Page 65 of To Marry and to Meddle
“I haven’t been this worried about a production in quite a while,” Julian said frankly. Were it anyone else, he wouldn’t have admitted this so readily, but he’d learned long ago that there was little point in trying to fool Laverre on matters such as this—the man had a keen ability to see through whatever act Julian attempted.
Laverre watched the scene unfolding onstage for a long moment, his mouth quirked slightly to one side the way it did when he was deepin thought. “She’s not as good as Miss Simmons,” he said at last. “But she’s perfectly suitable. It will be fine.”
“I don’t want fine,” Julian said shortly. “I want brilliant.”
Laverre glanced at him and gave an eloquent, extremely French eye roll. “I know. You’ve mentioned it a time or two, the past few months.” He paused, gazing at Julian for a long moment.
“Just say it,” Julian said impatiently; Laverre occasionally had an irritating penchant for dramatic pauses that Julian did not feel like humoring.
“You need to step back,” Laverre said shortly. “You’re not acting rationally—first, you were obsessed with luring June away from Drury Lane this season, which you managed quite successfully. Then came this whole business with Miss Simmons—she’s a brilliant actress, but we’ve a perfectly competent understudy, and you refuse to acknowledge that fact.”
“It’s not just the show,” Julian said, his eyes fixed on the stage once more, where June and Miss Congreave had started the scene over again, the orchestra once more beginning to play the music that would accompany their words. “I don’t want my name mixed up in any scandal that Delacre and Miss Simmons might cause. The last thing I need is to be the source of further gossip.”
“Belfry, you’ve been the source of gossip for years, and you’ve never seemed to care two pence about it, until recently.”
“Because—” Julian began, but Laverre cut him off.
“I understand perfectly well that you wish to compete with the patent theaters, to ensure that every pompous ass in London knows that you didn’t make a mistake in your investment all those years ago. And you can tell yourself that it’s not your father you wish to prove something to, but I won’t believe you.”
Julian opened his mouth to object and then closed it again, his mind occupied with Laverre’s words.
“You’re beginning to sound like Emily,” he said peevishly.
“Interesting you should mention her,” Laverre said slowly, a smug note to his voice that did not bode well. “Because, if you want my opinion, it’s only once you met her that you truly became fixated on this.”
“That’s not true,” Julian said automatically. “I’ve been trying—”
“To improve our reputation for the better part of a year, yes,” Laverre said impatiently. “And yet I’ve never seen you so single-mindedly focused on it as you have been these past three months.”
Since he met Emily.
Because that was the reason he had married her.
So of course he was bloody focused on it, he thought with some irritation. If he’d gone to the extreme of getting married—of leg-shackling himself to a woman for the rest of his life—then he’d damned well better get what he hoped to from this marriage. He had to. Because if he abandoned his goal now—
He stilled.
If he abandoned his goal—this obsession with the Belfry’s reputation—if he no longer cared about impressing anyone…
Well, then he might have to admit that maybe, just maybe, there had been more to his motivation for marrying Emily than convenience alone.
That he wanted more from her than a marriage based on a passionless arrangement.
He sat motionless in his seat as this realization washed over him, eyes on the stage but not taking in a single detail of the drama unfolding before him, until, after a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he became aware of a stagehand hovering nearby.
“Yes?” he asked, trying to keep any sharpness out of his tone.
“My lord,” the stagehand said quickly, “there’s a visitor here to see you.”
“We’re in the middle of a rehearsal,” Julian said, as if he were actually watching the rehearsal any longer. “Can’t it wait?”
“I think you’ll wish to see this visitor now, sir,” the stagehand said uncertainly, before leaning forward and adding, “It’s Miss Simmons.”
“Do you think the yellow paisley or the orange stripes will look more atrocious?” Diana asked, scrutinizing each fabric sample in turn as though the very safety of the kingdom depended on it.
“The yellow paisley,” Violet said definitively, after a long moment of staring at each one in turn. “Jeremy’s hair is so blond. He will look horrid in the yellow—like an overgrown daffodil.”
“Emily?” Diana asked, turning to her; Emily, who had only been halfway attending to any of their conversation, started guiltily, then added—because this was generally, though not always, a safe response—“I agree with Violet.”
