Prescott.

Seeing them hurt like fire, for they looked so splendid together, so right. They were surrounded by others whose elegance and wealth completed the picture. On Denys’s other side stood a black-haired man whose profile was distinctly familiar to her.

Jack, she realized, but the ghastly situation enabled her to take no pleasure in seeing someone who she’d once, long ago, considered a friend. On his arm was a slim, elegant blonde—his wife, no doubt.

Talking to the couple was a vivacious, dark-haired girl who bore such a striking resemblance to Denys, Lola knew she must be his sister, Lady Susan. The lady who stood beside her, a stout woman whose dark hair was streaked with gray, had to be his mother, Lady Conyers. And behind the group, facing her, stood a silver-haired, handsome man whose smiling, friendly countenance made him seem so different from the haughty earl who’d contemptuously shoved a bank draft in her face so long ago.

The sight of Earl Conyers was the last straw. It snapped her out of her momentary paralysis, and she hastily whirled around before any of them could see her. “Oh, God, Kitty, we have to leave.”

“But we’ve only just arrived.” Kitty reached out, plucking a flute of champagne from the footman as he walked by. “Why should we leave?”

“Because,” she hissed, “Denys is here.”

“Somerton? Where?”

“That way.” Lola jerked a thumb over one shoulder. “Don’t look,” she added in desperation as Kitty leaned sideways, trying to look past her. “He’s scarcely twenty feet away from us.”

“Is he?” Kitty didn’t seem the least bit surprised. In fact, there was a little smile playing around her lips, and an awful idea flashed through Lola’s brain.

“You knew he’d be here,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she watched her friend shift her weight in decidedly guilty fashion. “It’s an unbelievable coincidence that he would be at the same event we are when there are hundreds of things going on in London now, and yet, you are not the least bit surprised. You knew he’d be here, didn’t you?”

Her friend wilted a bit beneath her gaze, confirming her guess. “I thought it was a possibility,” she mumbled.

“What would ever lead you to believe he’d be at a flower show?”

Kitty tugged self-consciously at her ear. “Lucky guess?” she ventured, but when Lola’s gaze narrowed still further, she gave a cough and proceeded to explain. “I heard tell that Somerton’s mother is the . . . ahem . . . patroness of this . . . umm . . . show.”

“What? Oh, my God.” All the implications of the situation struck her, and she felt suddenly sick, and furious, and humiliated. If Denys saw her, he’d think . . . oh, God, it didn’t bear imagining what he would think.

“How could you do this to me?” she demanded. “How?”

“Well, it isn’t as if you don’t have the right to attend. It’s a public event, open to all. Even those of us in the lower classes are allowed to come,” she added, unmistakable bitterness in her voice. “They just don’t think we can afford to buy their outrageously expensive tickets.”

“It doesn’t matter that we’re allowed to be here. You’ve put both me and Denys in an impossible position, don’t you see that?”

“No, I don’t.” Kitty gave a toss of her head. “Somerton’s your business partner, isn’t he? Why shouldn’t you attend his precious mother’s flower show? Why shouldn’t you speak to him? Why shouldn’t he come over here and speak to you? Maybe he’ll escort us around.”

Lola groaned, realizing just how clueless Kitty was about the social nuances of high society.

“Besides,” Kitty added as she didn’t reply, “I told you before that I want one of our lot to beat the odds. Serve his snooty family right if you married Somerton,” she added, her voice bitter from her own heartbreak. “Knock ’em all into a cocked hat, it would.”

“For the love of heaven, I told you there’s nothing romantic between—” She stopped, that kiss in Denys’s office and her own erotic imaginings from last night flashing through her mind. She took a deep breath and changed tactics. “You had no right to play matchmaker when we both know you only did it out of a desire for revenge and some cockeyed sense of social justice. How do you think this makes me appear, showing up at his mother’s charity event?”

She could hear her voice rising with panic as she asked that question, and she paused to take a deep breath before she could speak again. “We have to leave.”

“So you intend to go scurrying off as if you have something to be ashamed of? Are you supposed to avoid all the other events of the season just because he might happen to be at those, too?”

“That is not the point, and you have no idea what you’ve done, and we are leaving right now.” She grabbed Kitty’s arm, but when she glanced around she realized escape was impossible. She was hemmed in by the elegant Georgian house and three walls of wrought-iron fencing, and the only way out was through the gate, which meant she’d have to walk right past his family.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, her quick survey of her surroundings revealed the awful fact that she’d been noticed. One by one, people were turning to look at her. She watched in dismay as, one by one, the people strolling casually about the grounds stopped walking and stared, their attention fixed not on the fine day or the flowers displayed, but on her.

Oh, God, they all know who I am, she thought in horror. Probably none of these people have ever met me, and yet, they know.

She felt as if she were watching a terrible street accident unfold before her eyes as she saw heads lean together, mouths begin to move. Every single pair of eyes in the crowd now seemed fixed on her, or on Denys and his family and friends, and as their gazes darted back and forth with avid interest, it was easy to read their thoughts and hear their whispered speculations. They were all wondering how Lord Somerton’s former—or was it current?—mistress had the gall to appear at his mother’s charity event, and what was the earl going to do about it?

Wondering if she could just bolt for the exit, she cast a desperate glance over her shoulder and froze, horrified to find the earl staring straight at her. His face, so pleasant and good-natured a moment ago, was now flushed purple with anger. His lips were pressed tight, and beneath his hat, his dark gaze seemed to blaze with repressed outrage. Their gazes locked, and he stiffened, raising his chin to the haughty angle so fitting to his rank. Then, with nearly every eye in the place watching the scene, he circled the group he was with, and with slow, deliberate intent, so that anyone watching her would see his action, he took several steps toward her, then stopped, and turned his back.

Lola sucked in her breath, the blatant snub like a punch in the stomach. She knew she should look away, walk, go . . . somewhere, and yet, she could not seem to move. She felt pinned in place by a hundred gazes, like a butterfly tacked up in a display case.

Denys and the girl suddenly seemed to realize something was amiss. They lifted their heads from their intimate tête-à-tête, and that was when Denys saw her. His eyes widened in astonishment, he glanced around, then he returned his gaze to hers. In his face, she could see shock, and when he pressed his lips together, he looked every bit as angry as his father.

Was he going to cut her, too? She couldn’t bear to see it happen, and yet, she could not seem to make herself turn away. And besides, where was there to go?

She stared at him helplessly, tears of mortification blurring him before her eyes. She wanted to die. An earthquake would be ideal, one that would split the perfectly manicured grass and allow the earth swallow her up. Unfortunately, despite what Denys’s family thought of her, she was no witch and could not conjure up earthquakes with a magic spell.

God help me, she thought. What am I going to do?