“A lovesick, tragic noblewoman, my lord?” she asked, her anger fading before this intriguing possibility. She’d like to make all London weep; she’d enjoy nothing more. “How was I to know that from what you gave me last night?”
“I didn’t wish to overburden you with too much at once,” he said. “But now that I know that your memory is equal to the challenge, I shall give you the entire play to read and learn.”
“Yes, my lord, yes,” she said, now eager. “You heard how I learned the passage perfect. You heard how I gave it the right tragic manner, too, all solemn and gloomy.”
“Oh, it was solemn and gloomy, all right,” he agreed. “Solemn and gloomy enough to make a man queasy from the thump of it.”
She frowned uncertainly. “I read the lines exactly as Madame Adelaide would have done it, my lord. With awe.”
“But I don’t wish you to emulate Madame Adelaide,” he said. “Madame Adelaide’s tragic ways were old in the reign of good Queen Anne. Have you seen Mr. Garrick perform?”
She shook her head. “Not if he hasn’t played the Royal, I haven’t.”
“I already guessed as much from your…your interpretation.” He took another sandwich and rose to pace back and forth across the room, waving the sandwich in his hand for emphasis. “You say we haven’t begun your training, but we have. Last night I learned that you have a quick memory, an ear for mimicry, and a facility with the language. I learned that you can improvise and invent at will, and that you can be thoroughly entertaining. I also learned that you are not nearly as timid as you pretended to be with your cousin.”
Lucia sighed. “Those are no mysteries, my lord,” she said. “I could’ve told you the same if you’d but asked.”
He nodded, agreeing as he bit the sandwich. “But what I have also learned is that you have acquired dreadful habits of what you believe an actress should be from Madame Adelaide and her ilk. There is a world of theater beyond the doddering old King’s, which is much better known for its dancers than its actors. You deliver your lines like a canting peddler, and you believe that shouting is the same as speaking loudly with authority.”
“I do not,” she said indignantly. “That is, my lord, I know what makes a proper actress.”
“If you wish to be a proper actress who is not a hack, you will follow Mr. Garrick’s more modern ways, and not Madame Adelaide’s.” He motioned for her to stand. “Go to the door, and when you turn back to me, I want you to make your entrance as if you are a noble lady, betrothed to a prince.”
Eagerly Lucia slipped from her chair and hurried toward the door, smoothing her hair back beneath her cap. This was the chance she’d been waiting for, her opportunity to show him exactly how much she’d already learned about acting from observing all the actresses (and not just Madame Adelaide, either) who’d played the King’s Theatre. She took a deep breath and raised her chin so high that she was looking down her nose. With another deep breath to swallow her nervousness, she spread her arms out on either side with her palms turned up, and turned her body sideways.
It was exactly the posture that Madame Adelaide took for entrances, and Lucia saw no reason to abandon it. Even if his lordship dismissed Madame as a hack—a hack!—Lucia had witnessed how audiences worshipped her, and she’d also seen the handsome carriage that Madame was able to keep because of her success.
Imagining those audiences as her own, Lucia turned and began to walk slowly across the patterned carpet to where his lordship stood. While Spot bounded along beside her, convinced this was a game of some sort, Lord Rivers had his arms folded over his chest and an awestruck expression on his face as he watched her draw closer, an expression that made her proud of the impact she was creating as a noble personage. She stopped before Lord Rivers, grandly circling her wrists with her nose still pointed toward the ceiling.
“What in blazes are you doing?” he demanded, his eyes widening with bewilderment. “You don’t look noble. You look utterly deranged.”
Disappointment swept over her, and she dropped her hands to settle them squarely at her waist. She had wanted so much to earn his praise!
“I am not deranged, my lord,” she said. “You asked me to portray a noble lady, and that’s how it is done.”
He shook his head, more in disbelief than in contradiction. “I cannot fathom why you should think such a thing. You have your head bent back as if your neck is broken, your hands fluttering like wings, and your body all twisted around.”
“I’m walking that way to display my costume to the audience, my lord,” she said, wounded that he hadn’t recognized her purpose. “So my hoops are crossways. You must pretend I’m wearing a rich costume, my lord, with spangles and ribbons and hoops, the kind of costume an audience pays to see. As for holding my head back—that’s to show I’m high-born, and superior to everyone else, my lord.”
“No noble lady would dare appear at Court in such a fashion,” he said flatly. “If she did, she’d be removed directly.”
“How do you know?” she demanded, her apparent failure making her turn defensive.
He tipped his head to one side, and too late she realized she’d forgotten his title.
“How do you know, my lord?” she repeated.
“Because of exactly that,” he said with irrefutable logic. “I’m the son of a duke, and my entire family is riddled with titled ladies. I know how they behave, because that’s what I’ve seen all my life. Even the duchesses don’t walk about believing they’re superior to everyone else at Court, because they’re not. There’s always His Majesty above us all. Apparently Madame Adelaide and her ilk forget that.”
“I still do not see how—”
“You agreed to trust me, Mrs. Willow, and to do as I say,” he said firmly. “That was our understanding.”
Lucia didn’t answer, considering how best to salvage her tattered pride. Of course he was right, or at least partly right. She had agreed to follow his instruction, and he would know better than she about how a true noble lady would enter a room. But she still wasn’t convinced that was what audiences would be willing to pay to see.
Bored, Spot yawned, and settled on the carpet behind his master, his head on his legs.
“Have you ever been to Court with His Majesty, my lord?” she asked, stalling. “Inside the palace, I mean?”
“More times than I can count,” he said with a nonchalant shrug that proved it was the truth. “My father began hauling us there when I was barely in breeches.”
“Truly, my lord?” she asked, impressed. “I’ve seen Their Majesties in their carriage on holidays, but only from far away. To think you’ve been in the same room with them!”
“I assure you, it’s not very exciting,” he said. “Now, are you willing to try your entrance again?”
She sighed deeply, letting her shoulders sag with resignation. “Very well, my lord. What do you wish me to be instead of Madame Adelaide?”
“I don’t wish you to be anyone other than yourself,” he said firmly. “That is what Garrick advises. Aspire not to ‘act,’ but to capture reality. You needn’t play so obviously to the audience; rather, let them come to you.”
“How shall that work, my lord?” she asked incredulously.
“You must trust me that it does,” he said. “Now think of the most confident woman you know, and imagine how she would enter a room.”
“That would be Magdalena,” she said, thinking of how her cousin made every man in any room look her way without even trying. “But I do not believe any noble lady walks like Magdalena.”
He sighed, doubtless remembering her cousin’s commanding entrances.
“That is true,” he agreed reluctantly. “No noble lady would ever undulate like Magdalena. Perhaps instead you should imagine Magdalena entering a church—a church filled with nuns, and no men. A penitent Magdalena, if such a thing exists.”
“Oh, it does, my lord, it does,” Lucia said thoughtfully. “Magdalena has done many, many things to be penitent for
. I shall try my best.”
She crossed the room and again faced the door. She remembered Magdalena on her way to confession, of how her cousin still walked with her usual confidence, but with her head lightly bowed beneath her shawl, as if the burden of her sins somehow made her temporarily demure. Lucia could copy that, even if it was the furthest thing imaginable from Madame Adelaide’s grand dramatic entrances. If nothing else, she’d demonstrate to his lordship how wrong he was.
Composed, she turned back to face him. This time she thought of Magdalena and walked toward him with her spine straight, her shoulders drawn back, and her hands clasped at her waist. It felt much different from her own usual self-effacing walk, the walk of a servant whose role was to be invisible, and with each step she felt her confidence was her own, and not borrowed from her cousin.
She stopped directly before his lordship, her head bowed just enough that her chin was dipped toward her chest, and she ignored the imaginary audience, as he’d directed.
He watched her critically, one hand beneath his chin and his arm resting in his other hand. He wasn’t exactly frowning, but he was concentrating hard upon her, which was disconcerting, and made her in turn concentrate harder on how she was standing and holding her shoulders.
If only his eyes weren’t so very blue…
“Much improved,” he said finally. “Now do it again, but this time, do not clench your hands together. They should be gentle, like resting doves.”
“ ‘Resting doves’?” she repeated, stunned by the description. Automatically she looked down at her hands, chapped and rough from work and cold water, and without so much as a feather of the elegance or purity of white doves. She blushed, ashamed by how unladylike they were, and tried to hide her fingers in the folds of her skirts. “Forgive me, my lord, but not my hands.”
“Show me,” he said, and slowly, self-consciously, she held her hands out for him to see.
He took her hands in his own and held them lightly with his thumbs, turning the palms upward to study as if they were some rare curiosity worthy of his scholarly attention. His were gentleman’s hands, with long, strong fingers accustomed to holding a pen, a crystal goblet, or the reins of a fine horse; on his right hand he wore a heavy ring with a carnelian signet, the gold gleaming against his skin. In comparison, her hands looked small and rough, and the only birds they’d be likened to would be the scruffy little starlings that scratched out their living around the rooftops of Whitechapel.
“It’s from the laundering, my lord,” she blurted out, uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny. “My uncle doesn’t trust the costumes to be sent out for washing, so the other tiring-girls and I had to wash all the dancers’ things for them.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, his thumbs lightly tracing little arcs across her palms, as if to prove he didn’t care how rough they were. “That time is done. Your hands will improve while you’re here, since you won’t be working. I’ll send for some manner of unguent that will heal them.”
Tears stung her eyes at the unexpected kindness. “Thank you, my lord,” she said, grateful for more than the promised unguent. “But they’ll still never be white doves.”
He smiled wryly. “I know it does sound foolish, but doves are the conventional allusion for noble ladies’ hands. You have small, slender hands with delicate fingers that many ladies would envy. I’m certain they will improve, and be a graceful asset to you on the stage—a stage I am certain you’ll claim as your own. Now, as we were. Keep your hands folded before you, but relaxed and easy.”
“Shall I curtsey this time, my lord?” she said. The breathlessness of her words surprised her. “A proper entrance for a noble lady should end that way, shouldn’t it?”
He nodded, his gaze finally leaving her hands to settle on her face, and make her blush all over again.
“A curtsey isn’t necessary now,” he said, clearly believing she’d no idea of how to perform one. “Concentrate on the rest instead.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, intending to add the curtsey regardless of what he said. “But I swear to you I can do one.”
“Then show me,” he said. At last he released her hands, and she quickly pulled them free and hurried back across the room to the now-familiar door.
She needed these few moments to herself. He’d had good reason to hold her hands, and yet the simple gesture had left her heart racing. She was sure he hadn’t intended anything flirtatious by it—why should he, given who and what she was?—but she also couldn’t deny the impact that his touch had had upon her. No man had ever held her hands in such a way, and she couldn’t have predicted the intimacy of it. By sharing his confidence in her, in turn he’d somehow made her own confidence blossom.
She gave her head a little shake, preparing herself yet again. But this time when she turned and crossed the room, she wasn’t trying to copy her cousin, nor was she rattled by nervousness. Because she wasn’t, the role she was playing became a seamless, effortless extension of herself, and when she swept across the carpet toward his lordship, she felt every bit the noble lady she was supposed to be.
She didn’t look ahead to see his reaction. She didn’t have to, for instinctively she knew that what she was doing was right. When she came within a few feet of him, she paused, and sank into a sweeping curtsey, her head nearly touching her knee, and stayed there, waiting for him to respond.
Over her head she heard him swear, in the quiet way that men did when they were caught by surprise. Then he reached down and took her hand, and raised her up to stand close before him.
“Where in blazes did you learn that?” he demanded.
“My uncle Lorenzo taught every woman in the company how to present honors and make a curtsey like that in case any royalty ever came backstage, my lord,” she said, unable to tell if he was pleased or not as she looked up and searched his face. The way he’d pulled her had left her standing close to him, with little space between them. Yet she didn’t step back, nor did he, and she didn’t pull her hand free, either, relishing the warmth of his fingers around hers.
“My uncle Lorenzo learned what was proper when he was a member of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, my lord,” she said, hating herself for babbling like this but unable to stop. “He said a quick, common bob-curtsey was well enough for every day, but for a prince or higher, we must do—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “I meant how you walked, how you crossed the room, how you were. Where did you learn that?”
“I did what you said, my lord,” she said, bewildered. “I put aside Madame Adelaide, and instead only thought of how I should be as the noble lady you described. Did I misunderstand, my lord? Was I wrong?”
“Not at all,” he said slowly. “You were very nearly perfect.”
She gasped with delight and at last slipped free of him, stepping back to clap her hands together in amazement.
“Oh, my lord, I am so pleased!” she exclaimed happily. “Now you’ll believe that I’ll do whatever you say, whatever you want, to be the actress I know I can be.”
But to her confusion, he didn’t smile in return.
“That will be enough lessons for today, Mrs. Willow,” he said, looking past her. “I do not wish to tire you.”
“But I’m not tired, my lord, not at all,” she pleaded, disappointed. “We have so little time to accomplish so much, and I—”
“I said that will be all,” he repeated, an unmistakable distance to his voice that hadn’t been there earlier. “I have made arrangements to dine with a friend. Request whatever you wish for your own dinner. I shall leave word with Mrs. Barber to oblige you and send a tray to your room.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said wistfully, the prospect of a solitary dinner and evening alone yawning before her. She supposed she should be grateful for his hospitality, but she’d much rather continue to work. “As you wish.”
“Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I will have the copy of Hamlet
brought to your room, so you may begin reading it in its entirety.”
“Yes, yes, my lord,” she said eagerly. “The sooner I can begin to learn my role, the better.”
He nodded, still avoiding her gaze as if her enthusiasm made him uncomfortable. He whistled low, and Spot rose, sleepily wagging his tail.
“Well, then,” he said, retreating. “Until tomorrow morning. Good day, Mrs. Willow.”
And just like that, he—and his dog—were gone.
In Rivers’s experience, there was no better place for composing an apology than on the back of a horse, preferably alone and by moonlight, or so he told himself that night as he made his way home from the Four Chimneys, an inn not far from the Lodge. Which was just as well, considering that he once again owed Lucia an apology, and he hadn’t the faintest notion of how to begin.
It was late, very late, or perhaps very early, as he finally turned his horse through the stone gates to the Lodge. When he had met Squire Ralston while riding earlier in the day (or was that now yesterday?), he had politely declined the squire’s enthusiastic invitation to join the Breconridge Hunt for a turtle feast at Four Chimneys. While he often rode with them (he was always welcome, considering how the hunt had borrowed its name from his family) when he was in residence at the Lodge, he’d no desire to spend a long evening in a low, smoky room watching country gentlemen consume more turtle soup and strong drink than was good for any mortal.
But that had been before he’d met with Lucia—or rather, Mrs. Willow—in the parlor. Not that renaming her had made any difference in how he’d behaved, the way he’d convinced himself it would.
It was entirely his own fault, of course, every bit of it. Lucia had done everything he’d asked of her and done it splendidly, too. She hadn’t once tried to entice him or beguile him, the way her cousin most certainly would have done. Instead she’d made it clear as could be that her only purpose in being here was to become the actress he’d promised. When he’d made that wager, he’d thought that was his only purpose, too, believing everything would be businesslike between them. How could it not, given what a plain and untempting little thing she was?
A Reckless Desire Page 9
