1
COVENTGARDEN, LONDON, 1833
He was so veryblue.That was all my scattered mind could gather as he sailed past the window of Craven Street Theatre. Blue and sparkling under the glow of streetlamps that shone down the alley. I ended my three-point pirouette in demi-pointe with a soft landing in the quiet of the old abandoned room of the theater and stared again out the window, but he had vanished. Curiosity drove me to abandon my solitary practice as the second act carried on below, and I ran to the window for a better look.
Breeze from the broken window cooled my skin, rolling in pleasant waves over my too-warm body as I stepped out onto the balcony and looked down upon him, straining to see. He was a shining streak in the night, halfway down the alley, gauzy cape billowing behind him. A dancer, in full costume. How curious!
As the muffled music crescendoed below, several colossal ogres of men barreled around the corner of the Lamb and Flag Pub, jeers trailing them in the night. They cornered him withharsh, echoing laughter that vibrated off the walls. They meant to rob the man. I crouched out of sight behind the doorframe, hardly breathing. A man with one suspender holding up his dirty trousers smashed a gin bottle on the brick, advancing with playful thrusts like a sword. I shivered, anticipating the plunge of glass into flesh, but I could not look away.
Run!
But that dancer was trapped as a cornered pig, poor fool.
Why wasn’t anyone coming? Another dancer, a passerby, a confounded bobby, for pity’s sake? But everyone around was safely cocooned in the theater, and there was only me, way up here. The Almighty possessed a sense of humor, he did. Ella Blythe was not one for high places—especially approaching their edges.
I stepped out onto the balcony and forced myself to look down as I clung to the rail, my breath coming in thin gasps, prickly panic climbing my skin. I yanked off one beloved scarlet ballet slipper that had been my entire reason for sneaking in here tonight and held it up, but the men were too far away. Climbing upon the low brick railing, I poised myself and focused on the stair landing a little to the left and a few feet lower. One glance down and my vision blurred at the sides, the familiar panic cinching my ribs. Moisture tickled my skin.
Fear be hanged—it had to be done. I sprang and crouched into a soft landing, still gripping the precious red slipper.
I rose, and with a final goodbye squeeze, I whipped the shoe at them, satin ribbons rippling behind it. It struck the face of a pursuer and crumpled in the street. The sloshed assailant stumbled back, bracing for an unseen attacker in the darkness beyond the streetlamp’s reach, then lurched off. The others hesitated, and in that brief uncertainty, the blue wraith slipped into the safety of the shadows.
I sank hard onto the stair landing and exhaled, trembling as I shoved hair off my face. Drunk as they were, it hadn’t taken much to scare them off—just one of the enchanted red shoes. I slipped the other one off and clutched it close, then stole back inside to the forgotten old materials room, where I could be alone until I’d collected myself.
I pressed my face to the window glass, half afraid to see, but no one moved about in the alley. Only the strains of theNymphes des Boissounded from the ballet performance in the main auditorium, all the familiar sights and creaks of the old theater surrounding me, and my tension began to unspool.
The rest of London may have forgotten about this old room hidden away in the theater’s side wing, with its dust-laden crystal chandeliers lying on their sides and silk faille draped over painted wooden clouds, but to me it was a sanctuary. A haven for my own private dances.
But there were footsteps in the corridor, echoing over hard flooring outside the room. Heart fluttering like a million trapped butterflies, I leaped behind a silk-draped ladder and crouched, barely daring to breathe. The door squealed open and there he was, filling the doorway, filling the room, his crepe de chine cape fluttering against his solid frame.
I didn’t know anything about men. I seldom spoke to them. His presence here in my private sanctuary was unsettling.
He strode in like a lion, glancing about for his prey. Awed at my close proximity to him, I looked into his magnificent face from the shadows, the sculpted and dimpled features highlighted in the dim light. The grease paint tried to cover the ruddy glow of his skin, disguise the deep vibrancy of his expression, but it could only do so much. He moved on, then turned back, his roving gaze resting on me cowering like a little foolbehind that ladder. I hadn’t any idea what one was supposed to do with oneself in such a moment. Should I go to him? Smile and make introductions? How vulgar.
Well, Iwasin a theater just now. The rules were a bit different here.
He moved the silk aside like a curtain and smiled down at me. I wasn’t prepared for the glorious sunshine that radiated from his masculine features. I rose, eyes still on him. Merciful heavens.
“Ah, here’s my gallant rescuer.” Rugged and warm at the same time, the man stood before me, my rescued shoe close against his chest.
My poor heart. It thrummed like a drum about to pop.
“I wanted to come up and thank you ... and perhaps defend my masculinity.” But his deep voice proved it aplenty. “I was in desperate need of a small drink before my part comes back in the third act, you see, and the theater’s supply sprang a leak this morning. I hated to run into the pub this way, but there is nothing for it when one is dying of thirst and every spare hand is needed. Not unless I cared to scrape up what’s leaked onto the cellar floor, which I didn’t.”
I worked my jaw as his voice echoed about the room, but my head was a scatter of random letters that refused to form words.
“That, of course, left me in the rather awkward position of dashing to the pub in costume during my off time in the second act, falling in with a pair of men deep in their cups, and thus being rescued by a...”
“Girl.”
“Ah, youcanspeak.” He folded his arms and looked intently into my face, his presence softened by dark, glossy hair that all fell over his forehead in one boyish twist. “So tell me, dear rescuer,what brings you so boldly into this haunted part of the theater? And how ever did you learn to spring and land like a cat?”
“I’m a dancer.”
He raised his eyebrows in a way that somehow wasn’t mocking, bless him. “Are you, now? That explains this.” He held up my rescued shoe—that precious red slipper I desperately needed back. My hand itched to snatch it close. “I might have known it with a mere look, though. You wear dignity like a royal cape, even when you’re afraid and hiding. Like an exotic wild animal, perhaps.”
I had no answer for such a response. No one had ever looked at me and labeled what they saw asdignity.
“Which company do you dance with? Who is your manager?”
