Page 68 of A Contracted Spouse for the Prizefighter

He breathed out. “Do you need your nightgown?”

“Clem,” she gurgled with laughter. “Stop fussing!”

I’ll leave you to it, then.” She murmured some response and Clem made his way back to bed. He could not settle for the next few minutes until she emerged, still naked, and crossed the room to climb into the bed next to him.

He scanned her face to check she had spoken the truth and, finally satisfied, passed his arms around her, urging her closer to his chest. Dora snuggled into his side, and they lay in perfect silence a moment. “I don’t want you to think I’m making a huge commotion,” he began heavily, “but I would like some reassurance that all is well with you,” he confessed.

She lifted her head. “Perfectly well, I assure you,” she said and lightly patted his chest. A thoughtful look spread over her face. “I understand how things work now. Even the slow buildup makes perfect sense. I mean, you were making me ready of course, but also because the main act is over with so quickly. I thought you were needlessly teasing me,” she confessed. “But now I comprehend.”

Clem tensed. When he finally managed to speak, even he could hear the strain in his voice. “It’s—er—not usually over with that quickly,” he admitted. “I was too … excited. Next time I will last longer.”

“Oh,” was Dora’s only reply. She sounded politely skeptical.

Clem cleared his throat and tried to think of a convenient change of subject. “Tell me about this dirty play of yours,” was the only thing that sprang to mind.

“What dirty play?” Dora shifted against him, sounding startled. Likely she had been dropping off to sleep, but Clem wanted to hear her voice. He did not care to examine why.

“The one with the cunnilingus in it.”

“Oh, that.” She gave a chuckle. “It wasn’t dirty. It was Shakespeare. The one character makes a sort of rude jest about it, scandalizing the other. It’s part of their wooing.”

“Sounds interesting.” He might not know what intimate speech they could have at this point, but he knew one way to get her talking. “You ever put any Shakespeare on at The Parthenon?” he asked casually.

She took the bait at once. “I wish,” she responded with more energy, propping a hand under her chin. “But Shakespeare is considered risqué these days. Do you know, that in recent years people have started cutting huge swathes out of his text to sanitize his plays for public consumption? I consider it practically a crime. Felix agrees. He says if we can’t put on Shakespeare in its entirety then it is better to avoid it altogether.”

“Seems a shame.”

“Yes,” Dora agreed sadly, “but if the play gained notoriety, then it would not make any money anyway and likely respectable folk would boycott us altogether.”

Clem considered her serious expression. “Sometimes,” he said slowly, “notoriety can have the opposite effect, you ever think of that?”

“The opposite effect?”

“Audiences may not be actively boycotting The Parthenon,” he pointed out, “but they’re not exactly flocking to pack out its seats either, are they?”

“No, that is quite true,” Dora agreed. She considered him with a fascinated expression that made his heart stutter to a stop. What was she thinking? “So … your idea is that we could draw a different crowd altogether?” she asked, and he felt his spirits plummet a little. Plainly, Dora had been thinking of his business acumen. He would rather some of his other skills had put that expression on her face.

He nodded, clearing his throat. “Your respectable dentists and barristers are not exactly keeping the place afloat, are they? If your middle-class patrons strike you off their calling card, there’s still the upper and lower classes to appeal to.”

Dora’s eyes gleamed. “And Shakespeare would be so perfect for that, Clem, especially his comedies,” she enthused. “In his day, he catered to the nobility and the peasantry alike. His plays are full of low humor as well as more classical highbrow themes. His characters run the full gamut of humanity.”

Clem only loosely followed what she was saying. He’d had a schooling, but it had not been a particularly good one. Shakespeare was a mystery to him. Still, he liked how it lit her face up to talk about it. “Maybe we should suggest it to your brother and Allsop,” he suggested lightly.

Her face clouded over. “We could,” she agreed without conviction, “but Felix is so cautious sometimes and it’s hard to sway him once his mind is made up.”

For a moment, Clem considered telling her the truth about just how much of the theatre was now in his greedy grasp. Then he recalled that Allsop also held a twenty-five percent interest and was likely too weak to stand up to Fields. That would make a fifty percent split of the board on any decisions. For this reason and this reason alone, he put off telling her.

It was absolutely nothing to do with the blissful post-coital glow he was enjoying right now or the fact he was basking in Dora’s unquestioning faith these days. Dismissing any disquieting thoughts or rumblings from his unusually active conscience, Clem simply looped an arm about her shoulders and drew her in closer.

It wasn’t cuddling, he told himself firmly. It was just … married things. There was a lot more to marriage than he had ever realized, was his last thought as his eyes drifted shut. Dora sighed against his shoulder and Clem felt his body finally relax into sleep.

EIGHTEEN

Theo awoke refreshed and invigorated the following morning. She felt wonderful, though she undoubtedly needed a bath. She had overslept and her husband’s side of the bed was already empty. He had snuck off to The Eagle and Sun without her, she thought wryly.

Of course, probably he imagined he was being a considerate husband, letting her sleep in, she thought, reaching for her cotton nightdress which was looped over the headboard. She was just struggling into it when a knock on the door startled her.

“Who is it?” she called out, hastening to pull down the fabric to decently cover herself.