The Temptation of Laura

by Rachel Brimble

  Victor turned and ran his gaze over Adam from head to toe. He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Well, your desperation doesn’t help your case.”

  Soft light sparkled in Victor’s eyes and Adam laughed, his shoulders relaxing somewhat as he glanced down at his clothes. “Maybe I should have approached you dressed in shirt and tails rather than my damn costume, but time is running out—”

  “For whom?” Victor’s smile dissolved. “Do you not realize you are on the precipice of your career? After your performance in this show, people will sit up and take notice of Adam Lacey. Mark my words.”

  Frustration raced through Adam, searing hot at his face. “So you say. Yet no one is knocking on my door. I need to work. I need to write.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “More than you need to act?”

  “I . . .” Writing certainly mattered to him more and more over acting, but to admit to such could mean the end of further roles coming his way. He blew out a breath. “I cannot answer that.”

  Victor cleared his throat. “Seems to me, son, that’s the bigger question, rather than whether or not you get your creation onto the stage.” He wandered back to the table and picked up one of the many sheets he’d discarded.

  Adam’s stomach knotted with trepidation. He was desperate. He barely had eight weeks’ rent left if he didn’t find work soon. The familiar sense of failure engulfed him. He could not let Victor know of his situation. Confidence was key to a breakthrough in Adam’s unerring quest for a backer. He shook his head.

  “Acting will always be important to me, but I cannot deny how much I believe in this play and what it means to me.”

  Victor met his eyes. “Which is?”

  “Everything. I have fought tooth and nail to avoid the regimental life my parents mapped out for me. I have come this far and I refuse to go back now. Roles are not guaranteed, but if I can make a success of my own creation, it will change everything.”

  Victor stared long and hard before he glanced back at the papers he held. “You’ve cast yourself in the leading role. What about everyone else? Forget the producers, Adam. There aren’t many actors who will take a risk on a new play by a new writer. It could be months before you fill these roles. Not to mention stagehands, lighting, and scenery.” He tossed the sheet aside again. “God’s graces, man. You know the scale involved to put on a play as ambitious and complex as this.”

  “I appreciate that, but I also think the public is ready for a story such as this, don’t you?”

  Adam’s heart beat hard as he detected indecision cranking and turning in the director’s head as he considered.

  Seconds ticked by and then Victor gave a curt nod. “I say forget the writing until you can afford to invest in it. Who knows? A year, two years from now, perhaps you can afford to run the show yourself. Nothing better than a man being in charge of his own work.”

  “Of course not, but—”

  Victor raised his hand. “Come. Gather your manuscript together and put it away for another day. We have less than twenty minutes before you’re due back onstage. I can’t do anything to help you. I’m sorry.”

  Adam squeezed his eyes shut and fought to curb his temper. “Well, I would have always wondered if I had not asked. At least I gave you first refusal and the guilt you are out of pocket won’t eat me up when my play is alive at the West End.”

  Victor grinned. “I like your positivity. Now, come, we must make haste.”

  “You go.” Adam opened his eyes and forced a smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  As soon as Victor disappeared into the corridor, Adam whirled around and pushed his hands into his hair. “Damn it to hell.”

  He marched across the room and whipped the disarranged sheets from the desk. He hurriedly gathered them back into a pile as best he could, already dreading the torture of putting them back in order for another long languish in obscurity. Roughly tying the string, he shoved the pile under his arm and strode from the room into the humdrum of the busy corridor.

  The stage manager immediately clapped him on the shoulder. “There you are. Are you almost ready? Monica’s scene starts in five. You’re on next.”

  Adam waved in acknowledgment and continued along the corridor toward his dressing room. He marched inside and came to an abrupt halt.

  God damn it. This is all I need.

  The ladies had their backs to him, fiddling with a new flower arrangement on his dresser. His fragile temper could do without the provocation of another woman pushing her breasts in his face, clamoring for a damn autograph . . . or more.

  Charm. He needed to maintain his charm, his public reputation at all times. He couldn’t let anyone see the real him. That Adam Lacey would soon stick a pin through their fantasy of a rising star with the world at his feet.

  He pulled on a wide smile. “Sorry, ladies, I have no time to visit—”

  They turned in unison, but Adam focused on only one. “You.”

  The breath left his lungs and his smile faltered. Lucinda. Here. In his dressing room. Standing barely three feet in front of him.

  “Mr. Lacey.” Her cheeks darkened and she dipped a semicurtsy. The smooth skin at her neck moved as she swallowed. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Adam found his feet and stepped closer. She was short—or at least compared to his five feet eleven inches. Petite. Perfect. Her eyes were huge and the color of lavender.

  He laughed. “I cannot believe you are standing in my dressing room.”

  Her soft smile vanished and the color at her cheeks deepened as she turned to her companion. “I’m sorry. We brought you some flowers from a lady in the audience, sir. We didn’t mean . . .”

  Her companion looped her arm through that of the vision in front of him. “It’s all right, Laura.” She tugged Laura forward. “We apologize, Mr. Lacey. We’ll be right out of your way.”

  They disappeared out the door, and Adam dumped his manuscript on the desk and hurried after them. Laura . . . Laura. His mind raced. She could not leave. He had to go after her. They had barely stepped into the corridor and he clasped Lucinda . . . Laura, at the elbow.

  “Please. Would you join me for a drink after the show? Perhaps you’d like to accompany me to the get-together at the Rooms?”

  Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. “Sir?”

  He was scaring her. He was acting like an imbecile. A damn predator. He snatched his hand from her arm and raised them both in a gesture of apology. “I am sorry. I mean, would you . . .” He glanced from Laura to her companion. “Both of you, like to come with me? As my guests?”

  Her friend squealed. “Yes, yes, we would. Oh, my. I can’t believe—”

  “No.”

  Adam looked to Laura. “No?”

  She tilted her chin and brought herself up to her full height. Suddenly she seemed taller than she had in his dressing room. She shook her head. “No.”

  Her friend huffed out a laugh. “Laura, I don’t think you understand what Mr. Lacey’s asking—”

  “Thank you, Tess, but I understand perfectly.” Her gaze remained locked with his and Adam tried and failed to lessen the panic he knew would be evident in his eyes. She stepped back and did the damn curtsy thing again. “I thank you, Mr. Lacey, but I came here to work, not to take drinks at the Assembly Rooms. It was nice to meet you.”

  She spun around and marched away. Tess, her friend, glanced from Adam to Laura’s retreating and perfect form and back again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lacey. She’s new. She doesn’t understand—”

  Adam grinned and shook his head. “It is fine. It is more than fine.”

  The girl smiled and moved to leave when Adam touched her arm. “Tess?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you can tell me where she lives, I would be forever indebted to you.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” She tilted her chin, clearly mustering for as much pride as Laura had shown. “But I’m not making any promises.”

  Adam dipped his head. “I underst
and.”

  She took off along the corridor and Adam collapsed back against the wall behind him. His hand clutched the place his heart had been a few minutes before.

  Laura.

  Laura’s legs shook as she hurried into one of the theater’s many back rooms. She grabbed her basket. What had she been thinking, giggling and laughing along with Tess in Adam Lacey’s dressing room? She swallowed as her hands trembled. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d carried on like a naïve young girl in awe of a damn star. Well, it hadn’t been stars in Adam Lacey’s eyes—it had been lust. Pure and simple.

  Disappointment lingered at the periphery of her heart and she pushed it firmly away. He was a man, wasn’t he? What the hell else did she expect? Did she think he’d fall at her feet? Romance her? Laugh and ask her questions about her life? She was a whore. Men spotted whores as soon as they looked at one.

  Tess hurtled through the door and Laura wiped away the tears that smarted her eyes.

  “There you are.” Tess pressed her hand to her heaving chest. “Why did you take off like that? The man’s besotted.”

  Laura glared and hefted her basket onto her arm. “Besotted? The man is nothing more than a leech. A sexual deviant.”

  Tess’s eyes widened and she laughed. “A sexual deviant? Mr. Lacey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be absurd. The man is a professional. He’d no more lust after the likes of us than he would piss in the street. The man keeps company with lords and ladies in most cases.” She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Which is why I won’t believe for one minute you aren’t the least bit curious why the sight of you set him to gushing the way he did.”

  Laura feigned interest in the contents of her basket. A spark of pride simmered deep in her belly. “Gushing? He wasn’t gushing. He was toying with me . . . us.” She met Tess’s gaze. “Don’t be fooled by him or any other man. You know what we are.”

  Tess’s smile vanished. “Excuse me?”

  The heat in her glare bore into Laura’s conscience like a claw hammer. Just because she’d grown as jaded and cynical as a washed-up brothel madam, didn’t mean Tess was. She slumped her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. Ignore me.”

  The silent seconds beat heavy in her ears. Her first day in a new life and she’d set upon the first person who greased the wheels of opportunity.

  “Laura, look at me.” Tess’s voice was firm and clear.

  Laura opened her eyes.

  Tess tightened her jaw and crossed her arms. “First of all, I know exactly who I am. I’m a young woman making her way in the world. Always have been, always will be. Yes, I might’ve sold my body for a time to stay warm and fed, but right now those days feel a long way past. Now, you have to decide how you’re going to start thinking about yourself.”

  “Tess, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I haven’t finished. You need to start thinking about how to talk about yourself, because the way Adam Lacey just admired you had nothing . . . nothing to do with putting his cock inside you.”

  Laura flinched at the bluntness of Tess’s words. “I never said he thought that.”

  “You didn’t have to. It was written all over your face how little you thought of him. You didn’t give him a chance to impress you.”

  The fight left her and Laura collapsed into a chair, heaving her laden basket onto her lap. “I didn’t mean to run away like that. I didn’t want to get angry or mean.”

  “Then why did you?” Tess grabbed a chair and dragged it along the floor. She sat in front of Laura. “Adam Lacey is the nicest bloke you’ll meet, I swear to you. Considering his popularity around here, you’d think he’d be a right dandy, but he’s not. He talks to everyone and anyone.”

  “So why get so excited about him talking to me? It was the ecstasy on your face that sent me flying out the door, not his. You can’t blame me for thinking there was more to it, the way you stared at us as though your eyes might roll out of their sockets.”

  Tess grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. “I said, he talks to everyone. I didn’t say he stares at everyone like he did you.”

  Laura frowned. “So I was right. He can see me for what I am.”

  “He didn’t look at you for sex. You know that as well as I do. If the man had been scouting for sex, you would’ve put him in his place. The way he stared at you scared you as much as it shocked me. Admit it.”

  She was right, but there was no way Laura would admit that to Tess—or herself. “Why would he ask us to the party?”

  Tess leaned back. “I’ve no idea.”

  Any residual notions of admiring Adam Lacey’s acting skills or handsomeness disintegrated. “Then what’s he playing at?”

  “I don’t know, but as sure as I’m sitting here, we’re going to that party to find out.” Tess pushed to her feet. “Come on. For now, we’ve got work to do.”

  Laura leaped up. “Tess, wait. I’m not going to any party. I’ve already told you how ill Bette is. I’m not leaving her to fend for herself while I go off to some theater carrying on.”

  “You can’t not go.” Tess’s eyes grew wide. “What if he doesn’t ask us again? It’s not me he wants there, it’s you, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on a night of seeing all that finery. If you won’t do this for you, will you at least do it for me?”

  Snatching her basket back onto her arm, Laura tilted her chin. “I’m not going. You go. Enjoy yourself. Even tell me what happens. I’m not going.” She inhaled a shaky breath. “Are you going to show me how to shift this lot or not?”

  Their gazes locked.

  Laura struggled to maintain a semblance of control as her heart raced and her hands shook. For all her words and fervor, the way Adam Lacey gawked at her remained painted in her mind as clear and vivid as a miniature portrait. He hadn’t just admired her, he’d seen through her, to her very soul. It was as though he asked her a million questions. Where have you been? Who are you? What can you do for me?

  The notion confused her. Shook her. Made half of her want to seek him out and the other half hide.

  When no response came from Tess, Laura emitted a frustrated curse and swept from the room.

  Actors speaking their lines and the accompanying clangs and hums of the orchestra drifted through the corridor as she stormed forward. The maze of doors and walkways threw her off balance. How did she get out of here? Back to the auditorium? Back to Bette?

  She halted. Closed her eyes. No, she wouldn’t run. When had she ever run from anything? So, she was shaken. Someone had managed to make herself stop. Make herself think. Make herself feel . . .

  This was a new time. A new opportunity. This was for her and Bette. No more whoring. Wasn’t that what Bette asked of her while she suffered and fought against the illness threatening to take her down?

  Footfalls behind her made Laura turn.

  Tess hurried along the corridor, her face etched with concern. She stopped and took her hand. “Where are you going? You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Laura released her held breath and forced a smile. “Of course not. It will take more than a man like Adam Lacey to make me run scared from a job.”

  Tess’s shoulders dropped and a pretty smile lit her face and eyes. “I’m glad to hear it.” She looped her arm through Laura’s. “Let’s go to work. These folks are ripe for the picking, I reckon.”

  Arm in arm, they entered the auditorium and the calls, laughter, and noise of the audience swept over Laura on a wave of possibility. The scent of tobacco mixed with the gas from the lanterns; orange peels mixed with the scent of chocolate from her basket. She stared resolutely forward. Adam’s voice came from the stage to the left of her—masculine, clear, and entirely in control. She ignored the tightening in her stomach and the almost inhuman urge to look at him that pulled at every fiber.

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Laura?”

  She started whe
n Tess whispered urgently in her ear. “What?”

  “Why are you staring ahead like you’ve seen some sort of ghost? We’ve got work to do.” Tess frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. How do we do this?”

  “Well, there isn’t much more to it than smiling and flirting with the gentlemen and acting envious of the women. The men want to feel as though you long to be with them. The women like you to want to be them.”

  Laura nodded. If she was good at nothing else, she was good at making people believe she was happy when inside she yearned to be a million miles away, doing something only other dreamers could possibly understand.

  She drew in a long breath. At least this time she was dressed and no one was pawing at her cunny or kissing at her breast. For tonight, she was Laura Robinson making her way without any man’s money or muscle.

  Chapter 5

  Adam meandered down the theater steps onto the street. Somehow, he had managed to get through the second half of the play without leaping from the stage and talking to Laura. He smiled. Despite the added energy to his performance, the agony of knowing she wandered amongst the audience and being unable to so much as look at her had been pitiful. Her presence, the anticipation of seeing her again, put a bounce in his step and set a strange fluidity through his limbs.

  Intellectually, he was acting like a sap. Who had ever heard of someone seeing another person and sensing an excitement, a purpose, just by looking into their eyes? It was madness, but the wonder and surprise in her gaze was not a figment of his imagination. She had to have felt the connection too. It was their destiny to explore what it meant, surely?

  He glanced left and right along the street before checking his pocket watch. By the time he had changed and was ready to leave, the theater had emptied of its patrons, along with Laura and Tess. Part of him knew Laura would be true to her word and not come to the Rooms, but he hoped Tess would at least deliver her address to him. Not that it mattered nearly as much now—he’d since discovered Laura worked at the theater. He would see her soon regardless.