Chapter Thirty-Seven
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
B Y THE TIME SHE ARRIVED AT T HE E MPIRE TO PREPARE FOR THEIR final day of dress rehearsals, Evelyn had determined to ignore the invitation, the note, and all it implied. Ignoring it would send a message— no . This affair has come to an end . We are through .
That was for the best. Then, she could begin the process of recovery. She could nurse her inevitable sadness and damaged ego with champagne and sleepless nights and begin the search for her next lover. No society parties. No more public entanglements.
Just sex.
When Evelyn stepped onto The Empire’s stage, though, she did not find it empty as she usually did. Beatrice was engaged in flurried chat with Andrew Samson, something intense and quiet that dissolved the second they both noticed her presence.
With a small bow and quick goodbye, the good doctor left. Evelyn didn’t bother to ask what it was they were discussing—she knew it could only be about her and Thomas.
Let them gossip while they can, she figured.
Once Andrew was gone, she collapsed on the floor and began relieving herself of her boots. She needed to rehearse this morning. Needed to dance. Needed to focus on what she was good at.
After all, if she was going to throw Thomas over, she’d need a spectacular act. One that would find her a new paramour and one that might get her a new booking when he inevitably fired her.
Beatrice strolled over, her voice teasing.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Evelyn, you look like absolute hell. We have an investors’ preview this afternoon,” she added, as though Evelyn could forget, “so I hope you brought some heavy-duty greasepaint for those under-eye bags. Or better yet, some house paint.”
“You know, that’s what I love about you, Bea,” Evelyn retorted, fussing with the laces of her boots. “You’re never subtle.”
A pause. Evelyn waited for what she knew was to come.
“What happened after you left the racket last night?”
“You’ve never been one to fish for erotic details, Bea.”
From the corner of her eye, Evelyn caught Beatrice’s hand flexing at her side. Ah, that’s what she and Andrew had been fighting over. Whether or not Beatrice had managed to break up the two of them. “So. He didn’t end your affair?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t either?”
“No, but I fully intend to. He has made things altogether too serious. It’s untenable.”
“How?”
He’s fallen in love with me, and I don’t have the first idea what to do with a man foolish enough to do that.
“He’s asked me to accompany him to some party tonight at George Conthorpe’s estate.”
Evelyn braced herself for the inevitable rebuke. You wouldn’t dream of going, would you ? I know those people and they’re all snakes—Thomas included. Don’t trust him. Don’t attend the party. Don’t let yourself be swept off your feet. Don’t listen to your heart .
But Bea surprised her.
Something deep and abiding shifted in her friend—a change so potent it electrified the very air.
“And you’re going, aren’t you?”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because he’s going to ask you to marry him.”
Evelyn’s mind filled with railroad screeching. The words from his letter came back to her. It is my dearest wish to never be alone again.
“ No . No. No … No, he’s not. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t—”
“That is the most important social occasion of the year,” Beatrice interjected, her features sharpening. “It’s where reputations and lives are made and broken. If he takes you there, it’s because he’s announcing, to the entire world, or his entire world, which is even more important, that he wants you to be his wife.”
Evelyn’s vision started to sway. Last night, he’d declared that he would prove his love.
Now, he was preparing to do the one thing her father had never done for her mother. The one thing no man had ever even considered doing for her before. The thing Beatrice had been so sure he wouldn’t do.
He was going to tell the entire world that he cared, that he cherished her, that he chose her above all others—damn the consequences.
He was not only going to love her. He was also going to make that love seen .
“No,” Evelyn snapped.
“No? I think I know a little more about this world than you do. That is what it means—”
“I mean no , then, I’m not going .”
“Absurd. Of course you are. You love him.”
So matter-of-fact. So obvious. Evelyn couldn’t stand it.
“You hate him,” she protested, trying to force her world back into some semblance of order. “Why are you suddenly pushing me—”
“I know these people. You know what they’ve done to me, how I despise them. And as loath as I am to admit it, I believe … I believe I was wrong about Mr. Gallier. He is different. What is happening between the two of you, it’s different as well. I didn’t think so, not at first, but this proves it.”
“It’s a piece of paper,” Evelyn protested, but with less force than before. “It doesn’t prove anything.”
Slowly, Beatrice lowered herself until she was at Evelyn’s height. And said precisely what Evelyn needed—and couldn’t bear—to hear.
“My dearest friend. I have known you and cared about you longer than I have just about anyone in this ever-loving, God-blessed waking world. And you know what I have always loved most about you?”
“My sparkling personality? No, it’s my ankles, isn’t it? I do have very good ankles.”
“You never let anyone or anything get in the way of what you want.”
Unable to face her friend’s no doubt kind eyes, Evelyn stared at her hands, those hands Betsy said prophesied a dark future.
“Well …” she said, her voice small, “I don’t have a dress.”
Evelyn could practically hear Beatrice’s smile. “Leave that to me.”