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 planmustwork. 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 washis 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 ourLord 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.
Chapter Two
The next day, Crossvale Court
Lord Brawly possessed three rather large moles on an otherwise unremarkable backside. And he grunted like a pig as he thrust into Lady Chattaway.
