Page 60 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

“I always want the company of a woman of sense, and you can join me. I’m lecturing your girl on romance, and how to be wise about it.”

Mame took another red velvet chair that sat near them and picked up the Monthly Museum. “Do romance and wisdom ever go together? I hope you are warning her not to lose her head over an Italian architect.”

“Too late for that.” Diana snorted.

“I beg your pardon,” Cerys said, smoothing the checks of her skirt now that she had nothing to do with her hands.

“Oh dear, is it?” Mame studied Cerys with careful attention, noting the collar and no doubt the flush rising to her cheeks. “I was afraid so.”

“I have not lost my head over anyone,” Cerys lied.

“She’s all but spouting poetry and pulling flowers petals to guess how much he loves her,” Diana said, settling back in her chair.

“To madness, I think. But madness is temporary, is it not?”

“That is my fear,” Cerys admitted. It did no good decrying her emotions if she were being so obvious. “I won’t be a mooncalf.”

“But will you let yourself be ruined?” Mame’s shrewd gaze didn’t waver.

“If by ruined you mean left with a babe in my belly, I won’t,” Cerys said. “I’ve seen too often how that can go, for mother and child.” Her mother had sworn often enough that, after Jan Van Der Welle had drowned, Dovey feared she and her child would starve until they found Gwen and the great, ruined abbey to shelter them.

“There are other ways to be ruined.” Mame tapped a finger on a colored plate of the magazine.

That, too, was her fear. That she would love and not be requited, and the ache would be something she could not live with. The world might have denied Cerys Van Der Welle Evans many advantages, but she had been spoiled with love. It was another character flaw to be held against her. She did not know if she could bear this, wanting Dante Manelli to desire her in the real ways, not in the ways of fleeting passion, but in the ways of a man who had found the woman he wanted to bind himself to for life.

She surprised herself with her own thoughts. She wanted that much from him, did she?

Yes. After this morning’s kiss, and the fire that came roaring to life inside her, she was left with a hunger for all of him. Not just his touch. Not just his architectural designs. She wanted his attention, she wanted his adoration, and she wanted his kisses.

She wanted everything. She wanted something real.

“Did you marry for love?” Cerys returned Mame’s study. “Or for an arrangement?”

“Both, I thought at the time.” Mame traced a finger over the picture in her lap as if the image held the answer to a secret. “But he changed the terms, so I had to change mine also. I told him if he ever struck me again while he was drunk, I would leave him and take the children. I kept my promise.”

Cerys forced her hands to stay flat in her lap and not fidget with her collar, which suddenly felt too tight. Dorsey’s players never spoke much of their past to one another. To many, the troupe offered a chance to start life anew. But this was important, and she’d never known. “How long ago?”

“Fifteen years ago or more.”

“You do not have children with you now,” Diana observed.

“They are all in their own homes now, safe and happy,” Mame said. “At least, as far as I know.”

“It seems very often that a woman can attach herself to a man and not find him a safe anchor at all. I do not think marriage a state much to be desired,” Cerys said.

“Then you plan a temporary liaison with your architect?” Diana asked. “An affaire?”

But she didn’t want something passing with Dante, either. If she did, she’d have acted the scene through to completion this morning. She would have let him take her right there in the grand saloon, and she would have gloried in the discovery of him, in the fulfillment of passion. She would have savored the exchange until the consequences came home to her, which they were bound to do.

She wanted to be more to him than a passing fancy.

Cerys looked down at her knees. She was moving her palms along the fabric as if she were one of the witches from Macbeth, trying to conjure a future from wisps of smoke.

What was this ache in her, that she wanted to be loved and seen? Why did it matter if what he felt was not lasting and real? She could enjoy the momentary pleasure anyway.

But it wouldn’t be enough. She stood on the precipice of something great and terribly frightening with him, and she wanted him to join her there.

Buckle, the butler, entered the room and made a small bow. Another woman filled the doorway behind him. “Lady Diana, Lady Baeccon wishes to congratulate you on the great success of the play you hosted a day past, and express how much she is honored in having you dedicate the performance to her.”