Because You're Mine (Capital Theatre #2)(9)

To Madeline's surprise, Logan Scott had not been cast as the girl's true love, but as the villain of the piece. The moment he strode onstage, an electric thrill shot through the audience. Like everyone else, Madeline was riveted by his self-assurance, the threatening charm of his character. He wanted the girl for himself, and not even her love for another man would stand in his way.

To Madeline, each minute that passed was a revelation. She stood silently in the wings, her fingers gripped in a fold of velvet curtain, her heart pounding so hard that she could feel it down to her toes. Each time Mr. Scott spoke, she could barely breathe. He inhabited the character with ease, conveying the man's selfishness and intense longing. Like the rest of the audience, Madeline began to hope that he might win the innocent girl's love.

Mr. Scott remained onstage for most of the first act, manipulating, bargaining, driving wedges between the two lovers until it seemed that true love would never have its way. “What happens in the end?” Madeline couldn't help whispering to a scene-mover who had stopped next to her. “Does Mr. Scott marry her, or does he let her go to the other man?”

The sceneshifter grinned as he saw the rapt attention Madeline paid to the action onstage. “I can't tell you,” he informed her. “Wouldn't dream of spoiling the surprise.”

Before she could entreat him again, the first act concluded and it was time for intermission. Madeline skittered to the side as the curtain was dropped. A troupe of dancers filed onstage to entertain the audience until the second half of the play began.

Wistfully Madeline waited in the semidarkness, hidden behind the edge of velvet curtain. It would seem an eternity until the play resumed. Anticipation filled her, and she was conscious of a tingle of happiness. There was no other place she would rather be than here, breathing in the scents of sweat and paint, and the acrid smell of calcium lights.

A large, dark shape moved past her, a man striding from the stage to the cluster of dressing rooms. Their shoulders brushed as he walked by, and his steps slowed. He stopped and lifted his hand to the place where they had touched. Slowly he turned to look at her. Their gazes met, and Madeline felt a throb of alarm in the pit of her stomach. It was Mr. Scott.

A shimmer of perspiration highlighted every angle of his face. Although the color of his eyes was muted in the shadows, the glitter of dawning anger was unmistakable. “You…” he said. “What the hell are you doing in my theater?”

No one had ever cursed at her before. Surprise made her slow to reply. “Mr. Scott…I can see that Her Grace hasn't yet spoken to you about me.…”

“I told you there was nothing for you here.”

“Yes, sir, but the duchess didn't agree. She hired me as her assistant—”

“You're dismissed,” he snapped, coming forward until he loomed over her.

She could smell the sweat on his skin and the damp linen of his shirt. It was not at all unpleasant…it was fascinating. He made the other men she had known in her life seem like soft, tame creatures.

“No, sir,” she said, hardly believing she had dared to refuse him.

There was a brief silence. “No?” he repeated in a thick voice, as if the word had never been said to him before.

“The duchess said that she could hire me if she pleased, and that if you objected, I should come to her.”

An unpleasant laugh came from his throat. “Did she? I'd like to know who owns this damned theater! Come with me.” He took her upper arm in a punishing grip.

Stumbling, gasping, Madeline was pulled toward his dressing room. Her ears were assaulted by his muttered curses. “Sir…I would appreciate it if you wouldn't use such words in my presence.”

“You come to my theater uninvited, cause an accident in the wings, go behind my back to plead for a job…and now give me a lecture on my manners?”

The door slammed shut, and they stood staring at each other—he with palpable fury, she with quiet stubbornness. She would not let him send her away from the Capital.

“I would have thought such language beneath a man like you,” Madeline said with extreme dignity.

Mr. Scott opened his mouth to reply, then muttered something under his breath.

In the small, brilliantly lit room, every detail of Mr. Scott's face was vivid. The bronze of his complexion made stage paint unnecessary. His gaze was so piercing that it almost hurt to look at him, and his wide jaw was granite-hard. “You've made a mistake, Miss Ridley. There's no room for you here.”

“Mr. Scott, if you're still offended by my clumsiness earlier, I'm sorry for that. I'll be quite careful from now on. Won't you give me another chance?”

Logan was infuriated by his own reaction to her. The memory of her had distracted him all day. The girl's appealing speech would have melted a glacier, but it only strengthened Logan's resolve. “It has nothing to do with this morning,” he said brusquely. “The fact is, you're not needed here.”

“But the duchess said there were many things I could help with…the costumes, the theater library—”

“Julia has a soft heart,” he interrupted. “You managed to take advantage of her. I'm not so easily manipulated.”

“I haven't manipulated anyone,” she protested.

A manservant arrived to help Logan change for the second act, bearing in his arms a fresh white linen shirt and vest. “George,” Logan acknowledged him curtly and began to unfasten his damp shirt. There were only a few minutes left before the second act commenced.