Authors: Chanse Lowell
“William has no idea how sensual you truly are.” Tyrone tried to paw at her, but she slapped his hand away.
“He knows, and he makes good use of it.” She stepped back. “He is on his way. You will allow him to join in fisticuffs?”
‘Yes, but not with me. I need to keep my face pretty and unblemished.” He stroked his eyebrows with his fingers.
She laughed. “Yes, I know what you mean. I tell him not to bite my face, but sometimes he cannot help it.”
“Oh?” His eyebrows he’d just smoothed quirked up. “Tell me more about this biting extreme of his . . .”
She smiled. “There is a difference between sharing information for mutual benefit and whoring myself. One I rather like, but the other I refuse to engage in. I think you know why.”
“Why would I know your intentions? You’ve aligned yourself with the most notorious rake around. His mother was a French actress, and quite the harlot. My father knew her well—bedded her several times. I only know because she broke his heart when she married William’s father instead of him. The only reason she took the Ferrismore name was because he was independently wealthy, and my father was indebted to the theater. Though he lived the upper life of luxury, it was not his money to do with as he willed.” He leaned against the theater wall.
She walked out onto the stage. “That is neither of our affair right now. Hold your club open for us tonight, and I will be your actress for the next four months to do as you see fit, but only on the stage. You are not to touch me. I will never reveal my body to you, and you have to keep out of William’s way.”
“Deal.” He pushed off the wall. “Shake and we are done here.”
“Are we?” She took a breath and leaned toward him, then took a whiff. “How many whores have you already had this morning?”
“Actresses, you mean?” He chuckled.
“Either. How many?”
“Three. All of them a dreadful bore.” He stretched his neck toward her. “I need a real woman with an appetite for lewd behavior.”
She grinned and smacked his cheek lightly. “I will let you know when I find one, shall I?”
“Oh, woman, you do mean to torture me right down to my tightening stones, don’t you?”
“Yes, but only because you cannot be chastised any other way that will get through to you.”
He sniffed as her hand retreated, and his eyes followed her hand. “You realize this is tantamount to signing a deal with the devil in William’s eyes? He’ll have your hide stretched for this since he thinks me a cad.”
“He needs help, and I’m providing it.”
“Fair enough. Shake.” He offered his hand.
She gave it to him, and right as he was bringing her hand up to his lips she jerked her fingers out of his grip.
“Naughty men must be taught manners.” She tsked. “I’ll be dancing and singing tonight after he fights. Tell me now if you object?”
“Not as much as I’d like to. The idea of seeing you perform for him, while it’s very voyeuristic in nature, it’s an offer I cannot turn down. I accept.”
“If you decide to leave the room when I do it, I’ll double my offer for you opening your club to us.” She blinked and swayed away from him. His smell, mixed with his whores’, was beginning to nauseate her.
“I will consider it.”
“You do that, Tyrone, and see if you can straighten your spine with pride over some shred of integrity as you exit your club tonight when I take to singing.” She waved and left him standing on the stage.
* * *
Clarissa almost had to drag William into Tyrone’s club, but he was in no mood to argue with her.
The bank situation had worsened over the day. She was unaware of all the trappings of it, but she insisted he trust her and do this for her.
So, William was dragging his legs and feet as they entered the club few people knew about.
She found them a table to sit at, and William ordered a scotch directly after being seated.
Within moments, there were several people approaching them and accosting him about his silks, laces and erotic undergarments he made. They called it lingerie.
Clarissa was fascinated and spellbound by the way he was slowly coming back to life.
“Excuse me, but didn’t I see you at the women’s suffrage rally last week?” a woman asked Clarissa while taking a seat at her left.
“No, I don’t think so.” Clarissa blinked, then her eyes popped open wide. “You’re . . .”
“Yes, and you’re Clarissa Stone. I’ve heard you’re to be the next me.” The woman grinned.
A chill ran down Clarissa’s arms. Was she threatened by Clarissa? How could this be? Her career was barely at the beginning stages.
“My understanding is you have a figure to rival that of Camilla Clifford and a voice to outshine mine,” the woman said, pressing her lips together afterward, wearing a momentary look of distaste.
It took Clarissa a moment to figure out that this woman’s lips naturally turned down at the corners, so perhaps she wasn’t frowning at her?
“Miss Adams,” Clarissa began, clearing her mind of all thought but one—this was who she wanted to be on the stage. “You are legendary, so I can only hope to—”
“Call me Maude, please.” She waved her hand in the air and laughed, but it sounded tinny and forced.
“All right—Maude.” Clarissa edged closer to her. “Can you tell me what it was like to play Peter Pan?”
Maude’s eyes brightened, but then they slanted a little and narrowed. “There is no possible way to describe the elation of playing a flying creature that no man can possess.” Her eyes twinkled. “But then, I’ve been told that’s who you are without a stage.”
Maude stood up, stuck out her hand at a passerby and greeted them.
Clarissa swallowed, and her chest went heavy.
What just transpired? Did Maude call her a stage whore? Was Clarissa no better than Lenora—the hag she used to attend to back stage?
She glanced at William, and he was still engaged in animated conversations about the invention of his bra and how women would clamor after it. He spouted off about how women could breathe better, no more fainting spells due to restricted lungs and no more issues with their dreaded lungs having liquid pool in them from the same issues.
“The corset’s to be used for the bedroom in a spirit of fun only. Women need to breathe,” William told a blonde, buxom woman next to him.
The woman’s gaze moved over to Clarissa. “Can you imagine wearing such a thing as this bra to rallies?”
Clarissa startled when William’s hand gripped hers. “I have never been to a rally. Are you referring to the women’s rights?”
The woman laughed, fanned herself and then coughed. “Precisely. Any free-thinking woman should be there. And I can tell you’re one of us.”
“She has other things to attend to other than this frivolous waste of time.” William grabbed his scotch with his right hand, tipped it to his lips but did not partake of it.
A moment later, he set it back down.
Clarissa waited to see what had him taking on so.
“Do you think it counterproductive to have a voice, Mr. Ferrismore?” the woman asked. Her blonde curls bounced on her head as she leaned toward him.
Clarissa held her breath when she realized this woman was awfully comfortable with William. Was she one of his past conquests? She definitely looked like his amorous type of woman with saucy eyes, pouty lips and a very curvy figure.
“Not at all. Cherry here has a splendid voice, and I encourage her to use it all the time, but not for hollering about things that cannot be.” He tapped his fingertip on the rim of his glass and cocked his head at this woman. “Rebecca, you forget I know who your family is. If they knew what you were about . . .”
“You wouldn’t dare spill my secret, William, for I hold the cards in this hand. I know about your marketing intents for your naughty bedroom clothing. How quick do you think I could spread that around?”
“Quicker than I could ruin your rallies? Perhaps.” He smirked. “But to what avail?”
“To the quick—always the way with you.” Rebecca puffed up her chest. “Always, even when your hands are grabbing at something you cannot have.”
“And I will forever be grateful I came to my senses.” He jerked his head in a motion to silently tell her to leave them now.
Rebecca only grinned like a hunting cat. “Oh no, no, sir. I am here to watch you fight. I have been told you’re to face the worst of fighters, and I have to be in the front to see it for myself when the great Ferrismore is taken down to the mud where he belongs.”
“Yes, you’re right.” He sighed and wore a resigned look. “You were too young and entirely too good for me.” He dipped his fingers in his drink, then flicked the moisture at Rebecca.
“Ahhhhh . . .” She moaned at the action and beamed at him, leaning her breasts toward him.
“Now—find another man to reminisce with. Cherry—” He faced Clarissa and stood up. “Watch me devour this man since this is what you wanted.” He bowed, clicked his heels on the hardwood flooring and then he was out in the center of the floor before them, removing his waist coat, his jacket and tie.
Next his cuff links came off and so did his somber look he’d worn like a tired rag for the last few weeks.
His face morphed into a man very well-pleased with his surroundings.
He waved at the crowd, his arms up in the air.
Women cried out for him. Clarissa sunk back in her chair.
What was happening to this man?
He was reveling in inciting them into a frenzy, but why? It all seemed a brutal show.
Was he trying to teach her a lesson?
“Did you really let him fuck you?” Rebecca leaned in and asked.
“No. I leave that for whores to do. I love him, so it results in touch. Something it seems you cannot possibly understand.” Clarissa folded her hands in her lap.
William barked at the crowd, yipped and bayed as if at a ripe moon overhanging in the room like a frosty chandelier.
What had she done?
This was not helping him. He only seemed more lost than ever.
A large man with dark curly hair, black beady eyes and arms the size of railroad ties walked out into William’s space.
William was taller, but this man looked completely immovable.
She sucked in a tight breath, her hands went to her stomach and she swallowed down the beginnings of bile.
If he was hurt . . .
Jesus, this was so wrong.
She jumped up right as the men were circling each other, tossing out insults faster than an electrified train.
Her hands yanked her sleeves off so more of her bosom was bared. She ripped up the side of her skirt and showed him what a beast of a man he was being. She could outdo him. She could show him how absurd he was in this moment.
She burst into one of her bawdiest songs, pushed her skirt aside and hitched her leg up onto an unoccupied seat.
Her hair came down next as she ripped the pins out and before she could sing the chorus, William was dragging her off and down one of the hallways.
“What in tarnation was that?” he hissed in her ear.
“You want a blood bath with that man to prove I was an idiot in bringing you here? Fine. But don’t you think I can act out, too? If you’re going to be an ass, I’ll reflect it. After all, Rebecca was too good for you, but apparently I am not. Maude Adams thinks me a great whore, so why not prove it?” She took her ring off and tossed it at him. “Enjoy breaking bones. At least, now it’ll match what’s broken up here!” She tapped his forehead, then backed away.
“What is the matter? You wanted me to fight, so I was doing it.”
“Not like this. That was not you. I don’t know that man that was frothing at the mouth and acting a criminal of the night.” She backed away even farther. “Find what you seek here without me. Find yourself. If you don’t, then when you come home and I find the same man that I left here at this club, then I am gone. I am nothing if I am not honest, and this new Ferrismore—he’s not someone I care to know.”
She curtsied, gathered her breath and left.
Samuel ducked his head down, drove her home and never once asked how she was.
The only thing he said was, “Thank you, Mrs. Ferrismore.”
“Don’t call me that,” she replied, fogging up the window with her breath in tufts of scorching fury.
That man was gambling more than ever—gambling his soul to some unseen force.
And only he knew why he was doing it.
Chapter 22
Craaaack, craaaack, craaaack!
Fists pounded into William’s back.
He spun, and a knuckle grazed his jaw.
The meaty man before him was slow, but his blows were punishing.
William jammed his fist into the man’s ribs, but they remained in place.
Bones—he needed to break and destroy.
This man was a brick wall with a hammering club for fists.
William bounded after him repeatedly, but it did no good. The man merely stood there and swallowed each blow like William was a child.