by Megan Chance
“Oh, that was brilliant! Brilliant!” he crowed, his eyes shining in the lamplight glancing through the windows. “Dear God, that was the best time I’ve had in months.”
I smiled. “They won’t let you back anytime soon, I think. At least not with me. Or your wife either. Why did you call me that?”
He wiped at his eyes. “I don’t know. It was the first thing I thought of. It doesn’t matter. Ginny dislikes the place.”
I settled back into the seat.
“Did you hear that doctor? He truly believed.…” Nathan laughed again, letting it fall to a sigh. “Ah, my dear, you were born for the stage, that’s clear enough.”
“I’m glad you liked it. But you might want to go back and explain later.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll tell them it was a command performance, and they should all rush to the Regal to take in the sublime Mrs. Wilkes. Would that please you?”
“Of course it would.”
“It went very well.” He looked smug, and I had the strangest feeling, just as I’d had the night he’d given me the cloak, as if I’d fallen into some little game running in his head, and you know, it spoiled my delight in it all. Suddenly I was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t really say why, except that there was that … meanness … in him again, that deliberation, and I felt I’d been guyed. Which was stupid, because we’d played the joke together, but still I felt somehow I was the victim, and I didn’t like it. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to be done with tonight, however the hell it was going to end.
Nathan said, “You deserve a reward.”
I knew exactly what he thought my reward should be, and there at least was a game I knew how to play, and if it got me closer to being rid of him tonight, I was willing to play it. So I leaned forward and put my hand on his thigh and said, “Is that so?”
I crept my fingers toward his cock, but he caught my hand and gave a short shake of his head. “Not tonight, I’m afraid, my dear. There’s someone I need to talk to.”
“Tonight? So late?”
“Sorry to disappoint you. I’ll take you to your hotel, but I’m afraid I must be off.”
I pretended to be disappointed, when the truth was that I felt as if I’d been given a last-minute reprieve. Then I thought how strange it was that he’d gone to all the trouble to take me to dinner—and at the Queen City too—without expecting to get something in return for it. So I said, “Just take me to the Regal then,” because I had this feeling that if I let him take me home, he might change his mind and decide to take a few minutes to “reward” me. Also, I was wearing the costume from Debts, and I needed to change again, and why not do it now, as I wasn’t tired in the least bit. I felt the way I always did after a good performance—a little jittery and too awake—and Nathan was making me nervous besides.
“Not your hotel?” he asked.
“The theater’s closer.”
“As you wish.” He pounded on the roof and told the driver where to go, and then he lapsed into thought, and those were the last words he said to me until we stopped. Then it was as if he came to himself. He smiled at me—a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes—and handed me down and said, “Everything should be done by tomorrow, but it may be a few days before I can get away again to see you.”
I was confused. “Everything?”
Nathan only kissed my hand before he released it. “Not too long. Don’t fret. You’ll see me in the box.”
“All right,” I said. “Good night.”
He closed the door. The carriage pulled away quickly, leaving me standing there in front of the darkened theater, and I breathed a sigh of relief and went to the side door. It was unlocked, as always—mostly because the set carpenter slept in a loft he’d built in the heavens above the stage, so there was always someone here. Lucius might even still be around, but I hoped he wasn’t. I wasn’t in the mood for any more pretense, and I couldn’t rid myself of this uncomfortable feeling that I was going to come to regret what I’d done tonight at the Queen City.
I stepped into the darkness, felt my way to the stairs leading to the dressing rooms, and went down—they were familiar enough that even the soul-dark blackness didn’t faze me. When I got to the bottom, I blinked, because there was a light coming from one of the dressing rooms—no, the greenroom. Dim, but it was there, slanting into the hall, and I was dismayed. I didn’t want to talk to one of my fellows tonight; I just wanted to change and go home, and I wondered if I could sneak by the open doorway without anyone seeing me. Perhaps if I hurried, if I were very quiet—
But then, as I started to go past, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and I stopped. Because it wasn’t one of the other actors in the greenroom so late at night.
It was Sebastian DeWitt.
He’d pulled a table up to that old green armchair with all the stuffing coming out, and the table was covered with papers, as well as the floor around him, and he was writing as one possessed. His frock coat was thrown on the settee; he was in his shirtsleeves, which were stained with splotches of ink. Beside him on the table was an open bottle of what looked like whiskey.
I was so surprised to see him that I blurted, “What are you doing here?”
He jerked, spattering ink across the page, blinking, then squinting into the darkness beyond the light. “Mrs. Wilkes?”
I came fully into the room. “Yes. What are you doing here so late?”
He gestured to the papers. “Writing.”
“I can see that. But why are you here, and not in your own rooms?”
“I could ask the same of you. I thought you went with Langley.”
“Yes, we had dinner, and.…” I swallowed the urge to tell him how strange it had been. “He had an appointment. Or something. I asked him to leave me here to change. My costume, you see.…”
DeWitt’s gaze swept me. “I see.”
“He took me to a nice place, and.…” Babbling, Bea. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
DeWitt leaned back in his chair. “The walls are thin at the Biltmore. My neighbor was snoring.”
“Do you do this often? Come here to write, I mean?”
“No. But I was inspired. You were very affecting tonight.”
There it was, the compliment I’d wanted earlier. I smiled like an idiot. “Truly?”
“Stunning, Mrs. Wilkes. So much so I had to buy whiskey.” He pointed to the bottle. “Would you like some?”
I stepped over to the table. “No glass?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “No doubt you’ll think me uncouth.”
“Oh, I think a great many things about you, but that you’re uncouth isn’t one of them.” I took a great sip. The whiskey burned its way over my tongue, down my throat, leaving a raw, sweet taste after. “Why, it’s not bad.”
“Not the best, but I’ve stepped up in the world. No more rotgut for me.”
“I’m gratified to hear it.”
“You should be. You’re the cause.”
He was looking at me with that intent, too-warm gaze. I turned away. “Well, thank you for the drink. I’d better change now. It’s late, and I—”
“Do you mean to go home?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll walk you there.”
“Oh. I don’t want to take you from your work.”
“I think I’m finished for tonight,” he said, beginning to gather up the papers. “And I wouldn’t be able to get much more done anyway.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“I’d be too worried that you might not get home in one piece. As you’ve already noted, it’s very late. Only the debauched will be out on the streets.”
I laughed. “You and me and the debauched. There’s a nice thought.”
He smiled. “Indeed. Perhaps we’ll end up joining them.”
“Speak for yourself. I don’t think I even know how to be debauched.”
“If you’re very good, perhaps I could be persuaded to teach you.” Again
, that gaze.
I swallowed hard. “I’ll go change.”
“I’ll be ready when you are.”
And then I was hurrying toward my dressing room. My fingers were trembling when I lit the lamp—what the hell is wrong with you?—and I fumbled over the buttons of the costume. I couldn’t make myself go slow, either, because I was half afraid he would leave without me even as I knew it would be better if he did. This was beyond idiocy. It’s just walking home. Nothing more than that. Don’t be a fool.
But when I was dressed again in the brown calico, I had to take a deep breath to calm myself. When I stepped from the dressing room, it was to find him standing there already, his coat on, his satchel over his shoulder. He had the whiskey in his hand, the bottle uncorked. He held it out to me. “Another drink?”
I took it and drank deeply and handed it back to him, and together we went back up the stairs and out of the theater, into the night, which was too warm for the cloak I still wore. My feet felt swollen in my boots. Once we were out in the dark, with hardly anyone on the streets, I was glad he was with me. We passed the bottle back and forth companionably as we walked, and the whiskey, along with the wine I’d had at dinner, set that deep warmth in my stomach that had nothing to do with the heat.
He asked, “Where did you go with Langley?”
“The Queen City.”
I felt his surprise. “Really?”
“We were celebrating, apparently,” I said.
“Celebrating what?”
I took the bottle from him. “My forgiveness.”
“Ah.”
“I’m happy for it, really. I was afraid he would lobby for his wife. Mrs. Langley wants me dismissed from the company as well as from Penelope.”
“Perhaps you deserve that.”
Another gulp of whiskey. “Please, none of your scolds tonight. It doesn’t help.”
“All right. But I can’t convince her how brilliant you are if she hates you.”
I laughed and looked up at the stars. “So you’ve said. But I doubt she would have liked me in any case. I’m her husband’s mistress.”
“Perhaps she might have forgiven you that. She said they’d been at odds lately.”
“Well, that makes sense. Sometimes I think Nathan doesn’t care for her at all. But if that’s true, why pick me? She and I look so alike.”
“Perhaps there’s something to that.” DeWitt’s voice was quiet, musing.
“You think he loves her?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough to say. She’s an interesting woman. I’d say … easy to love.”
That pricking jealousy again. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her.”
He took a swig from the bottle and laughed. “If I had, would it trouble you?”
“Why should it?”
“I don’t know. You sound as if it does.”
We were at my hotel. It was time to say good night. His face was breathtakingly chiseled in the lamplight and the darkness, and I couldn’t keep from staring. Say good night. Tell him you’ll see him tomorrow. Go inside. But the whiskey had worked its magic; it had muted that energy I’d felt earlier, the excitement that a good night of acting left behind, and in its place put a loose, dreamlike sense that everything was safe, everything was good, everything was as it was meant to be.
Which was enough of a reason to send him on his way, and I knew it, because this is dangerous, Bea. You’re playing with fire. Still, I heard myself say, “Will you come up for a bit? I have—I can give you an apricot.”
“An apricot?” He seemed amused.
“It’s candied. And French.”
“Ah then. How could I refuse?”
“You can’t.”
“Then lead on,” he said.
I was relieved; I felt this little joy, and I tried not to think of what I wanted from him, why the hell I’d asked him to come up, or how late it was, or the fact that I was a little drunk, or anything else. I was just glad he was here, and I was afraid to ask myself why that was, so I didn’t. He followed me inside and up the flights of stairs. While I fumbled for the key, he motioned to the patterns made by the moonlight on the floor.
“Beautiful.”
I glanced at them. Funny how I’d never noticed them before, but he was right.
I opened the door and gestured for him to go inside. The room was dark, and hot, but I’d left the window open, not that it helped. I took off the cloak and closed the door behind us and lit the oil lamp, and then I took another sip of whiskey and handed him the bottle. There was something about him that took up space, that just lodged there in my chest, and in an effort to escape it, I went to the bed and sat down, bending to unlace my boots. “So, what were you working on tonight? More revisions for Penelope?”
He shook his head and leaned against the bureau. “I was tired of ghosts tonight.”
“Real or imagined?”
He took a sip of whiskey. “Both. I was working on something new.”
“The play Nathan commissioned?”
He nodded.
I eased off one boot and let it fall to the floor, wiggling my toes in relief. “Well, with any luck I’ll actually get to play it. Unless his wife decides she wants that part too.”
“She won’t want it.”
I sent the other boot to join its partner. “Why not?”
“Because the main character will be worse than Penelope. I mean for her to be an out-and-out villain.”
I stared at him in surprise. “A villain? But I thought you were supposed to write it for me.”
“I am.”
I made a face. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do like you. Most of the time. But you seem well suited to villainy.”
I laughed. It was the whiskey. “So you keep saying. Well, villains are more interesting, aren’t they?”
He took another swig from the bottle. “Sometimes.”
I was sweating. Without thinking, I pulled up my skirt and undid my garter, rolling my stocking down my leg and then letting it fall to the floor, and I’ll admit that once I realized what I was doing, I did it a little to bait him too. A little punishment for what he’d said about my villainy. I felt him watching me. “If I’m such a villain, aren’t you afraid to be alone with me?”
“Should I be?”
“I don’t know. You can never tell with villains. Perhaps I might stab you through the heart.”
“Already done.”
I dropped the other stocking to the floor and glanced up at him. His hand was clenched hard around the bottle; I felt his desire clear into my toes, and I liked it, and that and the whiskey made me want more of it, made me want to torment him just a little. I could stop it whenever I wanted, after all. I got up, a bit unbalanced, and went barefoot to where he stood, taking the bottle from him, drinking—I was feeling the whiskey very well now. I gave it back. “Mr. DeWitt—”
“Call me Sebastian.”
I laughed. “Sebastian DeWitt. That cannot possibly be your real name.”
“Why not?”
“Too improbable. Sebastian—he was a saint of some kind, wasn’t he?”
He looked surprised. “You’re Catholic?”
“Oh no. We did a play once. ‘Slay me not with words but with your arrows—’ ”
“ ‘And to my true heaven my soul will fly.’ I know it.”
“And then, of course, there’s the DeWitt. What a name for a writer. Are you witty, Mr. DeWitt?”
“I like to think so.”
“So you see: improbable.”
“Perhaps. But my mother tells me it’s mine.”
“Did she mean for you to be a writer, then?”
He laughed shortly. “I think she would have preferred a safer occupation. A grocer, perhaps.”
“Then she should have been more careful about the name she chose for you.”
He said nothing, and we lapsed into silence, and I was suddenly nervous. I felt his desire as if he’d cloaked me in i
t. Uncomfortably, I said to break the silence, “I promised you an apricot, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
I nudged him aside, clumsy now from the drink, grabbing one of the candy boxes from the bureau, taking off the lid. “There’re figs and cherries too, but the apricots are the best.” I picked one up and held it out to him.
But he didn’t take it as I expected. Instead he wrapped his hand about my wrist to keep me there, and then he leaned down and ate the apricot from my fingers, one bite, and then another, the whole thing, and I was startled to stillness. His gaze caught mine; I could not look away as he slowly and quite deliberately licked the syrup from my fingers. His mouth was warm and wet, and I felt as if something had dropped right through me. Damn, I was much drunker than I’d thought.
He released me and straightened, and I saw the movement of his tongue as he chewed. “Delicious.”
I could hardly find my voice. “I’m not going to fuck you, Mr. DeWitt.”
I meant to offend him, to back him off, but he seemed completely unmoved. He swallowed the apricot and took a sip of whiskey. Then he handed the bottle to me, saying mildly, “Is that so? Why is that, Mrs. Wilkes?”
“L—look at you. Have you even a penny to your name?”
“One hundred dollars. Thanks to our Mr. Langley.”
“One hundred? He paid you that much?”
“Fifty for the play he commissioned for you. The other fifty for Penelope Justis.”
“It must be more than you’ve made in years.”
“It’s been a good month.”
I gulped the whiskey. It went down hard. “Well, you can’t expect to do better, can you?”
He took the bottle. “I’m like everyone else, Mrs. Wilkes. I hope to make a living.”
“You don’t look as if you’ve done very well. That coat—”
“You don’t like it? It was the latest style once.”
“You know what I mean. I can’t … I mean, I won’t … I mean.…” I was flustered; it was hard to think. He had not taken his gaze from me even a moment. I curled the fingers he’d licked into my palm. “I don’t want to be poor,” I burst out.
