A Reckless Desire

by Isabella Bradford

  That is, until the morning of the third day, when Rivers told her that they were expecting a visitor later that morning.

  “A visitor,” she repeated. They had awakened to a sky that was a dull pewter gray this morning, the air heavy and chill with a coming storm that would surely mark the end of their sunny June days. Sudden gusts of wind ruffled the tops of the trees and made the canopy overhead puff and blow like the sails of a ship. Yet still they lingered in their rooftop bed, snug beneath a pile of striped coverlets and unwilling to be driven into the house just yet. Lucia was lying lazily half-across Rivers, her breasts crushed against his chest and her chin resting on her folded hands, while he kept one arm possessively flung over her hips.

  “A pox on your visitor, Rivers,” she said. “Who would come to call upon you here?”

  “He’s not calling to see me, Lucia,” he said, shoving a pillow behind his head so he could better see her. “He’s coming to call upon you.”

  “Oh, no, he’s not,” she scoffed. “In all my days, not one person has called anywhere to see me.”

  “Then today’s visitor shall be the first,” he said, and yawned extravagantly—and, suspected Lucia, purposefully as well. “I hope you’ll manage to be civil to the poor fellow, considering he will have come all this way from London for the express purpose of calling upon you.”

  Swiftly she ran through any possible men who might make the long ride from London for her sake. Among her acquaintance, only Uncle Lorenzo possessed the wherewithal to make such a journey, but she doubted very much he would so much as cross the lane to see her, especially given their last conversation.

  No, she was certain that Rivers was teasing her about having a caller, and she glowered at him.

  “You are filled with rubbish, Rivers,” she said, thumping his chest to make her point. “I don’t know anyone who would come here for me. You have invented this phantom caller entirely to plague me.”

  He yowled dramatically and clutched at his chest before shoving her aside.

  “Very well, then, madam,” he said, pretending to be wounded. “You may believe what you choose. I shall simply have Mr. McGraw turned away when he arrives, and told that you are not at home.”

  “McGraw?” she exclaimed, sitting upright. In the world of London playhouses, there was only one Mr. McGraw, but she couldn’t dare hope that this was the one that Rivers meant. “Which McGraw?”

  Rivers screwed up his face as if to think deeply. “I believe he is the Mr. McGraw, the manager of the Russell Street Theatre. But since you have no knowledge of any such—”

  “What have you done, Rivers?” she demanded, her heart racing with anticipation, and a bit of dread as well. “When last we spoke of it, I was to perform in a public room for an invited audience. You have never said a word to me of Mr. McGraw!”

  Smiling serenely, Rivers sat up against the pillows and linked his hands behind his head.

  “Then I shall say them now,” he said. “When first we made our agreement, I believed that a performance in a public room would suffice to silence Everett and secure the wager, and also display your accomplishments to a select audience.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “That is what we agreed, without any mention of Mr. McGraw. You must tell me, Rivers. What have you done?”

  “What I have done, Lucia, is to reward your talent and hard work.” His expression lost its teasing edge, and his smile faded. “I realized that you deserved a far better audience than the circle of my friends. Therefore I wrote to Mr. McGraw, and invited him here for a private audition with my dear friend Mrs. Willow. If he is suitably impressed—which I do not doubt he will be—then he will consider staging a single-night benefit performance of Hamlet featuring the actors of his company, and you as Ophelia.”

  She gasped, and pressed her hands over her mouth. It was more than she’d dreamed, and far more than she’d expected. She knew from her family’s company that most theatrical benefits lasted only a single night, but if the performance was well received, then the house’s manager could extend it into a regular run of a week, a month, or even longer, if the play became a sensation—and the actors and actresses with it.

  “Richard McGraw is coming all this way to audition me?” she asked, wanting to make absolutely certain she hadn’t misheard. “Me, here?”

  Rivers laughed, and nodded. “Your reputation precedes you, sweetheart.”

  “Only because you told him,” she said, letting the wonder of what he’d said sink in. An audition for Russell Street! There would be no better way to become a celebrated actress, and to have the career she’d always wanted. She knew she could win audiences. She knew it. The chance was waiting for her. All she’d need do would be to seize it, and impress Mr. McGraw the way she knew she could.

  “I’ve so much to do if he’s arriving this morning,” she said, her mind racing ahead. “How shall I prepare for him? How can I know which scene he’ll wish to hear?”

  “You are prepared,” Rivers said. “He can ask you to speak any scene, and you’ll know it.”

  “But managers try to trick actors during auditions,” she said. Too excited to remain still, she slipped from the bed and reached for the striped silk dressing gown that had become hers. “I saw it at King’s. Mr. Lane is the manager there, and he’d interrupt actors during their auditions and toss out lines from other plays, just to fuddle them.”

  “That doesn’t mean McGraw will do the same,” Rivers said, watching her pull the sash snug around her waist. “Russell Street is a few rungs above King’s.”

  “Which only means Mr. McGraw will have more cunning ways to try to confuse me,” she said, her agitation growing as she began to pace alongside the bed. “What shall I wear? Should I try to contrive a costume fit for Ophelia?”

  “He’ll be expecting Mrs. Willow, not Ophelia,” Rivers said. “Any one of your new gowns will do.”

  Lucia shook her head, not really listening. “I must review my lines again, so they’ll be perfect. We haven’t done anything these last two days.”

  “I would hardly say we’ve done nothing, sweetheart,” Rivers said drily. “Besides, you already know your lines perfectly.”

  “But this is my one chance,” she said, more to her pacing feet than to him. “What if I forget the words, what if I—”

  “Lucia, please.” Rivers caught her by the arm to stop her pacing, and pulled her onto his lap. “You will not forget your lines. You will choose the perfect gown. You will stun McGraw with your brilliance, and he will fall at your feet in amazement at your talent.”

  She pursed her mouth, unconvinced. “I wish I were as certain as you.”

  He kissed her lightly, a kiss of reassurance rather than passion.

  “You should be certain,” he said. “I would not have asked the man to come here to the Lodge if I didn’t believe you were ready.”

  An unsettling doubt, perilously close to suspicion suddenly clouded her thoughts. “When did you invite him?”

  Rivers shrugged, tracing his fingers along her collarbone as he eased the dressing gown aside. “I do not recall the exact day that I wrote to him. Sometime last week. Why does it matter?”

  She pulled the gown back into place. “When did you receive a letter in reply from him?”

  He frowned at her once-again covered chest. “His letter was delivered to me before we left for Newbury. A sorry, scribbled thing it was, too, for all that it contained such excellent news.”

  She would not be distracted by McGraw’s penmanship, and she twisted around on Rivers’s lap so she was facing him directly.

  “So you knew of this when we drove to Newbury,” she said softly, “and in Mrs. Currie’s shop, and on the ride back to the Lodge, and then when we came here to the roof?”

  His expression didn’t change. He was the same irresistibly handsome Rivers that she loved, tousled and with a night’s worth of beard glistening on his jaw. Yet she couldn’t help but sense that he was holding something back fr
om her, and that there was an unfamiliar air of distance in those blue eyes.

  “I did,” he said simply. “I did.”

  “And all through these last two days?” she asked, incredulous. “You knew, yet you did not choose to tell me until this morning? Until now?”

  He sighed, and leaned back against the pillows and away from her. “I judged it best for you, Lucia. I didn’t want you fussing and worrying for the two days before McGraw’s arrival. By the way you’re behaving now, I was right to do so, too.”

  “Perhaps you were, and perhaps you weren’t.” She scrambled from his lap and stood looking down at him, her arms folded across her chest. She couldn’t believe that he’d kept something this important from her. It stung that he’d been so high-handed in his decision, too, as if she were an overeager child unable to withstand the excitement of anticipation.

  “I appreciate that you wrote to Mr. McGraw, Rivers, but I would have liked to have known about it before this,” she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice.

  He lowered his chin defensively, a bad sign for a reasonable conversation. “Why? What difference could those two days possibly have made?”

  “Because this audition could change the rest of my life,” she said. “Because having you write to Mr. McGraw without telling me makes me feel as if I am simply another of your possessions, to be ordered about however you please.”

  “That’s not true,” he said irritably. “I’d never think that of you.”

  “But Mr. McGraw will,” she said, unable to keep the unhappiness from her voice. “I’m sure he already does. As soon as he read your letter, I’m sure he decided that I must be your mistress, for you to take such a proprietary interest in me.”

  He held his hands out, indicating the rumpled sheets of the bed. “It’s a bit late to consider that, isn’t it?”

  She flushed. She wouldn’t deny that she’d willingly shared this bed with him, but in her mind she’d been his lover, not his mistress. Apparently he thought otherwise.

  She’d known it would be like this. Because of the distance between their ranks, he would always think of himself as better, higher, than she. He might love her, but he’d never think of her as his equal. He couldn’t help it. It had been that way for him since the day he’d been born. He’d always be the one who would unconsciously make decisions like this one. She’d known from the moment she’d agreed to the wager, but she’d let her heart overrule her common sense, and now it had come to this, and she was no better than Magdalena.

  “It wasn’t too late when you first wrote to Mr. McGraw last week,” she insisted. “You made the decision for me when all that was between us was the wager. I would like to have been the one to decide if I was ready for an audition or not.”

  “But you are,” he said with his own maddening logic. “I’ve no doubt of it. Have you forgotten that you promised to trust me in all things, Lucia? Don’t you recall that was part of our initial agreement?”

  She looked down, away from him. There was nothing to be gained from this conversation. She had agreed then, but many things had changed between them since that agreement—some that she hadn’t even realized.

  “The question is not whether I trust you, Rivers,” she said quietly. “Rather it seems that it’s you who doesn’t trust me.”

  She turned away quickly, not giving him time to answer, and headed for the door to the stairs.

  “Lucia.”

  She stopped, and took a deep breath. Would he explain? Would he apologize?

  She looked back over her shoulder. He’d left the bed, and was pulling on his breeches, the sight of his taut, ridged abdomen and well-muscled thighs enough to make her pause.

  Ahh, her grande leone d’oro, her own great golden lion!

  “I’ll come with you,” he said. “We can review your lines if you’d like.”

  That wasn’t either an explanation or an apology, and her heart sank a fraction.

  She shook her head. “You told me that wasn’t necessary. You just said I was ready for an audition.”

  “I did,” he said, buttoning the fall on his breeches. “But if it will give you more confidence, then I am willing.”

  “No,” she said. “Thank you, no. I’m going to dress.”

  “Ahh,” he said with an awkward shrug. “If that is what you wish. I expect McGraw later this morning, before dinner. I will receive him first, and then send for you to join us, if that is agreeable to you.”

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall be ready, and waiting in my room for you to send for me.”

  And then she turned away and left him, her bare feet making little sound on the stone steps. He did not follow, and she was so unhappy that she didn’t know if she wished he had.

  For a long while afterward, she stood at the window of her room, and watched the first raindrops blow and splatter against the diamond-shaped panes. It was the first time she had been alone, without Rivers, for nearly three days, and she missed him. No matter how infuriating he was, that wouldn’t change.

  She missed him.

  Finally, with a deep sigh, she called for Sally to help her dress. Before long Mr. McGraw would arrive, and if she did her best, then her future would begin as well—either with Rivers in it, or not.

  Rivers sat in the drawing room at the back of the Lodge, and pretended to read. As the most formal room in the house, this drawing room was also the one he used the least. It remained most true to the Lodge’s original use for hunting, with heavy, dark oak furniture from the last century and dark paneling on the walls. There were a handful of paintings of long-ago hunts and hunters, and a pair of stuffed stag heads with many-pointed antlers, one on either end of the room. He’d found those stags forbidding when he’d been a boy, convinced their glass eyes were watching him wherever he stood in the room. He didn’t find them much more welcoming now, either, nor did Spot, who always lowered his head and growled on principle at the doorway before he entered.

  But Rivers had decided that the room would make an excellent place for receiving the theater manager. He expected the man to be cocky and full of bluster, the way his letter had been, and if ever there was a room that had a gloomy, aristocratic omnipotence to it, this was it. Without a word, the room would remind the man that he was dealing with the Fitzroy family, whose ducal crest was carved into the stone mantelpiece, and that Lucia was a Fitzroy protégée. This was also the reason why Rivers had chosen this chair, an imposing throne-like monstrosity fashioned of antlers with red leather cushions beneath the arched window. McGraw might be from the world of playhouses and actors, but Rivers knew a bit about theatrics as well.

  But the best reason for choosing this room was how it would flatter Lucia. The acoustics were splendid, and would amplify every word she spoke. All the dark wood and masculine hunting memorabilia would serve to make her appear more feminine, more delicate, more beautiful, by comparison. The gloominess, too, seemed appropriate for the dark drama of Hamlet. Even the weather was cooperating. He had never traveled to Denmark, but he imagined it as a dank and melancholy place, and the rain driving against the windows outside only contributed to a suitable setting for a play filled with tragic mayhem. He’d even ordered a fire lit in the huge fireplace, something he seldom did in June, but felt was necessary for this day. What better setting could there be for Shakespeare than this?

  Yet as Rivers sat near the window, Spot sleeping on the floor beside him, his thoughts were not on Shakespeare or Denmark, or even McGraw’s impending arrival. All he could think of was Lucia, and how badly he’d botched their earlier conversation. He had wanted to make a great, generous revelation of McGraw’s visit. He’d envisioned her excitement and joy, and how fondly she’d display her gratitude toward him.

  But he’d made a mess out of the whole affair. Instead of being generous, he’d sounded selfish and controlling and uncaring, and the more he’d tried to unsay what he’d said, the worse he’d made things. He should have told her as soon as he’d rec
eived the letter from McGraw. No, further back than that: he should have told her he was writing to McGraw in the first place. He shouldn’t have kept the audition from her until now, and she’d every right to be upset with him.

  He knew the reasons why he hadn’t, too, which didn’t make it any easier to bear. He had wanted the dinner he’d planned for her on the roof to be entirely about love, without any distractions. He hadn’t wanted to think about the future, which would inevitably pull them apart. Most of all, he hadn’t wanted her to think she was obligated to love him on account of the audition. He had wanted her to feel the same unconditional love and desire, friendship, and trust he felt for her, and now it seemed that all he’d accomplished was the exact opposite.

  She’d said he didn’t trust her, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d trusted her with his home, his books, his thoughts, and his past, and most of all his heart, and yet clearly there was something more that was missing. How could he win her trust? How could he win her?

  And why, why, when he’d had the chance, hadn’t he told her again that he loved her?

  She’d called herself his mistress. That wasn’t how he thought of her, not at all. Her cousin Magdalena had been his mistress. Lucia wasn’t. The difference seemed clear enough to him. A mistress was for pleasure, for amusement. Lucia was that, of course, but more important she was his lover in the best sense of the word, his friend, his partner in the wager, even his inspiration. But he hadn’t corrected her, and now it was likely too late to do so.

  He swore softly to himself, making Spot groan in sleepy sympathy beside him as he stared out at the garden. It was raining hard now. The rain beat down the heavy heads of the open roses, scattering their petals on the dark soil, and filled the garden paths with dappled puddles. He could only imagine what the roads must be like. At this rate, McGraw couldn’t—or wouldn’t—be able to come, and this morning’s misunderstandings would have been for nothing.