“You are underestimating the depths to which people’s minds can sink. Most people will assume Somerton is having his cake and eating it, too. After all”—Kitty swirled her champagne, her eyes meeting Lola’s over the rim of her glass—“he always did find you quite a scrumptious slice of cake.”
“Denys would never do what you’re suggesting! He’s far too honorable. And,” she added before her friend could say something cynical about the baser aspects of the masculine nature, “I wouldn’t let it happen. Why would I?”
“Why?” Kitty tilted her head as if pondering the question. “Hmm . . . let’s see. He’s good-looking, rich, a viscount, a future earl, and a very nice fellow who once had quite a passion for you. Yes, why, indeed?”
“I ended our affair,” she reminded her friend hotly. “I left him for another man.”
Kitty shrugged, running one finger idly around the rim of her glass. “You wouldn’t be the first woman who’d broken things off with a chap and taken up with another only to realize she’d made a mistake.”
“I did not make a mistake! I left him for a man who knew what I was, who would never expect me to become something I could never be. We are both better off, and Denys would agree.”
“I’m sure he would.”
Her friend’s mild agreement only impelled Lola to hammer the point home. “Lady Georgiana will make him a much more suitable wife than I ever would have. And,” she added as Kitty opened her mouth again, “I’d never become entangled with another woman’s sweetheart! How could you think I would?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Kitty held up a placating hand. “I’m not impugning your character. But I am concerned for you. Are you certain you and Somerton can work together?”
“We have to. It’s the only sensible thing to do.”
“Very sensible,” Kitty agreed gravely, but Lola caught a distinct hint of amusement in that reply. Before she could decide, however, the other woman spoke again. “What are you doing three weeks from tomorrow? There’s a flower show that day in Regent’s Park. It’s for charity—London hospitals, army widows, or some such. I bought two tickets, thinking my flat mate and I would go, but she can’t, I’m told. Care to take her place?”
“I’d love to, but I’m not sure I’ll be free. Rehearsals run on Saturdays, too.”
“Only until noon at the Imperial, and the flower show isn’t until three o’clock. You’ll be done in plenty of time. Say you’ll come. You ought to see something of London since it’s the season, and you can’t work all the time. Unless, of course, you’re using work to keep your mind off a particular man?”
“Stop it, Kitty.”
“I know, I know. It shall be all business between you two from now on,” her friend went on blithely, “and he’s going to marry Lady Georgiana, and all’s well that ends well.”
As Lola envisioned a lifetime of being Denys’s platonic, indifferent acquaintance while he married the elegant, well-bred, and oh-so-suitable Lady Georgiana, she found the picture a bit . . . depressing. “Yes,” she said. “All’s well that ends well.”
“Then why,” Kitty murmured, “do you suddenly look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lola pasted on an indifferent expression and reached for the champagne, reminding herself that there was no point in worrying about the future. She had more than enough to worry about in the present.
“You’ve done what?”
The question was a roar so loud that even Denys, who was prepared for just this sort of reaction from the earl, couldn’t help but grimace. Conyers’s fist slammed down on the dining table so hard that the silver rattled, the footman jumped, and Monckton, the ideal personification of the unflappable English butler, nearly dropped the port decanter.
“I allowed Miss Valentine to audition for Othello, and Jacob cast her as Bianca.”
Hearing it for the second time didn’t seem to make any difference. His father continued to stare at him across the dining table, and though the smoke of his after-dinner cigar hung thick in the air between the two men, it couldn’t mask the baffled fury of his expression. “Are you mad?”
There were times in Denys’s life when his involvement with Lola had made him go rather off the rails, but this time, he knew he did not have that excuse. All he had was the truth.
“She was good, Father. She was very, very good. I realize,” he added, as the earl made a scoffing sound, “you may not think me a fair judge in that regard, but Jacob couldn’t be accused of any such bias. He wanted her for the part.”
“I’d have thought Jacob to be possessed of more sense than that. Am I the only man on God’s earth that woman hasn’t been able to captivate?”
“He called her performance sublime.”
“I don’t believe it for a moment. That dancing girl? You and Jacob are both daft. And besides,” he added before Denys could get a word in, “Bianca’s a small part. Nothing to it. Surely, any number of women who auditioned would have done just as well.”
“For Bianca, perhaps you’re right.” He paused, knowing he was about to step onto some very thin ice. “But not to understudy Desdemona.”
“Lola Valentine as Desdemona?” His father stared at him, looking as appalled as Denys had anticipated. “Good God.”
“She’s not playing Desdemona,” he hastened to point out. “She’s merely understudying the role.”
“Even so . . .” The earl’s voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard before speaking again. “You cannot be serious about this.”
“I’m afraid I am. Though I take little pleasure in the fact, Lola Valentine’s reading of Desdemona was the best of the day, and one of the finest either Jacob or I had ever seen. If you had been there, you would have agreed.”
“I doubt it. Why the devil did you allow her an audition in the first place?”
“She requested one. I deemed it wise to accommodate her.”
The earl’s sound of outrage interrupted him. “Devil take it, I wish I could understand, but I can’t. I simply can’t.” He paused to down the last of his port, then went on, “What is it about that woman that impels you to abandon every scrap of good sense you possess?”
The question was one the earl had asked quite often during Denys’s misspent youth, but in this case it was hardly warranted. “Like it or not, she is our partner, Father,” he pointed out. “To some extent, we have to cooperate with her.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Then it’s clear you don’t recall the bylaws of the partnership agreement. She is within her rights to oppose me on any decision I make. An audition seemed a small price to pay for her cooperation. I didn’t think she’d actually earn a part. But she defied my expectations.”
“That woman defies many things, including decency,” Conyers muttered, waving Monckton forward to pour him another port.
Denys chose to ignore that. They’d had that particular argument about Lola often enough in the past. “By allowing Jacob to cast her in the play, with two roles for which to prepare, she’ll have no time and little cause to make trouble. And acting’s always been her ambition. In a small way, we’re allowing her to satisfy it. Where’s the harm in that?”
“The plan was to get rid of her, not pacify her!”
“I made her an offer. She refused.” He spread his arms in a gesture of inevitability. “What would you have had me do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” The earl rubbed a hand irritably around the back of his neck. “Keep raising the offer until she agreed.”