Duchess

Susan May
WARREN

New York

Duchess

ISBN-10: 1-60936-771-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-60936-771-8

Published by Summerside Press, an imprint of Guideposts

16 East 34th Street

New York, New York 10016

SummersidePress.com

Guideposts.org

Summerside Press™ is an inspirational publisher offering fresh,
irresistible books to uplift the heart and engage the mind
.

Copyright © 2013 by Susan May Warren. All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the written permission of the publisher.

Distributed by Ideals Publications, a Guideposts company

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Guideposts, Ideals
and
Summerside Press
are registered
trademarks of Guideposts.

The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any
resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

All Scripture quotations are taken from
The Holy Bible,
King James Version
.

Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc., LookoutDesign.com

Interior design by Müllerhaus Publishing Group, Mullerhaus.net

Printed and bound in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Your glory, Lord

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part Three

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Christmas 1945

Author's Note and Acknowledgments

About the Author

  P
ART
O
NE
  

1929
RED CARPET

Tonight, if only for three hours, Rosie Worth would glitter. Like a star plucked from the sky, hot and glowing, she would light up New York's Fiftieth Avenue and burn a path into stardom, her name in white neon emblazoned across the marquee of the Roxy Theater.

And hopefully, her past would flicker out, eclipsed by the glow of her future.

“Darling, you look smashing.” Dash emerged from his bedroom into their shared sitting quarters in the Taft Hotel, holding a high ball of something amber, the glass catching the glamour of the room. Gold brocade sofas, dark rose velvet chairs, a white marble fireplace and, under the dripping chandelier of teardrop crystals, an enormous bouquet of yellow and white roses blanketed the center of the dining table. New York City certainly knew how to welcome a prodigal in style. Except, well, her studio bio, the one printed in
Photoplay
, hailed her as being from a small farm in Kansas.

Some days, she longed for it to be true.

“You clean up pretty well too, big boy,” she said, letting the filmy curtain over the Palladian windows drop. She held her long, white gloves in one hand and slipped over to him, smoothing his gold ascot, the lapels of his tuxedo. “A real studio mogul.”

He drained his glass and set it down on the cherry desk. “Think they'll be at the premiere?” He lifted her white fox stole and settled it around her shoulders.

“Mother? Never. She might be a society queen, but she is also a devout Episcopalian. She wouldn't set foot in a theater.”

“Not even to see her daughter, Roxy Price, on the big screen?” He picked up his beaver top hat. Yes, he looked every inch like he could be a leading man, with his dark hair slicked back with pomade, his wide football-player shoulders, a little danger in his eyes. A gal could fall in love with Dashielle Parks. And Rosie had—too many times. First in Paris, and then again nearly a year ago when he offered her a steady, seven-year contract with Palace Studios.

Probably that accounted for why she'd said yes to his marriage proposal.

And why she kept hoping that he'd fall in love with her too.

“Don't call me Roxy,” she said, folding the stole around her shoulders then slipping her hands into the long gloves. She stopped again at the window, looked down upon the street seventeen stories below. Somehow Palace Studios had figured out how to splash daylight along Fiftieth Street, turning the grimy pavement of New York into a wash of brilliance. A crowd amassed under the marquee of the theater, and already the street was jammed with Model As and Rolls Royces, dark and shiny in the light.

“You're going to have to get used to it,” Dash said. “You're Roxy Price now.”

“Remember when you laughed at me in Paris, that night when I told you I wanted to be an actress like Sarah Bernhardt? I still do. With a name like Roxy, no one will take me seriously. It feels like a made-up character, a fantasy.”

From here she could see the Dakota, where her mother lived with Bennett, her stepfather, and her half brother, Finley.

He'd be twelve by now.

Time moved too quickly. Her daughter Coco would be nearly two. A toddler. She longed to look past the New York skyline, all the way to Montana, where Coco lived with her cousin, Lilly. A world so far away it seemed untouchable, as if she hadn't really lived that life, hadn't really had a child, given her away, or even held the man she loved as he died in her arms.

This life gave her a fresh start.

Rosie pressed her hand to her roiling stomach. Yes, maybe Roxy fit her well.

Dash gave what sounded like a laugh, and she turned.

“Red, this isn't the stage. We're in the
movie
business. We create fantasy, a world of glamorous make-believe. Stars, not actresses.” He tugged her arm, pulled her toward the ornate floor mirror. “Look at yourself and tell me if there is one smidgen left of Rosie Worth, former showgirl and widow, in that mirror.”

Palace Studios had bleached her hair to starlight white, plucked her eyebrows clear off her face, and penciled in a line of black. They'd framed her lips in a bloodred cupid's bow and honed her figure into something that added mystery and allure under her teal blue satin evening gown. The garment hugged her like a negligee, dripped down to the floor, and trailed behind her.

“This is what you wanted from me when you appeared at my door two years ago, wasn't it? To make the world fall in love with you? This is how we're going to do it. By creating Roxy Price, bombshell blond. This is how the world will fall in love with you. They're not going to love a tragic socialite who lost her heart—they'll love a small-town girl from Kansas whose dreams came true in Hollywood.”

“But it's not—it's not real. It's not me.”

“Make it you, doll. If this is what you want, you'll have to become Miss Roxy Price.”

The actress in the mirror found a smile for him. Nodded.

“C'mon, gorgeous. This is your moment.” Dash pressed a kiss to her cheek, spilling the odor of bourbon over her, and offered his arm. “Smile. Be brilliant.”

He led her through the service entrance, into the alley, just like they'd planned, and she climbed into the open-air backseat of a studio limousine. The studio had shipped the car from Hollywood just for tonight's premiere, because of the way the seat faced backward so the stars could wave to their fans.

Dash's idea.

The odors of the city marinated in the heat of the July night and were captured in the grungy alley. The tall buildings suffocated any breeze. She leaned back into the leather seat as Grayson Clarke slid in beside her. “A doozy of a night for a premiere,” he said, sweat across his brow. He dabbed it away with a handkerchief.

Indeed, heat slithered in under her fur, a line of sweat dripping down her spine.

And sitting next to her young, attractive costar didn't help.

Dash climbed into the limousine passenger seat and tapped on the window separating them. “Just remember to wave!”

She smiled, nodded, and wished he might forget the studio for one night. But Dash never let love get in the way of business.

Not that love was what they had.

“You look stunning, Roxy,” Grayson said. He winked.

If anyone could take the crowd's breath away and turn them to frenzy, newcomer Grayson Clarke had that power. With those dark, devil-may-care eyes, his rogue smile, the way he could kiss a woman on screen… Even she had forgotten her name a few times in his embrace.

And he always smelled good, despite being covered with the sweat of the day, as if he'd just run in from some football game, showered fast, and left the exertion still clinging to his body in a mix of soap and strength. Grayson's bio suggested he'd played college football, came from a small town in Idaho, and that Palace Studios Director Fletcher Harris had plucked him right out of a Central Casting line and added studio polish until he sparkled.

In reality, he'd been hoofing it around Hollywood for two years, working odd jobs until he'd had the luck of chauffeuring Dash home from the studio one night. He somehow talked the producer into giving him a screen test.

Grayson's hometown-hero face filled the darkened screening room until it drained the air from the set. Fletcher cast him in the first movie he could find—
Star for a Day
—and proceeded to turn prophecy to reality with a script penned with the ink of destiny, because when Roxy's male lead broke his leg mid-shoot, they recast the role with Grayson.

If she had to choose between kissing Grayson Clarke or the boozed-up silent film has-been John Drake…well, she'd thrown herself into her role with new luster.

The B movie became a studio bonanza. Because of the hype filling the pages of
Photoplay
magazine and the previews screened at locations around the country, every woman in America longed to be Ivy Waters, Rosie's character in
Star for a Day
, loved by a boy with nothing to offer but his rakish good looks and a promise, who has to choose between true love and stardom.

In truth, the story felt too close to Rosie's.

She wanted to shout at the screen and tell Ivy to run. To choose the life that couldn't break her heart.

Love was just too dangerous.

But Hollywood…well, Rosie could admit to spending a few long hours pining for a man like Grayson—at least the on-screen Grayson—while waiting for Dash to return home from the studio. Apparently Hollywood had the power to crush her too, if she let it.

Maybe tonight after the premiere, when the applause subsided, Dash would decide to shake off the demands of the studio, take Rosie in his arms, and make her his wife.

After eleven months, it might be about time.

Not that she loved him either, really. She thought so, long ago. But then she'd known real love, and their business arrangement didn't quite match the definition. Sometimes, however, the night got too cold, the voices of the past finding her. And it might be nice to hold on to someone who knew the real Rosie.

The limousine pulled out of the alley and headed around the block so they could make their Fiftieth Avenue entrance. The roar of the crowd rumbled under her skin as they neared the street. Grayson slipped his hand over hers, squeezed.

“Smile, darling.”

They turned off of Sixth Avenue onto Fiftieth, and flashbulbs exploded, the pop and sulfur seeping into the sultry air. The crowd lined the sidewalks, five and six deep, women waving with handkerchiefs, men watching her with a smile.

“They love us,” Grayson said, his grin genuine as he waved.

Perhaps. The cheers heated her through, like a blaze in her chest. She waved and blew kisses, both hands extended to her public.

Yes, Dash had kept his promise—at least the one to make her a star.

The limousine pulled up to the red carpet that spilled out under the marquee of the Roxy Theater—Roxy at the Roxy, Dash had said when he'd chosen the venue. And her name.

But now it blazed right beside Grayson Clarke's, and it seemed like it belonged there, in lights.

The orchestra Dash had hired played the theme song from the movie as the white-gloved attendants opened her door and ushered her out. She landed on the red carpet, blinded by the pop of lightbulbs, shattering and showering the night with glass and filament.

Dots flickered against her eyes, even as she scanned the crowd.

Just in case.

But no, her mother, Jinx, hadn't found a place on the sidelines to cheer for her daughter.

Fans shouted Roxy's name, a cacophony of screams as she turned and slipped her arm through Grayson's.

Clutched it, really. He tugged them up the red carpet, waving as the crowds surged toward them. Security pushed them back, and she pasted on a smile.

The adoration thundered behind her.

Doormen held open the double doors to the theater and the entourage promenaded inside to more applause, more fans lined up inside the rotunda, curled around the circular carpet, packed up against the arching colonnades. Police cordoned the crowd behind red velvet ropes held up by brass stanchions.

Grayson led her up the stairs to the second-floor balcony, and she looked down to see Dash at the door, shaking hands with Fletcher Harris, his studio partner, and director of
Star for a Day
. Fletcher could terrify her with a look, censure in the crease of his dark eyebrows, the thin, puckered moustache, his sharp eyes. With thinning hair and a wiry frame, only his studio power could account for the redheaded trollop who hung on his arm.

A bimbo from one of his B movies, no doubt.

Dash stuck out his elbow for his secretary, Irene Marshall, a dishwater blond with sad eyes and a little too much padding around the middle to be a star. She'd shown up at the last two premieres—B movies that the studio produced to fund
Star for a Day
. Dash showed his rare soft side with Irene, who'd arrived on the Palace Studios lot as an extra only to fetch coffee and run errands. She'd girl-Fridayed herself right into a desk chair outside Dash's mahogany office door. She seemed to have a crush on him, and for that Rosie pitied her. Dash loved the studio first. Maybe only.

Irene looked frumpy tonight in a black two-piece overcoat dress and a black cloche hat, but she smiled as if she belonged.

Maybe the girl—Rosie placed her at about twenty-one—did have acting ability.

Dash put his hand on the small of Irene's back as they started up the stairs, and Rosie bit back a flare of heat in her stomach. It died when he grabbed the railing and turned away from Irene, waving for the crowd below. He joined Rosie and Grayson at the apex of the stairs, where the balcony overlooked the foyer.

“Ready for the show?” He whispered close to Rosie's ear, his lips brushing her neck. Almost like a kiss.

“Isn't this it?” Rosie said and winked at him. He smiled and slipped his hand over hers, ever so briefly.

“See, I told you that you'd be brilliant.”

Yes, tonight Rosie glittered.