A Reckless Desire (36 page)

Rivers grimaced. “That didn't take long, did it?” he said. “Is she as offended as Father claims?”

“You know Gus,” Harry said. “She never stands on ceremony. She'd make conversation with a fishwife, given the chance. It was Father who took offense, not the ladies. Besides, they all guessed exactly who your, ah, companion was before you introduced her. They're not fools, Rivers, and they've also heard the talk and read the papers.”

Rivers should have guessed. Everett, and likely McGraw, had made short work of his great secret.

“At least they hid it well,” he said. “They were kind to Lucia. They asked her to stay to tea, and you know what stock ladies put in that.”

“They liked her, Rivers,” Harry said. “Gus thought Mrs. Willow was beautiful, clever, and talented. But most of all, she said it was the first time she's seen you in love.”

“I am in love with her, Harry,” Rivers said, and just saying the words aloud made him feel better.

Harry smiled. “I'll have to tell Gus she's right. She's always imagining little winged Cupids flying over the heads of—”

“I am serious,” Rivers insisted. He'd known Harry wouldn't understand, and that indulgent smile was the proof of it. “I have never loved any other woman the way I love Lucia, and I am certain she loves me the same.”

“Of course she'll tell you that, Rivers,” Harry said, too patiently. “It's in her favor to do so. Consider who you are, and who she is.”

There it was, the inevitable conclusion, and Rivers was unable to keep the bitterness from his words. “I suppose next you'll begin to describe the virtues of a match with Lady Anne Stanhope, too, just as Father did.”

“If I did, then I'd be marking myself as a failure, the gentleman who can father only daughters,” Harry said, his voice suddenly tight. “No, I won't say that. Even though you could do much worse for yourself than Lady Anne.”

“I'd be happier with Lucia di Rossi.” He wasn't being stubborn or obstinate. He was simply telling the truth.

Harry sighed, and the finger-drumming began again, a muted thump on the white linen cloth. “What I am saying, Rivers, is not to let this woman make a public fool of you.”

“I won't,” Rivers said, striving to sound confident, not stubborn. “And she won't.”

“You already have, just now with Everett.” Harry leaned forward, his expression earnest. “Soon she'll make this benefit performance, and you'll win this ridiculous wager. You'll both have gotten what you sought from the arrangement. It would be the perfect time to make a break with her, before things become any more sordid.”

“They won't, I won't, she won't.” Rivers had had enough lecturing, and he pushed back the chair and stood. “What else would you have me say, Harry?”

Harry rose, too, albeit more slowly on account of his leg. “All I ask is that you take care, Rivers. Don't let yourself be blinded by love, or at least not by a love like this. Things can only end badly if you do.”

But to Rivers the flaw in that reasoning was that he'd no intention of letting things end at all. He didn't say it to Harry, for there'd be no use, and instead went to drink a conciliatory brandy with him. He apologized to Everett, who seemed more gratefully relieved than anything, and then he tried to be as agreeable to everyone else as he could. Harry was right in that he and Lucia had become something of a public spectacle, and for her sake, he'd have to watch what he said and did.

Yet as he rode back to the theater for Lucia, his thoughts kept returning to his conversation with Harry. He knew his family well enough to understand that they'd all been talking about him and “this woman,” as Lucia had clearly become in their minds. They were worried for him, as if he were some lost soul drifting through Hades with Lucia as his guide, and they were desperately hoping for something to draw him away from her and back into their comfortable fold.

Of course, behind all this worry and hope, there was a larger concern that not even Harry had dared raise. They were all terrified that he'd marry Lucia, the most unsuitable bride imaginable for one of the sons of the Duke of Breconridge. As long as neither Harry nor Geoffrey had a son, Rivers was the heir to the dukedom, and no one could stomach the possibility of a foreign-born actress from a troupe of dancers as the next Duchess of Breconridge.

But the real question for Rivers was not whether he'd one day be the duke or Lucia his duchess, but whether he could picture her as his wife. His
wife.
There, he'd forced himself to think the one thing he'd been avoiding, even in his head. He loved her more than any other woman he'd ever known. Did he love her enough to ask her to marry him?

And if he did, would she say yes?

He'd promised to do whatever was necessary to make her happy. He had always considered marriage a necessary state for happiness, confirmed by an extended family of successful unions amongst his brothers and cousins, and even Father and Celia. He'd never doubted that one day he, too, would wed. But he had an uneasy feeling that his view of marriage—of much lovemaking and companionship, of his house and the Lodge filled with laughter and children and a few more dogs, of entertainments with friends and shared dinners with his family, of silverware engraved with an interlaced cipher, and being known jointly as Lord and Lady Rivers Fitzroy—might not be the same as Lucia's.

In fact, now that he considered it, he'd never once heard Lucia speak of marriage. Most young women her age could speak of little else, dreaming of wedding days and bridal gowns in such detail that it terrified bachelors. But Lucia's dreams had always seemed to involve becoming an actress, and those dreams had been so fiercely all-encompassing that she hadn't seemed to have included anything beyond it. He wondered now if that was why she'd been so determined to live in the present, that she wanted no pleasant thoughts of children or a husband to distract her from her goal.

And yet he knew she loved him. He'd only to think of how she looked at him, kissed him, touched him, made love to him. He took the velvet box with the little flowered brooch from his coat pocket and opened it, making the diamond dewdrops catch the light and sparkle. Flowers would always remind him of Lucia, and he prayed these flowers would make her think of him.

He smiled, remembering as he turned the brooch in his fingers, and then his smile faded. It was strange to think that all those lines from
Hamlet
that had become their own intimate language would now be said before a theater full of others. They'd be given away, shared freely with people for whom the words would be no more than a passing entertainment, soon forgotten. For him they'd always be in Lucia's voice for him alone, and always remembered.

“There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;

Pray, Love, remember:

And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.”

Because he loved her, he'd promised to do whatever he could to make her as happy as she made him. But what if her notion of happiness wasn't the same as his?

The carriage stopped before the theater, taking him by surprise, and hastily he thrust the jeweler's box back into his pocket. He climbed down from the carriage to go inside for Lucia, as they'd agreed, when the door opened and Lucia herself came hurrying out. He felt an inordinate pleasure in realizing that she'd been waiting there for him, a pleasure that was lessened when he saw that there were two other men and a woman with her.

“Oh, Rivers, here you are!” she cried, flinging her arms around his shoulders to kiss him quickly. “Now you must meet my fellow players. Mrs. Painter, Mr. Lambert, Mr. Audley, Lord Rivers Fitzroy.”

The three bowed and curtseyed there on the pavement as Lucia continued her introducing.

“Mrs. Painter plays Queen Gertrude,” she said, “and Mr. Lambert is of course Prince Hamlet, and Mr. Audley is my brother, Laertes. That is, he's Ophelia's brother. They've all been so helpful to me today that everyone is certain you shall win your wager.”

“Then you have my thanks,” Rivers said, feeling extremely awkward. “All of you.”

In the past he'd always felt at ease going backstage after performances and mingling with actors and actresses and, of course, with dancers. He'd enjoyed being part of their bantering and raillery, and visiting a make-believe existence that was so different from his own.

But because of Lucia, he now felt as if he were oddly straddling the two worlds and feeling equally uneasy in both, especially here on the street. By the early evening light, without the benefit of costumes or paint, they seemed very ordinary, even tawdry. They'd lost all their customary bravado, and kept stealing awestruck glances at his liveried footmen and his carriage with the Fitzroy crest painted on the door. The only one who was oblivious was Lucia, like a bright, beautiful butterfly darting back and forth.

Finally she parted with her new friends and she and Rivers left in the carriage; at last he again had her to himself.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked. It was a moot question; she was glowing with excitement and happiness beside him.

“It couldn't have been any better,” she said. “Truly. I think they were all amazed by how well I knew my role and performed it. It was obvious they were expecting me to be a silly little hussy who'd need to be cosseted and carried along, but I wasn't. Because of you and your lessons, Rivers, I was as good as—no, better!—than any of them.”

Impulsively she kissed him, a wonderfully ardent kiss that didn't have a whit of gratitude to it, and banished the dark misgivings he'd had earlier. She was still his Lucia, and he let himself relax and share her joy in the day.

“So you are pleased with the production?” he asked, leaving his arm familiarly around her waist. “McGraw hasn't scrimped on anything because it's only a benefit, has he?”

“Not in the least,” she said, twisting about to face him. “Everything is even better than I ever dared hope. The stage seemed so big at first, but then I became accustomed to it, and it seemed exactly right. Mr. McGraw made everything easy for me. He even told Mr. Lambert that I was the kind of actress that the people want now, and that I'd draw them to Russell Street and away from Mr. Garrick. From Mr. Garrick! Can you fancy such a thing, Rivers?”

“I can, and quite easily, too,” he said, smiling. “So he didn't try to change what we'd devised for Ophelia?”

“Not so much as a word,” she said. “He praised you, too, and jested that he should send the rest of the players to you for lessons.”

Rivers had a brief, hideous image of his front parlor filled with aspiring actors. “That's generous praise from him,” he said. “I only wish he'd let me stay for the rehearsal so I might have heard it for myself.”

“Oh, but it's better this way,” she said. “Truly. This way you'll be
amazed
by the play, without having seen all the grubby work behind it.”

“Have you forgotten how much of the ‘grubby work' we did together, sweetheart?” he said, a little wistfully.

“Of course I haven't,” she said. “But I meant the truly grubby work, like the seamstress fitting my costumes, or seeing how they make the ghost of Hamlet's father glow. It's a special paint on his robe that catches the light, if you care. And did you know that they've sold every single ticket? Mr. McGraw said he could have sold another hundred, there's been that much demand.”

“That's because of you,” he said, thinking uneasily of how many of those tickets had been sold in the eager expectation of watching a laughable performance by a nobleman's mistress. “I hope the crowd will be kind to you.”

“They'll have no choice but to be kind,” she said confidently. “I intend to be the best Ophelia that they've ever seen. I will
amaze
them.”

He laughed softly. “I don't doubt that you shall.”

“I will,” she said again, her eyes narrowing a fraction with determination. “You'll see. I'll make them weep when I go mad. But what did you do today, Rivers? Did you go to your club? Did you see Sir Edward?”

“I did, and yes, I saw him,” he said, purposefully omitting his near-fight with his friend. “He still believes he might win the wager.”

“He won't,” she said. “His money might as well be in your pocket already.”

“Tomorrow night will be soon enough,” he said. That time
would
come soon enough, in so many ways. “He and I will be sitting in the royal box, front and center, where I will expect him to admit defeat and pay the wager the moment the play is done.”

She nodded vigorously. “Mr. McGraw said we could all come back on the stage to watch. He said that that will be the real point of the entire play. Not Hamlet's death, but Sir Edward conceding defeat.”

She said it with such relish that he smiled. Really, Lucia's triumph and Everett's defeat were as good as guaranteed. It was everything following the end of the play that was so uncertain, and he wondered if she felt it, too.

“But I went somewhere else today, too,” he said, belatedly remembering the brooch. He pulled the box from his pocket and set it in her hand. “A small token to remember your first real day as an actress.”

She smiled at his compliment, not the box.

“You know you're not to give me jewels,” she said, faintly scolding, even as she slowly opened the lid. “Oh, Rivers.
Oh.
”

“Do you like it?” he asked, not quite sure she did.

She pressed her free hand to her chest with emotion, and when she looked up from the brooch to him, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes to match the diamonds.

“It's a modest little thing,” he said, regretting that he hadn't bought her a more lavish jewel. “It's not—”

“It's perfect,” she whispered. “More than perfect.”