Food was a great restorative.
Pushing her plate to the side, she folded her hands in her lap to appear as composed as one could wearing a simple sheet for a dress and said, “I wish you to know my terms.”
He reacted as if she’d fired a warning shot. He sat back, a hand resting on the table. “Very well.”
Sarah eyed her play on the desk. For once, she would not let herself be sold cheap.
“You offered a house,” she said.
“I did.”
“And to help me find Geoff and Charles.”
“Perkins is looking even as we sit here.”
“I would have the company paid.”
He tilted his head. “The company?”
“The actors and the workers who helped with the Review. Many of them are in worse circumstances than I am.” She gave him a glance, wondering what he thought.
His expression was considering, as if he took her measure . . . and she felt uncomfortable. It was not her way to demand.
“I’m certain,” he said at last, “that a generous benefactor can be found for them if we are unable to retrieve what they are owed from Geoff and Charles.”
Sarah was surprised to realize she’d been holding her breath. She released it, nodded. “Thank you.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
“No.” She forced herself to meet his eye. “My mother started as an actress. She was quite good, or at least everyone assured me she was. But the theater is fickle and eventually, she received smaller and smaller roles until she said she felt like she ceased to exist.”
He was listening and Sarah shifted her gaze away from his intense study. The ability to give his full concentration to one person was one of his gifts, she noticed. It could be a bit overwhelming.
She continued. “Her first keeper was Lord Twyndale, my father, although he would never deign to recognize me as his child. Men are of two minds—some are generous to all of their children, even their bastards. And there are those who pretend their by-blows do not exist.” She couldn’t prevent a rueful smile. There had been a time when her father’s rejection had been a crushing blow. Now, it was of just passing import in her life.
“After Twyndale turned her loose, Mother had a succession of lovers until her death. Some were kind; some were not. Some I hid from.” Did he understand what she was saying?
“My half-sister Julia—she was Charlene’s mother and a child born on the right side of the blanket—took me in when I was thirteen. She gave me an education of sorts but she had her hands full with Dearne. The man lived to gamble.”
“I had heard that of him.”
“He was so self-destructive.” She shook her head. “However, Julia taught me that a woman could have honor. She was always strong and graceful, no matter what happened in her life and I vowed to be like her. I did not want to earn my living on my back the way my mother had.”
Baynton shifted in his chair.
“Does my plain speaking make you uncomfortable, Your Grace? Good,” she said, not letting him answer. “I want you to know what becoming your mistress will cost me. We are talking about my soul, Your Grace. About everything I wanted to believe of myself.”
A concerned line formed between his brows, but he said nothing.
Sarah forged on. “So here is the heart of the matter. I wish to stage my play. I would have your support.” With a benefactor as wealthy as the Duke of Baynton, she would see the Widow done right. “That is the cost of my being your woman.”
He looked over to the play spread out on the desk. “Would you have me purchase a theater?”
That was a shocking suggestion. He could buy a theater? “You needn’t purchase it. One could be let.”
He considered her statement and then said, “In turn for my meeting your requirements, what are you offering me?”
Sarah blinked. She had thought it was obvious. He’d asked her to go to bed with him, a simple transaction that happened all over London at any given moment.
