Angel in Scarlet (78 page)

He saw me standing in the wings but, because of the dim light, he couldn't distinguish my features. I stepped out onto the stage, my turquoise skirt making silken music. Jamie stared at me, so startled he was momentarily robbed of speech. An unruly lock of glossy brown hair had tumbled across his brow. His green-brown eyes were wide with surprise. The slightly twisted nose was as engaging as ever, adding character and appeal to that handsome face, and the full pink lips were parted in dismay. I smiled to myself, delighted to be catching him off guard like this.

“Hello, Jamie,” I said sweetly.

“What do
you
want!” he snarled.

“Is that any way to speak? I want a job, if you must know. I understand you haven't cast Aphra yet, and I'd like the part. As you may have read in the morning papers, I am no longer Lady Meredith. I haven't a penny to my name. I have to work for my living again.”

“I—uh—I was sorry to hear about your husband's death, Angel. I meant to write, but—well, I've been very busy planning this new production. I was sorry about the other, too—lost everything, didn't you? Tough break, that. This chap Bradford must be an utter sod, turning you out in the cold. I—uh—I wish there were something I could do for you, Angel, I really do, but—”

He hesitated, very uncomfortable.

“But?” I prompted.

“But I feel an artist of your caliber would be much happier with Davy Garrick or one of the more prestigious managers.”

“You do, do you?”

“Besides, I visualize someone a mite younger in the part.”

“Younger?
Younger
!”

“You are getting on, my dear,” he said kindly.

I stared at him, my cheeks flaming, and he looked back at me with triumph, delighted to see that he had scored. It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep from slapping that smug grin off his mouth. I was absolutely furious, and I would happily have murdered him at the moment, but that joyous elation I felt earlier continued to well nevertheless. I felt the familiar exhilaration, felt vibrantly, gloriously alive with every fiber of my being. Jamie Lambert might be an infuriating scoundrel but he was the only man who had ever made the blood dance in my veins.

“I could play sixteen tonight,” I said with admirable control, “and you bloody well know it!”

“Maybe so, but—”

“You son of a bitch! I was
born
to play Aphra Behn, and I mean to do just that.”

He gave me a pitying look. “I'm sorry, Angel, but this is
my
play,
my
production, and I don't intend to see it turned into another vehicle for the celebrated Angel Howard. I don't
need
you. I can make it on my own and that's exactly what I mean to do. When they write their reviews, they're going to write about James Lambert's brilliant production, not Angel Howard's superlative performance.”

“You and your bloody pride!” I exclaimed. “You really would risk another fiasco like
Amelia Mine
just because—just because you're so bloody unsure of your own talents. Well, I have news for you, Mister Lambert, it isn't going to happen!”

“No?” he said calmly.

“No! I'm going to play Aphra, and
our
production is going to be the biggest success of the season. It may be
your
play, but it happens to be
my
theater.”

“What?”

“I also happen to be financing the whole bloody show.”

“
What
!”

“You heard me, you sod! If you don't believe me I can show you the papers to prove it. I happen to have an enormous investment in this production, and I don't intend to let you diddle it away because you're so goddamned stiff-necked and stubborn you can't see the—the two of us
together
are an unbeatable combination!”

We stood there on the empty stage, glaring at each other, and then a peculiar expression passed over his face. The anger vanished, and he looked bewildered, looked perplexed. My own anger melted, too, replaced by another emotion that had been there from the very beginning. I had loved three men, each in a different way, but this was the man who made my soul sing.

“You—you're the one,” he said in a strained voice. “You're the one who paid off the mortgage and took the papers and put up the money to—to finance the production.”

“And it took every penny I had in the bank—money that was there in the first place because of you and your plays and your faith in me when I was a totally inexperienced seamstress's assistant who—Goddamn you, Jamie, if I start crying I intend to black both your eyes!”

“Why?” he asked quietly. “Why did you do it?”

“You know bloody well why I did it. Do you think I could sit back and see you lose The Lambert when I knew full well it's the most important thing in the world to you?”

Jamie didn't reply. He looked at me for a long moment, caught up by emotions he could no longer conceal behind stubborn pride and thorny posturing. I thought I might expire with joy when he moved closer and took both my hands and held them tightly and looked deep into my eyes, his own reflecting everything I felt in my heart. He would never change. He would always be moody and mercurial and volatile and I would always be feisty and as willful as he and we would always fight … oh how glorious the making up would be.

“You're wrong about that,” he said. “The Lambert isn't the most important thing in the world to me. It's the
second
most important thing.”

“Indeed?”

“A close second,” he admitted.

“And what would be the first?”

“Do you really have to ask? Do I really have to show you?”

“It might be rather amusing,” I said.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1986 by Tom Huff

Cover design by Julianna Lee

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9819-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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