Daisy whipped her head back around just as a burly stage hand stepped into their path. Fists cocked, he said, “Put ‘er down.”
Jaw set, Gavin shook his head. “Step aside.”
The hand came at them but Gavin deftly blocked the blow and then planted a smacking punch dead center of the man’s bulbous nose. The heavier man dropped back, blood spurting.
Gavin reached out his bloodied hand and tugged the stage curtain aside. Ducking through, he twisted his head around to look at her. “Which way?”
Her dressing room was by far the safest spot. “Go to the left and then down the hall. The first door on your right—the one with the star,” she added, succumbing to an absurd burst of pride. “But set me down first.”
He hesitated and then set her down. She grabbed his hand and hurried him down the musty corridor.
The back of the house was a barebones affair, a dingy warren of narrow, poorly lit corridors. Gas and water pipes ran along the low, stained ceilings and the bare floors were gritty with filth. They drew up to the door of Daisy’s dressing room, footfalls pounding behind them. Heart racing, she reached for the knob and pulled, remembering too late how the warped door stuck. The last time she tried opening it, she’d wrenched her shoulder. “Oh, bugger.”
The footfalls were closing in, almost upon them. “Stand aside.” Gavin reached around her, yanked open the door, and shoved her in ahead of him.
Inside the small room, she threw the bolt, and they fell back against the peeling plasterwork. For the next few seconds, they stood side by side, their rapid-fire breaths the only sound.
Turning his head to look at her, Gavin said, “That was quite a performance.” His cynical tone told her he hadn’t meant it as a compliment.
Determined not to be cowed—she didn’t need his approval, not after all these years—she lifted her chin and said, “Thank you.”
She ran her gaze over him searching for similarities to the boy she’d known as well as marking the differences in the man he’d become. He wore his hair shorter than before, but it was still the same thick mass of blue-black waves albeit with a few threads of early gray at the temples. His face was leaner than she remembered it being, his eyes the same intense celestial blue that had always made her think of springtime skies. His mouth seemed thinner or at least less inclined to smiling than she remembered and his nose stood out as more prominent, slightly hawkish, and a bit arrogant even. A few faint lines had found their way into his high forehead and about the corners of his eyes. The ghosts of past cares, she surmised, for he couldn’t be more than thirty, if that.
My God, what a beautiful man he’s become.
He’d lost her boa in their mad backstage dash. Sweat streamed the sides of his face and plastered his white shirt to a torso that looked to be both lean and well-muscled. And, dear Lord, how tall he’d gotten. Even though she wore high heeled slippers, the top of her head came only to his shoulders. Accustomed to standing at eye-level with Frenchmen, being in such proximity to a man she was forced to look up to, and not any man but Gavin, the hero of her childhood, the love of her young life, had her feeling vulnerable and weak-kneed and altogether out of her element.
The corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, showing he hadn’t entirely forgotten how to smile. “Through thick and thin, indeed.”
Hearing the snippet of their old childhood oath brought her closer to crying than she’d been in years. Her heart’s desire landed in her lap only fifteen years too late—cruel, cruel fate. “Gavin, what are you doing here?”
He lifted dark brows. “I thought to ask you the same question.” A droplet of sweat splashed the side of his sinewy neck, and she had the absurd notion of catching it on the tip of her tongue.
Pounding fists descended upon the outer door, the rumbling and raised voices calling them back to the present problem. “Miss Du Lac, are you all right? Shall I call for the constable?”
Daisy recognized the voice of the prop man, Danny. She didn’t really know him, but he seemed a decent fellow and he sounded more concerned than hostile. She turned to the door and called back, “That won’t be necessary, Danny. I had a little misunderstanding with a mate of mine, but it’s all straightened out now.”
A deeper, disgruntled voice called out, “Make it up with lover boy on your own time, Delilah.” Damn, it was the music hall chairman, Sid Seymour, who was also owner of the club. “The front of the house is at sixes and sevens, and I count myself lucky the police commissioner is a mate of mine; otherwise we’d be shut down for disturbing the peace. And mind, any replacements or repairs are coming out of your wages.”
Bugger! Daisy chewed on her bottom lip, mentally calculating the damages. Just one of those gaudy, gilded wall mirrors must cost a small fortune—a small fortune to her. At least he wasn’t sacking her. That was something, she supposed. Still, at this rate she’d be doing the can-can until she was eighty just to pay it all off. Even if the situation turned out not to be quite that dire, docked wages meant the month would be an especially lean one not only for her but for the dear ones she’d left behind in Paris.
Gavin opened his mouth to answer but Daisy laid a finger over his lips and shook her head, motioning him to silence. Directing her voice to the door, she said, “Sod off, Sid. You’ve made a mint on me these past two weeks, and don’t think I don’t know it. For the pittance you’re paying me, I might as well sing for my supper at the Grecian Saloon.”
The Grecian on City Road was more of a variety saloon than a supper club, according to her promoter, but it drew a good crowd and for the same money she’d only have to do one show an evening, not two.
The threat hit home. “Come out, and we’ll talk about it.”
Not about to open the door and give Gavin up to the professional bullies she knew Sid would have waiting, she put him off. “Tomorrow, Sid. If you want to see me back here for the matinee performance, I’ll need to go home and put up my feet.”
She waited until their fading footfalls confirmed they’d turned the corner, and then she swung about to Gavin. Stabbing a finger in his face, she said, “I hope you’re happy. I only have another two weeks to finish out my contract here, and thanks to you I’ll be lucky to break even. More likely, I’ll end up in debt.”
For the first time since he carried her offstage, Gavin looked less than sure of himself. “I have every intention of compensating the club for any damages incurred.”
Good intentions—whoever had said the road to hell was paved with them must be a wise person—make that wise
woman,
indeed. Daisy had long ago given up on the promises of men. You couldn’t feed your family on broken promises or broken dreams either, for that matter.
Needing to put some distance between them, she kicked off her shoes and crossed the narrow room to the metal dressing screen, a small luxury she’d brought with her from France. The folding screen had been a gift from her adoptive parents on her first opening night. Painted with daisies in honor of her name, it brightened the dingy room. Beyond that, it felt important to have something of the familiar about her when virtually everything else felt, if not exactly foreign, then part of a long ago dream.
She slipped behind the cover and shucked off Gavin’s evening jacket. Tossing it over the top, she said, “You never did say what brought you here tonight.”
Even with the coat off, his scent still clung to her, some combination of bay rum and leather and musk, utterly masculine and thoroughly delicious. Fingers clumsy, she started on the laces of her corset.
He followed her to the front of the screen. “Would you believe I had a fancy for ‘a song and a pint,’ as they say?”
She let out a low laugh. “No, I wouldn’t. If you’ll pardon my saying so, you don’t strike me as the music hall sort.”
Bits of shed feathers sticking to him and sweat soaking through his wrinkled shirt, still there was an air of aristocracy about him, a sense that no matter how dirty he got, he would always be clean.
“Shall I take that as a compliment?”
Their eyes met at the very moment her corset fell away. Breasts swinging free, she took a full, deep breath, her first since that morning. “Take it as you like.”
His gaze went to the tops of her bared shoulders, and she smiled to herself. Whether they were old friends reunited or strangers meeting for the first time, whether she was Daisy or Delilah, he wanted her badly. The pisser was that she wanted him, too. Taking advantage of the screen’s cover, she brushed her hands over her nipples, imagining his broad-backed hands there instead. Oh, this wasn’t fair, this wasn’t right. What a gamester God must be. The first man to truly rouse her was the very man she couldn’t ever trust herself to have. If only he might be a stranger instead of a former friend who’d hurt her so very badly.
“In that case, would you believe I recently suffered a … disappointment, and Harry and Rourke thought I needed some cheering up?”
Her hands stilled on her breasts, her nipples sticking out as straight as darts. “A
romantic
disappointment, you mean?” As soon as the question was out, she despised herself for how desperate she must have made herself seem by asking it.
He didn’t answer but his silence and sealed lips were answer enough.
Some woman has hurt him,
she said to herself, annoyed at the irrational stab of jealousy the thought brought about. He wouldn’t be the first man to come to a music hall to take his mind off a failed love affair by drinking too much and ogling women’s tits and bare legs.
He snagged her gaze and for a full moment Daisy forgot to breathe. Feeling as though she were drowning in a deep blue sea, she heard him say, “Believe it or not, my coming here tonight was pure happenstance—or luck, if you prefer.”
The dressing room was scarcely larger than closetsize, and she was naked except for the thong. Even with the partition standing between them, his closeness had a potent, erotic effect. Remembering the wonderful warmth and hardness of him beneath her bum, she smoothed a soothing hand over her pubis, parted her inner lips, and slid a testing finger inside.
My God, I’m wet for him. If he came to me now, I’d let him do whatever he wanted. I’d go down on my hands and knees for him on this dirty floor and let him have me any way he fancied.
Face warm, she bent to unsnap her garters. “Those men with you were Rourke and Harry?” She’d been so focused on Gavin at the time she’d given his friends scarcely a glance.
“Yes. They both live in London for the time being. Harry has set up shop as a photographer in Parliament Square and Rourke divides his time between his townhouse in Hanover Square and his castle in the Highlands.”
“Rourke has a castle?” She unhooked the right garter and rolled the stocking down, careful not to run the costly silk.
Gavin nodded. “He made a bloody fortune on railway shares—several fortunes, actually.”
So Patrick had done well for himself. It shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d always been a canny chap but a castle, well, that was quite something. “And what do you do—other than sitting about being rich, that is?”
Too late she heard the bitterness in her voice, amazed that after fifteen years his betrayal must still hurt so very much. She’d thought to have gotten over all that long ago, another of the many lies she told herself.
“I’m a barrister, actually.”
That startled her. She remembered the blond-haired man at his table, Harry most likely, making mention of judges and juries, but the reference hadn’t sunk in at the time nor had she given any thought to what he might do for a living. She assumed he was filthy rich or living on his expectations like most highborn young men.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Succumbing to wickedness, she slipped off her black silk panties and tossed them over the screen, laughing aloud when the garment hit its mark on his shoulder. “That’s rich. Do barristers make it a habit to drag performers off the stage and punch out stage hands, or is the law only for us common folk?”
A scarlet tide swept over his face, and she suddenly remembered how easy it had been to make him blush when they were children. It was good to see that some things hadn’t changed, at least not entirely.
“I can honestly say you’re my first abduction.”
She smiled in spite of herself. He might have become a bit stiff, more than a bit, but he had a sense of humor at least.
He picked off the garment and handed it back to her. “I’ll wait until you’re decent.”
Naked, she reached for the black silk wrapper she’d left hanging on the wall peg and slipped it on. She stepped out from behind the screen, still tying the sash. “I’m decent—or at least as decent as I’m likely to get.”
He stared, gaze running over her and then snapping back up to her face. Wondering what he found so shocking, she glanced down. The robe didn’t reach to the floor but it fell below her knees, covering more than her costume had. Was the vee-shaped neckline what he apparently found so objectionable, then? She hadn’t thought it particularly daring, but perhaps she wasn’t the best judge of such things?
The spot between her thighs was bloody throbbing, a dull, drubbing ache. Afraid he might read her thoughts on her face as he used to read her when they were children, she moved to her dressing table. Back to him, she picked up the powder muff from its tin and dabbed her perspiring bosom. “So, what is it you wanted to ask me?”
“I suppose I was curious to know where the hell you’ve been for the past fifteen years.”
“Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal:
but love no man in good earnest; nor no further
in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush
thou mayst in honour come off again.”
—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
, Celia,
As You Like It
D
ropping the muff, Daisy turned away from the mirror and shrugged. “France. Paris mostly though I’ve played the provinces in the off-season a time or two.”
Over the years, Gavin had imagined their reunion myriad times but never had he anticipated it would turn out quite like this. Staring after her, he could scarcely credit how bitter she sounded, how brazenly she behaved. Whether she called herself Delilah or Daisy, the woman powdering her bosom and parading her bare legs in front of him was very much a stranger. He felt enough of a fool without revealing the extraordinary lengths he’d gone to this past year in searching for her. By all appearances, she’d no desire to be found, certainly not by him. Even so, after all he had endured to find her, he wasn’t about to simply walk away. At least not without first hearing her admit who she was and how she’d come to …
this.
“How the devil did you end up in Paris?”
Standing before the full-length mirror, she pulled the feathers and pins from her hair, grateful for the excuse to face away from him. “I was adopted by an older theatrical couple, Bob and Flora Lake. We went on tour with a regional theatrical company but when the company folded, the Lakes decided Shakespeare was as good as dead and their best chance for scraping out a living acting was to go to Paris and sign on with one of the popular musical review companies.”
Gavin stopped short of smacking a hand to his forehead. That explained why the trail had gone cold after Dover.
“So you went from a Quaker orphanage in the Kentish countryside to Paris, the cultural capitol of Europe. Such a change of scene must have entailed quite an adjustment?” He started to ask more—how had she fared in Paris, had she ever thought of him— but her cool-eyed gaze in the mirror had him holding back.
She gave a glacial smile, and he felt the frost of all that composure like a geyser of ice water shooting through his veins. “I suppose so but then again I’m a survivor, Gavin. I’ve been making adjustments, as you say, all my life.” She turned to face him, shaking out her shoulder-length hair. “In my case, being a tomboy helped enormously. Climbing fences and trees with you lads strengthened my legs so I was able to execute the highest kicks of any girl in the chorus.”
She hiked up a leg to demonstrate, propping her bare foot on the stool not unlike the stance she’d struck onstage. Gaze riveted on that firm white thigh, Gavin swallowed hard, feeling as if all the air has just been sucked from his lungs while other parts of his anatomy began to thicken and thrum. Growing up, Daisy was the closest person he had to a little sister. The moment he first set eyes on her fifteen years before, he’d been moved to care for and protect her. Beyond that, he scarcely thought about her sex at all. But the long legs he’d seen kicking up a storm onstage and the generous swell of cleavage spilling out from the top of her wrapper reminded him she was very much a grown woman—and a desirable one.
She lowered her leg, the silken dressing gown sliding back into place, and Gavin found himself once more able to breathe. “I’ve been told I have a fair voice, and so as I grew older, more and more lead parts came my way.”
“You have a beautiful voice,” he said, both because it was true and because he sensed that male praise devoid of an ulterior sexual motive wasn’t something she received all that often.
“Thank you.”
She looked down as though suddenly shy, the golden tips of her long lashes brushing the tops of her high-boned cheeks. The demure posture put him in mind of the brash yet sweet girl she’d once been, giving him hope that buried beneath her armor of powder and paint, feathers and silk some kernel of the Daisy he remembered might live on.
She raised her gaze to his face. “I’ve done some acting, too, in what the Parisians call
opera-comiques.
Of course a theatrical review isn’t at all the same as a proper play, but it’s something, a credit, or at least I hoped it was.” The look of naked yearning on her face wasn’t lost on him.
As a barrister, gut feeling frequently served as Gavin’s failsafe, especially in cases that ran amok when a key witness suddenly changed his or her story or opposing counsel brought out trumped-up evidence at the final hour. Drawing on instinct, he asked, “Is acting, serious acting, something you’re interested in pursuing?”
Daisy’s eyes widened, making her look very much as she had when as children he presented her with a lemon drop or peppermint sweet. “It’s what I want more than anything, what I feel I was born to do.” She hesitated and then confided, “Pursuing an acting career is why I decided to come back to England, to London, in the first place.”
She’d come back for her career, not for him. Gavin knew it was ridiculous to feel hurt and yet he couldn’t discount the pain her admission stirred in him. In a perfect world, she would have revealed she’d been searching for him all along as he had her.
“Have you had any auditions?”
She hesitated and then shook her head. “I heard Drury Lane is to open its season with
As You Like It,
but when I went to see about reading for a part, the stage manager turned me away. Apparently I don’t come with the proper … credentials.”
“The theater manager, Sir Augustus Harris, is by way of being an acquaintance of mine. I could have a word with him on your behalf.”
He couldn’t erase her past any more than he could go back in time and prevent his grandfather from finding him, but Daisy’s lack of London contacts was an obstacle he was more than capable of surmounting. He helped their friend, Hadrian, several years before when he’d first come to London and though it had taken some time to build up his business, his Parliament Square photography shop was thriving.
“You know the manager of Drury Lane?”
That seemed to impress her. He fancied she looked at him in a new light. “We’re both members of The Garrick.” He hesitated, wondering how much explanation the situation warranted. “The Garrick is a private gentlemen’s club devoted to providing a meeting place for actors and those with a love of the arts and letters.”
Daisy’s smile fell. “I know what the Garrick is, Gavin. I’m not a complete simpleton.”
Damn, but he was making a hash of this. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply … I only know you’ve been living abroad and—”
“Living abroad in
Paris,
the cultural capitol of Europe, as you say.”
For the first time that evening, he didn’t only smile, he
grinned.
“
Touché.
At any rate, someone has to extend that first helping hand. Why not let that person be me, someone you trust, an old friend?”
“Are we friends, Gavin?”
Years ago he would have taken one look at her and known exactly what she was thinking, but now her painted face seemed blank or at least unreadable. “We once were. I’d very much like for us to be so again.”
The light in her eyes dimmed. She looked at him warily, or so it seemed. “We haven’t seen each other in fifteen years. Why would you go to such trouble for me?”
He hesitated, wanting to answer honestly but disliking dredging up that painful part of his past. “You may not know it, but when we were at Roxbury House, you helped me greatly. Many of the other orphans poked fun at my stammer, but you did everything you could to set me at my ease, drawing me out to take part in games, refusing to simply let me sit on the sidelines and watch. Even managing our little attic theater was a sort of therapy for me. Now that I’m in a position to help you, why not allow me to return the favor?”
Knowing how self-conscious he was of his stammer, which grew worse whenever he was singled out, she had him act as stage manager, a role that had allowed him to remain behind the scenes while still being a part of it all.
She’d understood him as no one else ever had.
Arranging an audition was the very least he was prepared to do for her. He wasn’t a social reformer such as William Gladstone, but he could see she badly needed rehabilitating. Since they got back to her dressing room, nearly every bawdy word from her mouth, every brazen behavior had struck him as a cry for help. The stage paint made her look older than her age, four-and-twenty at his last reckoning, and rather hard. He desperately wished she would use one of the many jars of creams and lotions set atop her dressing table to take it off. Once the concealing cake of it was stripped away, he would very much like to lay his hand against her cool, clean cheek.
She shook her head. Beneath the garish greasepaint, she looked like a bewildered child. “I don’t know, Gavin. After all these years, I never expected to even see you again let alone be beholden to you. I’m not sure it would feel …
right”
He hadn’t anticipated she might turn him down. “You can’t really mean to … to go on as you are … can you?”
She bristled visibly, and he knew at once he’d made a grave mistake. “And just what’s the matter with the way I’m going on as you put it? All things considered, I’ve taken rather good care of myself and—”
She clamped her mouth closed as she had when as a child she’d been on the verge of blurting out some secret. Wondering what that secret might be, he cautioned himself not to press. Her life until now really wasn’t any of his affair no matter how much he might wish it otherwise.
Navigating the landscape of her brash self-sufficiency and stubborn pride was proving a trickier affair than he’d first thought. Giving up on diplomacy, he said, “Dash it, Daisy, you’re better than this, and we both know it.”
“Am I now?’ She pulled open a dressing table drawer and took out a bottle of gin. “Fancy a drink?”
Horrified, he shook his head. No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” She unstoppered the bottle and knocked back a healthy swallow.
That decided it. “Daisy, I want you to leave this place tonight. I want you to come home with me.”
“Come home with you!” She whirled about.
“Not only for tonight but for however long you might wish to stay.”
The startled look vanished. She pulled another swallow and set the bottle aside. “Are you asking me to move in with you? Why, Gavin, this is all so sudden.” Her lips twitched as though suppressing a smile.
Face heating, he hastened to reassure her. “You would be my houseguest. I have a flat near the Inns of Court. It’s spacious, and I’m not there terribly often. You’d have the place more or less to yourself and could come and go as you pleased.”
“But I’ve two more weeks before I finish out the run. If I forfeit on the terms of my contract, Sid can sue me. I doubt he’d bother, but I’m also quite certain I’d never see the money he owes me.”
“Let me worry about that. I’m a barrister, mind? Contracts can be broken.”
“Even if that’s true, I’ve still got to live, eat, and pay my rent, haven’t I? And I’ve … obligations in Paris I can’t, I won’t abandon.”
Obligations. Gavin didn’t much care for the sound of that or the fierceness in her voice when she said it, but he reined in his curiosity—jealousy—rather than risk chasing her off. “I’ll provide you with a stipend to cover any … obligations you may have here or abroad. You’ve only to tell me how much you require.”
“I don’t know, I … I’ve never lived with anyone, a man that is.”
“Give it a month, then. If you find you simply can’t abide me, I’ll help you find a fitting lodging of your own.”
A lodging he would pay for, she presumed. All this talk of money had Daisy feeling as if a cold draft had entered the room, which was odd because ordinarily a man’s offering to settle a sum on her brought about a warm, fuzzy glow. But the man standing before her and as good as offering to take her into keeping wasn’t any man. He was Gavin, and the thought of taking money from him in payment or anything else filled her with a sick sense of loss.
And yet the opportunity he was offering her, how could she possibly turn it down, especially when the future was no longer hers alone to consider and hadn’t been for a very long time? What for so long had been a dream, and a far-fetched one at that, was transformed into a distinct possibility—and in the span of less than an hour! It was like a dream, a fairytale, a circumstance so fantastic she should be pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t really asleep.
One by one, he’d knocked down her objections until there was no other answer to give than yes. “Very well, Gavin, if you’re sure you really want to do this. If you’re certain I won’t be a bother.”
“Quite. I’m scarcely home these days. In likelihood, we’ll rarely run into one another.”
She followed him to the door. “In that case, I accept only I can’t come with you tonight. I’d like the chance to smooth things over with Sid, if I can. I owe him that much if nothing more. And it will take me a few days to gather my things.”
“At least let me see you home safely.”
Home at present was a dingy suite of rooms atop a Jewish bakery in Whitechapel, not the best of neighborhoods, but the rent was cheap and the food was free so long as you didn’t mind a steady diet of bread and cake. She’d struck up a friendship with the baker’s wife, who let her have whatever hadn’t sold by closing.
She shook her head, not wanting him to see how meanly she lived. “I can manage.”
Beyond her pride, she remembered how he suffered from a recurrent nightmare about tenement houses, and empty stew pots, and a baby’s cradle surrounded by flames. At Roxbury House, his screams sometimes had traveled all the way to the girls’ dormitory at the opposite side of the building. She suspected he avoided setting foot in the East End as a means for holding that particular inner demon at bay, and she didn’t want to be the cause for forcing him to face it now.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting this back.” She handed him his evening jacket.
Taking it from her, he reached into the inside breast pocket and pulled out a stack of his business cards. Handing her one of the cream-colored squares, he said, “Send word when you’ve given your notice.”