“And you?” she couldn’t help asking. “Were you impressed?”
He stirred, as if the question made him uneasy. “You said your lines at the end in the wrong order.”
She waved that aside. “But do you think I’m any good?”
“Does it matter what I think?”
She held his gaze steadily. “Whether you believe it or not, your opinion has always mattered to me, Denys.”
“If that’s true, you’ve demonstrated it rather poorly in the past. Still,” he added before she could reply, “you did well today. Very well.”
She caught the surprise in his voice. “You didn’t think I would,” she said, watching his face. “Did you?”
“No,” he admitted, and looked away. “I did not.”
She studied his profile, knowing full well what his thinking had been. “You let me audition, but you were sure I’d fail. What did you think? That losing one part would send me off with my tail tucked in defeat?”
“Something like that,” he muttered, and looked at her again, his expression rueful. “I should have known better. Defeat is a circumstance you don’t seem to accept.”
She grinned. “Not for long, anyway. I’m to play Bianca, then?”
“Yes. And you’ll understudy Desdemona, too. If you think you can manage both?”
“You watch me.” She laughed, jubilant, exhilarated, and so, so relieved. “Thank you, Denys.”
“Thank Roth. He wanted you. He was quite adamant about it.”
“Well, we both know how you feel about me, so the two of you must have had quite a row on the topic.”
“On the contrary, we were in complete agreement. You rather stole the show.”
“Oh.” Lola stared at him, and in his countenance she saw—or thought she saw—a trace of the Denys she used to know, but it was gone before she could be sure. “So,” she said, forcing herself to speak. “Who did you choose to play the lead?”
“Arabella Danvers.”
“Ugh.” Lola groaned, seizing on that diversion like a lifeline. “You must be joking.”
“I never joke about business.”
Lola frowned, not quite convinced. She’d been jumpy as a cat on a hot sidewalk this morning, true enough, but if Arabella had auditioned, she was sure she’d have noticed. That woman was the sort who, when she arrived anywhere, made sure everyone noticed. “But Arabella didn’t audition today, did she?”
“Mrs. Danvers needs no audition. I offered her the part without one.”
Lola made a wry face at him. “So exceptions to the rules can be made for her but not for your partner.”
“She’s played Shakespeare. You haven’t. And she’s one of London’s most successful and popular actresses. You’re not.”
“Ouch.” Lola grimaced. “You don’t have to rub it in,” she grumbled. “And Arabella may be popular with audiences, but not with anyone else. You must know her reputation? It’s legendary. She’s temperamental, difficult—”
“A case of the pot and the kettle if ever there was one.”
“I’m serious, Denys. If you take on Arabella, you and Roth will be regretting it in a week.”
He clearly did not appreciate her opinion on the subject. “Disparaging Arabella isn’t going to gain you the lead, so stop angling for it.”
“I’m not! I’m just warning you what you’re in for. I believe Arabella would stab her own grandmother if she thought it would get her anything.”
“I doubt Jacob and I are in any danger. We don’t have to like her to appreciate her popularity or her talent.”
“Talent?” Lola couldn’t help offering a derisive snort. “If you say so.”
“You’ve hardly room to talk,” he pointed out dryly. “And given your animosity for her, I am wondering if you should be her understudy.”
“That’s not your decision, remember?” She gave him a look of triumph. “It’s Roth’s, and I think he likes me. And I won’t make any trouble, I promise. After all, the peace of our partnership is at stake.”
“You’re too good.”
That rejoinder impelled Lola to stick out her tongue at him, but it was a wasted effort, for he had already turned away.
“Rehearsals begin at nine o’clock in the morning, and they run six days a week, Monday through Saturday,” he said as he walked toward the door. “Bring your lunch with you, and don’t ever be late. Jacob hates to be kept waiting, and trust me, you don’t want to lose his goodwill. And Lola?”
He paused in the doorway to look at her over his shoulder. “When the play opens, don’t even think of sending Arabella a telegram from a dying aunt.”
She stuck up her chin, adopting a dignified air. “I would never do such a thing.”
He expressed the trust he had in that assurance with a brief, skeptical, “Uh-huh,” as he began to pull the door shut.
Lola, however, wasn’t about to let him escape before she got in the last word. “I wouldn’t,” she insisted. “Arabella doesn’t have an aunt.”
The door closed, but not before she heard his shout of laughter.
Lola stared at the closed door, astonished. She’d made him laugh. Maybe he didn’t hate her as much as she’d feared. Maybe they really could work together. She grinned. Maybe there was hope for this crazy partnership after all.
Chapter 7
“Ah . . . room service for supper.” Kitty set down her fork, dropped her napkin onto the tray in her lap, and leaned back against the sofa of Lola’s suite with a contented sigh. “What a treat.”
“But didn’t you say your lodging house serves meals in?” Lola asked, beckoning her maid to take the supper trays as she poured more champagne. “Is the cook no good?”
“It isn’t that.” Kitty stretched an arm toward her on the sofa to accept the refilled glass from her outstretched hand. “But Mrs. Morris’s cook doesn’t serve champagne, Lobster Newburg, braised ptarmigan, and gateau au chocolat!”
“I suppose not.” As she returned the champagne to the ice bucket on the cart beside her, Lola noted that the serving trays were now almost completely devoid of food. “We did eat an awful lot, didn’t we?”
“Too much.” Her friend grimaced, pressing a hand to her ribs. “When I suggested yesterday that we have supper together, you should have warned me you intended to order half the menu. I’d have left my corset at home.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about fitting into costumes anymore. Remember at the Théâtre-Latin how Madame Dupuy used to line us up in our corsets and give us the once-over before each show?”
“Oh, yes! What a terror she was. She’d look you over, and if you’d gained an ounce, she knew it. She’d slip her measuring tape around you, and if you weren’t laced tight enough, she relaced you then and there, tighter than you needed to be just to drive the point home. It’s a wonder some of us didn’t pass out on stage. Those were mad days, weren’t they?”
Her own champagne flute in hand, Lola faced her friend, propping her back against the arm of the sofa. “You sound as if you miss those days.”
“Sometimes I do.” Kitty faced her, mirroring Lola’s position at the other end of the sofa. “When I came home from Paris, I danced at the Gaiety for a bit. Now, I’m over there sometimes, arranging sets or painting scenery, and if I see the girls kicking up their legs in rehearsal, I feel quite a pang.”
“So why did you give it up?”
Kitty made a face, her doll-like nose wrinkling up a bit. “The usual reason.”
Lola understood at once. “A man?”
“His people didn’t think I was good enough for him, so we decided . . .” She paused, pain crossing her face, and she swallowed hard before she went on. “He decided we wouldn’t suit. He jilted me.”