Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Remmy had never worn anything more boring than the black-and-white ensemble he’d squeezed himself into for that night’s soliloquy.
He’d tried to convince Kit all black was even more somber and thus more appropriate.
He was, after all, mourning the death of his hard-won reputation.
Kit had countered that the only way to subdue a reputation like his—won with whispers, fists, and skin—was to appear as staid as possible.
Thus the black. And the white. And his hair newly trimmed and coiffed into a fashionable style. No rings, no earring, no voluptuous ladies on his arm.
The only woman he wanted on his arm was Tessa, and he couldn’t help but take one more leap at having her.
Remmy stood on the stage of the Folly, the huge, heavy stage curtains hanging loose before him. Beyond those, the chaotic murmur of a large crowd. They’d all come. Every seat filled. For free.
For a good cause. Tonight he shed his reputation. And, hopefully, won Tessa back.
A hand landed on his shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Kit asked.
“I’m not letting a conversation with that prick Richard Islington go to waste. And I’m not losing Tessa without a fight. Raise the curtain.” He glanced at Islington who waited in the wings for his cue, his blond hair brassy in the shadows.
“It’s not quite time yet, I think. Will it work? Tessa’s mother has every reason not to believe you, no matter who else does.”
“They must believe it because it’s the truth. From here out at least.”
“We’re ready, Mr. Ives,” his stage manager said.
Remmy nodded, Kit ran into the wings, the curtains parted, and Remmy raised his arms. The noise of the rumbling crowd died slowly, one voice at a time as each member of the audience realized the show had started.
As they quieted, Remmy admired his work—the balconies newly painted, the seats recently padded, the chandeliers and gas lamps.
It was a work of art, his own sweat and tears, and every night, he brought dreams to life here. He would miss it.
“Good evening!” He used his theatre voice, but the world had become so quiet, he could whisper and the audience would still hear.
“Thank you all for coming tonight.” Remmy cleared his throat.
This performance mattered more than the others.
He had to sell it. “I am, as you all may know, Remington Ives, the owner of this theatre and… as many have claimed, the June rake.”
Murmurs rippled across the audience, fans thwipped open and hats ripped off, to hide whispering mouths.
“But you do not know me at all,” Remmy continued.
“You see… I have a confession to make. When the Brazen Belle wrote about a Mr. R. I.”—a pause, for dramatic effect or personal fortification, he could not decide—“I knew it was not me, but I took advantage of the initials. The real June rake is Richard Islington.” He ground the name between his teeth.
“Islington?” a young man in the front row said. “Who is that?”
An excellent gentleman, there. Remmy could only imagine how Islington was fuming in the wings.
He was almost tempted to let them all continue, but he grinned and said, “He owns a very boring theatre in Drury Lane.” The audience laughed, and he used his hands to quiet them once more. “And he is R. I.”
“Why pretend to be him?” a man from a balcony called out.
The crowd agreed—they wanted an answer. And he hadn’t prepared one for this particular question.
“Erm… Mr. Islington… asked me to pretend! He’s ill. Dying. Aaaand… he doesn’t want this to ruin his legacy.” Man was fit as a fiddle as far as Remmy knew.
And he was currently storming onto the stage. “I am not dying,” he said loudly enough for the crowd to hear.
When he was close enough to hear, Remmy whispered, “We’ve an audience, Islington. You must perform for them. Go with it.”
Islington pulled at his cravat and raised his voice. “But I was ill. I got better.”
“So now you’re not dying,” someone said, “you want to ruin your reputation?”
“What do we do now, Ives?” Islington hissed.
“Aaahhh…”
“Lies!” The voice rang out loud and clear from the back of the crowd, and it thumped his heart into a frantic rhythm.
“This is annoyingly out of control,” Islington said, slinking back toward the backstage shadows.
Remmy rushed to the front of the stage, but the stage lights blinded him. A figure strode down the side aisle and stopped just before the stage, looking up at him. She stood between two gas lamps, her hair a wild and fiery halo around her freckled, determined face.
He knelt before her. “Tessa.” Her name a breath. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
She grinned and held out a hand. “Help me up?”
When he wrapped his hand around hers, he worried he might never let her go and tried to tug her into the side wings of the stage and out of sight to have her all to himself.
But she escaped and strode to center stage, faced the rapt audience. Chin high, shoulders back and spine straight like the queen she was and wearing a sin of a gown of shifting blues that shimmered in the gas lamps, she captivated the audience.
“Mr. Ives,” she said, “is a liar.”
He’d forgotten about that. He strode toward her. “Hold on, Tessa. What is this about?”
“You sir,” she said as loudly as she could, “are a liar. A horrid one. Just another failing to place at your feet.”
“Tessa,” he said under his breath, “what are you doing?”
“Stopping you.” Then louder: “You are a rake! And you are fooling no one with this pitiful speech. We all know it is you the Belle wrote of.”
“Tessa, don’t,” he hissed. “I’m trying to—”
“I know exactly what you’re doing.” She laid her palm against his chest, and his heart picked up speed. “And I won’t have it.”
He was going to faint. Or cast up his accounts. Or toss her over his shoulder and run off with her into the night.
The audience seemed to hold its breath.
And Tessa wailed, placing the back of her hand against her forehead. “But what I must have…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Is that man as my husband.”
The audience gasped.
Remmy caught her arm. “Stop.”
She dropped to her knees and raised her face to the chandeliers. “Because if he does not—”
“Tessa.”
“Then I am surely—”
“Do not do it.”
“Ruined!” she wailed.
“Bloody hell.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. She’d ruined them both.
The theatre had grown so quiet he could hear some man’s pocket watch ticking down the remaining seconds of Remmy’s life. Well, if he couldn’t direct the act, he might as well join it.
He hit his knees beside her and took her hands in his. “How can you be ruined, my heart? Of course we will marry.”
Her eyes danced with merriment. “Do you swear it?”
“You’re laying it on thick,” he whispered. “Adopt some subtlety.”
She grinned.
Louder, he said, “Of course I swear it, sweetheart.”
“You must prove it!”
The audience grumbled its agreement.
“Yes, prove it!”
“Do the right thing, you scoundrel!”
“Marry her!”
And one brilliant soul Remmy thought of as a kindred spirit: “Kiss her!”
“A token,” Remmy said, “of my commitment.”
He stood and kissed her. Hands where they belonged on her neck, tilting her head to the side, lips laid softly against, lips, and her arms wrapping around his waist. He kept it chaste. He kept it sweet.
The crowd erupted in applause.
“I have no idea what you’re doing,” he grumbled against her lips, “but it’s working.”
She threw herself at him and buried her face in his neck. “Forgive me. Please forgive me. Will you have me back? Please? Oh, Remmy, I love you. Please.”
He silenced her with another kiss, tilting her chin back with his knuckles. “Of course I’ll have you. I love you too much to let you go.”
The audience began to chatter.
“If he was a rake, he’s reformed now.”
“Another bachelor ruined.”
“Married men are always so tedious.”
And then they began to rise and file out of the theatre, leaving Remmy and Tessa alone on the stage but for those milling about behind it.
“You ruined my reputation, Tessa,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. “Your mother—”
“Wouldn’t have accepted you no matter how hard you’d tried.”
“Verity?”
Tessa buried her face in his neck again, and he wrapped her up in his arms, held her tight, tried to take her pain.
“We’ll figure it out,” he murmured against her hair. “I promise we’ll figure it out.”
She finally lifted her head, wiping her eyes and looking toward the back of the theatre. She waved.
And Frederick waved back.
“Is that my brother?” Remmy asked.
“He helped me get here.”
“I’ll have to thank him, I think.”
“And Daphne. And likely Aria, too. They love you, Remmy.”
“And you, too.”
“I know… isn’t it odd?”
“Not at all.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Shall we retire to my office?” He helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist. In the wings, Kit and Islington stood side by side, one pleased, the other perplexed. He waved, and both men waved back then headed for the doors.
“Well,” she said as they stepped backstage, “I’m an actress now. And I have heard that you are particularly fond of them. I was hoping you might offer me some… advice on my craft.”
“Right this way, Tessa King.” In the chaos of the busy backstage, he kissed her again.
When she finally pulled away (it would have to be her because he couldn’t), she slapped his shoulder. “What were you doing? I cannot believe you’d risk the Folly! For me!”
“Nothing I have has meaning without you in my life.”
Her legs gave and she sank in his embrace. “Do not say things like that. It makes me a puddle.”
“You’ll have to get stronger knees.”
She was laughing when he took her hand and tugged her down the corridor and into his office.
She was sighing when he locked the door and laid her on the small sofa across from his desk.
She was screaming his name when he made her break apart with pleasure.
And he was damn near close to tears when he came inside her, his favorite three words on her lips.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And he would say those words every damn day for the rest of his life.