Dare to Love (21 page)

“Zey are disappointed,” I interrupted. “Zey will go back to zair papers and zey will write unkind things about Elena Lopez. Zis big man with zee shoulders and zee sandy 'air, he does not tell Elena Lopez when to speak to zee men from zee press!”

“The reception is all arranged. You see, that way every one of the men will have an equal opportunity to speak with you. No one will be short-changed. They'll all be able to get a good story.”

“I see. I will invite zem to my reception.”

“Mister Rogers will inform them as to—”

“
I
vill ask zem!” I said defiantly.

As I started toward the group of men, Anthony grabbed my arm, trying to restrain me. But I jerked my arm free and gave him a blazing look that should have incinerated him on the spot. I moved over to the staircase and stood in front of the men. Their attitude had changed completely. They were no longer hostile toward me. David and Anthony had become the villains, and Elena Lopez was their champion. I smiled at them. David shot Anthony a frantic look.

“Gentlemen of zee. press,” I said slowly, trying very hard to speak proper English. “I want you to come to a party. We will have champagne and I will answer all your questions. Elena Lopez loves zee gentlemen of zee press. Zey are always so charming.”

They grinned. They beamed. They adored me.

“You,” I said angrily, pointing to David. “Zis oh-tel 'as a place where zey serve drinks? Yes? Please, you will take all zee gentlemen zhere and buy zem drinks. Elena Lopez pays. Zey put it on her bill.”

Three or four of the men actually cheered. David frowned and looked at Anthony but shrugged his shoulders and led the way into the adjoining bar. The men followed eagerly. I waved to them. Anthony gripped my elbow and led me up the stairs, the uniformed youth hurrying ahead of us. I felt a glow of triumph. It had been so very easy. I hadn't been nervous at all. Instinctively, I had thrown myself into the role with complete abandon. As we followed the youth down a long, wide plushly carpeted corridor, I found that I was actually enjoying myself.

“Where are my trunks?” I demanded as we stopped in front of a door. “Where eez my jewel case? I gave it to my maid? She eez here? Elena feels na-ked without her jewels.”

Anthony gave me a grim, exasperated look as the youth opened the door and led us into a spacious, beautifully appointed sitting room done in tan and deep maroon and pale blue. An enormous crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Deep maroon draperies framed the tall windows. The young man opened a door and showed us the bedroom and indicated the adjoining dressing room and bath. Anthony, tipping him generously, told him everything was satisfactory and showed him out, closing the door behind him. He took a deep breath and leaned against the door, staring at me, his arms crossed over his chest, his face expressionless.

“I like it,” I said.

“At these prices, you'd bloody well better.”

“I've never seen such luxurious rooms.”

“Only the best for Elena Lopez.”

His face was inscrutable, and he kept staring at me as though I were a stranger. Had I done well? Had I gone too far? I moved across the deep tan carpet. I took off my hat and laid it on a sofa upholstered in pale blue. He continued to watch me, his lids drooping slightly.

“Where's Millie?” I asked.

“She's probably in her room. It's at the end of the hall.”

“My trunks?”

“They'll be here.”

“I don't care what
you
think,” I said testily. “
I
think I was magnificent.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely magnificent!”

“You're bloody generous with my money. Do you know how much those chaps drink? They drink like fish. That little gesture of yours is going to cost me a bloody fortune, and you know what?”

“What?”

“I don't even care.”

I looked at him, surprised. His eyes began to sparkle and his mouth spread into a wide grin. Bounding across the room, he caught me up in a great bear hug that almost broke my ribs. He squeezed me tightly, rocking me to and fro, and then he actually whirled me around, as exuberant and lusty as a soccer player who has just won a big game. He set me on my feet and seized both my hands and squeezed them and grinned and grinned.

“The style! The flair! I should never have worried! I should have known you'd be tremendous. What an entrance! You had them eating out of your hand! Christ, you were marvelous! Marvelous!”

He hugged me again.

“For a minute there, I actually believed you were Elena Lopez!”

He released me, and I caught my breath. Then he grabbed my hands again.

“I couldn't believe it. I was stunned! That accent! Those flashing eyes! What instinct! You knew just what to do, just what to say. You've got the press on your side already, luv, and the rest is going to be a snap of the fingers. You were fantastic!”

“Thank God,” I said.

XVII

Anthony insisted that we do it again. So we did, and when we were finished, the men in the orchestra sighed and shifted their instruments. I stood onstage with my hands on my hips, tapping my foot impatiently. Everyone was on edge. Tomorrow night Elena Lopez would make her debut. This afternoon was our last chance to rehearse. Anthony was like a demon, hard on the orchestra, even harder on me, making impossible demands. He climbed out of his seat now and strode up and down the aisle. His footsteps rang loudly in the vast, empty auditorium.

“You're going to hate me, I know, but I'm going to ask you to do it one more time. The fast number's fine, all fire and fury, music and movements in perfect harmony, but the slower number—”

He shook his head. Several men in the orchestra groaned. Several more cast angry glances in his direction. They were here to play Rossini, not to indulge an upstart entrepreneur who clearly wouldn't know what art was if it bit him on the neck, and they resented him. They felt sorry for me. They had expected fireworks from the notorious Elena Lopez, but she had been meek, patient, polite, never once complaining during any of the rehearsals. She had been friendly to each and every one of them, greeting them warmly in her thick Spanish accent, and giving them apologetic looks when she failed to satisfy the bully.

She was tapping her foot now. She was bone weary. Her nerves were raw and jangling. If he kept on pushing her and riding her, those fireworks were going to materialize.

“One more time,” he pleaded. “Remember, men, this music is sensual. It's not Mozart. It's not Rossini. It's a Spanish love song, slow and moody. Think of hot summer nights in Madrid. Think of a lovelorn youth and a seductive temptress who is trying to make him forget the fair maiden he loves. Think of—”

“I'm thinking of my backside,” one of the men protested. “I've been sitting in this bloody chair, propping up this bloody violin, for four hours straight.”

Anthony ignored the remark. He strolled down the aisle, moving nearer the stage. He was wearing dark plum-colored trousers and a white cambric shirt opened at the throat, sleeves folded up to his elbows. His brown hair was casually disarrayed. I tapped my foot more rapidly now, my nerves near the snapping point.

“Miss Lopez,” he said, “kindly remember that you are attempting to seduce a beautiful youth with burning eyes. You want him. Your movements are slow, sensuous. You are smouldering with desire.”

I looked at the conductor. I looked at the men in the pit.

“Who eez thees man?” I asked.

“What's that?” Anthony said.

“Who
eez
thees man! He thinks he can tell Elena Lopez about passion? He thinks he can treat her with—with this pa-tron-izing condescension? She has been zee angel, right? She has not complained. She has let heem browbeat her and work zeez poor men to death. No more! She eez finished for zee day.”

“Now hold on, luv.”

“Finished!”

I stomped my foot, tossed my head, and I stalked offstage. The men in the pit applauded noisily. As I headed toward my dressing room, stepping over coils of rope, moving past stacks of flats leaning against the bare brick walls, I could hear Anthony clambering up onto the stage in hot pursuit. Reaching the rusty iron staircase that wound up to the less important dressing rooms above, I whirled around to face him. When he saw the expression on my face, he hesitated, biting back the angry words he'd been about to speak, realizing he was going to have to use a. different approach.

“Look, luv—” he began.

“Not one more word!” I snapped.

“This is our last opportunity to—”

“I am exhausted! So are those men! The theater's like an oven, not a single breath of fresh air, and you've been a heartless slave driver! You're lucky I'm not sprawled out onstage in a dead faint! You expect me to perform tomorrow night? I won't be
able
to perform tomorrow night. I'll be in some hospital bed in a state of complete collapse!”

“The accent, remember the accent. Someone might overhear.”

“Go to
hell
!”

He shook his head and gave me a weary, patient look.

“I want you to stay in character as much as possible, but this is overdoing it.”

His voice was patient, too. He might have been speaking to a rather simple-minded child. I could feel the anger boiling up inside me. Smiling, he patted my arm, all warmth and understanding now. He started to say something gentle and consoling, but when he saw my flashing eyes he decided against it. He stepped back and thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. I stormed past him, angry tears burning in my eyes.

Millie was waiting for me in the dressing room. Observing the state I was in, she didn't bother to speak, but fetched a glass of cool water and handed it to me. I sat down in front of the mirror and drank it. Sprinkling cologne on a cloth, she patted my temples and forehead with it. I took a deep breath, willing myself to simmer down. After a few moments I took the cloth from her and finished wiping my face. Millie gave a sigh of relief.

“I'm sorry, Millie.”

“You just got a bit wrought up,” she said. “It's all this tension and strain.”

“I suppose so.”

“You'll be fine once tomorrow night's over with. You're gonna' be a sensation, just like you were when you gave the reception for them fellows from the newspapers. They loved you—just look at the things they've been writin' about you—and the audience is going to love you, too.”

“You're beginning to sound like Anthony.”

“God forbid.”

“I don't need reassurance. I just need—I just need a little peace and quiet.”

“'Course you do, luv.”

Millie handed me a towel and set a ewer of water on the dressing table. I slipped out of my rehearsal gown and bathed my neck and arms. Millie helped me into a robe, and when I sat back down she began to brush my hair. Millie took her job very seriously. Dressed in a simple dark-blue cotton dress, a ruffled white organdy apron tied around her waist, her golden curls caught up in a loose French roll on the back of her head, she was determined to be the best lady's maid in London. Now that she had gone respectable, she was respectable with a vengeance, watching her language, trying not to drop her h's.

“You 'aven't—
haven't
said anything about the roses,” she remarked. “A boy brought them a couple of hours ago. Cheeky lad, thought he could get fresh. I put 'im in 'is place quick enough.”

The roses stood on the bureau in a tall white basket. They were a vivid red, gorgeous, and there must have been at least three dozen of them. I knew who had sent them without even glancing at the small white card nestling amidst the stems. Mr. George Dorrance had sent me roses every single day since I began rehearsals at the theater. He had asked me to dine with him on three different occasions. I had refused each time. Dorrance felt obligated to sleep with all the attractive female guest artists who performed with his company. As he was rich and important and very attractive, his success was generally a foregone conclusion. Elena Lopez presented quite a challenge.

“They're lovely,” I said, unimpressed.

“He doesn't give up, does he?”

“Not easily.”

“He's been most attentive.”

“Most,” I said.

When Millie finished with my hair, it was lovely, all sleeked back, long curls dangling, the Elena Lopez style that a few of the women who had encountered me here at the theater were already beginning to imitate. I touched up my makeup as Millie took down my dress, a street dress that happened to be silk, maroon and black stripes, very thin. It was sumptuous, as were all the outfits Anthony had purchased. Elena Lopez had a fabulous wardrobe. The gowns all had a certain style, too, a look created for the seductive Spanish dancer, current fashions be damned.

I slipped into the dress, and Millie had just finished buttoning me up in back when someone knocked on the door. I frowned. I guessed who it would be. Anthony never knocked, he just barged right in. Millie had a good idea who it would be, too. We exchanged looks, and she stepped to the door and opened it. Dorrance strolled in, smiling. The dressing room was quite large, but he was so big that his presence made it seem much smaller.

“And how did the rehearsal go?” he inquired.

“Eet went very nice-ly,” I replied.

“I see you got my roses.”

I nodded. He smiled. Dorrance was in his late thirties, a tall, heavily built man, a large man who carried his size with ease. He had dark, wavy hair and deep brown eyes that were much too sincere. The drooping lids and the wide, full lips betrayed a highly sensual nature. He was much too aware of his good looks, and I found his manner heavy-handed, calculating. Dorrance saw himself as a great womanizer, which indeed he was. His easy success with women had given him a confidence I found most unappealing. I was neither overwhelmed nor flattered by his interest in me, merely bored. It was difficult not to show it.