How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(78)
“Bollocks to that. I’ve no interest in claiming anyone’s heart.” The very thought chased a chill up Kit’s spine. Marriage. Commitment. Those were for other men. If his parents were any lesson, marriage was a miserable prison, and he had no wish to be shackled.
Kit turned his attention back to the audience.
“Still looking for your phantom lady?” Grey often tweaked Kit about his habit of searching the crowd. Rather than reveal parts of his past he wished to forget, Kit allowed his friend to assume he sought a feminine ideal, not a very specific woman of flesh and freckles and fetching red hair. “What will you do if she finally appears?”
“She won’t.” And if he were less of a fool, he’d stop looking for her.
“Come, man. We’ve packed the house again tonight. This evening we celebrate.” Grey swiped at the perspiration on his brow. “You’ve been downright monkish of late. There must be a woman in London who can turn your head. What about the buxom widow who threw herself at you backstage after last week’s performance?”
“The lady stumbled. I simply caught her fall.”
“Mmm, and quite artfully too. I particularly admired the way her lush backside landed squarely in your lap.”
The curvaceous widow had been all too willing to further their acquaintance, but she’d collided with Kit on opening night. Having written the play and performed in a minor role for an indisposed actor, he’d been too distracted fretting over success to bother with a dalliance.
Of late, something in him had altered. Perhaps he’d had his fill of the city’s amusements. Grey’s appetite never seemed to wane, but shallow seductions no longer brought Kit satisfaction. He worried less about pleasure and more about success. Four years in London and what had he accomplished? Coming to the city had never been about indulging in vice but about making his mark as a playwright. He’d allowed himself to be distracted. Far too impulsive should have been his nickname, for as often as his father had shouted the words at him in his youth.
“How about the angel in the second balcony?” Grey gestured to a gaudily painted box, high in the theater’s eastern wall. “I’ve never been able to resist a woman with titian red hair.”
Kit snapped his gaze to the spot Grey indicated, heartbeat ratcheting until it thundered in his ears. Spotting the woman, he expelled a trapped breath. The lady’s hair shone in appealing russet waves in the gaslight, but she wasn’t Ophelia. Phee’s hair was a rich auburn, and her jaw narrower. At least until it sharpened into an adorably squared chin that punctuated her usual air of stubborn defiance.
“No?” Grey continued his perusal of ladies among the sea of faces. “How about the giggling vision in the third row?”
The strawberry blonde laughed with such raucous abandon her bosom bounced as she turned to speak to her companion. Kit admired her profile a moment, letting his gaze dip lower before glancing at the man beside her.
“That’s Dominic Fleet.” Kit’s pulse jumped at the base of his throat. Opportunity sat just a few feet away.
He’d never met the theater impresario, but he knew the man by reputation. Unlike Merrick’s shabby playhouse, known for its comedies and melodramas, Fleet Theater featured long-running plays by the best dramatists in London. Lit entirely with electric lights, the modern theater seated up to three thousand.
“What’s he doing slumming at Merrick’s?” Grey turned to face Kit. “Did you invite him?”
“Months ago.” Kit had sent a letter of introduction to Fleet, enclosing a portion of a play he’d written but been unable to sell. “He never replied.” Yet here he was, attending the performance of a piece that revealed none of Kit’s true skill as a playwright. Merrick had demanded a bawdy farce. In order to pay his rent, Kit had provided it.
“You bloody traitor.” Grey smiled, his sarcastic tone belying his words. “You wouldn’t dare abandon Merrick and set out for greener fields.”
“Why? Because he compensates us so generously?”
Though they shared a love of theater, Grey and Kit had different cares. Grey possessed family money and worried little about meeting the expenses of a lavish London lifestyle. Kit could never take a penny from his father, even if it was on offer. Any aid from Leopold Ruthven would come with demands and expectations—precisely the sort of control he’d left Hertfordshire to escape.
“You belong here, my friend.” Grey clapped him on the shoulder. “With our band of misfits and miscreants. Orphans from lives better left behind.”
Belonging. The theater had given him that in a way his father’s home never had. Flouting rules, tenacity, making decisions intuitively—every characteristic his father loathed were assets in the theater. Kit had no desire to abandon the life he’d made for himself, just improve upon it.
“We came to London to make something of ourselves. Do you truly believe we’ll find success at Merrick’s?” Kit lifted his elbow and nudged the dingy curtain tucked at the edge of the stage. “Among tattered furnishings?”
“That’s only the backside of the curtain. Merrick puts the best side out front. We all have our flaws. The art is in how well we hide them.” Grey had such a way with words Kit often thought he should be a playwright. “Would you truly jump ship?”
“I bloody well would.” Kit slanted a glance at his friend. “And so would you.”