Page 47 of To Marry and to Meddle
Emily looked up at him thoughtfully. “Were you not concerned about hiring a woman?”
“I was concerned the other lads would bother her, more than anything else,” Julian said with a wry smile. “I told her we could take her on a trial basis, to see how it went—within a few days, one of the lads was offering her some unwanted attention, and she gave him a knee to the—a delicate area,” he corrected himself hastily, casting a concerned glance at her, clearly worrying that this might have been too much for her innocent ears.
Emily gazed back at him, wide-eyed.
“Julian,” she said utterly seriously, “can you teachmehow to do that?”
His laugh was strangely rewarding.
By the time they at last arrived at Julian’s office, Emily was practically vibrating with excitement—so much so, in fact, that she nearly walked right past the door in question, and had to be jerked somewhat abruptly to a halt by Julian’s arm, which she was still clinging to.
“Here,” he said, nodding to the nondescript door, upon which a small brass plaque bore his name. Not his title, not his role at the theater, simplyJULIAN BELFRY.
“Laverre’s office is next door,” he said as he opened the door, nodding over his shoulder down the hall. “He’s always popping in unannounced, so you’ll no doubt see him in a moment—”
“Even better,” Emily said cheerfully, sailing past her husband and into the room, where Mr. Laverre sat behind what was presumably Julian’s desk, feet kicked up upon the surface, a speculative expression on his face. “Mr. Laverre, how lovely to see you.”
Laverre hopped to his feet as soon as Emily entered the room and made rather a production of bowing over her hand—really, Frenchmen wereverycharming; it was a shame His Majesty’s Army had spent so much time trying to kill them over the past twenty years. Emily personally thought that a number of English gentlemen of her acquaintance could learn something from their counterparts across the Channel.
“That’s enough of that, Laverre,” Julian said darkly, shutting the door behind him. “What are you doing here? I believe you do have your own desk, approximately twenty feet away?”
“But there aren’t lovely wives inmyoffice,” Laverre said, giving Emily a smile. He was not a terribly tall man—about Emily’s own height, in fact—but he was still a commanding presence when he spoke. Julian had told her a bit of Laverre’s rather colorful personal history—he was the illegitimate son of a French nobleman and an opera dancer, and had appeared onstage himself in his youth. There was undoubtedly something compelling about him, as well as a comfort in his own skin that implied he was accustomed to being watched—even if, as Julian had explained, he’d spent the past decade behind the scenes, rather than center stage.
“Laverre, I have never seen you behave so charmingly in your entire life,” Julian said, stepping forward to help Emily into a seat. “Are you feeling at all well?”
“Merely possessed with a feverish glee at the thought that you have finally met your match,mon ami.”
“He only speaks French when he’s mocking me,” Julian explained to Emily, who continued to watch this exchange with great interest. She’d gotten to see a bit of their repartee at dinner the other night, but there had been so many other people present that she’d not hadmuch of a chance to pay attention. Julian was the son of one of the most respected aristocrats in England—the second son to a man who bore a title dating back generations—while Laverre was an illegitimate Frenchman raised in the demimonde. And yet, when the two men spoke, they interacted as equals—there was nothing in their manner to indicate their wildly different origins. Emily wondered if it had always been this way between them, or if Julian had become accustomed over time to this world that was so far from the one to which he’d been born.
Emily knew that she should be shocked by what she saw—by the actresses she’d met, women who lived outside the bounds of polite society; by this building, full of people who worked for a living, who spoke different languages, came from different places; by everything that was so utterly different from the rarefied environment in which she’d been raised, where everyone looked and spoke just exactly as she did, and where a lady was expected to be nothing but ornamental. Here, a woman could take up space, speak loudly, draw the eyes of a crowd—or, alternately, could slip into a role behind the scenes, quietly doing her work just as well as the men who surrounded her—and Emily found both prospects not shocking but… exhilarating.
She felt as though she’d been living in a cage for her entire life, and Julian had opened the door. There was an entire world beyond her mother’s drawing room, waiting to be discovered.
The Belfry—well, the Belfry was only the beginning.
“Mr. Laverre,” she said suddenly, interrupting whatever inane conversation the gentlemen were having, to which she had ceased paying any attention (a course of action that, according to Diana, was always the wisest). “What is it precisely that you do here at the Belfry?”
“I’m the manager,” Laverre said, drawing himself up a bit.
“I understand that,” Emily assured him. “I was under the impression managers are responsible for most everything that goes on at a theater?”
“That’s correct,” Laverre said, clearly pleased that she respected the importance of his position.
“Perhaps my question, then, should have been different,” Emily said thoughtfully. “If you’re responsible for almost everything that goes on—if the theater wouldn’t run without you—then what, precisely, does Lord Julian do?”
“A very good question, my lady,” Laverre said, nodding as Julian sputtered next to him, seeming about as discomposed as Emily had ever seen him. Laverre shot Julian a grin. “You should have married years ago.”
“I’m beginning to think quite the opposite,” Julian said darkly, then turned to Emily. “What is your concern here, precisely? I own the theater. I oversee the finances.”
“Actually,” Laverre put in helpfully at this juncture, “Ioversee the finances. I merely send him the paperwork to look over after the fact.”
“My original question still stands, then,” Emily said thoughtfully. “Is it normal for owners to have an office at the theater?”
“I couldn’t say,” Julian said through gritted teeth, “only having ever owned the one theater.”
At this juncture, Laverre offered, “Oftentimes the owner is some useless nobleman or other—”
“Present company excluded,” Julian interjected.
