Chapter 1 #2
He wrapped his hands around her waist and scooped her off the desk, plopped her back on the ground.
He only let himself linger there for half a breath because holy hell her waist was delicious just above the flare of her hips and arse, and that was with all those layers between them. What would it feel like without—
He stepped away from her and grabbed his hat from a hook on the wall, dropped it on his head. He grabbed his greatcoat too, swung it around his shoulders, and shoved his hands in the pockets to hide their trembling.
“Theatre is dreaming. It only seemed appropriate. Come on then,” he grumbled, shuffling her out the back door of his office and into an alley. He helped her over puddles as they made their way toward the main street, and then he hailed a hackney in the quiet of a late London evening.
“I like that you put it there. I’ve always mourned not being able to watch you build the Folly from close-up. Those words, there, make me feel as if I were a part of it.”
“They’re just words.”
She chuckled, and the sound seemed a sudden sun in the dark night. Holy hell, what sorcery had Lady Chattaway accomplished. The last time he’d seen Tessa, she’d been crying and small and broken.
Their shoulders brushed—an accident—as he turned to study the solid column that was the Grand Folly. Dark on the side street, but glowing a bit at the edges, as if its magnificence couldn’t be contained.
Their shoulders bumped again—another damn accident—as he turned back around. The moon above London, behind foggy striations clinging to the air, was round and full and silver. But he couldn’t enjoy it. Nor could he revel in the Folly’s glory. Almost glory.
Almost midnight. The first day of June was a mere quarter hour away. Soon he would discover if his plan had worked. The Rake Review always found its way into the hands of greedy London readers the first of each month. And the first of the month was less than an hour away.
A hackney lurched to a stop before them, and Remmy let Tessa enter first, after she gave the driver Lady Chattaway’s address. He sat next to Tessa, and the hack took off.
The conveyance was small, and their thighs didn’t touch, but heat wafted off her in waves. He tugged at his cravat, which was suddenly much too tight.
He cleared his throat. “Are you still painting?”
“I am. I think I’ve improved, too.”
“I’m sure you have. You’ll show me? At Crossvale?”
“Of course.” She picked at her glove, pulling each finger loose one at a time then tugging the whole thing tight at the wrist. Again, again, again.
Was she nervous? Of him? Comic, that. He was the one who should be sweating.
The last time he’d seen her he’d confessed his love, and she’d thanked him then bounced into a coach and out of the country.
After years of feeling thoroughly humiliated, he’d realized she might not have fully understood his meaning.
It may have been less a brutal rejection and more of a horrifying misunderstanding.
But that didn’t matter. The end would have been the same.
“Are your mother and father still angry with you?” He’d not even tried to attend one of the Crossvale rector’s sermons since Tessa left.
She sighed. “Yes. Papa less so. He writes that he is merely disappointed. And it took six years to get him there. Tell me, other than your interest in the Folly, how have you been? Your mother only ever speaks of that in her letters.”
He hadn’t been aware his mother was writing to her. It was not entirely unexpected. The countess likely felt responsible for Tessa to some degree. But considering she’d told a love-silly Remmy he would ruin Tessa’s life if he proposed… well, it was also quite the shock.
“That’s unexpected. Naturally, she and my father were not originally keen on me doing more than actually owning the theatre, but they didn’t grumble too much when it became clear I planned to put my mark on every aspect of the business.
” Remmy rubbed the back of his neck. “The Folly has become an obsession for me. There is nothing I do that is not related.”
“You do not box?”
“Well, yes.”
“Or fence?”
“Yes, but—”
“Or ride in the park?”
He chuckled. “You win, Tessa King. I am not so single-minded as I let on.” Though, he did not want her to know of his other activities, the ones with actresses and brothels and—damn. She’d find out sooner or later. He’d made it so everyone knew.
She settled her hand above her décolletage, her fingertips brushing her neck and overlapping a simple necklace that glinted gold in the moonlight.
What would it feel like to put a kiss just there?
He swallowed the impulse, old and leftover from the boy he used to be.
“Your mother writes of the Grand Folly constantly. In every letter. You’ve made it terribly successful.”
“It will be. Soon. The truth is… I’m still in the red.
I’ve spent and spent and spent—the facade, the talent, the seating.
Everything new and fashionable and the best quality.
It takes money, and to make back that money, I have to fill the seats.
And that has not been happening as quickly as I would have liked. ”
He should hate admitting that, but it felt different with Tessa, like setting down a stone he’d been carrying for too long.
She patted his shoulder, ever the old, familiar chum. “Patrons will come. I know they will. The crowd tonight was quite nice.”
“Nice is not good enough. I need a crowd big enough to cause a riot.”
“That might be illegal.” She grinned, a mischievous little half thing begging for adoration.
The hack slowed then lurched to a stop, and he swung the door open. She yawned as she stepped down onto the street, and he followed her.
After a few steps toward the house, she looked over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow. At Crossvale.” Then she disappeared inside the townhouse, and he paid the driver, sending him off into the night and setting a path for the Folly. He should have kept the hack. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
Tessa had returned.
What did that mean?
Nothing. They’d spent six years away from one another. They weren’t young and innocent anymore. And even though she seemed keen to slip back into their friendship, he didn’t want to.
In a beam of moonlight, he pulled out his pocket watch. Past midnight. The first day of June. He set a path for the Folly.
His plan must work. He was no good at investments, had lost more money that way than he cared to consider.
He had no temperament for the military or the church, though his brothers didn’t seem to mind those gentlemanly occupations.
He had only his love of the dramatic and the theatre Uncle Dudley had left him three years ago.
His new rakish reputation had already increased the Folly’s patrons this last year.
If he could keep all of London invested in the stage play that was his bedroom life, he’d keep them in his theatre too and prove he was worth a damn.
Tessa’s return changed none of that. She didn’t want him. Never had and never would, not the way he’d foolishly wanted her.
Remmy’s bootsteps echoed on the empty streets, and a few stars winked far above the London lights.
No fog tonight. Few people out. The air was summer thick, and he took his time returning to the theatre, enjoying the sort of intermission he existed in.
Act 1 was over. Act 2 soon to start—an entire change of scenery.
When he reached the alley that led to his office at the back of the Folly, he paused. There, in the darkness, a dim white square in the middle of his door—small and inconsequential.
But his hands shook, and he moved slower than before through air thicker than it should be.
It was a piece of folded paper. A small scandal sheet tacked to the wood just at his eye level. Carefully, he removed the tack and read the words splashed in bold lettering across the top of the paper.
The Rake Review.
It had never been delivered before. He’d always obtained one through another reader’s hands as they were passed along from person to whispering person.
He couldn’t see any more than the larger letters of the publication’s title in the moonlight, so he swept into his office and locked the door behind him.
No light here either. He fumbled in his drawer for a tinderbox.
And when a flame sparked to life, he held the paper close and read.
Dearest Readers,
I have been summoned. Like a goddess of old, I heard my name on the lips of a libertine.
The gossip says this lothario believes himself of such substantial rakish quality that he should appear in these pages.
Rakes of this sort are as easy to come by as grass in a field.
Conceit and big mouths as common to them as smoldering eyes and naughty hands.
Though it is terribly enticing to disappoint him, I have decided to be magnanimous.
And though I had another man in mind for June’s rake, I shall celebrate the loud-mouthed lothario’s sins instead.
I should have gotten round to you soon enough, Mr. R___ I___.
They say the talented ingenues who trod the boards of his stage also bounce the boards of his bed.
Often. And it is this author’s opinion that the ladies who are so terribly busy under his employ cannot be blamed for small moments of weakness.
Though he cannot be called pretty, he is certainly magnetic, a rough-hewn demigod with a penchant, I hear, for baring more skin than he should behind closed theatre doors.
And everywhere else, to be sure. I know I am not the only one who spied his recent indecent exercise in the Serpentine.
The gentleman must be allergic to linen.
Or perhaps he considers the physique he’s cultivated learning swordplay for his productions as simply too impressive to be hidden behind polite garb.
Or it could be that his valet has quite forgotten to dress him some mornings.
Either way, a walk near Drury Lane (or Hyde Park) may very well end with a peek at a finely sculped male chest.
Before I put my readers, and myself, in dire need of our smelling salts, let me enumerate his many flaws—a loud mouth, a propensity toward foul language, a decided lack of loyalty to the fairer sex, and an ego rather larger than London.
It seems this self-made man believes he is unstoppable.
He shall have every pound, accolade, and woman to be had from now till eternity.
If this author’s pen can achieve one thing in this year of our Lord 1822, let it be to dim this rake’s gas lamps and knock him right off his own stage.
If all the world’s a stage and men and women merely players, Mr. R__ I__ might do well to discover what kind of play he’s in. Comedy? Or tragedy? Pride does, after all, always come before the fall.
Remain, dear readers, ever brazen,
The Brazen Belle
Remmy laughed. Pride comes before the fall, eh? Well, so long as everyone else fell right into his theatre’s seats, what did he care where he landed? He’d done it. Good God, he’d done it! Now all that remained was to continue the act as more eyes than ever turned his way.