Page 58 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

She disentangled her legs and dismounted. The floor wasn’t quite steady beneath her. She clung to Dante’s lapels, leaning on him even though he was the thing, for her own safety, she needed to tear herself from.

“Good heavens.” She groped for her voice, steeled herself to steadiness. “We let ourselves be carried away a bit, I should say. Dueling certainly rouses the…passions.”

He was not courting her. He was not imagining a future with her. She’d manufactured a pretense at courtship and she’d provoked him into lust. He couldn’t help it. He was a man, as he’d said, made of flesh, not marble. Men caved to their lusts all the time, she knew that.

If she gave all of herself to him, he would not hold her and never let go. It might be the most ardent of joinings—a passion she had never imagined—but it would end, and then where would she be? The same place she’d been before, but ruined, in more ways than one.

She readjusted her neckcloth, tying it quickly and giving him a bright smile. “I recall Dorsey said something about breakfast. I’m famished, aren’t you?”

Something haunted flickered through his eyes as she stepped away, a tightening of his expression that said he was bringing up his guard. She thought, as they replaced the stage foils in their trunk, that his hand brushing hers might have been an effort to hold her. But she pulled free, and he let her go.

She turned toward the doorway, still feeling as if the floor weren’t in its proper place, aware of his eyes burning into her back. Perhaps he thought her capricious. A tease. She didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth.

She’d gotten what she wanted—Dante Manelli, bent on seducing her—and now she didn’t know how to handle the feelings rising in her in response. She needed to end this charade before she became anymore a fool and did something irredeemable.

Like lose her heart.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dante was waiting for her in the library, and so Cerys went to the drawing room. She was not generally a coward, and in the usual run of things she took responsibility for her actions. But that kiss had rattled her deeply, and it was not advisable for her to be alone in a room with Dante Manelli at this time.

She might do something exceedingly foolish, like beg to know if there were a chance he might genuinely come to care for her, given time and a closer association.

She would almost certainly do something ill-advised, like kiss him again. At every opportunity.

The small parlor served the more intimate function of supporting the lady of the house in her duties of carrying out correspondence and taking calls. Lady Diana held court this morning, ensconced in one of the red velvet armchairs. Lady Diana made no effort at correspondence that Cerys could see. She left that task to her lady’s maid, who also discharged the functions of secretary, dresser, advisor, and companion at her mistress’s whim. Niblett was not in evidence this morning, and Cerys was glad, for she sensed the woman disapproved of actresses in general and Cerys in particular.

Lady Diana flicked through a lady’s magazine, skimming the long columns of prose but pausing at the poems. She looked matronly and comfortable in a rose silk morning gown with long muslin sleeves, lightly puffed at the shoulders and frilled at the cuffs.

Neither of them went well with the gold-green wallpaper, Cerys thought, but she guessed the Countess of Suffolk had chosen the color. The room was well-proportioned otherwise, with the customary high ceiling and two tall windows looking out onto the garden, draperies pulled against the fading effects of the sun. A small fire burned in the grate, even in spring, and Cerys smiled at the rich and their indulgences.

“Oh, good, you’re here, child.” Diana put away her magazine when she spotted Cerys. “You can help me entertain callers.”

Her gaze swept with approval over Cerys’s walking gown, dainty green checks on marcelline silk, with small puffs for sleeves and a frilled collar over the crossed bodice. Her skin bore a faint pink scrape from Dante’s kisses earlier that morning, but the collar would also hide the fiery blush that suffused her every time she thought of him.

“I was rather hoping to show you off,” Diana said. “I imagine any number of my visitors will want to talk about your performance, and praise me for my cleverness in allowing a woman-led Hamlet.” Diana pointed to the red divan near her, and Cerys sat.

“I should be happy to think our performance was well-received,” Cerys said. “And I’m grateful for the support of those who have promised to invest in the building of our theater.”

“Bathsheba Baeccon is still playing coy, but a woman like her can’t help it, I suppose. What does she have against you, child?”

Cerys took up The Lady’s Monthly Museum and paged through it. “Lady Baeccon dislikes me because I am endeavoring to engage the attentions of Mr. Manelli, and she wants him for herself.”

Diana watched her shrewdly. She had the same direct, unnerving stare as Cerys’s mother, and Cerys had the similar sense that the woman was peering into the workings of her head. Such as they were at the moment, creaking under the staggering blow she had taken that morning when she realized how much she wanted Dante Manelli.

Not as a ploy. Not as an architect. She wanted him.

“And what do you plan for Mr. Manelli, once you have him?”

That was the question, Cerys thought. She forced her tone to a casual lightness.

“Commission him to build us a theater. I think he could design us something impressive. Ideally, an edifice that becomes a fixture of Cheltenham, and perhaps even a landmark that will draw people to town.”

Diana narrowed her eyes. “And you plan to stay in Cheltenham, do you?”

Cerys shrugged. “For now. I am enjoying my acting career. I might yet make something of myself.”

“And what would your family think of that?”