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“From you. Because you would be annoyed, presumably.”

“Albert being the expert on husbandly reactions,” Clem could not help himself from retorting. Albert was an annoying little fucker as far as Clem was concerned. He was tempted to give him a thick ear next time he saw him.

He was starting to feel that way about a few people lately, he realized tetchily. Larry, that smarmy bastard, had started referring to her theatrically as “our Dora” in a way that made Clem want to punch him square in the face. He had a feeling Jim had taken the announcer aside and had a word as he had not done it the past couple of days, something Clem was profoundly grateful for.

It was odd, as Clem had always been so unruffled in the face of provocation before now. It had always been so well known in the fighting fraternity that he could not be baited or tricked into losing his temper by a smart mouth. In the past, he had been more inclined to laugh at ring antics than snap. Well, he did not feel like laughing now and the likes of Harold Allsop and Larry Burgess were frankly undeserving of his mettle.

It wasn’t even as though they were trying to rile him up. Allsop was a nervy, artistic type and Larry was just a fucking fool. Clem did not really know what had gotten into him, but he guessed it was partly due to his guilty conscience. Now he was no longer dreading Dora flopping on about her learning he owned half of The Parthenon. A permanent knot in his stomach was starting to feel stage; he was starting to sweat familiar.

Dora had given over a dozen sell-out performances as Piccadilly Percy. Each and every one of them had brought the house down. Clem had been forced to concede that her initial triumph had been no fluke. With each performance, she had seemed to grow before his eyes in stature and strength. This was not a blind spot or an obsession to her, he realized belatedly. Front of stage was her rightful fucking place, and she excelled at it.

Each successful showing seemed to embolden her further and she varied her performance each time trying out different gestures, laying a different stress on her words, revealing a different expression. As such, no two performances were ever the same, so he was scarcely surprised that the same people came to see her over and over, sometimes to both matinee and evening performances on the same day.

So many bunches of flowers, from humble nosegays to great big arrangements, had found their way to Dora’s dressing room that Clem had been forced to tell Jim to swap them to a larger room to house them all. Some were for Lil, it was true, but not the majority, not by a long shot. Clem was under no illusion about that.

People had started hanging around the exit to call out to Dora when he escorted her from the building after her evening performances. She would smile and wave and they would run alongside the cab, shouting greetings or throwing flowers to her. Some of the most ardent were female admirers, who called her “Dora darlin’” and showered her with lavish compliments. He had to instruct Eddie and Sam to take her to and from the house whenever he could not accompany her.

Thank God, she was sensible enough to turn down all the invitations to lunch and dinner that flooded in and seemingly turned a blind eye to the rolled-up and concealed missives that were tucked amid the posy stems, propositioning her to God only knew what. Clem didn’t want to know. He was seriously in danger of losing it if directly confronted with such information.

The audience had started joining in on the choruses now and Clem frequently heard his bar staff whistling both of her catchy songs. Dora was already working on adapting another of Allsop’s musical numbers for her purpose. As for Allsop, he had nervously confessed at dinner the night before that he had started writing a brand-new composition for her, “though,” he had added painstakingly, “you will need to add in the lyrics yourself.”

Allsop had then turned to Fields and told him with apparent sincerity that he should really come along and watch his sister’s performance as it was “terribly good, you know.” Clem had snidely asked him when he was going to tell his great-aunt that he was now a music hall performer. Poor old Allsop had turned quite pale and almost dropped the salt cellar into his gravy.

“He’s joking,” Dora had assured the anxious musician and Clem had flashed him his teeth in a mirthless smile. If anything, that seemed to alarm Allsop even more.

“Maybe I should pop along,” Fields had harrumphed, casting an uncertain look about the table. “One of the er, newspaper reviewers gave you a mention this morning, by the way. Did you happen to see it?” He glanced enquiringly first at Dora and then at Clem. “In The Standard.”

“No really?” Dora was wide-eyed, and to give him his due, her brother promptly abandoned his dinner to go and fetch the paper in question. He had folded it to the correct page and outlined it in green ink by the time he passed it to her. “The incomparable Miss Dora Dabney,” Felix quoted humorously. “Is that what you are going by now?”

“It is,” Dora agreed, taking the newspaper from him and casting her eyes over the print. Clem watched her flush as she read the review. “Well,” she said calmly, “that is quite the ringing endorsement, though I think the reviewer is being needlessly snobby about music hall.”

Clem held out his hand and she passed it to him. “Mistress Dora Dabney outshines the rest like a beacon of light poised atop a dunghill,” he read tonelessly.

“Mixing their metaphors there a bit,” Fields said dryly, “but there is a compliment in there somewhere.”

“Not to The Eagle,” Clem remarked, and Dora bit her lip.

In truth, he could not even resent it, for he knew The Standard’s critic spoke no more than the truth. Even Clem could not prevent himself from stealing into the auditorium night after night to stand at the back and watch this dazzling performer who commanded the stage with such assurance and sheer bloody talent.

She took his breath away.

He could scarcely believe this was the same actress he had watched all those weeks ago in that insipid bloody play. Miss Fields … standing around in a pair of silk breeches does not a male impersonator make. The words he had spoken back then now stung him like the lash of a whip. He had been unbelievably blind. He had not seen her. She had been right all along. She had not been given her chance.

Once she had, she had snatched that chance and spun it into pure bloody gold. All along, her blazing lamp had been hidden under a bushel. Slowly, missing puzzle pieces of Dora finally fitted into place. The avid people watching. It had always mystified him, but now it made perfect sense. She studied from life and drew characters from thin air. She was the magician, not Roberto Russo.

And she thought he had believed in her all along. His stupidity and his lack of trustworthiness made his own gorge rise. She must never, never find out what a faithless swine he was.

“So, you don’t mind then?” she persisted. “If I get it cut a little shorter into my neck? My hair I mean.”

Clem gazed at her a moment, then on impulse, he reached for his notebook and threw it across to her. She caught it and looked at him enquiringly. “Take a look,” he recommended.

“What is this?” Dora asked, starting to flip the pages. “It looks like reminders for your daily tasks. How organized you are—” she started only to stop abruptly and stare at the page. “Why Clem,” she breathed.

“Keep turning,” he said grimly.

She flipped a few more pages and then halted again, her throat working. “Clem,” she repeated, sounding choked. “You’re an artist! And you never said!”

He gave a short laugh. “An artist? Hardly that.”