“She won’t do it,” said Lord Archer with firm finality.
“I won’t?” snapped Valentina. She’d about had it with this nob sticking his nose into her affairs. “How dare you.”
A single blonde eyebrow lifted with surprise. “So, you will do it?”
“I most definitely won’t,” she returned. “But that’s for me and Mr.Degrass to sort out.”
“Well, I say you will,” blustered Mr. Degrass. “Or…or…”
Valentina’s hands clenched at her sides, and she braced herself. Lord Archer had pushed the man into a corner, and there was but one way for him to save face.
“Or you can find yourself another theater,” he finished.
No, no, no.Valentina spread her hands wide in supplication. “Surely, we can come to a mutual agreement.”
“Then she shall leave,” said Lord Archer.
“And good riddance,” said Mr. Degrass. “The chit is more trouble than she’s worth with her uppity airs. Demandin’ a screen to change behind. Too good to show a bit of skin for a load of blunt.”
“Hey!” protested Valentina.
But it was no use. Mr. Degrass continued, “Collect what you brought, and it’s out through the stage door with you.”
Seeing that her now-former employer was utterly serious, Valentina stuffed her dress and the few sundries she’d brought with her into a worn travel bag and found herself in a fetid alleyway, the door firmly closed behind her, in fewer than a handful of minutes. She exhaled a tiny roar of frustration.
Now what?
“What I don’t understand,” came an aristocratic voice behind her, “is why you’re so upset.”
Valentina swung around to find the source of her frustration—Lord Archer—propped against a wall, looking for all the world like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Well, he didn’t, did he?
Her mouth opened and closed, but words refused to emerge. What sheer, brazen, presumptuous gall!
He continued. “You can sing anywhere you want.”
Her voice found itself. “How dare you.”
“You’re repeatingyourself.”
She could stamp her foot. That was how frustrating the man was. “You can’t simply charge into someone’s life and upend all their carefully laid plans.”
For that was the thing—the Five Graces had figured prominently into her plans. Lords were known to frequent the place. Lords like the one before her.
Except not this lord at all.
A different lord.
Her job at the Five Graces had only been the beginning, and now this…this…nobhad set her plans ablaze before they could gain a footing.
“As I see it,” continued Lord Archer with breathtakingly supreme confidence, “I’ve done you a favor.”
Valentina’s mouth fell agape. The arrogance!
Lord Archer pushed off the wall. Valentina hoped it had left a smudge of dirt on his white superfine coat. Really, though, what sort of man wore white for a night in Southwark?
This sort, apparently.
