When You're Desired (23 page)

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Authors: Tamara Lejeune

BOOK: When You're Desired
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“But, Sally!” he said, shocked. “We used to go to church every Sunday.”
“I remember.” She laughed suddenly. “Of course I'll go to church with you. It'll be great fun. I can hardly wait to see the looks on all their faces when the Duke of Berkshire brings his mistress to church! We'll have the whole town talking. ‘St. Lys is converted!' I may have to organize a revival of
The Fair Penitent
.”
Dorian's face fell. “Oh dear,” he murmured in dismay.
“What shall I wear? One simply
must
have something sensational to wear to church, don't you agree? I don't suppose you could lend me the Ascot emeralds?”
He smiled. “Why not?”
She laughed. “I was only teasing you,” she said quickly. “Why, if you took me to church and I was wearing the Ascot emeralds, people naturally would assume that—that—”
“That what, Sally? That we are engaged?”
“Well, yes.”
“Would that be so terrible?” he asked quietly.
Celia laughed lightly. “Your mother would go off like Mount Tambora!”
To her relief, he laughed, too. For a moment, she had feared he might be serious.
Chapter 14
Dorian did not mean to stay long at the Theatre Royal, but he was so warmly received by Celia's colleagues that he found he could not get away. With good grace he accepted the mocking cheers and applause from those who had witnessed his collapse the night before. Everyone was very glad to see the Duke of Berkshire so well recovered, and everyone wanted to shake his hand. Before he quite knew what was happening, Mr. Grimaldi had persuaded him to make a handsome contribution to the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, and Mr. Rourke had invited him to stay and give them the benefit of his opinion on the first dress rehearsal of the new play.
“Oh, I don't know,” Dorian said uncertainly. “I'm sure I'd only be in the way.”
“We are players,” Celia assured him. “We love an audience! Of course, you need not stay if you don't wish . . . I know how it pains you to see me on the stage.”
“Oh?” said Mr. Grimaldi. “I don't think she's as bad as all that, Your Grace. Though, between ourselves, she's not as good as she thinks she is. She tries, of course.”
“I do try,” said Celia. “I rehearse all day and I play all night. But I never seem to get any better.”
“You work too hard,” said Dorian. “You exhaust yourself. You should not rehearse and play on the same day—it's too much. We never did so at Eton.”
“At Eton, Your Grace?”
“Did I not tell you?” cried Celia. “His Grace is an actor, too. He did Shakespeare when he was at Eton. He was Polonius in
Hamlet.
”
“Hardly worth mentioning,” said Dorian, blushing. “I was also Aufidius in
Coriolanus
. And Brutus in
Julius Caesar
. Mind you, it was nothing like all this. We only did it for fun.”
Celia laughed. “
Coriolanus
?
Julius Caesar
? That's your idea of fun, is it?”
“As I was saying, my dear, you work too hard,” said Dorian. “Why don't I buy out the play tonight? Then you and everyone could have the night off, couldn't you? I'll take you to supper. I'll take you to Vauxhall Gardens. Anything you like.”
“Thank you, Your Grace!” exclaimed Joe Grimaldi appreciatively.
“Your Grace is not serious,” Celia said severely. “Are you, sir?”
“I most certainly am,” said Dorian, missing the import of her tone. “What would it cost to buy out the theatre tonight, Mr. Rourke?” he asked, calling out to the actor-manager. “A thousand pounds?”
“No one wants your money here,” Celia said indignantly.
“Speak for yourself,” said Joe Grimaldi. “I want his money. What's more, I'd love to go to supper and Vauxhall Gardens. So would Mrs. Grimaldi.”
“A thousand pounds would be more than adequate, Your Grace,” said Rourke.
“A
hundred
pounds would more than cover the house, Mr. Rourke,” Celia said coldly, “and you know it. How dare you try to take advantage of him!”
Dorian was surprised. “A hundred pounds? As little as that? I'll double it, Mr. Rourke. Oh, what the hell! Shall we say, an even five hundred pounds?”
“Your Grace!”
“Dorian!” Celia said sharply. “What do you think you are doing? You can't just come here and buy the house and shut down the play.”
“Of course he can,” said Mr. Grimaldi.
“No, he can't,” said Celia. “People have already bought tickets. I won't have them disappointed.”
“They'll get over it,” said Joe Grimaldi. “They'll get their money back.”
“They'll say you did it for me, Your Grace,” said Celia quietly. “They'll say that I let everybody down just so that I could go off on a binge of pleasure with you, the Duke of Berkshire. My public simply won't stand for it. I did not get to be where I am by forgetting all the little people who put me here. If they are kind enough to take the time to come and see us, we are going to give them a show.”
Dorian looked into her eyes and saw that she meant it. “Very well, my dear,” he said, after a moment. “Forgive my interference. It was kindly meant.”
Joe Grimaldi sighed.
“Are we going to have a rehearsal today or not?” cried Sybil Archer, sailing from the wings, fully made up and in costume for the part of Maria, waiting woman to the Countess Olivia. “Belinda and I have been waiting an age! Ah!” she sniffed, catching sight of Celia. “I see St. Lys has decided to grace us with her presence, after all.
Now
, perhaps, we can begin.”
“You might have started without me, dear,” said Celia. “After all, I'm not the one who needs the practice.”
“How dare you! Belinda is stepping into a new role on very short notice.”
“Indeed she is,” said Rourke unctuously, “and we're all most grateful—”
Mrs. Archer glared at him. “What do you mean you're
almost
grateful? You should be completely grateful!”
“No, Mrs. Archer,” he said quickly. “What I meant to say is that we are all
most
grateful,” he repeated slowly, minding his diction and enunciating each word. “Aren't we, Celia darling?”
“Yes indeed,” said Celia. “We are almost grateful.”
“I see you have brought a man with you,” said Mrs. Archer.
“Actually, he brought me,” said Celia. “May I present His Grace, the Duke of Berkshire. The
ninth
Duke of Berkshire.”
“The eleventh,” said Dorian. “Dear madam,” he went on, addressing Mrs. Archer, “if Miss St. Lys is late, you must not blame her. It is entirely my fault. I delayed her.”
Mrs. Archer stared at him. “Your Grace!” she exclaimed, with a simpering smile. “You honor us with your presence. May I present my daughter, Miss Belinda Archer? Belinda! Belinda! Dash it all—where is that girl?”
“Here, Mama,” said Belinda, stepping out from behind her mother. As the Countess Olivia, she wore full mourning for a dead brother, and a heavy black veil framed her enchanting little face. She executed a wobbly curtsy.
Dorian bowed to her. “I believe I owe
you
an apology, Miss Archer,” he told her. “You and your mama.”
Belinda's soft brown eyes widened. She looked, Celia thought rather sourly, like a frightened fawn. Some men, she supposed, found that helpless sort of female quite appealing. “An apology, Your Grace?” Belinda whispered, bewildered. “Whatever for?”
“You dined last night with my brother. Your evening was interrupted because of me, I believe. I—I fell ill quite suddenly. Do please forgive me.”
“I'm sure there is nothing to forgive, Your Grace,” Belinda told him prettily. “You could not help that you were ill.”
“No indeed,” put in Mr. Grimaldi. “It happens to the best of us.”
“I owe you an apology as well, Miss Archer,” said Celia.
“Y-you do?”
“Yes. It seems that Lord Simon sent you some flowers yesterday, but they were brought to my room by mistake. They were only wildflowers, so I'm afraid they didn't keep very well.”
“
Wildflowers
, Miss St. Lys?” said Mrs. Archer scornfully. “Are you sure? Surely a gentleman like Lord Simon would not send a girl wildflowers. He would send roses or lilies.”
Dorian laughed. “Oh, that's Simon, all right. When he likes a girl, he sends his valet down to the country to pick wildflowers for her. He says that anybody can get hothouse blooms, but wildflowers, you know, come from the heart.”
“Really?” Celia said coolly. “I thought they came from the dirt.”
Belinda frowned. “You mean he doesn't even pick them himself?” she cried indignantly. “He makes his valet do it?”
“I'm sure he tried picking them himself, dear,” said Celia. “But, you see, everything Lord Simon touches withers and dies.”
“Oh!” said Belinda, her eyes round. “Oh, I see.”
“Miss St. Lys is only joking you, of course,” Dorian told her.
“Oh!” said the girl brightly. “Then he
does
pick them himself?”
“Er . . . no,” said the duke. “The part about the valet is true. Miss St. Lys was joking about the withering and the dying.”
“Of course I was,” said Celia.
“I'm glad!” said Belinda earnestly. “He has asked to take me riding in the park tomorrow, and Mama says I must go. I should be very sorry to see anything wither and die.”
“I hope you are a good horsewoman, Miss Archer,” said Dorian. “You'll have to be able to keep up with my brother, I'm afraid.”
“No,” said Belinda. “I've never even sat on a horse. But Mama has furnished me with a very pretty green riding habit. And Mama says that Lord Simon will teach me.”
Dorian looked rather doubtful, but Celia said firmly, “Yes, of course he will. Just make sure he knows it's your first time, and I'm certain he'll be patient and gentle with you.”
“Yes, Miss St. Lys. I'll be sure to do that.”
Clapping his hands, Rourke called the actors gathered on the stage to order. Joe Grimaldi, who was to play the Countess Olivia's clown, showed Dorian to a seat at the front of the pit, and the rehearsal began with Rourke proclaiming rather grandly, as the Duke Orsino, “‘If music be the food of love . . . play on!'”
The first scene was so fully realized that Dorian applauded at its conclusion. “Oh, thank you, Your Grace,” said Rourke, coming to the proscenium. “I thought perhaps my timing was a little off . . . ?”
“Oh!” said Dorian, not realizing that the actor was only fishing for compliments. “Perhaps a little. Shall you try it again?”
The next scene, in which Celia made her first appearance as the shipwrecked Viola, was hardly more than a sketch. The actress ran through her lines with the captain, and did not even bother with the long speech at the end. Dorian was flabbergasted, but no one else seemed discomfited in the least. “You're—you're not going to do it like that, are you?” he called out as Celia was leaving the stage.
Celia laughed. “Of course not, Your Grace. I shall be drenched from head to toe in the white gown I showed you earlier.”
“W-white gown?” he repeated. “Drenched? But won't that make it rather more—”
“Rather more what, Your Grace?”
“Well! Rather more transparent than not, if you see what I mean.”
“I can't help that,” she replied. “There's been a shipwreck. I've been lost at sea. Naturally, I am going to be wet.”
“But must you wear a
white
gown?”
“Well, you see, Your Grace . . . First of all, I am a virgin—” Naturally, someone coughed, though Dorian could not tell who. “That is to say,
Viola
is a virgin,” Celia corrected herself. “And virgins wear white, don't they? Besides, Your Grace, it's important for the audience to see that I am actually a woman, because for the rest of the play, I'm dressed as a man.”
“Oh, I see,” said Dorian, faintly. “Carry on, then.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
The scene shifted to the Countess Olivia's house, and Joe Grimaldi mounted the stage.
All was well until Celia and Belinda's first scene together. Nothing seemed to work for Miss Archer. Even with allowances made for the fact that she was stepping into the role of Olivia on short notice, it was clear she was drowning in the part.
“I am so sorry, Miss St. Lys,” she cried, bursting into tears after flubbing her lines for the tenth time. “I just get so nervous when you look at me like that, and you say those things to me.”
“I am not wooing you for myself, child,” Celia explained impatiently. “I am wooing you on behalf of the duke. I don't even like you. In fact, I hate you, because the duke is in love with you, and I am in love with the duke.”
“The duke is in love with me?”
“No, idiot! Mr. Rourke is in love—aargh!
Orsino
is in love with Olivia. Viola is in love with Orsino. We are rivals for the same man, Miss Archer.”
“I understand all that, Miss St. Lys. It's just the part where I am supposed to—to
like
you—Viola—Cesario, I mean. I know I'm supposed to think you are a man, but I'm afraid . . . well . . . all I see is Miss St. Lys in breeches! I'm sorry, Miss St. Lys—but I simply
cannot
make love to you! It's unnatural, if you see what I mean.”
Celia quickly became exasperated. Dressed in her sky-blue dolman, white leather breeches, and top boots, with her hair tied back ruthlessly, she looked as masculine as she possibly could. “Would it help if I put on the mustache?” she offered.

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