A Reckless Desire (7 page)

Clearly perplexed, she leaned closer toward him, swaying gently with the carriage's motion. “But that's the problem, my lord, isn't it? It's all about
words.
I don't know who or how or even what I am to be with you.”

“That's easy enough,” he said, for to him it did seem so. “Who you are is Lucia di Rossi, and what you are is rather what you will become, which is to say an actress.”

“That is what I hope to become, yes, my lord,” she agreed earnestly. “But that's later, and it's now that confuses me. One moment you treat me as your—your guest, having me ride here in your carriage with you and all, and then the next you order me about as if I'm your servant, except that you don't want me going about with your other servants. I'm all turned about trying to make sense of it, my lord, and I fear I'll displease you if I can't.”

Rivers sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest. He understood what she was saying, and he understood, too, how it had come about. When he planned his course of study for how to create the model dramatic actress, he'd overlooked the fact that Lucia wasn't a wad of clay for him to mold; she was a living, breathing woman with the sort of feelings and notions that plagued every woman. He'd left her in the dark about her exact position, because it hadn't mattered to him. But it did matter to her, and now it must matter to him, too. He sighed again, mightily, as he tried to determine a solution.

“See now, my lord, I've displeased you again,” she said. Dramatically she pulled off her hat and threw herself back against the squabs with a sigh that rivaled his own. “Nothing I do is right.”

“Not at all,” he murmured, an easy way of buying more time for himself to think. This was entirely his fault, of course, and though he'd admit that to himself, he wasn't sure it would be wise to admit it to her as well. He'd already apologized to her once this evening, and if he did it again, he'd feel as if he were groveling, and that would be an end to any sort of proper balance between them as teacher and student. It didn't help, either, having her flung back against the squabs like that, with her hair coming down from beneath her cap, and her breasts pushed up by her stays and—

No. He needed a way to think of her with distance, with propriety. And in a flash the idea came to him, in the manner that great ideas usually took.

He clapped his hands once in triumph, startling her. “I have solved our dilemma, Lucia,” he announced proudly. “What is required is more formality between us.”

She shook her head, not understanding, and perhaps not wanting to. “You make no sense to me, my lord.”

“No, no, it makes perfect sense,” he insisted. “The problem here is that I do not know how to address you, and you do not know how to behave. As you are, Lucia di Rossi, formerly of the Di Rossi Ballet Company, you have no acceptable place in my household.”

“Rifiuti,”
she muttered, openly skeptical. “What solution is there in that, my lord?”

“Because we shall put Lucia aside, and instead create a new persona for you,” he said. “You weren't going to launch yourself onto the stage as a Di Rossi anyway. We'll simply accelerate the process, so there will no longer be any question of you being a servant.”

“I'll need a grand new name, my lord,” she said eagerly. “Every actress has another for the stage. Madame Adelaide's really Moll Dunn.”

“Cassandra,” he declared, the name coming to him in another of those flashes of brilliance. “That's who'll you'll be, because you'll speak the truth about your character. Although I do hope you'll have more people heed your words than that poor lady in ancient Troy.”

“Cassandra,” she repeated, testing the sound of it. “I like that, my lord. It's very grand. Madame Cassandra!”

“I think you shall be Mrs., rather than Madame,” he said. “Audiences don't always take to foreign actresses, Madame Adelaide notwithstanding. You shall be an English lady who has lived abroad most of her life. That will make you mysterious, but still English. You'll need a surname.”

She nodded with excitement, glancing out the window as if searching for inspiration in the passing landscape. Apparently she found it.

“Willow,” she said suddenly. “That's who I'll be, my lord. Mrs. Cassandra Willow. Because I'll bow when the audience cheers, but I'll never be broken by the critics.”

“Mrs. Cassandra Willow.” He considered it, imagining how the name would look on playbills and in papers. “It's simple enough for those in the pit to recall, but sufficiently elegant for those in the boxes, too. I like it, Mrs. Willow. When you step from the carriage, I'll introduce you by your new name, and so you shall be called by my household and everyone else.”

She laughed, and he laughed, too, and the journey was suddenly much more pleasurable again. They were sitting here together in a carriage that was rapidly growing dark except for the light of the moon, and the bumpy misunderstandings that had sprung up between them this afternoon had been smoothed over and corrected. Their shared adventure was just beginning. Ahead of them lay a little more than a month where they'd attempt something grand and glorious together, something that was far beyond the initial wager with Everett.

Yes, that was the main difference from earlier. By making her Mrs. Willow, he'd also after a fashion made her his partner in this endeavor—a realization that pleased him as much as it seemed to be pleasing her. Together they were going to change her life. Damn, he might even be
saving
her life, considering how wretched it had been before. How could he not be pleased by that?

He reached down and unfastened the compartment beneath the seat where the hamper had been tucked, and pulled it out, setting it on the cushion beside him before he opened it.

“We must drink a toast to Mrs. Willow,” he said with relish, pulling out a crystal decanter of wine and two glasses. “To the good lady, and her success.”

Her laughter now sounded a bit uneasy as he opened the wine and poured the first glass. He held the glass out to her, and she hesitated, looking first at the wine and then at him.

“Forgive me, my lord, but I—I do not drink wine with gentlemen,” she said primly. “It can only bring trouble and sorrow.”

“Hah, now, that's a lecture from a pulpit.” Still he offered her the glass, the ruby liquid shimmering in the crystal. “I'd wager a guinea you've never before drunk wine with any gentleman, have you?”

The primness continued, and with it now was a steadfastness he hadn't expected.

“I do not have to commit murder to know that it's a sin,” she said. “I've seen enough to learn that strong drink and men can lead to—to things that will later be regretted.”

Well,
that
was true. He'd seen such raucous, regrettable behavior himself behind the scenes in the theaters—and participated in it, too—to know what she'd likely witnessed, and to understand the wisdom of her reluctance. Prim or not, if he pressured her further, he'd be a bully.

“Fair enough,” he said, staring down at the suddenly forlorn and rejected glass. “But that doesn't mean I cannot drink to Mrs. Willow, and her success. To the lady!”

He raised the glass in her direction and drank it down. When he set the empty glass on his knee, she was watching him thoughtfully.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, now more wistful than prim. “And Mrs. Willow thanks you, too.”

“Yes, yes,” he said expansively, refilling the glass. Just because she chose not to drink didn't mean he couldn't. “Mrs. Willow
would
thank me, even if she didn't approve of me in general on account of the glass in my hand.”

“Oh, but she would,” she said quickly. “Approve of you, I mean. All gentlemen drink. So how could Mrs. Willow not approve of you?”

“You tell me, Mrs. Willow,” he said, stretching his legs out more comfortably, Spot settling beneath them. “She is your creation now, and you must speak as she would speak.”

“You mean that I should lie?” she asked uncertainly.

“It's as much a lie as any story or play is a lie,” he said easily. “Consider Mrs. Willow a character, a role to be played, and tell me everything about the dear lady. Where she was born, how she came to the theater, even how she escaped that ne'er-do-well husband of hers.”

“I have a husband, my lord?” she asked, incredulous.

“Most actresses have one tucked away somewhere or another,” Rivers said blithely. “You should know that. I'd wager even your Madame Adelaide has an unfortunate monsieur in her past. Playhouse husbands generally are rascals and rogues, on account of actresses being so tenderhearted. But I wish to know more of the roguish Mr. Willow.”

“I don't know where to begin, my lord,” she admitted sheepishly. “What should I say?”

“It's for you to decide, not I,” he said. “Go on. Think of how you'd describe your life to a friend you hadn't seen for a long while. Surely you must have done that.”

“No, my lord, because everyone I know in London stays together,” she said. “Or rather, they did stay together. Now I'm the one who's left.”

“For the better,” he said firmly, not wanting her to have any misgivings. Her life already sounded bleak enough without that. “Entirely for the better.”

“Yes, my lord, it is,” she said, clearly striving to convince herself as well. “It
is.
And…and I have told stories before. While the dancers were onstage, I'd make up tales for the others in the tiring room to pass the time. They liked my stories better than anyone else's, too.”

“Well, then, there you are,” he said, relieved. Of course, it remained to be heard what manner of stories those were, but they would be sufficient for now. “Pretend you're with them again, and tell us all about that wicked, wicked Mr. Willow.”

More confident now, she chuckled, a husky little laugh that charmed him to no end. “Very well, my lord. This will be about my husband, Mr. Willow. He was an older gentleman when we first met.”

“Deceitful old bastard,” Rivers said to encourage her. “Go on.”

She chuckled again. “He wasn't so very old,” she said. “Only older than I, and I was very young.”

“You must have been,” he said, reaching again for the decanter. “You're not exactly an ancient old crone now.”

“I suppose he must have been nearly as old as you, my lord,” she said sweetly, which made him laugh outright. “He was from—oh, from Birmingham, though he'd often pretend he was from Paris to impress ladies. A macaroni with gaudy waistcoats and gold rings in his ears. He was a comely man to see, my lord, and clever as blazes, too.”

“Was he now, the dog!” Rivers exclaimed, delighted by her invention. He'd let her mangled vowels go untrammeled for now; who'd want to interrupt a tale like this for the sake of pronunciation?

“Pray tell me more,” he said, encouraging. “Pretend I'm writing your story for the
Gentleman's Magazine,
so make it as lurid as you wish. If you don't, you know the scribes will.”

“Recall that I am a Di Rossi, my lord,” she said. “I know how to be lurid. And life with Mr. Willow—
dio buono,
it was
wicked.
”

She paused, making him wait, and then lowered her voice to a more confidential level. The girl knew how to tell a story, he'd grant her that.

“He stole my heart, Mr. Willow did,” she continued, “and then I let him have his way with me. Oh, he was such a pretty rogue, and his kisses were so sweet! My father was a wealthy merchant esteemed by all and I his only treasured daughter, yet still I ran from that happy home to wed Mr. Willow. I loved him too well to question him in anything, and when we'd spent all the money I'd taken from my father's strongbox before I'd run away, Mr. Willow put me on the stage to earn a living for us both.”

“Now, that
is
wicked,” Rivers said, fascinated. He guessed that much of this standard tale of ruin was based upon third-rate plays she'd seen at the theater or songs she'd heard from ballad-singers—the predictable pattern of the words and story betrayed as much—but it didn't matter.

Here in the shadowy carriage, where all she had to give life to her tale was her voice, she was doing a first-rate job of entertaining him. She might not realize it, but they'd just begun another lesson, and she was performing so well that she'd made him forget completely her earlier singsong recitation.

In fact, she'd made him forget everything except what would come next in her hackneyed little fiction. She'd made him believe it was absolute truth, and he could not wait to hear more.

“Where did Mr. Willow take you to perform?” he asked. “A playhouse in some distant county?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It wasn't nearly so grand as that. We'd fallen in with a small circus, with rope-dancers and all, that played in little towns and villages on market days. We'd set up a stage in the back of a wagon, and I'd wear a pink silk gown and say sad poetry to make the ladies weep, and Mr. Willow would pass the hat. I could be most piteous, my lord, and as the tears fell, their purses would open.”

He hadn't expected that. But then, he hadn't expected any of this, and he was almost convinced that she was telling him the true story of her life.

“You must have been accomplished,” he said, “to support both you and Mr. Willow like that.”

“I was, my lord, I was,” she said confidently, and then let her voice slide toward melancholy. “They called me an angel, stepped down from the very heavens to our humble stage. But alas, it did not last between me and Mr. Willow.”

“It never does with rascals like that,” Rivers said, commiserating. There was something very intimate about sitting here in the darkened carriage with her while she told him her life's story, albeit an invented one. Intimate, and unexpectedly seductive, too. He hadn't noticed that about her voice before, how it had a rich, velvety quality that made him want to listen to it all night. “Did he leave you for another lady, then?”