Page 49 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

“On the contrary, I think you are accustomed to arranging things exactly as you like them, Bathsheba,” Dante returned. “And as to the question of whether Miss Evans’s performance was well done.” He turned to face Cerys. “I think we all agree that she was magnificent.”

Cerys stared back at him, her eyes wide and luminous. Her lids had been heavily lined with kohl to make them stand out, and her lashes were thicker than ever. The red of her lips against the pallor of her cheeks made him want to cup her face in his palms. Kiss a blush onto her cheeks.

“You liked it?” she asked softly.

“I was transported. I never understood Hamlet until now.”

He didn’t realize he had extended his hand until she took it. Her hand was ungloved, and her warm palm pressed against his skin. His tug on her hand was equally unconscious, born of a compulsion deeper than rational thought. She stepped toward him, and then she was beside him, and he breathed in a different way, because it felt right that she should be there, and that he should be touching her. Holding her. Filling his senses with her, and wanting to never let go.

Dorsey strolled up to them, his smile beaming triumph. Baeccon followed in his wake, looking likewise pleased with himself. His lordship surveyed the crowd, his gaze falling on his wife, eyes narrowing. Quickly she stepped to his side, tearing her gaze from the sight of Cerys and Dante standing with clasped hands.

“Twenty thousand pounds Thompson has promised us,” Dorsey said to Cerys. “That’s a nice cornerstone, wouldn’t you say?”

“And the others made their pledge,” Thompson said genially. “Appears you’ll get your theater, eh, Dorsey?”

“If Mr. Manelli produces the designs that will woo subscribers, and the builders are an honest company.” Dorsey grinned.

“My love.” Bathsheba put a hand on her husband’s arm. “No need to be hasty.”

“You’ll make a sensation with this actress in your leading roles,” Diana said grandly. “But how did you think to make her your Hamlet, Dorsey?”

“Had to put her in when Hackett was sick in Cirencester.” He grinned. “Stayed four weeks later than we expected. People came from miles around to see a girl playing Hamlet.”

“I still say it is vulgar.” Bathsheba’s gaze rested on Cerys, then, as if she could not help herself, slid downward to see her hand still clasped with Dante’s.

“You say many things, milady.” Baeccon twitched his wife’s hand from his arm. “But I daresay this, finally, will be an investment that will pay off.”

Lady Diana raised her brows but did not comment. “I’ll see about having the servants lay refreshments in here, since everyone seems to be so cozy,” she said to Andover. “Come along, Prudie.”

“Of course, my dear. Will there be comfits?”

The Baeccons moved off as well, Bathsheba following in her lord’s wake, and the investors converged to talk with Dorsey. Dante stood apart, and Cerys stayed with him. He saw others watching them and knew that their closeness would have them courting, if not affianced in the eyes of their audience. But that was what she’d intended, wasn’t it? To protect him from Bathsheba.

But he didn’t know how to protect her.

“You’ve bested Bathsheba,” he said, looking down into her sweetly curved face. “She will look for a way to retaliate. She hates to lose.”

“I do not fear her, and I do not fear losing,” Cerys answered, her manner calm.

“What do you fear?” Dante asked curiously, for as far as he could tell, this girl feared nothing.

She searched his face with her gaze, and something there gave her pause. She hesitated, then disentangled her hand from his. His palm felt cold with absence.

“I fear forgetting which is the illusion, and which is the real,” she said quietly. Then she turned to face the next wave of admirers who swept forward to effuse and exclaim over her, and Dante was left to ponder her words, and the strange ache that would persist in his chest, and deepened when she stepped away from him.

He feared he might wish to stay in the illusion.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dante had liked her Hamlet.

I never understood Hamlet until now, he’d said.

But those dark, magnificent eyes had said something else. Something that might have been, I never understood you until now.

Which would be a fair assessment. They’d only strolled together in the open air of Cheltenham’s walks and promenades, consulted sketches in the library, made desultory talk at dinners and in parlors, and shared a scintillating kiss in the moonlight. He had only seen polite Cerys, public Cerys, Dorsey’s Cerys. Set on learning her role and playing it until she achieved her desired end.

Seeing her act, he would see more of her. He would see how much she loved it. He would see how she felt like she held different worlds inside of her, different personalities even, and acting was the way she could explore lives and characters that were not her own. If he were paying attention—and it seemed he was paying attention, watching her always with those dark, hooded eyes—he would see how much she enjoyed prying into the head of another being and learning their workings. That said a great deal about her, she supposed.