Page 43 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

Cerys walked along, leaning on Mame’s arm as they emerged into High Street with all its toil and bustle. “You’re asking me what I want next.”

“You must know, girl. You’ll have some wish in your heart.”

But she didn’t know what else there could be for her. There was the world she had known, and the family she had found with Dorsey. At some point she would have to pick one or the other, and stick with her choice, knowing…

Knowing that she wanted something else. Something more. Something she didn’t yet have the words to name, only longed for with that same restless itch beneath the skin that had made her leave Newport.

The restless itch that grew and became unbearable around Dante Manelli, and she didn’t know why.

“What grudge do you bear Mr. Manelli?” she asked. “To warn me off him.”

Mame marched along the broad sweep of High Street, where the carriages passed one way, riders on horseback another, and the sedan chairs were left to weave their way through the muddle, while each side of the street, miraculously, was paved with flat, smooth stones that kept the hem of one’s skirts out of the muck and mud. Shops lined the road, their display windows cascading with wares, while lodgers in the rooms above stood on the wrought iron balconies watching the parade of human life. Cerys liked the vigor of the place. Cheltenham was growing, but it had been growing for a century and in that time had affected a genteel veneer.

Newport was growing too, perhaps even more quickly, but that town’s energy was still raw and young. Newport was home to miners and colliers raking their wealth from the Welsh hills. Cheltenham wanted to attract those who had earned their wealth elsewhere to come spend it here.

“Because he is not a gentleman,” Cerys said. “That is why you do not like him. You must recall I was not raised among gentlefolk. If I have friends in high places, it is through my mother’s doing, not my own.”

“I don’t rub elbows with gentlemen either, ’less they buy a ticket to a show. For all that, I could throw stones into this crowd and hit any number of men claiming to be gentlemen, and every one of them a knave in some way.” Mame snorted. “I suspect your Mr. Manelli is as true as they come, and better than the most run of men. I think a man should work with his hands, and those dark Italian looks don’t hurt him none.”

“But you don’t like him,” Cerys prompted.

“I think you like him too much. That’s all.”

“I am only pretending a tendre for him to tweak Lady Baeccon’s nose. She thinks she can crook a claw and have him running at her again, and I mean to throw a rub in her way.”

“And why should you amuse yourself with tormenting Lady Baeccon, or Mr. Manelli, for that matter?”

Cerys shrugged. “To pass the time while our theater is built, and give me something to do when we don’t have rehearsals.”

“Are you going to cast lures at Lord Andover?”

“What?” Cerys stopped in her tracks, and Mame tugged her forward before Rhoda and Tryphenie, distracted by the wares in a milliner’s window, plowed into them. “I wouldn’t dare. He’s an earl’s heir, he’s married and already filling his quiver with children, and he’s well known in this area. I’d never be able to stay here with the company if I made a scandal with him.”

“Dutton, then,” Mame said.

Cerys shuddered. “No, for many of the same reasons, and that he would enjoy the conquest too much, and I much less, if you know what I mean.”

“Thompson’s a prime one, and rich,” Mame said.

Cerys merely raised her brows.

“What? You could have the elder or the younger, I think. Or both at the same time, if you wished.”

“You would warn me away from Mr. Manelli, but throw me at a Thompson?”

“I don’t think any of the others could touch your heart.”

Cerys held silent a moment, musing. They passed another library, a hotel, and a fashionable young lady sitting sidesaddle on a blooded mount, the skirts of her royal blue riding habit brushing the tops of her prim boots. She glanced at them, her gaze pausing on Cerys in that evaluating way she knew only too well—the way of one young lady of status and ambition taking the measure of the competition. Then she blinked, as if in recognition, but in the vague sense of not being able to attach a context or a name to a face that strikes a chord. Cerys smiled sweetly and turned back to Mame.

“Do you know her?” Mame didn’t miss a thing. It made her adept at reading a crowd, gauging their level of patience for a fumbled speech, a miscued entrance, Meek forgetting his role as an extra and standing agape, staring at the audience.

“Perhaps she saw one of our performances. Perhaps she’ll come see our Hamlet. I’ll ask her to like it excessively, in the hopes that Lady Baeccon will stand by her promise to have his lordship fund our theater if so.”

“You are avoiding my question.”

“About which Thompson I would prefer, given a choice? Neither, I thank you.”

“I would only advise you not to turn away an opportunity with a man who loves you truly to let yourself toy with a man whose heart is iron.”