The blond man offstage stabbed the air with a finger as Bellini carried on. I coughed a laugh into my hand, unable to look away from his audacity. Poor cad would be murdered if Bellini saw him. The man caught me staring and flashed a bold grin that glinted white in the shadows, and a wink. I blinked, officially offended. Privately amused.
Bound in woolen practice stockings and floating tulle, we lunged as one, silently assessing the lines of lifted legs around us. I’d been back in England a whole week, and Signore Bellini’s training had tied me up in knots with each passing day. He often singled me out, pushing me harder than most, until I feared a call to the front office to cancel my contract and demandrepayment for my training. But now, watching the daring impersonator with a bubble of amusement, I found those knots loosening for the first time all week.
Focus. Just focus.
I stumbled my landing, colliding with a curly haired dancer who fell into another. Bellini threw up his hands and dissolved into a fit of Italian as he stalked toward the stairs. “Practice isfinitofor today. I shall seek to endure you all tomorrow.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the other dancer.
“At least you’re no threat.” She offered a playful half smile.
I laughed, sinking into a comfortable silence with her, but my gaze flicked to the man still out in the empty audience. He smiled and lifted his eyebrows, as if asking something, inviting, and I stiffened.
“You’d best not give him any ideas,” whispered the curly haired dancer as she sat beside me. She had a soft voice but a wild, long mane of curls that she now released and a wide, friendly smile that drew a person in.
“Who is he?”
“Jack Dorian, the greatest scoundrel God ever made.” Her grin was wry. “He trifles with all the dancers. Especially the new ones.”
“I don’t trifle.” But he seemed to have singled me out for his special attention. When this Jack Dorian’s stare deepened, one eyebrow angling up, I looked away. Reputations were such delicate things, and I clung to mine like a cloak against the cold.
“You won’t want to make an enemy of him either. He’s in charge of the dances—choreographer.”
Of course he was. “Well, I don’t have to make it easy on him.”
She reached down into a stretch, her grin widening. “That’ll only make him try harder.”
Naturally.
He was the kind of handsome that made one slightly uncomfortable, a quicksand that might suck one under if she came too close. I stared harder, allowing my glance to linger. What was it? His eyes, perhaps. No, his entire face. He looked out on the world with both amusement and indifference, as though everything was merely a game and nothing truly worth his deep concern.
She smiled at my frown. “It’s perfectly acceptable to find him attractive. There isn’t a woman in this theater who’s immune.”
Odd. The wider this Jack Dorian smiled, the more immune I felt.
“Just don’t be caught alone with him. Even ahintof impropriety will give Fournier a reason to cancel your contract. He despises all romantic entanglements among dancers. I’m Tovah, by the way.”
“Ella Blythe.” I brushed the hair off my moist forehead. “They must have a hard time keeping dancers if they cut so mercilessly.”
“They make cuts after every performance, and for hardly any reason at all. They’re looking for reasons to sack us these days. Ballet isn’t what it once was.”
This much I’d known already, but it must be hitting Craven harder than the rest. Ballet had fallen out of favor with the London elite, and many theaters had shifted more to opera and pantomimes to fill their seats. Craven, a small ballet-focused theater that merely rented the establishment to traveling acts when there was no ballet to perform, had to shift things in a different way.
My scholarship, for example. They could no longer afford to bring in foreign dancers from the continent, who sometimes demanded upwards of 10,000 pounds a season, so they turned to hardworking London girls delighted to accept training and a mere 500 a year.
It was Lily who’d seen the advertisement several months after cholera had taken Mama, and she’d nearly pushed me out the door to audition. We had so little and were about to lose the flat as it was. Nothing tied me there, and I couldn’t justify saying no. So, just after years of uprisings and unrest in France, I had traveled to Paris to begin my training. Perhaps being here on scholarship made me more immune to those cuts—or far less.
Tovah looked me over. “Just keep your chin up and your eyes forward. Don’t make any waves.”
I nodded, idly wondering what sort of waves I’d make if someone discovered the red slippers now in the bottom of my wardrobe.
Two quick claps sent the lingering dancers scurrying. It was time now for the principals to practice together, and they strode toward the stage with graceful, paired strides. I stood rooted and held my breath, composing myself as Philippe Rousseau neared.
But when he’d come within mere feet of me, a startling figure sprang up before my face, nearly knocking me backward.
Jack Dorian. With a bold smile, he bowed and kissed each of our hands, mine and the curly haired dancer who seemed to be waiting on me, bless her. That trifler held on to mine, and I glared as I yanked away, but he seemed not to care. “Good day, ladies.”
“Well, itwas,” I mumbled as I stole a glance past his shoulder.Philippe had paused, watching from a discreet distance. His brow looked shadowed. Disappointed? He turned toward the stage and took his position with his partner.
