A Reckless Desire (31 page)

Magdalena was already through the door to the garden when Lucia hurried after her. Without a hat, she grabbed the cream-colored silk parasol she kept furled in the stand by the doorway, and followed her cousin into the garden.

“Magdalena, wait, please,” she called, opening the parasol against the midday sun and tipping it back against her shoulder. She fell into the familiar Italian that was always used among the Di Rossis. “Wait for me.”

But Magdalena didn't wait, rushing ahead toward the rose garden. From vanity, she'd always worn her skirts short enough to display her ankles and feet, and the high, white heels of her fuchsia-colored shoes crunched briskly across the stone path. Lucia could tell her cousin hoped the gentlemen were watching from the window: not only did she twitch her skirts higher with one hand while she walked, but she also made her hoops bounce and sway invitingly over her backside with each step.

“Magdalena, please,” Lucia said breathlessly, finally catching up with her.

Her cousin turned to face her, swirling her skirts as she studied Lucia up and down.

“A parasol, Lucia?” she asked, her black painted brows arching with scorn. “With a silk dressing gown, too? So you mimic the manners of a fine lady as well as the speech. How amusing to see you like a chattering little ape, trying to copy the airs of your betters.”

Lucia raised her chin, determined not to falter and sink beneath Magdalena's hateful words. Her cousin had always done that, used mean-spirited criticism and little untruths that were sharp as knives to make Lucia bow to her wishes, but Lucia refused to do it any longer. Rivers's lessons—and his love—had done more than change her speech and her clothing. He'd given her confidence in herself, and this might well be the greatest test of it.

“The parasol protects my complexion against the sun,” she said, purposefully mild instead of defensive. “As they say, my face will be my fortune on the stage, and I cannot let it be ruddy and coarse.”

Magdalena's eyes narrowed beneath the curving brim of her hat.

“Lah, if your face is your fortune, Lucia, then you must have no more than a farthing or two in your pocket,” she said. “I cannot believe that a gentleman like Lord Rivers would ever take notice of you. Look at how slatternly you are dressed, with hair trailing down like a rat's nest. It only proves how tedious life in the country can be, that he would seek amusement with you.”

“We have amused each other, yes,” Lucia said, striving to keep her composure and not to wince in the face of Magdalena's casual cruelty. “But that does not answer why you have come here, too. If the country is so tedious, then why did you come with Sir Edward?”

Magdalena smiled smugly. “Because he invited me, of course. He is a gentleman of wealth and rank, and such gentlemen are not to be ignored. But then, you have already learned that with Lord Rivers.”

Lucia had learned many things from Rivers, none of which she intended to share with Magdalena—who of course took Lucia's silence as agreement.

“Yes, once I confessed my concern for your welfare, Sir Edward was most kind to offer to bring me here,” she said. “Very kind.”

“You didn't care at all when I left the company,” Lucia said, twisting the ivory handle of the parasol in her fingers. “How did you even know where I was?”

“Because all the town knows you are here,” Magdalena said airily. “His lordship has as much as announced it.”

Lucia frowned, thinking how very unlike Rivers such an announcement would be. “I doubt that.”

“You shouldn't.” Magdalena stopped before one of the rosebushes, idly cupping a blossom in her hand. “His lordship has assumed all the costs for your benefit, including the use of the Russell Street Theatre and the company. McGraw has told everyone. He is, of course, putting a brave face on the benefit by saying you will be his next great actress, but everyone knows his puffery comes from his lordship's purse, and not through any talent of yours.”

“He has paid Mr. McGraw?” Lucia asked, stunned.

“Oh, yes,” Magdalena said, breathing deeply of the rose's fragrance. “I cannot guess what it must cost to hire a playhouse for a night. Far more than the wager, that's certain.”

“But I auditioned for Mr. McGraw,” Lucia protested. “He would not have agreed to the benefit if he did not judge me acceptable.”

“He would put a donkey on his stage if a rich man paid for it,” Magdalena said. “You know you've no talent. If you did, you'd already be with our own company.”

“I never could dance, because I cannot hear the music,” Lucia said. “But I'm not dancing now. I'm acting.”

Magdalena gave her wrist a dismissive little twist. “It is all performing. Either one has the gift for pleasing an audience, or one does not. You, Lucia, do not. Doubtless your precious benefit has cost his lordship a pretty penny, especially considering you are no one.”

No one:
for the first time Lucia was unable to brush away her cousin's gibe. Rivers had invited the manager to watch her audition, yes, but he'd also let her believe that it had been her talent alone that had won her the offer of the benefit. She had wanted it so badly to be so that she hadn't questioned the unlikelihood of McGraw's offer. Rivers had made everything else happen for her, so she'd simply accepted this, too.

She could feel her newfound confidence crumbling away beneath her. It wasn't that he didn't trust her; he didn't trust her talent, her gift, which somehow seemed infinitely worse. It
hurt.
She'd believed she'd accomplished so much, but perhaps she hadn't after all. McGraw had been so quick to praise her performance, and she'd been just as quick to accept his praise as her due. Of course he could pretend she was the most marvelous actress he'd ever witnessed. He was an actor himself, wasn't he? Oh, how easily she'd been gulled!

“Yet that is what a gentleman does when he is beguiled with a woman, isn't it?” Magdalena continued. She snapped the rose's stem, and began to walk slowly with it, tearing out the velvety red petals one by one and letting them flutter to the ground behind her. “He will do anything to find his way between her legs. His lordship is simply rewarding you for what you have granted him, and the more he gives you now, the easier it will be for him to justify casting you off when he is done with you. New clothes, a silk parasol, a playhouse benefit. You must have pleased him very much, cousin.”

“It—it is not like that between us,” Lucia stammered, denying what now seemed painfully obvious. “Not at all.”

“No?” Magdalena paused, and ripped another petal from the rose. “You do not please him?”

“His lordship and I please each other,” Lucia said, her voice small. “There are many things we enjoy in common.”

“Things
in common
?” Magdalena repeated with scathing incredulity. “As I recall, his lordship was exceptionally ardent as a lover.”

“You didn't love him,” Lucia blurted out, unable to help herself.

“No, I didn't, any more than he loved me,” Magdalena admitted with a careless shrug. Now that she'd found Lucia's weakness, she was clearly enjoying herself. “There was an excitement between us, an allurement, but when I said we were lovers I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Lucia said quickly. “It's different for Rivers and me.”

“What, all sighs and Cupid's arrow, bleeding hearts and cooing doves?” Magdalena teased. “If that is what you believe you have with him, then you
are
a fool.”

“I know what I have,” Lucia said. What she had with Rivers was deeper, richer, more perfect than anything her cousin could ever understand, nor would she try to explain it.

But Magdalena didn't expect her to. “Most likely any attraction he has felt for you came simply because you were here in this wretched place, away from all other opportunity, and you made yourself available.”

She tugged out several more of the rose's petals at once, carelessly tossing them aside. “If you wish to stay in his lordship's favor once you return to London, you must do better than—”

“Stop,” Lucia said, snatching the battered rose from her cousin's hands. “Those roses belonged to his lordship's mother. All the flowers here are hers.”

Magdalena's laugh was harsh and mocking. “If you are as sentimental as that, then he will weary of you even faster than I thought. I vow you will be forgotten in a month, Lucia. You are a passing amusement for his lordship, nothing more. But he does have a conscience, rare for a gentleman. You must make the most of that, and take all you can from him before he tires of you.”

Lucia shook her head, clutching the rose protectively in her hands. The pieces all fit together too neatly to ignore.

“I'm not you, Magdalena,” she insisted doggedly. “I won't do that with his lordship.”

“You're an imbecile if you don't,” her cousin said bluntly. “You may think you're better because he's taught you to sound like a lady, but it's a false parrot's trick. You're no different than before, not in the ways that matter most to him.”

“He says I am,” Lucia said defensively. In her heart, she didn't believe it herself, but she would never admit that to her cousin. “Yesterday we had tea with the ladies of his family at Breconridge Hall, and they all treated me as if I were Mrs. Willow.”

“But his lordship himself doesn't believe that you are, does he?” Magdalena said shrewdly. “If you truly were a lady in his eyes, then you would not be here alone with him in his house, and you would still be a virgin. Gentlemen like him do not spend their lives with women like us.”

Lucia flushed, for what her cousin said was painfully true. Again. She knew it herself. No matter how many times Rivers said he loved her, it would never be enough to make her his equal, like Lady Augusta and Lady Geoffrey.

Magdalena leaned close, her expression turning uncharacteristically earnest.

“Do not waste this opportunity, Lucia,” she said. “His lordship is the son of a duke, with an income beyond our imagining. You must seize what you can, for yourself, for your family. You are by blood a Di Rossi, yes?”

“Yes,” Lucia said, reluctantly. By birth she still was a Di Rossi and always would be, but that was in spite of the way the rest of her family had treated her after her father had died, not because of it.

Magdalena nodded, her dark eyes glittering like flint beneath the brim of her hat.

“Then you know what you must do,” she said. “Di Rossis look after themselves first.”

“Magdalena, I can't do that,” Lucia said. “I won't.”

“You will,” Magdalena said, “or you are even more useless than I've ever thought before. Take every farthing, every jewel, every silk gown that his lordship offers you, because you will not be in his bed for long.”

Here in the bright sun, Lucia saw tiny lines around her cousin's eyes and mouth, lines that might not show beneath the theater's paint and lights, but were inescapable anywhere else. She was still beautiful, but there was a desperation to her beauty that had not been noticeable before.

Lucia knew it was this way for all the women who danced in the company: their faces hardened and their jumps grew shorter, their knees gave way and their waists thickened, and before long they were relegated to character parts and dowdy costumes, and the rich gentlemen ceased to send them flowers or invite them to dine. Not so long ago, Magdalena would have scorned a lowly baronet like Sir Edward. Now, at twenty-eight, she was doing exactly as she advised Lucia to do: taking what she could before it was too late.

“Magdalena!” Sir Edward stood beckoning from the garden steps, Rivers behind him. They were once again smiling, as friends should; at least they hadn't come to blows, which is what Lucia had feared would happen.

“I must go,” Magdalena said, waving gaily to the men. “But consider what I've said, Lucia, and if you've any wits at all, you will follow my advice.”

She didn't wait for Lucia to answer, but hurried back to rejoin Sir Edward, greeting him as fondly as if they'd been parted a week instead of a quarter hour. Lucia followed more slowly, the parasol on her shoulder. Rivers was waiting for her, his smile every bit as happy as Sir Edward's was for Magdalena, and she'd no doubt his welcoming kiss would be equally warm.

But after her conversation with Magdalena, her thoughts were in turmoil. She knew that her cousin often said things simply to torment her, and she wasn't above invention and outright lies, either. Yet much of what Magdalena had said this time held the ring of unfortunate truth, so much that she couldn't put it from her mind. The world of rich gentlemen dabbling among actresses and dancers was a familiar world to Magdalena, and she spoke from experience that Lucia herself did not have. She couldn't deny that, as much as she wished to.

And one of Magdalena's barbs had struck her to the quick. To learn that Rivers had paid Mr. McGraw to praise her and agree to the benefit had wounded her pride and shaken her confidence, but most of all it had hurt to learn that Rivers had so little faith in her and her talent. His praise, his compliments, had meant the world to her, and had helped to bind them closer as friends as well as lovers. Yesterday she'd wanted so badly for him to trust her, but if what Magdalena had said was true, then she was the one who'd lost all trust in him.

She slowed her steps further. Magdalena and Sir Edward had already disappeared into the house, while Rivers continued to stand on the top step, waiting for her with his legs slightly apart and his hands clasped behind his back, a quintessential Rivers pose if ever there was one. Because they hadn't been expecting guests, his hair was loose and untied, as bright as gold in the sunlight, and his jaw unshaven. His dressing gown had loosened, the front gaping enough to allow the breeze to ripple it over his bare chest. He was smiling still, smiling at her, and the entire sight of him made her chest tighten and her heart grow heavy.