Page 39 of The Lady Plays with Fire

It irked him beyond reason, the notion that some interfering busybody had been allowed, perhaps encouraged, to implant such foolishness in Julia’s head—though the evidence at his disposal suggested that Mrs. Nathan’s lessons in propriety hadn’t all stuck.

“Yet she took you to watch the players twice more?”

“Oh, no. The second time, I tagged along with my brother, Jeremy, though it kept me out past my bedtime and he had to carry me home on his shoulders. And by the next day, Papa was feeling enough better that he took me himself.” Her voice grew wistful. “Afterward, he told me he hadn’t spent such an enjoyable afternoon in an age. I wished Mrs. Nathan had been by to hear him say it.”

“You knew her to be full of stuff and nonsense, even then, but you heeded her advice all the same.”

“It’s hardly ‘stuff and nonsense,’ my lord. Surely you do not mean to try to convince me that acting onstage in public is a respectable occupation for a young lady? That gentlemen do not regard actresses as little better than . . . harlots?” Her voice dropped instinctively, though there was no one to overhear.

Harsh words, but fair. The effort required to refute them would be wasted, and he wanted his energy for other things.

“You ask me to believe you have not pictured yourself here before?” He swept an arm in a gesture that took in the stage and the empty pit below. “All those nights at the theater, and you never went home and spoke lines into a mirror after Mrs. Hayes was in bed? Never told yourself you could do better if given a chance?” Pink splotches appeared on her cheeks, reminiscent of the exaggerated cosmetics of stage performers. He wondered whether, in her playacting fantasy, she had ever gone far enough to toy with the contents of a rouge pot. “Is that the reason you wanted to come to this rehearsal?”

“No, my lord. I assure you nothing could have been further from my thoughts.”

“Ah, yes.” One last step and the space between them was gone. He reached up to brush a tendril of hair from her temple. “Your thoughts. So easily kept from wandering where they ought not go.”

“I never said it was easy, my lord.”

“Nay.” He trailed his fingertips across her cheekbone and traced the curve of her jaw. “You didn’t.”

He felt her throat bob in a swallow, but she did not retreat from his touch. Her eyes, however, shied from his face and toward the empty, shadowy pit. “Might we negotiate the terms of our arrangement somewhere less public?”

They were alone in the theater. But he understood what she meant. Standing in the middle of a stage surrounded by several thousand seats, empty though they might be, felt anything but private.

Backstage were any number of places where a tryst might take place, with no one the wiser. And Julia appeared willing to go with him, to uphold her end of the bargain.

But when he thought of those spaces—an unused dressing room, a storage closet filled with discarded props or broken furniture—he could not help but think of that distant evening, his elder brother and the actress, the agonizing moments he’d spent in the corridor, longing for somewhere to hide.

That innocent boy had long since grown into quite the rogue.

But pray God Graham knew better than to be as reckless as Iain.

He drew back his hand and put a half step between them, a few inches at most, but enough that he could breathe without being all too aware of the rise and fall of her breasts. “There’s nothing to negotiate, Miss—” He couldn’t do it, couldn’t shape the name that wasn’t hers. But what rose to his lips instead came out as little more than a desperate rasp. “Julia.”

He wanted her. And not just her sweet lips and soft body pressed to his. He wanted her bright, mischievous eyes and her clever retorts and her unexpected gift for untangling the knots he’d made in his own damned script.

“You saw the rehearsal, as you wished,” he went on, in something resembling his usual voice. “You even had your moment in the sun.” At that, he flicked his wrist to gesture toward the enormous chandelier closest to the stage, though it was, unfortunately for his metaphor, unlit. “Now you should go.”

He couldn’t concentrate with her there—couldn’t concentrate at all. Somehow, he had to focus his mind. Remember why he had come to London. He had to put his plan to punish Miss on Scene first.

Her lips parted on a silent oh, and disappointment clouded her gaze.

Disappointment over the play, he told himself. She couldn’t possibly want—

Before the thought had fully formed, she rose up on tiptoe and launched herself toward him, her hands on his shoulders and her lips brushing swiftly over his cheek before pausing to whisper in his ear. “Thank you for today. I’ll never forget this.”

Any rogue worth his salt would have wrapped his arms around her, captured her mouth with his, and put a seal on . . . well, on whatever this was.

Graham watched her settle onto her heels, drop her hands to her sides, and blush as prettily as a rose.

Damn it.

He was utterly, hopelessly lost. He didn’t just want her.

He needed her.

Damn it all.