Ways to Be Wicked (6 page)

No. Yes. Maybe.

Sylvie tactfully ignored the question, which seemed to be rhetorical anyway. And so cheerfully and matter-of-factly said, as if Mr. Shaughnessy’s appeal was universal and could be understood and appreciated by any female.

“But Mr. Shaughnessy...ever since Kitty left, ye see. . . once a week or so he goes to Kent, I ’eard ’im say t’The General once. But no one knows why. Not even The General. Not even ’Er Majesty.”

“‘Her Majesty?’ ” She had been under the impression that the English were ruled by a king. Perhaps this was another honorary title, like The General.

“Daisy,” Rose said laconically, as if this clarified anything. “She’s ’er own room to dress in and entertain guests and the like. She doesna share wi’ the likes of us. Ye’ll see ’er soon enough, no doubt. But she willna speak to the likes of ye.”

Ah, a diva. Sylvie was familiar with the sort. As she was something of the sort herself.

“But ladies, they do come to look for Mr. Shaughnessy,” Rose hurried to assure Sylvie, as if the fact that he didn’t touch his dancers would call his manhood into question. “Cryin’ an’ beggin’ to see ’im, in fact. An’ ’us-bands are forever callin’ ’im out, our Mr. Shaughnessy. Even though ’es not a gentleman, like. It’s because ’es such a verra good shot.”

“Duels? He fights
duels?
”

“Best shot in London. Shoots the ’eart right out o’ the target each time.”

Sylvie felt faint. She wondered if duels were any more legal in London than they were in Paris, and doubted it. She remembered the glint of the pistol in Tom Shaughnessy’s sleeve as they stood in the clearing among those highwaymen.

“He kills people?”

“Kills?” Rose sounded faintly appalled. Only faintly. Sylvie wondered whether Rose experienced any emotion rather strongly, and given the tempests of her own various passions, felt a slight twinge of envy, wondering what it might be like to drift comfortably through life’s dramas.

“Oh, no. They shoot at each other, but everyone seems to miss.”

Tom Shaughnessy routinely shot and allowed other people to shoot at him?
Over other men’s wives?

“And The General—he is...” Sylvie paused to think of the word. “In charge of the dancing?”

“ ’E is, an ’e invents the shows, like, but even ’e answers to Mr. Shaughnessy, an’ ’tis Mr. Shaughnessy, oo ’as the
big
ideas. One show a night, every night save Sunday, three acts at least, six or eight songs, usually. Mr. Shaughnessy likes to jumble it up a bit, an ’e seems t’ave a new idea every week. Keeps us busy, ’e does. We’ve rehearsal every day for as long as The General says. It’s a right bit o’ work, but it’s good pay, and Mr. Shaughnessy, ’e looks after us.”

Right bit of work?
Sylvie wondered what on earth the dances entailed.

“Do you live here at the theater, Rose?”

“At the theater?” Rose’s eyes widened with astonishment. “I’ve me own rooms up the street. Mr. Shaughnessy pays right well. We all do—’ave our own rooms. The girls, and Poe and Stark, the men what guard the stage door outside, an’ Jack, ’oo guards the dressing-room door, an’ the boys who work for The General. But there
are
rooms ’ere at the White Lily, up the stairs. Was a grand ’ouse once. Where d’yer live, Sylvie?”

Sylvie didn’t know how to respond to that question.

She was spared from answering when the top half of Rose disappeared into the wardrobe and she began fishing about inside it.

She emerged with a gown, a gossamer thing, pale pink over some silvery fabric. It would provide about as much flesh coverage as mist, though in dimmed lights one couldn’t
precisely
see through it. Sylvie eyed it askance.

“ ’Ere. We’ve five minutes before The General ’as a fit. I’ll ’elp wi’ yer laces.”

Sylvie was accustomed to dressing in front of other girls; modesty was frivolous when one was a dancer preparing to perform. But Sylvie was suddenly profoundly aware of how slight she was, a willow twig compared to these vivid blossoms of girls. It was as if anything superfluous to ballet had melted away from her body, leaving behind only what was necessary to fulfill Monsieur Favre’s commands—elegant muscle.

She turned around and presented her back to Rose, and Rose worked the laces on her mourning gown for her. She watched with frank curiosity as Sylvie slipped into the dress.

The dress was too large, hung on her frame loosely, exposing an expanse of chest, stopping just shy of revealing her bosom altogether. And the ribbon from which her miniature hung. Sylvie put her hand up, disguising it.

“The General, ’e won’t want ye to wear stays, but ye’ve not much of a bosom, ’ave ye?”

How on earth did one respond to such a question? Ironically, Sylvie decided. “No, I suppose not.”

“Mmm. Stays
will
’elp wi’the—” Rose covered her own round bosoms with both hands and gave them an illustrative push upward. “Make ye look like ye’ve a bit more.”

Sylvie appreciated that Rose was trying to be helpful, but bosoms had always been about as helpful as ballast in Sylvie’s line of work; they got in the way, in other words. She felt herself growing warm in indignation.

And when Rose handed her the big wooden wand, and she turned and got a look at herself in the mirror, the indignity was complete.

But wait. Rose was still rummaging about in the wardrobe, and plucked out a pair of wings, sheer, luminous fabric ingeniously stretched over a frame of wires, fitted with straps. An admirable bit of construction, admittedly. She would admire it more if she weren’t required to wear them.

But Rose held them out to her, and Sylvie resignedly took them. She saw loops in the center for her arms. She pushed her slim arms through them.
Voilà!
She was a fairy.

The wings, she had to admit,
were
pretty. They would have done justice to the costumers at the Paris Opera, where some of the finest and most ingenious seamstresses were employed.

“Why did Mr. Shaughnessy take ye on?” Rose wanted to know.

Now that Rose was satisfied that her body was not the typical White Lily body, she apparently could not resist the question.

Sylvie decided that building her own mystique would be a marvelous strategic defense during her stay at the theater.

“Mr. Shaughnessy and I shared a mail coach, which was robbed, and when I kissed a highwayman, they agreed to let us go on.”

Rose’s dark eyes stared. And then: “
Cor!
” she breathed.

In short, if Sylvie would kiss a highwayman, what
else
might she be capable of?

Sylvie felt absurdly gratified. She might be skinny and dressed inadequately as a fairy, but she could still impress.

“What’s funny, it was sudden-like, and ’e always takes ’is time findin’ a new girl. Tells us all about it. We thought ’ed never replace Kitty. So ye’re a surprise.”

I imagine I am.

Chapter Five

T
HE GENERAL REGARDED SYLVIE
dispassionately: the big dress, the wand, the studiedly stoic expression on her face. “The costumes will need. . . significant. . . altering. How are your skills with a needle, Sylvie?”

“I believe you mean ‘Miss Chapeau,’ ” she said almost reflexively. Perhaps it was a mistake, but she was a tad irritated, as her dignity felt chafed by her costume and by Rose’s assessment of her bosom. “My skills with a needle are adequate.”

“You may have noticed that we don’t stand on ceremony here, Sylvie. Now girls, places please. Sylvie, because of your height, you can stand between
Molly
and
Jenny
—”

“What is
your
name?” Sylvie considered perhaps she should have eaten something when Mr. Shaughnessy offered, as she knew her temper was easier to rouse when her stomach was empty, and it was tempting her now to take risks.

He fixed her with a gaze meant to intimidate, no doubt. “The General,” he said evenly. “The. General.” He gazed at her with those sharp dark eyes. “Now Josephine, if

you’d begin—”

“Your given name is ‘The’?” Sylvie said mildly.

Sylvie heard what sounded like a collected sucking of breath. The other girls had done it.

The General turned very slowly and stared up at her wonderingly.

“Then I may call you ‘The’?” she pressed on, calmly. Taking a certain perverse, reckless pleasure in it.

“Oh, my, oh my, oh my, oh my,”
Rose whispered gleefully.

“Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t,” another girl hissed.

The General muttered something, and Sylvie could have sworn he was taking the name of Tom Shaughnessy in vain. He took in a deep breath, appeared to be counting.

And then he beamed at Sylvie. “Yes. Please do call me ‘The.’ Or call me cuddlecakes. Call me that ‘gorgeous bastard.’ I suppose it doesn’t matter what you call me when you have need of calling me, as I will more likely need to call
you,
Sylvie. And now, if you would please stand between Molly and Jenny. I assume you can. . . move to music?”

The last three words were given a special frisson of irony, which puzzled Sylvie just a bit.

“I shall certainly do my very best,” she said solemnly.

“Josephine,” The General barked.

Josephine, a fair-haired woman who looked astonishingly ordinary in contrast to the rest of the denizens of the theater—as round and pleasant-faced and wholesome as the wife of a country squire—gave a start and landed on the pianoforte, her fingers finding and playing a song with a waltz pattern, tinkling and saucy.

The girls onstage began to sway, arcing their wands to and fro gracefully above their heads.

This presented little challenge; Sylvie managed to master the swaying motion quickly enough.

She noticed The General’s eyes on her, and she could have sworn he looked a little amused.

But the swaying motion was pretty in its way, harmless enough, despite the wands and shamelessly gossamer gowns and her pair of wings. She could even imagine how pleasing they all might look beyond the footlights during a performance, all shimmer and beauty.

“Smiles, girls!” The General bellowed.

Rows of pretty teeth were instantly bared. Sylvie suspected hers more closely resembled a grimace, from the feel of things. Still, she curled her lips back.

The music tinkled on for a bar or so, at which point the girls rotated in a circle until their backs faced the audience, all the while twirling their wands in tight circles over their heads. And then they linked arms, a motion Sylvie managed to follow smoothly enough. Sylvie wasn’t particularly anxious to touch Molly, but she did it anyhow, and took Jenny’s arm, too, and continued to sway to and fro.

This was child’s play; she could probably do this and nap at the same time. In fact, a nap was sound—

The row of girls bent double and pushed their fannies up into the air and sang out
“Wheee!”
dragging a startled Sylvie abruptly down with them.

And then they were upright and gently swaying again.

“More derriere next time, Jenny! Get it up there high!” The General ordered, as if commanding troop maneuvers.

They swayed for a bar, twirling their wands, and then, Dear God—

“Wheee!”

They did it again, chins to their knees, derrieres in the air, dragging Sylvie down with them.

When she was upright this time, Sylvie’s eyes were wide and nearly watering with horror.

“Ye’ve scarcely an arse, Sylvie. See the seamstress straightaway and get that dress altered,” The General barked over the music. “And the word is ‘
wheee!
’ I want to hear it.
One,
two, three,
one,
two, three,
one,
two, three...”

And suddenly, abruptly, Sylvie unhooked her arm from Molly’s and Lizzie’s and almost blindly fled down the little stairs of the stage, reflexively fleeing what seemed to her the things she’d devoted her entire life to avoid becoming.

She wasn’t quite certain where she was heading, but “away” seemed a sufficient destination at the moment, and her general direction appeared to be the White Lily’s door.

She nearly ran headlong into the wall of a linen-clad chest, stopped abruptly and looked up into Tom Shaughnessy’s face.

“Tired of dancing so soon, Miss Chapeau?”

“Derrieres. . . bending. . .
wheee!
” Sylvie stammered furiously, hands flailing helplessly, unable to convey the horror of it all. “That is
not
dancing, Mr. Shaughnessy.”

“You stand there, move about, smile.” He was obviously confused. “Of course it’s dancing. Audiences pay good money for derrieres and ‘
whee,
’ Miss Chapeau.

Does ‘dance’ mean something else now in French?” And then he frowned in comprehension. “Oh! I believe I see what you are driving at. But I’m afraid no one will pay to see”—Tom paused, as if to give the word a wide mental berth from his other words, and said it gingerly. “
Ballet.
If that’s what you’re asking. There isn’t any money in it.”

Sylvie went still for a moment. How on earth would he have known about—

She took a deep breath. “Is there something else I might do to assist here at the theater?” she managed to ask in a steadier voice. “In order to earn my keep.”

She hoped, hoped, hoped he wouldn’t interpret this question pruriently.

She needn’t have worried. “Perhaps you sing?” he asked, his mind clearly ticking away.

“Well—” Sylvie could carry a tune, but more often than not, the tune carried her. It was her body, not her voice, which understood music so well. “Yes.” Which was merely a short version of the truth.

“Do you sing...well?” He sounded troubled by the very idea. “You see, we don’t want to frighten the audience with...exquisite singing. Most of these men can hear a soprano in any drawing room, you see. They come here to get
away
from sopranos in the drawing room. Sopranos remind them of long evenings with their wives.”

“No one will ever invite me to sing in a drawing room,” Sylvie told him quite truthfully.

“Would you be willing to sing a bawdy song then?”

She blinked. “A baw—” The words began as a choked laugh and stopped when she noticed there was absolutely nothing of humor in his face. It had been a flat question.

He was a businessman deciding how to deploy an asset, and she was the asset.

“A bawdy song,” he reiterated impatiently. “Such as...” Tom paused in thought, and then tilted his head back and in a surprisingly decent tenor sang:

“Nell was a young woman so young and so fair

Who cherished her virtue ’til she met Lord Adair

Who took her for a ride in the warm summer air

And gave her a necklace of baubles to wear

Of baubles, of baubles, of baubles to wear,

Oh!

He gave her a necklace of baubles to wear!

He looked at her. “A bawdy song,” he concluded briskly.

And now the expression on his face was so distinctly at odds with the content of his song that incredulity warred with hilarity as she decided what to say next.

“Pretty song,” she finally said, solemnly. “Perhaps
you
should sing it, instead.”

“Oh, I would,” Tom assured her in all seriousness, “if I thought anyone would pay to see
me
rouged, or in a shift.”

“And are you certain no one would?”

The words were out before she could stop them, because it was precisely the thing any accomplished coquette would have been unable to resist saying in similar circumstances. She regretted them for an instant.

In the next instant, she was surprised to find herself rather breathlessly looking forward to what Tom Shaughnessy might say.

Nothing, as it turned out—for a time, anyway. He regarded her instead, eyes aglow in pure pleasure—he was utterly pleased with
her
—the corner of his mouth quirked upward speculatively, as if deciding what to say next.

“I can sing the French version, too,” he said suddenly. “My friend Henri taught the words to me. Would you like to hear it?”

“Have I a choice?”

He ignored her question, and squeezed his eyes closed for a moment in thought, apparently scanning his memory for the lyrics.

At last he opened his eyes, and opened his mouth, and—

Well, the language he used was certainly French.

But the song suddenly had nothing at all to do with Nell and Lord Adair.

Instead, it was all about what a certain man would like to do to a certain woman and what position he’d like to do it
in,
and how certain he was that the woman would enjoy it. Baubles
did
play a role—though they were called something else entirely in this version of the song, as this was French—and the chorus was sung just as enthusiastically.

Perhaps most shockingly, it all rhymed beautifully.

And as he sang: heat. In her cheeks, in the pit of her stomach, sweeping up her arms.
Everywhere
as he sang, the song creating the most specific pictures in her head.

She was certain the bloody man had made the lyrics up on the spot.

For heaven’s sake, she’d danced for kings; she couldn’t recall the last time she’d conjured a genuine blush. But this man had sent her composure scattering as surely as a cue dashed into a triangle of billiard balls.

When he was done, silence dropped with the ceremony of that great heavy velvet curtain. Tom’s face was solemn as a vicar’s, but his eyes glinted like the very devil’s. He clasped his hands behind his back and waited with wide eyes for her to comment.

Sylvie could not recall words ever deserting her; the traitors, they were doing it now.

“That . . .” Her voice was a little hoarse. She cleared her throat. “That wasn’t the same song, Mr. Shaughnessy.”

“No? Wasn’t it?” All innocence. “Bother. Henri must have misled me. I’ll have a word with him. Perhaps my French is not quite so good as I thought.”

She paused. “No,” she agreed slowly. “‘Good’ is not the word I would have chosen to describe your French, Mr. Shaughnessy.” She waited, and her heart beat just a little more quickly in anticipation.

“Wicked, then?” he suggested quickly. “Would you perhaps use ‘wicked,’ instead?” He sounded as earnest as a schoolboy making a guess at an arithmetic problem.

She couldn’t help it; it burbled out of her, a vein of humor struck. She laughed. He’d said precisely what he should have said next in the dance of flirtation, and it delighted her more than it should have, made her breathless the way a well-executed
pas de deux
did.

The laughter, of course, only encouraged him; the wicked grin flashed. “Which part of the song did you like best, Miss Chapeau?”

“The ending,” she said quickly, recovering.

He looked at her again, speculatively. “Mmmm,” he said, considering this. “That might very well be true, but”—he reached out one finger and dragged it lightly along her flaming jaw—“you should see how attractively pink the
rest
of the song has made you.”

She froze. Of all the bold, presumptuous—

He took his hand away and glanced down at it briefly; confusion flickered, his brows dived a little.

And even as outrage flamed in her eyes, even after he took his finger away, his touch echoed through her unnervingly.

An odd silence followed.

“A thought-provoking song, nevertheless, wouldn’t you say, Miss Chapeau?” he said, finally.

“It provoked only a longing to hear a
good
tenor, Mr. Shaughnessy.” A tart and scrambling effort to impose a distance and gather the shreds of her composure.

Up went his brows. “Did it? My apologies.” He sounded genuinely disappointed. “I thought perhaps you understood the lyrics. Clearly you did not, and I have misjudged you, and you are a mere innocent after all.”

“I’m not a
mere
—”

White teeth and that crescent-shaped dimple came into view again. “Yes?”

She realized too late how ludicrous it was to defend her honor by declaring she was
not
innocent. Funny, but it had been the word “mere” her temper had reared up against. Sylvie had never been “mere” in any way.

And as she wasn’t certain how to ease her way out of this particular corner, she remained silent.

“Mmm. I didn’t think you were, somehow,” he said idly, and dipped a hand into his pocket and retrieved a watch; it glowed like a tiny planet in the dim theater. He nudged it open with his thumb, and when he saw the time, everything about him became brisk.

“To the subject at hand, Miss Chapeau. I do not operate a charity.”

She blinked. It was as though he’d finished a quick afternoon snack and was now pushing himself away from the table to get on with the rest of his day.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“It’s simple, you see. You may sing a bawdy song of my choosing, or you may dance with the other girls, or you may leave. Those are your choices. And yes, you are passing fair, but you may have noticed beauty is not a rarity, but a requirement, here at the White Lily. Had you been any plainer, I would have sent you packing much earlier. As I said, I cannot afford to offer charity.”