Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
T HE MAN FROM THE OPERA BOX WAS T HOMAS G ALLIER. S HE WAS certain of it. Sure, there might have been about fifty yards and a hell of a lot of stage light between them, but it was her job to know where her next meal could come from, and if what she’d read in the papers was true, Thomas Gallier looked like a twelve-course dinner.
Blowing kisses was one of her signature moves. She didn’t originate the practice, certainly, but she’d learned over time that men couldn’t resist being singled out in a crowd. They all, without exception, had a pathological belief they were somehow exceptional, an obsession with being the one and only chosen out of an endless stream.
So it didn’t surprise her when there was a knock at her dressing room door. In fact, she was waiting for it. Expecting it. She would have been disappointed—maybe even devastated—if it hadn’t come.
“Hey, Evelyn,” a gruff-voiced stagehand called. “You’ve got a visitor.”
For a moment, she considered how to play this. She’d entertained plenty of men in her dressing room before—men who would go on to buy her furs, take her for dinner and dancing, or introduce her to other men who could get her bookings. On those occasions, she’d played it all very cool, very coy, very refined—almost aloof. But lately, those meetings took up less and less space on her social calendar, and she couldn’t remember the last time any of them had wanted to continue their dalliances in public.
Of all the men she’d met, none of them had ever been in a position to help her quite like Thomas Gallier. And considering the holes in her stockings and the sprawling emptiness of her future …
She didn’t have time for subtlety.
“A handsome gentleman caller, I hope,” she crooned.
A beat of assessment from the other side of the door. “Meh. He’s alright.”
Evelyn knew that wasn’t true. Thomas Gallier was one of those rare creatures of the Manhattan jungle—a genuinely good-looking man of means. Most wealthy men, Evelyn would classify as “interesting” to look at. They were fine enough on their own, but it was the gleam of gold watches and pearl cufflinks that really made their features shine. Thomas Gallier, on the other hand, would have been the handsomest ditch digger just as easily as the handsomest millionaire. There was a marble quality about his tall and built frame; his smooth features, too, were worthy of Michelangelo. His dark hair hung slightly roguish across his forehead like a painting of a tempting devil.
“Well, can the gentleman wait? I’m afraid I haven’t got a stitch of clothing on.”
A lie. With a robe thrown on over her costume, she was as close to fully dressed as she got backstage. But no harm in giving him a little bit to chew on before he entered her den.
A moment later, she crossed to the door and peeked it open, intending only to give him a brief look at her to heighten the suspense.
Unfortunately, something infinitely more devastating occurred.
She realized he was even more handsome up close than from afar. A little tired, maybe. But with crystalline green eyes that could make you believe he loved you and only you, right there on the spot. The kind of handsome that made knees weak. The kind of handsome that could be very, very dangerous to a woman like her.
“Miss Cross. It’s a pleasure to meet you—”
He started out innocently enough. Cordial. Refined. Even professional. That deep English accent of his didn’t hurt matters. But then, his eyes traveled down, down, down the nearly bare curve of her shoulder, and southward to more exotic locales.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Mr.…?”
“Gallier,” he said, his eyes snapping up and his body coiling in that practiced rigidity so common in the higher quarters of society. “Thomas Gallier.”
“That’s right,” she said, ushering him in. “I think I read something about you in the papers.”
Gallier chuckled. Nice smile, though she wasn’t sure it was particularly genuine. “I can assure you, anything you’re reading there is a pack of lies.”
“Oh? Even the ladies’ column about you being … what was it they called you? A handsome man with a constraint of passion that leaps like flame into desire? ”
“They wrote no such thing.”
“No, you’re right. I must have read that in a book somewhere. But it describes you quite well. You can understand my confusion.”
This was a dance she knew well, the steps so rehearsed she could do them in her sleep. She would flirt a little. He would assess her legs—in the year of their Lord 1897, if your legs held a man’s attention, he was as good as yours—and then they would get down to the particulars of their exchange (her company for his help) in a polite, roundabout way that left both of their consciences clean.
But Thomas Gallier didn’t fit the mold, not the way she wanted him to. Standing near the door as if waiting to bolt, he stood out like a gray rain cloud amidst her wardrobe’s frilly feathers and palette hues. And as a partner in this dance, he stumbled, never quite committing to her tempo or letting her lead.
Strange, that. Men were often so happy to be lured to their own destruction.
Gallier cocked his head. “Do you think you’re flattering me?”
“Is it working?”
“I can assure you, it’s not necessary.”
“Flattery isn’t ever necessary, Mr. Gallier. But I find it’s a bit like alcohol. Good for lubricating all sorts of interactions.”
Not her most subtle of approaches. The man cleared his throat and averted his gaze from her, taking sudden interest in a virginal white gown dipped in red hanging from her dressing screen.
“Speaking of alcohol,” she said, when it became clear he’d lost his words, “maybe we could celebrate your visit with a glass of champagne.”
“I am not one to drink.”
“Shall we sit, then?”
“I would prefer to stand.”
Damn him. Now he was making her stumble. Time for a new approach.
“Well, then, do you mind if I sit?”
“By all means,” he said, flat but polite.
With his attention elsewhere, he freed Evelyn to situate herself on the chaise longue stretched across the far wall.
“The long and the short of it is this, Miss Cross,” he began, still directing his speech at the gown instead of her.
Did he know she’d once gotten a ticket for indecency for performing in that gown? That her writhing in the role of a sensual Salome had popped one of the pearl buttons down the front, exposing her, um, superstructure to the entirety of the Atlantic City Theater’s audience? Surely not, or he wouldn’t have been trusting it to keep his eyes pure.
“The Empire Theatre is opening in three weeks. I’ve my pick of performers, mind you, and there is plenty of remarkable talent in this city, no doubt about it. You should see them, coming in and out all the time, audition after audition, acts of the highest caliber—”
“I have no doubt.”
His gaze flickered to the mirror, which lined the room’s longest wall and gave a full view of everything he’d been unable to see with his back turned. His words fell out in a tumble then, rushing to end this interaction before he could fall into her trap.
Poor thing. Didn’t he know the only way to defeat temptation was to succumb?
“But after some deliberation and a considerable amount of thought, I believe you would look just fine on The Empire’s marquee.”
“ Just fine?”
“As I said, I have my pick of performers, so I won’t be hard-balled, but if you’re interested, I could offer you a fare wage, top billing, and— why are you sitting like that? ”
In a blur of man, he turned on his heel to give her just what she’d wanted. His full attention.
His full, lustful, frustrated attention, focused squarely on her body. Arms raised over her head in a lazy repose, she propped herself up on a pile of the chaise longue’s pillows so her generous breasts—straining against her corset—were the most pronounced part of her. Everything else, from her bare wrists to her stocking-clad legs, was sprawled and open, ready to receive.
She didn’t flinch from his gaze.
“Because I want you to see me sitting like this,” she said.
Wordlessly, his eyes traced her waiting form, then made the return trip back to her lips, where they settled.
“Miss Cross …”
That was a question.
“Mr. Gallier.”
That was an answer.
“I’ve offered you what you want,” he said, words shaking from some unseen effort deep inside of him. “You don’t need to do this.”
“In my experience, a man’s promises aren’t worth anything until after the glow of seduction is gone.”
It was the truth. Listening to lovesick men was a hereditary sickness, a sin of the mother passed down, and one to which she’d never succumb.
She needed something from him. She was going to do what she needed to get it. Simple as that. If those facts bothered him, so be it.
And, indeed, bother him they did. He flinched. His face turned to stone.
“Miss Cross, I should like to make one thing perfectly clear: I do not mix business with pleasure, no matter how I may want to. Tomorrow, I will be at The Empire Theatre on 34th Street with my associate to see your act promptly at noon. Is that understood?”
She blinked. “Sure.”
“And one more thing.”
“Yes?”
Maybe she imagined it, but she was certain the lines in his face softened … just barely. Just enough for her to notice. Just enough to give her hope. “This isn’t you. I don’t know who, exactly, you are, but I do hope she shows up to The Empire tomorrow instead of … whoever this is.”
With nothing else to say, the man departed. Evelyn listened to the sound of his footsteps carrying down the hall, then she raced to the window to watch his figure eventually exit the theater below and enter a waiting carriage.
It was only when that carriage disappeared into the sea of Manhattan streets that she finally slumped, letting her mask slip.
At first, there was anger. How dare he lecture about who she was when they had only just met, when he didn’t have any idea of her life or her character outside of a few moments on the stage? She was used to patronizing men, but somehow, Thomas Gallier’s condescension particularly stung.
But it wasn’t just his condescension, she realized, looking up at that cursed Banting’s advertisement, now lit by a pair of spotlights in the night. Because under her anger, there was pain.
He didn’t want you , that pain said. He rejected you because he didn’t want you. Just like everyone else in this city lately.
She reexamined every moment of their encounter, scanning for anything she’d done wrong, any misstep she’d taken. But it all came back to that insecure little thought.
He didn’t want you.
That was … until she remembered something. Something she’d missed during the first run of their little drama. Something that made her think all hope wasn’t lost for him—for them —after all.
I do not mix business with pleasure , he’d said, no matter how I may want to .