Page 93 of Regency in Color

Frank nodded toward a closed door on the opposite end of the sitting room. “You haven’t seen the best part.”

Curious, Andie followed him. To her considerable shock, the next room was his bedroom. She hesitated before going inside until he continued through and opened another door on the far wall. Moonlight and cold air spilled into the dark space. “This way.”

Feeling braver by the moment, Andie followed him, speaking a glance at his room along the way. The light was too poor to make out much of anything, but he appeared to have an old-fashioned canopy bed. It had probably come with the theater and the corpse of an Elizabethan playwright in it. The wall facing the bed seemed to be made of books—hundreds if not thousands stacked in no apparent order on shelves that extended all the way to the high ceiling. Andie wouldn’t have expected an East End musician to have quite so many, but everything about Frank was unexpected.

Closing the door behind her, Andie climbed a narrow set of steps to the roof. It was the same roof Lulu had shown her before, but another way of accessing it. They walked between the chimneys and the edge of the massive thatch roof to the terrace in the center.

Frank took a deep breath of the cool night air and visibly relaxed. “This is my favorite place.”

Above them, stars filled the sky like foil confetti. Below, the lights of the city flickered golden paths along the labyrinth of streets. This high up, it was quiet and still, and the air seemed fresher somehow. It was a secluded piece of heaven in the middle of all the madness. “I can see why.”

Pouring them another two glasses of rum, Frank tapped on the roof with his foot. “You know, most theaters of this period don’t have these. They used to leave the tops open to let in the air and light. The potters kept it that way until it flooded with rain and ruined their clay, so they put up a cheap roof to try to stop it happening. Trouble is, it never really stops raining in these parts, so they didn’t stick around long. When the next theater owner bought it back in 1665, he kept it up for the sake of the people staying here after the Great Fire, and he liked it so much that he put in a permanent roof around 1670.”

“How do you know all this?” Andie asked as she accepted the glass of rum.

“There was a crack in it when I bought the place.”

Almost dropping her glass, Andie took a step back.

Frank put up a reassuring hand and laughed. “Not to worry—we fixed the crack and reinforced the whole thing. I found signatures and dates from the original builders beneath the eaves. They’re still there.” He smiled as he sipped his rum. “That’s when we put in the chandelier.”

A few wooden benches were arranged in a loose circle around the middle. Andie picked one and sat facing the full moon. It didn’t escape her notice that Frank kept saying “we.” She knew she was prying, but she had to ask, “When did Lulu’s mother pass?”

“Pass?” Frank sat beside her and set the bottle of rum on the floor. “Is that what Lu told you? Too many gothic novels. Can’t imagine where she gets it,” he deadpanned. “No, we haven’t seen her for years. I have no idea where she is.”

Andie’s mouth dropped open. “You seem remarkably unbothered for someone with a missing wife.”

“We were never married.” Frank pulled a thin cigar from behind his ear—when had he picked that up?—and lit it with a match. “I suppose I shouldn’t admit that.” He cringed and exhaled a plume of smoke away from her face. “She was a dancer I met on tour in Italy. Mira. I was playing with an orchestra at the time, and we weren’t there for long. She caught up with me in Frankfurt two years later and dropped Lu in my lap. I offered to marry her—seemed the right thing to do—but she told me to fuck myself and went back to Sienna. She named her Lucrezia; I think she was hoping Lu would poison me.”

Andie didn’t know what to say. “I’m…erm, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He took a long drag. “We do all right. Don’t let the kohl and the confetti fool you—this isn’t some sad story about a clueless father and his poor motherless child. Lu goes to school, she eats properly, and she has everything she needs. Since Mira brought her to me, my daughter has been the center of my universe, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Andie didn’t doubt it. Good fathers were so rare. Though her own had been marvelous, most of her friends’ fathers were distant, cold, or outright hostile. It spoke volumes that Frank wasn’t like that. If Andie ever had a husband—and she still very much doubted she ever would—she hoped he’d be someone like Frank.

A faint tickle crept up the back of her neck. Another imaginary “spider.” She gently scratched it. She wasn’t ready to crush the poor thing. “I think that’s absolutely wonderful.”

He met her gaze. “You do?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Lulu’s lucky to have you.”

Frank smiled around the cigar, looking at the moon. “I’m lucky to have her. She’s the reason I do this, you realize. The shows. If not for her, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do it for myself.”

Andie sipped her rum slowly, enjoying the mellow smell of the tobacco. Up here, Frank was the only warmth in the night, and she found herself leaning a little closer to his shoulder. “Perhaps you’re braver than you think.” She sighed. “Most of the people I grew up with did the opposite. My closest friends married and had children young, and they gave up their interests and very identities. These are people who have armies of servants, nannies, and governesses at their disposal—they’re so restricted by what society expects them to do, expects a mother to be, that they moved out to the country one by one and just…faded away.”

Frank didn’t say anything for a moment. With a sinking feeling, Andie realized she’d all but admitted her station.

As his shoulders started to shake, Andie realized Frank was laughing. “What?”

“You look so panic-stricken.” He smiled at her in the moonlight. “I knew you were a lady the moment you walked in the door.”

Oddly, that didn’t calm her a single bit. “You did?”

He stopped hiding his laughter. “Obviously. How many fishwives do you think look like you?”

Andie folded her arms. “What do you mean by that?”

Frank snorted. “Beautiful. Elegant. Queenly.” He rolled a hand as if making a bow to a monarch. “Your borrowed clothes aren’t fooling anyone. I’ve known opera singers my whole life, and not one of them brought the light with her when she walked into a room like you do.”