“Born Miss Smith, married Mrs. Waverly. Self-appointed Miss Finch on your husband’s death. Yes, I’m aware.”
“Only I look so small and innocent. It’s the hair I think. And the lips.”
They were shaped like little bows. A week ago, hell, a fewhours ago, he would have been keen to untie that bow and taste the pleasures of her mouth.
Now…
“I do apologize, Miss Finch. My disinterest has nothing to do with you?—”
“Oh, shove it.” She huffed, shaking her skirts. “You may own a theatre, but you are incapable of a believable performance. And I have no interest in forcing my way into a disinterested man’s bed. Not when so many others are willing. Good evening, sir.” She flounced away.
“I admire your self-respect,” he called after her.
She made a crude gesture without looking back at him, and he stepped into the hallway, locked the door to keep Miss Finch out, and strode off in the opposite direction.
That flash of red, that pale, freckled face, that ready smile—he’d had only a glimpse earlier, had thought it a dream, but it had to be… Tessa. Home from Italy. And in his theatre.
He found her just where he knew he would, in the dark wings beyond the stage, bent at the waist and peering at some detail on a backdrop. Comfortable in the shadows, he studied her at his leisure.
Six damn years.Six yearsshe’d been lost to him through all but ink and ocean-wrinkled paper, each epistle coming longer after the last until she’d stopped writing altogether.
Yet there she was. Sharper, brighter, and more goddamn beautiful than he remembered.
He thought he’d forgotten her, thought he’d put her away in a little box marked Youthful Folly.
But his heart was thumping madly in his chest as it used to do, and his palms were sweating, and his fingertips ached to touch her, to confirm she was real.
If he’d put her in a box, she’d found a way out.
He curled and uncurled his hands.Control.Tessa here now was not part of the play. The unexpected arrival of aformer sweetheart not in this narrative. There was only a rake, the women he used and discarded, and the mysterious belle who would write about it.
Hopefully.
He should return to his office as if he’d never seen her.
But he couldn’t help himself.
“Good evening, Miss King,” he said, stepping out of the shadows and into the dim yellow cast by the dying stage lights.
She gasped and popped upright, eyes wide. Then eyes wider. “Remmy!”
She ran right into his arms, and damn it all to hell, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, lifted her onto her tiptoes as she laughed into his cravat. No hesitation. No control.
Thank God, she ripped out of his embrace as thoughtlessly as she’d tripped into it. She circled him, making a show of studying him.
“Oh, you are so different,” she said. “You cannot be taller, but you seem it. Broader certainly.” She tugged the lock of hair at his temple. “You’re wearing it longer. Is that an earring? Terribly roguish, aren’t you, Mr. Ives. So very… different.” She stepped away from him, and the backstage shadows hid her eyes.
Shewas different, too, with more curves than he remembered, more confidence. She wore silk, a blue that, when she tilted her head and her face caught the light, tossed her hazel eyes into that confused state of color he’d always liked best. The gown was better stuff than he’d seen her in before—new and bright with a low-cut bodice that cunningly displayed her breasts. She wore the gown effortlessly, as if the wool-and-cotton rector’s daughter were used to such luxuries now. Before, she’d been a mouse who inspired protection. Now she was a temptress who inspired…
Nothing. She inspired nothing. Not in him, leastways.
“Lady Chattaway,” he said, “has been taking good care of you, I see.”
“Oh yes, wonderfully good care of me.”
“When did you return to London?”
“Yesterday. We’ve returned for your father’s birthday party. You’ll be there, I assume?”
