No Mistress of Mine

Chapter 5

Denys didn’t like the idea of anyone’s being publicly embarrassed, and though to his mind, Lola’s flailing her way through Shakespeare and being eviscerated for it by Jacob Roth would be no more than she deserved, he took no enjoyment in the prospect.

He could still remember watching in horror from his seat at the Adelphi as she had flung herself far too fervently into her part in Ibsen’s play. Every snicker from the audience at her overwrought gestures, every grimace of her fellow actors at her stilted dialogue and raw technique had made him wince on her behalf.

Witnessing another performance as ghastly as the one he’d seen so long ago was not a prospect any man with a conscience could anticipate with pleasure. He might have avoided it, of course, for his presence at auditions wasn’t strictly necessary. But since taking over the Imperial, he’d always made a practice of observing the season’s first auditions, giving his opinion if asked for it, and he had no intention of abandoning that practice just because Lola was auditioning.

Still, Thursday morning, when her name was called and she came out on stage, he couldn’t help feeling a hint of dread. Her approach to the front of the stage was tentative, almost timid, and as she paused beside the actor assigned to read with her and faced the seats, she looked like a deer ready to bolt for the woods. Despite the heat of the stage’s gaslights, her face was pale, and as she lifted the audition sides in her hands, he could see the sheets of paper tremble in her grip.

She cleared her throat. “I have been asked—”

Her voice cracked, and she stopped. The sides rustled as she clenched them tighter in her fingers, and though her lips parted, she didn’t speak. Instead, she stared wordlessly out at the seats. Despite his wish that she just go away, Denys felt a hot, painful embarrassment on her behalf, echoing back to that fateful opening night at the Adelphi, and for some stupid reason, he felt impelled to come to her aid.

“Is something wrong, Miss Valentine?” he asked, putting a deliberate hint of mockery into his voice. “You’re not nervous, are you?”

That did the trick. A flush of color came into those pale cheeks, revealing a hint of the temperamental, passionate woman he recognized, and he cursed himself for goading her. If he’d resisted that impulse, her propensity to be tongue-tied just might have been enough to do her in.

“I am perfectly well, my lord, thank you,” she answered, her voice steadier than before. She once again lifted the sheaf of papers in her hands. “I have been asked to read for Bianca.”

“Very well.” Reminding himself it was best to have this over with as quickly as possible, he once again settled back in his seat. “Why don’t you begin with your entrance in Act Five, Scene One?”

“Act Five?” She stared at him, clearly surprised by this unexpected scene choice. And she wasn’t the only one.

“Usurping my job, Denys?” Jacob asked beside him, and when he turned toward the director, he observed the other man studying him in some amusement. “Taking a rather strong interest in the proceedings, aren’t you?” he murmured.

“In this case, it’s warranted, don’t you think?” Denys countered, his voice equally low, but adamant. “I lost a lot of money the last time this woman was in a play I backed.”

“Perfectly understandable of you to take an interest then,” Jacob replied, seeming not the least bit fooled. “But I am curious, my friend. Why Act Five? Bianca has only a few lines. That’s hardly sufficient to show the girl’s ability.”

“On the contrary,” Denys replied, his voice equally low. “Bianca sees that Cassio is injured and may be dying, and she’s accused of injuring him, so this is a very dramatic moment, the perfect place for Miss Valentine to demonstrate her skills.”

Jacob’s mouth quirked. “And if she’s terrible, we won’t have to sit through very much before we send her packing.”

“Well, yes, that, too.”

Chuckling, Jacob sat back, spreading his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Carry on, my friend. In this case, I am content to observe.”

Denys returned his attention to the stage. “Jimmy?” he called to the reader. “Are you ready?”

The young man nodded and held up his script. “Yes, my lord.”

“Excellent. You may begin, Miss Valentine. That is,” he added, watching her flip through her sides to locate the appropriate page, “if you can find Act Five?”

She paused to look at him, and her eyes narrowed a fraction. “I don’t need to find it,” she said, and dropped the clipped sheaf of papers to the floor behind her. “I was merely keeping busy until you had finished your discussions with Mr. Roth. If you are finally ready, I’m happy to begin.”

She turned away without waiting for an answer and walked to the wing of stage right, then turned and faced Jimmy. “ ‘What is the matter, ho?’ ” she recited as she started toward him. “ ‘Who is’t that cried?’ ”

She made no effort to mask her American accent, but even Denys had to admit her cant was decent. Many talented actors, even in British theater, found Shakespeare’s dialogue a trial.

As if spying Cassio’s injured body on the ground, she gave a cry and sank to her knees, a show of abandon quite unnecessary for a first audition. Denys tensed, bracing himself for more of the overdone histrionics she had displayed in A Doll’s House, but to his surprise, she didn’t live up to that expectation. Instead, her distress over the injuries of her lover was restrained, and—as much as he hated to admit it—believable. A few moments later, accused of being the one who had injured Cassio, her denial was convincing enough that he began to think perhaps she actually had learned something about acting while in New York.

For heaven’s sake, Denys, what do you think I’ve been doing the past six years? Eating chocolates and sitting on my behind?

Drawn by that provocative question, Denys’s gaze roamed over her form. Memories enabled him to see beneath the plain blue skirt and white shirtwaist to the splendid body beneath, and images came into his mind before he could stop them—full, round breasts and lushly curved hips, pale, luminous skin and long, exquisite legs, dark red hair spilling across ivory sheets and deep green emeralds glittering around her throat, emeralds he had insisted on buying her.

He began to burn, memories pulling him down, down into that dark, sweet place where lust and love and obsession had once melded together to enslave his soul, where nothing in the world had mattered to him but having her. He’d been ready to sacrifice everything dear to him, to turn his back on everyone else he loved, in order to keep her.

And then, she had left him.

Denys dragged himself out of the past, and it was like thrashing in the water to come up for air—an exercise that only twenty-four hours after her reappearance in his life already felt exhausting.

He blinked, staring at the stage, focusing on the present, telling himself that her audition wasn’t all that impressive, that several of the other actresses here would be better suited. By her last lines of the scene, he had almost convinced himself she’d been little more than adequate.

“ ‘Fie,’ ” Jimmy said, “ ‘fie upon thee, strumpet!’ ”

Lola’s frame stiffened, and her chin went up. Something in the air shifted, like the crackle of static electricity, and then, with a suddenness that took his breath away, all the courage previously hidden beneath Bianca’s jealous nature was at the fore, clear as daylight.

“ ‘I am no strumpet,’ ” she declared. Turning her head to look straight at him, she said her last line of the play. “ ‘But of life as honest as you that thus abuse me.’ ”

He knew that for Lola, the words were a lie, but in her role as Bianca, the declaration rang out true, vehement, and convincing. Her face, as always, was breathtakingly beautiful, but at this moment, it also showed Bianca’s inherent courage.

My God, he thought, startled, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat. What if she really can act?

Even as that thought passed through his head, he tried to dismiss it. There wasn’t any meat to the role she was reading for. And Jacob had been right to point out that Act Five wasn’t much of a basis on which to judge her talent.

“Well, well,” Jacob murmured beside him, laughing a little. “Your plan seems to be backfiring, my friend. I think a more demanding test of Miss Valentine’s skill is required.”

Without waiting for an answer, Jacob turned toward the stage. “Thank you, Miss Valentine,” he said, breaking the silence. “If Lord Somerton has no objection, I’d like to see more.”

Denys stirred, but hell, what could he say? He was supposed to be an observer, and nothing more. This, he appreciated darkly, was what a man got for being fair.

At the confirmation that she’d passed first muster, she pressed a hand to her chest and gave a little laugh of relief. “Of course,” she said. “What shall I read next?”

“Why not continue right where we left off? Read Act Five, Scene Two.”

Denys jerked upright, dismayed, but Lola spoke before he could object. “Scene Two?” she echoed, sounding bewildered. “But Bianca has no lines in Scene Two.”

“Just so,” Jacob said, and in his voice there was a hint of amusement Denys could only think was at his expense. “I want you to read for Desdemona.”

Her lips parted in astonishment, and despite his usual rule, Denys felt compelled to intervene. “Jacob, what are you doing?” he muttered. “I thought we decided weeks ago that Arabella Danvers would play Desdemona. We’ve already offered her the part and a place in the company.”

“You think about box office receipts too much, my friend,” Jacob chided him. “But never fear. Arabella will play Desdemona. Still,” he added, raising his voice so that Lola could hear what else he had to say, “I haven’t decided who shall be understudy. I want to determine if Miss Valentine has the necessary skill to take on that role should it become necessary.”

“She doesn’t,” Denys muttered, whether for his own benefit or Jacob’s, he wasn’t quite sure. Either way, the director only chuckled and waved a hand encouragingly in Lola’s direction.

Lola, however, didn’t see his gesture, for she was staring at Denys, waiting, as if expecting him to override his director’s decision, but he had no intention of doing so. Giving her plenty of rope was his only option at this point.

“You seem hesitant, Miss Valentine,” he called to her. “Desdemona is a demanding role, of course, particularly for someone of your limited experience. It would be understandable if you don’t feel you’re ready for it.”

Her chin lifted at once. “I am prepared to take on any role, my lord.”

“Then let’s begin,” Jacob said, putting an end to any more baiting on Denys’s part. “Jimmy, you may start with Othello’s bit about cruel tears.”

Jimmy complied, drawing Lola’s attention, but Denys’s gaze, however, remained fixed on her, and he watched with a hint of dread as she began. Desdemona was one of the most overdone roles in the Shakespearean repertoire, and Lola, as he well knew, had always tended to overdo it. But as she played out the scene, there was no sign of the girl whose performance six years ago had been shredded by every theater critic in London. She displayed none of the awkwardness or overdone theatrics he remembered. Her American accent didn’t seem to matter. Nor did the lack of props, scenery, and costumes. At this moment, not even Denys could doubt that she was Desdemona, the wronged innocent.

Lola, as he well knew, wasn’t innocent, and she certainly wasn’t the wronged party in their past, but in this situation, their past should not matter, only her ability. And as he watched her prove him wrong in that regard, he began to feel a hint of desperation.

She’s always been trouble, he reminded himself. From the moment you met her.

That was irrelevant, and he knew it, and Denys began to fear he’d be saddled with Lola, and all the havoc that came with her, for a long time to come.

She sank to the floorboards, heedless of the hard, unforgiving surface, and Denys watched with a mixture of artistic admiration and personal dismay as she demonstrated the murder of her character.

She reached for the sides behind her prone body, but not, he realized at once, because she needed to read from them. Instead, she slid the sheets of paper over her face, a representation of the pillow Othello had used to suffocate his wife. With her face hidden, the twitching of her body against the floorboards seemed such a convincing display of Desdemona’s death throes that it didn’t matter that Jimmy was still on his feet. It was easy to envision Othello kneeling over her, committing the act of murder.

“My God,” Jacob said beside him.

Denys knew the director well enough to appreciate that those two muttered words were an expression of artistic appreciation, and they deepened the dismay he felt.

Her body stilled. There was a moment of silence, then Jimmy seemed to realize this was his cue and began reading the next lines of the play. Denys, however, kept his gaze on her, waiting with bated breath, knowing what was to come. At last, she moved, demonstrating that Desdemona was not yet dead, and when the improvised murder weapon slid away from her face, he leaned forward in his seat, straining to hear her last lines.

“ ‘Commend me to my kind lord,’ ” she said, her voice soft but pitched to carry perfectly to the very last row of the theater. “ ‘O, farewell.’ ”

She missed her best line, he thought, but then, her head lolled toward the seats, her eyes looked straight into his, and he realized he’d been mistaken.

“ ‘A guiltless death I die,’ ” she rasped, and the words hit him with the impact of a blow to the chest.

She hadn’t forgotten anything. She’d deliberately put Desdemona’s best line at the last, so that she could be looking at him, rather than at her fellow actor, when she made the heroine’s protestation of innocence her own.

He watched as her face relaxed, and her eyes closed, and in the moment of Desdemona’s death, she looked so lovely and so without guilt that he suddenly wanted to believe that last night in Paris had all been some horrible mistake.

But his rational mind knew no mistake was possible. Lola, wearing the sheer, intimate clothing a woman only donned for a lover, moving to sit beside Henry on the settee, her words in the face of his marriage proposal so clear and uncompromising that there had been no room for doubt.

Sorry, but Henry has made me a better offer.

A glimmer of the pain he’d felt that night, pain so long suppressed that he’d almost forgotten it, came roaring back with sudden force, violent enough that he jerked in his seat.

He wanted to tell her to go to hell and take Henry’s absurd notions of partnership with her. He wanted to say that, partner or not, he would never, ever, allow her to gain a part in any play he produced.

But it was too late for that.

He thought you would be fair.

Henry, it seemed, had known him better than he knew himself. Lola had been good today, damn it all, too good to be dismissed when the only reason for it would be that she’d wronged him years ago.

“Well, Denys,” Jacob murmured beside him, sounding far too pleased with himself. “I’m not sure Miss Valentine performed quite as you expected.”

Denys refused to be drawn. “Thank you, Miss Valentine,” he called to her as he gave the man beside him an impatient glance. “You may wait backstage with the others. Next, please?”

He beckoned to the rather reedy-looking young man waiting at the edge of the stage, but he wasn’t able to avoid offering an opinion of Lola’s audition quite as easily as he’d hoped.

“Denys?” Jacob prompted, when he said nothing. “Say something, man. What did you think of Miss Valentine’s performance?”

Denys sighed, grim resignation settling over him.

“I think,” he muttered, studying the seductive sway of Lola’s hips as she walked off the stage, “my life just became much more complicated.”