A Proper Scandal (Ravensdale Family Book 2) (33 page)

“Alex,” Minnie chided. Her hand smoothed over his head, soft strokes that helped with the pain some.

“Miss Ravensdale will take my place.”

“Very good, sir.” Chapman left, closing the door, leaving Alex with Minnie.

It was selfish, but he didn’t want her to leave. “It’s important, Minnie. I should explain…”

“Close your eyes and sleep, sweet.” She smoothed his hair back from his forehead and kissed his eyelids. “Have some faith.”

*

The meeting had gone as expected. That was to say, the men on the board flirted with Minnie and entertained her, but otherwise ignored her opinions on the theater itself. That is until she finally rose, banged her gloved hand over the table, and told the men in no uncertain terms that the play would go on as expected despite their threats. Having deep pockets herself certainly shut them up. She didn’t need their money. She’d fund the production herself if need be.

No one would touch Alex or his theater. She’d see to that.

“I think the only reason we won them over today was because you were at the meeting.” Alex’s friend, Boyd, brought in a cup of tea for her in Alex’s office.

“Thank you.”

“They ate out of your hand.”

“They were idiots,” Minnie said, staring into her cup of tea. “And I don’t take kindly to threats.”

“Against Alex?”

“Especially against Alex.” She laid her spoon down and settled back against Alex’s chair.

“He worked hard for that theater. Alex would work for Ainsworth, then work with the rest of the laborers, fixing the floors and ceilings. I found him hanging from the rafters once, trying to repair that damn angel above the stage.”

Boyd didn’t appear much younger than Minnie. She wondered just where Alex had befriended him, but the more he spoke, the more she knew the answer—the East End. Then it struck her that she had seen him before, and as if guessing, he laughed at her.

“I was wondering when you’d piece it together.”

Questions cluttered her brain, tying her tongue for once. Here stood the boy who used to follow Alex around Whitechapel, waiting for breadcrumbs. Like a little brother at the heels of an older brother. Whether Alex had realized it, he had built a family of his own through the years. Something about that warmed Minnie up and lessened the ache she felt thinking about their years apart. They might have been separated, but there were others around him who protected him.

“If anyone takes that theater away from him—”

“They’ll have to talk to me first.” He winked at her. “There’s no trouble beyond today, nothing important anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Well, there’s a matter of blackmail. But when you hold some of the most powerful secrets in London as Millay’s, it’s expected.”

“Oh, good,” she said with a laugh. She felt as if she owed him her thanks or some such. For being with Alex. Seeing that he was never truly alone.

“I’ll call the carriage around for you. No need to have two scandals in one day. Alex warned me about you.”

“Did he?” Boyd had a way of making her miss that impossible man. “I should tell you he’s wrong, but he’s always been right when it regards me.”

It looked as if Boyd was going to say something, but he must have thought better of it and held his tongue. “The carriage,” he finally mumbled, bowing out of the room.

She gazed over Alex’s office, feeling as if she were in a dream. That this was all his, the club, the theater. She had said something to him once about knowing him, but thinking he was a stranger. The feeling was the same now. The years had changed him, but his hands were the same, the soft lilt to his voice, the way he would smile suddenly and her world would tip into a brighter place.

She blinked, finding herself thinking about last evening. She must write a note and leave it as a surprise for him. Minnie opened the drawer, searching for a pen and paper. She stopped when her own eyes stared back at her.

The photograph was worn around the edges, signs of study and contemplation. But it wasn’t punctuated or folded, all corners intact. It was an object in safe keeping. She had been by his side all those years when she thought herself lost to him.

She traced the lines of her young face and body. The photograph wasn’t one of the ones usually posted and printed, not of her as the enthralling Evangeline, but of a young Minnie Ravensdale, the aspiring ballerina. She could not believe that he had found this picture. It was of her, with her rose gold hair, wearing a crown of flowers and Grecian gown. There was hope in her eyes and a playful upturn of her smile. Minnie barely recognized herself.

She was about to place it back in the drawer before she spotted the stack of newspaper clippings tied together with a ribbon. Her old hair ribbon from long, long ago. He had clipped every mention of her in the papers and kept them. They didn’t have the same wear as her picture. It looked like they had just been collected and stored away.

Alex had been a friend, a momentary fiancé, her first lover, but she had never considered that he held her so close to his heart. She had treated him poorly, behaved terribly, teased and taunted him. How could he possibly come to care for her in such a way that he kept her prized navy ribbon?

Minnie leaned back in the chair, kicking her boots up onto the desk, and contemplated a great many things as she drew the length of chain from her dress and dragged the warm signet ring back and forth across her lips.

M
innie tenderly kissed his forehead. The netting from her hat brushed against his hair. He smelled her perfume, then smiled into the pillow. Pain was present, perhaps not as bad as it had been, but it lingered. Between moments where it waned, a strong spasm would wring his brain.

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Alex swallowed, trying to ease the cracking in his voice. The soft caress of her laugh urged his eyes open.

“You heard.” The mattress sank as she sat next to him on the edge of the bed. The silks of her skirts crinkled and crunched, but the noise no longer bothered him.

“Chapman read me the note you sent earlier.”

“Good,” she said, her voice notably dropping off. She studied her gloves before she peeled them off. He knew before she spoke that something troubled her. He saw it in the way her shoulders slumped forward, the hard line of her lips.

“Darling?” He reached for her, cautious to keep his head still in case the pain surged back.

“No one saw me enter. No one knows except your staff.”

“I don’t care about that.”

She wrung her gloves in her hands, quicker and quicker, until she rushed out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hadn’t he been the one to speak of secrets? It was only fair she was angry. He supposed she had heard the rumors as she rushed in to save the day.

“If I had known—”

Alex sighed and slowly pushed himself up onto his arms, turning so he could face her. “I didn’t want for you to know because it does not matter to me. I won’t let them—”

“It’s nothing new for me. I’ve grown a thick skin toward the ugly words. But when it begins to affect you and what you’ve fought to build for yourself. I can’t stand to ruin you. I can’t stand to lose you…”

Minnie stared at him with those large hazel eyes. Even in the dark, they sparked. Everything within ached for her. It had been nice to hold her again last evening, but he wished now they had followed through with Minnie’s original intentions. He might not have been much of a fighter when they first met, but the years had given him skills to lay a man flat. With the look in her eyes, he wanted to deck half of London for hurting her. Then there was Paris, and Europe…

“Well, you charmed them and the theater will get its funding. The show will go on and you will be a smashing hit.”

She looked away, then lifted her hands to the tangled netting of her hat, unpinning it before tossing it onto the chair by the bed.

To say that the opinions of others didn’t matter was a lie. After years of hearing high praise from the perverse and the lowest of set downs from the morally spirited, words did matter. She wanted to please everyone.

“We promised no secrets,” he said, reaching for her arm. The black silk of her dress looked as if she were in mourning. Alex wished none of this for Minnie. He wanted her dressed in red or nothing at all. He wanted to know there was something substantial between them, more than some shared lust. It was more than lust. It was more than passion and certainly more than friendship. But if he ever confessed that he loved her…

“I’m not sure I’ve told you how proud I am of you.”

She gave a dry laugh, quickly wiping at her eyes before slapping her gloves over her thigh. “There is nothing to be proud of,” she said. “Are you feeling better?”

“You had the courage to live a life that others are fearful of and condemn. They don’t understand because they give in and live a life that is expected. But they have missed out on living. You have lived your life.
Are
living,” he corrected. “I don’t know many others who can say the same.”

“I’m a failure.”

“Failure?”

“I wanted to be a ballerina.”

“Mhmm,” he agreed. Alex moved over the mattress, twisting Minnie around so their foreheads touched. “You went after what you thought you wanted and discovered your true purpose along the way. That’s not failure, Min. That’s courage.”

She closed her eyes for a beat, her soft exhale filling the space between them with the smell of mint.

“You’re extraordinary.”

Minnie nodded, but still didn’t return his stare.

“If it will make you feel better, you can dance for me any time.”

A small laugh passed her lips as she rolled her eyes. “Flirt.”

Alex kissed her. There was no stopping it. Her lips were so close to his and it was the one sweet pleasure he thought of all day to kill the stabbing edge of pain wracking his head. Everything he risked by being with her was worth it.

*

Everything spun as Alex slanted his lips over hers, erasing the day’s events from her mind, the doubts, the fears. She tasted the bitter laudanum on his lips and wondered if his kind words were inspired by the wicked tonic. Then he caressed his tongue over her lips, opening her mouth to his, patient and slow. Her thoughts stilled and her body reached for his as though it was answering some unspoken call.

It was too much.

Minnie broke away with a small sigh, her hand gripping her forehead to straighten out her untidy thoughts. She ran her finger along the underside of his jaw, feeling his pulse beat against her fingertip, and tipped his chin up. “You still need to rest,” she said.

The look that shadowed Alex’s face suggested he thought otherwise.

She stood and rested her hand on his shoulder, pushing him back into the pillows. “If you rest, you shall get your wish.”

She spun and left the room.

It took some work, but she managed to fashion a sari out of the sheet Chapman supplied before she slipped back into Alex’s bedroom. His head hung low as he massaged his neck. His feet were crossed and sticking out of the sheets at the end of the bed.

“Have I ever told you that I was born in India?” Minnie watched the line of his shoulders, broader with the passing years, roll as he stretched. She shook away the image of raking her nails over his back. His eyes took her in, an appreciative smile on his face.

“No.” His voice caught in his throat.

“I was,” she said, beginning to sway her hips. With a long sweep of her hand, she began to dance, losing herself to the exotic rhythm that thrummed in her veins. “I lived there before my parents died and I was brought to England by my uncle. I lived there again when I was thirteen when he became a diplomat. That’s been home to me all these years. I’m a daughter of the British Raj.”

This had always been her problem. Her body wasn’t made for the elegant gracefulness of ballet. She was never the prim miss who blindly followed the pointed dictates of others. Minnie was made for the dances of the Orient, the sensual and exotic. It was liberating to move her body in that way, to beckon Alex’s attention with the curl of her wrist and bump of her hip.