To Undo A Lady. Christine Merrill

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      Danyl Fitzhugh needs a woman. After his latest leading lady leaves both his theatre and his bed for another company, he vows to prove he can turn any woman in London into an actress—and sets his sights on Sarah Branford. He’s immediately drawn to her innocence and beauty, and their unexpected attraction soon leads to an audition for the stage and as his mistress. But with Christmas approaching and their passion growing, will their relationship last when Danyl learns Sarah is much more than she seems?

      To Undo a Lady

      Christine Merrill

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Dear reader,

      The Christmas Panto is a tradition we do not have here in the states, but it has existed in various forms in the UK, since the seventeenth century. What began as true pantomime or dumb show, slowly changed to a retelling of fairy tales and bedtime stories. These were often combined with a Harlequinade: a broad slapstick story with set characters. Columbine and Harlequin are lovers, running from her father, Pantaloon, and chased by the clown and the servant, Pierrot. Harlequin carries a slapstick or magic sword, and used it like a magic wand to cue scene changes and special effects.

      Joseph Grimaldi was an actor well known for his panto Harlequin and Mother Goose: or The Golden Egg. He would have been playing just down the street from the characters in my imaginary Pageant Playhouse. Grimaldi played the clown, and is considered to be the inventor of the modern day whiteface clown.

      Those readers frightened of clowns now know who to blame.

      Dedication

      To my readers: Merry Christmas!

      Contents

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Copyright

      Chapter One

      While Shakespeare claimed that April was the cruelest month, Danyl Fitzhugh would have argued for December. He flipped the top collar of his Garrick up to protect his face from the chill and knotted the muffler to hold it in place. Even at this late hour, the streets of London were cold, muddy and crowded with people rushing from one place to another to no apparent purpose. They wasted their money on excesses of food and drink and gifts to celebrate the season. To Danyl’s mind, far too few of them were going to the theater.

      There would be even fewer at the Pageant Playhouse, now that he’d lost another actress to the Theatre Royal. He had trained that wench, Maria, from her first step upon the boards, shared his knowledge of the craft, and then used all his skills as a director to set her like a jewel in the crown of his productions. In return, she had stabbed him in the back. And right before Christmas.

      If he’d been in the habit of celebrating that particular holiday, it might have been worse. But she had used his mixed-blood heritage as an excuse to defect to Grimaldi for his seasonal pantomime. It stung the pride to be treated as some sort of godless infidel by a woman who had been only too happy to share his bed when she wanted a better role.

      As she left, he had shouted that he could turn any whore in Drury Lane into her equal, nay, her superior, if he so chose. And now, it appeared he might have to do just that, if he did not want to cancel the next night’s performance. He’d searched London from one end to the other and could not find an actress that suited him.

      But Covent Garden was busy with people seeking entertainment of one sort or another—drink, gambling, the theater, or diversions of a carnal nature. In a place like this, whores were thick on the ground, loitering in the alcoves and blocking doorways when the weather turned cold. It sometimes seemed that if a girl meant to fall from grace, she could find no better place to do it then right outside the door of his theater.

      If he intended to carry out his threat to Maria, he could not afford to be too particular. A courtesan would never stoop to becoming an actress. The women in brothels were too busy to discuss a change in career. Nor did he wish to pull one from bed, only to have her recognized and jeered by some buck who had lain with her just a night before.

      He could tempt a streetwalker with his offer. But he needed someone new, fresh, and without the tarnished and shabby glamour that affected women after time on the street.

      He needed her.

      The poor creature huddled by the wall was small, as Maria had been. She would fit the costumes without alteration. But where Maria had been a match for his own dark coloring, this girl would be a foil. Fair of skin and hair with wide, innocent, cornflower-blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. When he played Othello, he would tower over her. In response, the audience’s heart would break for poor Desdemona.

      But he would have to feed her first, and thaw her out. Her dress and shawl were fine, but too light for the weather. Her lips were almost blue from cold. The garments were beginning to hang loose, and her lovely face was gaining the pinched look of one who had missed more than one meal. Everything about her cried that she was out of options and might be agreeable to anything that might ease her suffering.

      As he approached, she looked straight at him and then away. Was it the color of his skin that put her off? He’d had women, both English and Indian, refuse him because of it, not wanting to be bedded by some half-caste bastard. But tonight he did not have the time to be angry.

      Then she looked up again. It had not been a personal affront. She was simply terrified of the task before her. “Please, sir…” She stopped as though she hoped he would understand the rest.

      Wordlessly, he reached into a pocket and gave the coins in his purse a jingle.

      She wet her lips again and forced herself to speak. “Fancy a tumble?” She was trying to make her voice sultry but coarse, to give him the impression that she had done this many times. But she was obviously educated, and green as spring grass to the ways of the street.

      “How much?” It was unfair of him to toy with her, but he could not resist seeing how strong her nerve might be, and how long she would carry out such an obvious farce.

      By the look she gave him, it was clear that she had never done this before. Even an inexperienced whore would have some idea of her worth. “A pound?”

      He laughed. “I would not pay a pound for the ladies in the Kama Sutra. But for the nerve to suggest it, I would give you a shilling.”

      “Done.” Before he could make his offer, she had grabbed him by the scarf and hauled him into the shadow of a nearby pillar. She had to stand on the tops of his feet to reach his mouth, but she did so, and planted her lips on his, pushing back with her body to pin him to the bricks as she kissed.

      Far be it from him to correct her form. But she would not let him catch a breath to tell her that streetwalkers were never so eager as this. If they kissed at all, it was not with such desperate enthusiasm. It seemed that, if this was her first step on the road to ruin, she meant to run the rest of the way down it before losing her nerve. Her mouth was open, and his tongue played along the straight, clean teeth, and bit the lips that were ice-cold but barely chapped by the weather.