Playing The Duke's Mistress. Eliza Redgold

vanishing figure.

      He uncurled his fingers. His fists had been clenched for the whole journey, hidden in his coat pockets. He rarely walked so far abroad in the city, especially at night. All his senses had been on alert, his body ready to spring into action. Most of his walks he took across his country acres, with his Labradors at his heels. Yet she covered the long distance at such a late hour and showed remarkable courage on the dangerous London streets. She had made a play of it, but he was sure it must terrify her, even without men like Lord Merrick around. By God, there weren’t even adequate gaslights here, they were so far from the better part of the city. Now Darius understood the circles under her eyes. To perform a demanding role like Rosalind and then to walk for an hour without a meal... Her thinness was now also explained.

      He frowned and glanced down the street. The poor lighting made it difficult to see too far, but he made out the row of small mean buildings. There was a public house on the corner, and he could hear raised voices, two men having a brawl. Surely it was only a matter of time before some other drunken lout bumped into Calista and saw the beauty that she was.

      All she had to protect herself was her extraordinary skill in transforming her body into another shape in the shadows. He had known Miss Fairmont wore skirts, but such was the masculine posture and presence she had emanated that he would have sworn it had been another man coming towards him in the dim cloud of night.

      Darius stiffened. She was an actress. It wouldn’t do for him to forget that. Yet it horrified him that a woman of her talents lived in such an area. Her posturing in the fog wouldn’t fool everyone. Not if they saw that face. And that smile. It lit up the fog, brighter than a gas lamp.

      He took a closer look at the brick-fronted, two-storeyed building into which she’d disappeared. She’d referred to rooms. That must mean she didn’t even have a house to herself and her sister. It seemed the sole income for the small family was being provided by Calista’s skills on the stage and that wasn’t enough pay for decent accommodation.

      Under his breath he released an expletive.

      Nothing had gone as he intended. Not at all. Like an actor himself, he’d been prepared to play Lothario, had planned what he might say to flatter and perhaps even begin to seduce her. He’d made his list of ways to woo an actress. He’d seen it all before, had learnt the hard way what women like that wanted. Flattery had been at the top, for actresses thrived on attention, or so he’d thought. But Miss Fairmont would have none of it. She despised flattery of her art and loathed the attentions of men like Lord Merrick.

      His brow furrowed deeper. Such wholesomeness—could it be feigned? There seemed to be no trace of pretence in her. She played no character when she came off the stage, except herself.

      He walked back towards more respectable streets where a hansom cab might be found, still brooding.

      Her sister Columbine must have been the girl with whom he had seen her in the park. The ill child clearly wasn’t made up, an imaginary character in a sad story designed to play on his sympathy or his wallet. Unbeknown to her, in Hyde Park he’d already witnessed Miss Fairmont’s anxious care of her sister, fussing over her like a mother water bird. He had sensed from what she’d said, or what she hadn’t said, that the stress of dealing with her sister’s welfare was beginning to break her health, too, if not her spirit. Why was she so alone? Unprotected?

      When Merrick had her trapped against the wall... Darius swore. He’d never felt such unaccountable rage. She’d been cornered, yet with her head still held high she’d looked briefly into his own eyes. Hers had been anguished, inky as indigo, full of unshed tears. He had been torn between giving Merrick what he deserved and wanting to take Miss Fairmont into his arms. He’d wanted to comfort her. To promise it would be all right, that he would make it so.