Magical Weddings (85 page)

“What the hell is this?” the other man barked.

Peter turned, his hand possessively gripping Lillian’s arm. “I might ask the same.” He growled in return, standing taller, anger pulsing in his blood. He was not a jealous man, and yet he was jealous as hell in this moment. What had been about to happen here?

“This is my brother, Peter. Johnny, this is Lord Brooke…”

There was a pause at the end of her words, as if she looked for some way to explain his presence in her dressing room. He is my what? What was he to her? She may say he was her lover—her patron. Patron was a better word; it was the word actresses used for the men who paid them to continue their career, for favours unmentioned.

Her brother…

Damn. Damn it all to hell. A brother. That she had a family made Lillian seem more real, and of course the man was her brother; he had the same dark hair and teal eyes.

“Who is this man to you, Lily?”

This man… Her brother clearly had no liking for titles.

“This lord is her admirer.” Two years ago Peter would have drawn the greatest amusement from an event like this; he would have retold it to Harry, Mark, and Drew with a flourish and copious laughter. But with Lillian, everything was different.

“Has he touched you, Lily?”

God, the man was also bloody naïve. Did he not realise the purpose of her chaise longue, or see the indication of the two dozen men who could be heard outside her door? He got the message when Lillian did not answer.

“Let go of her, get out!” An open palm was thrust against Peter’s chest, and he was shoved backwards, hard. He stumbled and gripped the door handle. With anyone else he would have raised his fist again, but this was Lillian’s brother, and he had a right to be angry. Even if he was a fool and believed his sister was an actress and never slept with men.

“Get out!” he yelled again.

“Just go, Peter, please,” Lillian urged. But her lip was still bleeding, and she looked so less worldly, and younger, with her brother beside her and a cut on her lip. She would have a dark bruise to hide beneath her make-up tomorrow.

Damn.
He turned and left them, unsure what else to do, as behind him he heard her brother.

“What the hell do you think you are doing, letting a man like that use you? I cannot believe that you have done this. Are you a fool?”

Peter pushed through the crowd of salivating men outside her door.

Peter was the fool. He had never considered her life, her family, he had only ever thought of his—of the impact on Emily and on him.

What of the impact on Lillian?

He had taken her to hotels for the last two nights because he could never have taken her home into his bed, a bed he would then share with Emily. He had been holding Lillian distant. Keeping her restricted and contained and simply for one thing.

It was becoming harder to grasp a breath as he walked through the halls of the theatre. What he had been doing was bloody sordid. Hell, if anyone had treated Hayley like that when she was… God, it did not bear thinking about.

He had received an awakening. He had heard it loud and clear. Step back. Let Lillian go.

****

It was early, again. He’d risen early to come to speak with his solicitor. He had spent the night deciding what to do. He ought to make amends to Lillian. He had given her money and gifts throughout their short affair, yet he felt he owed her more. A final settlement. A sealed agreement. With signatures. That would mark the end, and make it clear to her that this was over.

He would ask for her silence, so Emily would never know just how far he was from a good man, and in exchange, he would gift Lillian two hundred pounds. It was a fortune to an actress. She could buy a property with it, and perhaps rent rooms, and have no need to turn to men to earn extra.

He sighed as he pushed open the door of his solicitor’s office, recalling the moment she had walked through the door gripping the hand of another man. He had chosen to be married, because he was jealous of Drew, but that jealousy had been nothing like the wash of anger and hatred that had swept over him last night. He thought of the time Drew had hit him. His friend had been a bloody violent monster when he’d drowned in jealousy.

“This woman who has probably slept with dozens of men…”
Drew’s words tolled like a bell in Peter’s head and anger burned beneath his skin. How many other men had known her in the way she knew him? How many men had seen her hair spread across a pillow and her eyes lost in the ecstasy of release? How many more would? If he let her go, there would be more.

“How may I help you, Lord Brooke?” The solicitor walked out of his office and held the door for Peter to enter.

“I need an agreement written up, right now if you do not mind. I wish to take it with me.”

“What for?” the man asked as the door shut.

“I am taking a mistress…” He could not let her go. He could not abide the thought of her with other men.

****

Her mouth and jaw ached today. Johnny had told her she was lucky she had not lost a tooth. He’d spent the entire night berating her. But he had at least sworn to not tell their father. Of course, really it mattered little. Their father had not spoken of her since she’d run away, but still she did not wish for him to look down on her even more.

Johnny now did. It had never occurred to him how an actress must live, and she had never imagined that Peter would be there for the fourth night in a row, nor that if he was, he would not first be in the audience.

Until three nights ago, Peter had always watched her performance before coming to her room, but then until three nights ago, they had never been to a hotel.

“You will need thicker make-up to cover that.” Arthur pointed at her bruise.

“I know. I will hide it.” He and Victor had asked her how she’d come by it; they had thought it was Johnny as neither of them had seen Peter, and she did not like to admit that Peter had done it, and yet nor would she have Johnny accused of mistreating her. Victor had said he would speak with Lord Brooke; he’d said he would make it clear to the man that a woman could not appear on the stage with bruises.

They thought him violent now, when Peter was the least violent, most caring man.

“Let us run through the whole trick again,” Arthur ordered. They were rehearsing a new show; the wedding themed act was getting tired.

“Lily! Lily! ‘Ave you seen this?” Bets ran into the auditorium, one of the chorus dancers who entertained the audience before the magic show began. “Kitty brought it in, one of her men read it and gave it to her. It’s yesterday’s paper.”

“Lillian, concentrate. We are trying to rehearse. You will get yourself truly pierced with the bloody dagger,” Arthur complained.

“It’s about her gentleman friend,” Bets thrust the words at Arthur, as she held out the paper to Lillian. “Here, it’s open on the page. Kitty’s man read it to her this morning. He said he saw it in the paper yesterday and wondered if you knew.”

Knew what?

“Lord Brooke is engaged to be married. He’s announced it here, see. Yesterday. He has just proposed.”

The words struck Lillian harder than his fist had done the night before. Married. He had been courting a genteel woman all the time he had been sporting with her. That was cruel. Yet Johnny had told her last night over and over again that she was putting herself down, and letting herself be used by such men. She had never classed Peter as
such-men
though.

Why? Because he was more handsome. Because he made her laugh. Because he had a glint in his eye that said he saw something special in her.

She had been as naïve as her brother.

She took the paper, but she did not even look at it. There was no point, she could not read. If she could read she would be a proper actress earning enough money from a lead part at Drury Lane so she had no need to take money from men like Peter.

She threw the paper down on the stage. “Thank you for telling me, Bets.” Then she turned to Arthur. “Sorry. I am concentrating now.” But it would not matter if Arthur accidentally stabbed her, Peter had already done that, he had pierced her soft heart. She had never let it ache for anyone else, but she had loved Peter, while he’d been chasing a decent women and merely bedding her.

His locket hung about her neck, a piece of him, within a silver heart, that lay close to her own heart. She had misunderstood that, and misunderstood the gentleness of his hands as he’d secured it about her neck. Those same hands had put an engagement ring on another woman’s finger.

I hate him.

Yet perhaps her head did, but her body did not—it cried for him as her jaw and lip hurt, and her heart bled.

Peter flicked the reins. He had, in the end, had to leave his man of business writing up the contract he wished to offer Lillian. Setting up a mistress formally was far more complex than letting one go.

He sighed as he looked at Emily. He had made his choice now, and right or wrong, he must live with it. He would never be able to feel proud. He would always feel guilty when he looked at Emily, and when he looked at any children they had, because he would know that hidden away elsewhere in London would be an alternative wife and children—he hoped.

He would lead a double life. Yet more than half of society’s men did, so he would not be alone in his journey to hell. But he’d had to make this choice, he could not leave either woman, and so he had chosen both, and if it meant he must keep a secret from his closest friend, so be it. He could not tell Drew, because Drew would tell Mary and Mary would share his sins with Emily, then Emily would learn she had not married a good man at all, but a scoundrel.

“It is a beautiful day,” he commented. Like yesterday, he had been struggling for words as he fought his mental turmoil.

“It is.” Emily gave him that very sweet smile. “I saw Harry and Mark last night; they came to the musical evening. Mary and Drew have come up to town too. They said you called there yesterday. I think after you left they made a rushed decision to come to town immediately.”

Lord, he hoped Drew had said nothing to Mary about their conversation.

“Mary is excited. As you know they did not really have a wedding, because of Drew, and so she is delighted that I have asked her to be my matron of honour. I said to her, though, we have not spoken of when…”

Emily was asking him to commit to a date.

“I would like to be a summer bride. What if we married in late August? It would give us plenty of time to prepare.”

He halted his horses and cupped her cheek. Her brown eyes looked at him from the shadow cast by the brim of her straw bonnet. “You will look beautiful as a summer bride, Emily. I will ask my father if we might be wed at home on his estate, and then you will be surrounded by flowers on your wedding day.”

She tilted her chin up a little, in a virginal request for a kiss. They were in the open and his groom was behind them, there would be no harm. He kissed her lips for a moment. Cool and soft. He turned and flicked the reins and set the horses on about Hyde Park, away from the ring where everyone gathered. He would make her happy. He would do all he could to please her. Give her anything she asked.

“Harry was sweet to me last night when he saw you were not there, and Drew was being ridiculously kind. I did not even know he had such a capability for concern. He fussed over me half the night, fetching my drinks and my supper as Harry sat and kept me company.” His friends had probably been making assumptions about where Peter was. They would have been correct had Lillian’s brother not come to town to visit her.

“Drew is a good man,” Peter answered. He had been as bad as Peter when they were young, but now Peter was alone in his debauchery. It was no wonder Drew could feel pride.

“Mama asked me to invite you to dine with us tonight. Will you?”

He sighed. He should. They had their engagement ball to plan for next week. But he’d left Lillian with a bleeding lip; he could not avoid her tonight, he had to see her this evening. “Tomorrow, Emily. If I may, there is something I should do this evening.”
Take a contract to my mistress, whom I would like to set up in a house, with an income, so I might keep her exclusively as mine
. This dual life was going to be hard. What excuses would he find to leave Emily for a night once they were wed?

He flicked the reins. “I’ll take you back now. Your parents must be wondering where you are, we have been out so long.”

Her fingers gripped his arm as he sped the horses up for a good run out of the park, before they hit the traffic on the streets.

****

It was with a sense of humbleness that was uncommon to him, that he walked into the theatre, earlier than he had been before. The show had not even begun, although the town’s Corinthians and rogues were already gathering in their seats.

The hallway leading to Lillian’s dressing room was full of semi-naked women, the chorus of dancing girls who went on first in their almost translucent, white muslin dresses. The whole show was a titillation to the male tastes—an aperitif to what was sold backstage after the performance upon it.

He licked dry lips as the women glared at him with a wave of condemning stares. He supposed he had earned them for the bruise which must show on Lillian’s cheek today. Yet when he reached the end of the line of women waiting to go on stage when they had their cue, he was faced with another obstacle. Perkins stood before Lillian’s door, guarding it.

The broad burly stage manager, who also played the role of guardian over the actresses, pressed a rejecting palm against Peter’s shoulder. “You are no longer welcome here, Lord Brooke.”

“I need to speak with Lillian.”

“She does not wish to speak to you, my Lord.”

Damn. He needed to apologise and he needed to offer her the contract in his inside pocket. She had known he had not hit her deliberately. “If it is about last night it was a misunderstanding. Lillian knows it was.”

“You cannot bruise a woman who has a job on a stage, my Lord.”