“Every fellow has the occasional lapse! Will you not forgive me, even when you know that you alone are the woman I yearn to love and cherish?”
Kitty closed her eyes and clenched her hands at her sides as the sounds of the theatre pulsed around the two of them, alone in her dressing room. She ought to think about her future. In a few years, her looks would have faded and with it, her fame and acclaim. A clever woman would amass now what she’d need in retirement, not look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying went. And Lord Nash was any woman’s dream with his brooding dark looks and his fine, athletic physique. He was an exciting and considerate lover. Generous, too. And he was offering her everything he’d given so freely before.
Except marriage.
“I can’t go back to you when I’m still in love with Silverton,” she said softly. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
“I’d make you forget Silverton. Kitty, please.” His tone was beseeching. As if he truly didn’t care that she’d not be wholly his? How could he? Kitty would rather die than be with someone whose heart she knew belonged to another. It was the knowledge that Silverton would inevitably drift closer to the worthy Miss Mandelton as their babies were born that fueled her need to withdraw from him while she still had the strength.
There was a rap on the door. “Miss Bijou. Thirty seconds.”
Kitty glanced back to Nash and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nash. Your offer is very generous, and you’re a good man. But I just can’t turn back the clock.”
Rejecting him didn’t make her feel any better or any more powerful. She performed her role with all the usual finesse, judging by the rapturous applause. And then she wondered how she did it as she stepped forward for a final encore, her arms full of bouquets.
“You were marvelous, as usual,” Mr. Lazarus congratulated her afterward. Actors and chorus girls milled around her, excitedly chattering about how first rate the night had been. Kitty felt in a daze. Had she really been so rash as to sacrifice what might be her only chance at finding at least some kind of mutual love? She had loved Nash, hadn’t she? Why, only two months ago she’d been prepared to be his wife.
And then, as she returned to her dressing room where she could thankfully be alone, another rap sounded on the door and she turned, her heart thundering more painfully than it ever had in her life when Silverton walked into the room.
He was alone. But he would not be for long. She knew that, just as she knew in the intense, pained look they exchanged that she could never feel the kind of love for anyone that she felt for Silverton.
“Oh God, Kitty, I’ve missed you!” he murmured, closing his eyes and not advancing farther after he’d closed the door behind him.
The frenzied buzzing of actors nearby, the strong smell of lead paint and powder and dust made her head swim. Or was it that her senses were so overloaded she wasn’t sure how much more she could take?
It was too much. Kitty dropped the flowers she was holding and ran across the room and into his embrace. His arms went around her tightly, and as his lips came down upon hers, she felt the most incredible rush of euphoric joy. This was what she was made for. Love.
But only Silverton could do this to her.
The urgency of knowing how short their time was together only escalated their passion. As his tongue breached the seam of her lips, and his hands skimmed her breasts, half exposed by her low bodice, the ache between her legs was like a cruel reminder of what she could never have. Never again could she run her hands up his toned chest, or twine her fingers in the light hair that dusted his muscled torso. Nor would she feel his hot mouth closing about her nipple or pleasuring her most intimate parts, before he took her in a final climax of urgent want and need, thrusting into her and filling her with joyful satisfaction.
For he belonged to another now.
With a soft moan, she pulled out of his arms. He didn’t try to reclaim her. His hands were at his sides now and his expression one of the greatest sorrow.
“You will not come back to me, will you, Kitty?” He said it like he understood the terrible dilemma that had torn them apart.
“It’s not only me. You couldn’t do that to Miss Mandelton, I know, Silverton,” she whispered. “Even if I said yes, you know you couldn’t live with yourself.”
“Kitty, I wish to God I—”
She turned, pressing the palm of her hands to her eyes. “Don’t say it,” she rasped. It hurt just to breathe. “You can’t marry me. An actress, another man’s acknowledged mistress. I am forever out of your reach because of who you are and what you owe your family. And for the path I’ve chosen.”
The truth echoed around her head. And for the path her father chose. A bastard could never amount to anything. She’d heard it so many times.
She managed a teary smile as she put out her hands. “Forever friends, Silverton?”
Gravely, he took them.
“Forever friends, Kitty. And if you should ever need my help in any way, you have only to ask.”
Kitty blinked back her tears. “You’re a kind man. That’s why I loved you.” She had to put it in the past tense. “And have you brought Miss Mandelton to the theater? I think you would not have come otherwise, perhaps?”
He nodded. “It was her great desire
to bring me along, even though she’s seen the play before. We are the guests of…Lady Partington. I was there when she invited Octavia.”
Kitty had to grip the edge of the dressing table as her knees buckled. She swallowed. “Lord Partington did not come?”