Page 87 of A Contracted Spouse for the Prizefighter

Clem could not stand it any longer. “Excuse me,” he said shortly and strode away leaving Nat open-mouthed and staring after him. No sooner had he entered the concert hall than another, louder burst of laughter regaled him. Clem nearly jumped out of his skin, his startled gaze darting over the seated audience.

“Look at ‘im!” hooted an older looking in an aisle seat to his left. “’E don’t know what to do wiv’ ‘er, now ‘e’s got ‘er where ‘e wanted ‘er!”

“Bitten off more’n ‘e can chew!” her companion agreed, nudging her in the ribs. They both guffawed.

Clem’s eyes sought out the only person who counted. Dora, or rather Piccadilly Percy, was sauntering with seeming insouciance toward a lacquered screen, behind which, Lil was elaborately refreshing her toilette. Clem could have sworn Percy gave an almost audible gulp, though how he could hear such a thing at this distance from the stage was debatable.

The crowd tittered. Percy adjusted his too-tight collar and peered over the top as Lil adjusted how much of her ample breasts showed above her low-cut neckline, squeezing her bosoms together. Percy’s eyes practically stood out on stalks.

The crowd chortled again as Percy practically reeled back from the screen and, to Clem’s astonishment, reached down to adjust his breeches in a casual move that spoke of an intimate knowledge of the male anatomy. In a man, such a move was self-explanatory, from a male impersonator, it was frankly shocking.

A spurt of startled laughter burst from the audience that developed into a rolling belly laugh as Percy glanced about self-consciously before assuming his previous swagger and approached the screens once more for a second look. It was tame enough stuff, Clem told himself uneasily, as he watched Lil lavishly applying the powder brush.

On noticing she was observed by her young swain once more, the older woman cocked a knowing eye at the audience before fluttering the brush teasingly across her décolletage. Once more the audience abrupted into gales of laughter at Percy’s exaggeratedly stricken response. Clem had to admit, they were both putting it over well.

The audience, he noticed, was entirely captivated by the turn. This was no easy thing to achieve in such an unruly place as The Eagle and Sun. Usually, only the most popular and top-billed turns could command the entire audience’s attention like this. The rest had to put up with the fact that, at any one time, there would be a fracas going on in one corner and a private joke in another.

But right now, all faces were turned toward the stage, utterly diverted. They were lapping it up. The piano keys jangled under Allsop’s fingertips into a catchy tune with the refrain, “Oh, he may think he’s cock o’ the walk, but my fine fellow is nothing but talk.” He had to admit, Dora had spoken perfect the truth about Lillian Longdon’s voice. It was fine and strong and soared out with a purity he had not expected. In her day, Lil must have been quite a looker and that teamed with her voice should have got her to the top.

She also didn’t hold back with the innuendo and was entirely unblushing as she collared hold of Dora’s skittish dandy and dragged him mercilessly into her boudoir. Strange to say, Clem did not find himself remotely inclined to laugh along with the crowd. He supposed he was wound too tight to appreciate the humor of the situation.

He was also far too distracted by the crowd’s appreciation, which was almost jaw-dropping. Was it possible he had lost his impartiality or was the act really going down as well as he seemed to think it was? He gave his head a quick shake before returning his bemused gaze to the stage.

Nervous Percy was a tottering mess by this point as Lil pushed herself up against him at every opportunity, squeezing herself past him one minute and seizing hold of his trembling hands to place them on her hips or the bodice of her gown another as she serenaded him with a number called “Oh, he’s never dipped his toe before, just shilly-shallied in the shallows.” The crowd whooped and hooted with laughter as Percy squirmed and stammered out his responses.

Percy’s hands shook so hard as he gulped down a glass of water that he spilled almost the entirety of it before collapsing into the chair, overcome with a heady combination of nerves and lust. Clem almost found himself wincing in sympathy at Dora’s portrayal of a young man untutored in the ways of the world. The way she hit on the uneasy combination of bombast and vulnerability was almost uncomfortable for him to watch.

Moreover, how the fuck did she know how to work a crowd like that? He could accept that Lil was an old hand, but Dora, his own sweet and slightly clueless Dora, embodying a young man at risk of shooting his shot prematurely—and doing it for laughs—was mind-boggling to Clem. He knew how inexperienced she was with the opposite sex, so how the hell was her portrayal so accurate?

The crowd was warbling along with the chorus now as the piano struck up a last refrain. “Oh, he thinks he’s cock o’ the walk …” Clem stood frowning deeply, his arms crossed as their turn came to an end. As the last line died away, Lil hitched her skirts and straddled the seated Percy as the curtain came down.

The hall burst into delighted laughter. Moments later, the curtain lifted to show Percy still sat looking dazed, with his collar burst open and lip stain all over his face. Lil was now kneeling at Dora’s feet, wiping a finger around her lips suggestively. The crowd roared with hilarity. Jesus Christ, Clem thought. He supposed he should be glad her breeches weren’t unfastened.

Dora swiftly rose from her seat, taking Lil’s hand and kissing it theatrically. “Mrs. Lillian Longdon,” she proclaimed, beaming as the crowd gave thunderous applause. She led Lil to the side, front and center of the stage where Lil curtseyed again and again to rapturous appreciation before turning back to Dora.

“And Mrs. Dora Dabney as Piccadilly Percy!” Lil shouted, raising her own hands to clap in Theodora’s direction.

Before Clem’s bemused gaze, half the hall clambered to their feet, whistling and clapping and shouting for an encore. “Give us another one, Perce!” someone roared loudly from the back. “Another!” went up the cry which echoed about the hall. “Another one!”

Larry his announcer was hovering at the side of the stage. He turned an enquiring look in Clem’s direction. Clem gave the nod, and the pianist broke into another rendition of “He’s Never Dipped his Toe Before” as Clem turned on his heel and strode back out of the hall. He needed a stiff drink. Maybe two of them.

She’d looked more than comfortable up on that stage. She’d looked good. Damn good. He had thought he would be consoling a distraught Dora in his arms by this point. Now, as things stood, he was not sure he did not have a sensation on his hands. It would take him a moment or two to wrap his head around the fact.

Dora might make a tall and rather gangly female, but the joke of it was, that she made an elegant, fashionable young man. He had found it hard to even see his wife in the dapper, debonair figure she cut, swaggering about the stage, before the abrupt turnabout when she switched to bashful puppyhood, showing Percy was all talk.

Clem had no sooner swallowed down his first whiskey than someone appeared at his elbow. “Dabney,” said a deep familiar voice.

Clem turned. “Ben!” he exclaimed, snapping abruptly out of his strange mood. “Finally, you come to see us up and running!” He gripped his friend’s shoulder. “Took your sweet time about it!”

Benedict Toomes grinned. “Aye, well I’ve had a few other things on my mind,” he admitted.

Clem grinned, for his friend had lately won the English Heavyweight Championship in eight rounds. “Congratulations by the way.”

Ben looked surprised. “Someone told you then?” He looked faintly disappointed.

Clem frowned. “I was there, you fool. On Epsom Downs. Didn’t get the chance to shake your hand on the night but—”

“Not that,” Ben laughingly interrupted him. “I’m to be a father this summer. Lizzie’s expecting.”