Danyl Fitzhugh needs a woman. After his latest leading lady leaves both his theatre and his bed for another company, he vows to prove he can turn any woman in London into an actress—and sets his sights on Sarah Branford. He’s immediately drawn to her innocence and beauty, and their unexpected attraction soon leads to an audition for the stage and as his mistress. But with Christmas approaching and their passion growing, will their relationship last when Danyl learns Sarah is much more than she seems?

To Undo a Lady

Christine Merrill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear reader,

The Christmas Panto is a tradition we do not have here in the states, but it has existed in various forms in the UK, since the seventeenth century. What began as true pantomime or dumb show, slowly changed to a retelling of fairy tales and bedtime stories. These were often combined with a Harlequinade: a broad slapstick story with set characters. Columbine and Harlequin are lovers, running from her father, Pantaloon, and chased by the clown and the servant, Pierrot. Harlequin carries a slapstick or magic sword, and used it like a magic wand to cue scene changes and special effects.

Joseph Grimaldi was an actor well known for his panto Harlequin and Mother Goose: or The Golden Egg. He would have been playing just down the street from the characters in my imaginary Pageant Playhouse. Grimaldi played the clown, and is considered to be the inventor of the modern day whiteface clown.

Those readers frightened of clowns now know who to blame.

Dedication

To my readers: Merry Christmas!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Copyright

Chapter One

While Shakespeare claimed that April was the cruelest month, Danyl Fitzhugh would have argued for December. He flipped the top collar of his Garrick up to protect his face from the chill and knotted the muffler to hold it in place. Even at this late hour, the streets of London were cold, muddy and crowded with people rushing from one place to another to no apparent purpose. They wasted their money on excesses of food and drink and gifts to celebrate the season. To Danyl’s mind, far too few of them were going to the theater.

There would be even fewer at the Pageant Playhouse, now that he’d lost another actress to the Theatre Royal. He had trained that wench, Maria, from her first step upon the boards, shared his knowledge of the craft, and then used all his skills as a director to set her like a jewel in the crown of his productions. In return, she had stabbed him in the back. And right before Christmas.

If he’d been in the habit of celebrating that particular holiday, it might have been worse. But she had used his mixed-blood heritage as an excuse to defect to Grimaldi for his seasonal pantomime. It stung the pride to be treated as some sort of godless infidel by a woman who had been only too happy to share his bed when she wanted a better role.

As she left, he had shouted that he could turn any whore in Drury Lane into her equal, nay, her superior, if he so chose. And now, it appeared he might have to do just that, if he did not want to cancel the next night’s performance. He’d searched London from one end to the other and could not find an actress that suited him.

But Covent Garden was busy with people seeking entertainment of one sort or another—drink, gambling, the theater, or diversions of a carnal nature. In a place like this, whores were thick on the ground, loitering in the alcoves and blocking doorways when the weather turned cold. It sometimes seemed that if a girl meant to fall from grace, she could find no better place to do it then right outside the door of his theater.

If he intended to carry out his threat to Maria, he could not afford to be too particular. A courtesan would never stoop to becoming an actress. The women in brothels were too busy to discuss a change in career. Nor did he wish to pull one from bed, only to have her recognized and jeered by some buck who had lain with her just a night before.

He could tempt a streetwalker with his offer. But he needed someone new, fresh, and without the tarnished and shabby glamour that affected women after time on the street.

He needed her.

The poor creature huddled by the wall was small, as Maria had been. She would fit the costumes without alteration. But where Maria had been a match for his own dark coloring, this girl would be a foil. Fair of skin and hair with wide, innocent, cornflower-blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. When he played Othello, he would tower over her. In response, the audience’s heart would break for poor Desdemona.

But he would have to feed her first, and thaw her out. Her dress and shawl were fine, but too light for the weather. Her lips were almost blue from cold. The garments were beginning to hang loose, and her lovely face was gaining the pinched look of one who had missed more than one meal. Everything about her cried that she was out of options and might be agreeable to anything that might ease her suffering.

As he approached, she looked straight at him and then away. Was it the color of his skin that put her off? He’d had women, both English and Indian, refuse him because of it, not wanting to be bedded by some half-caste bastard. But tonight he did not have the time to be angry.

Then she looked up again. It had not been a personal affront. She was simply terrified of the task before her. “Please, sir…” She stopped as though she hoped he would understand the rest.

Wordlessly, he reached into a pocket and gave the coins in his purse a jingle.

She wet her lips again and forced herself to speak. “Fancy a tumble?” She was trying to make her voice sultry but coarse, to give him the impression that she had done this many times. But she was obviously educated, and green as spring grass to the ways of the street.

“How much?” It was unfair of him to toy with her, but he could not resist seeing how strong her nerve might be, and how long she would carry out such an obvious farce.

By the look she gave him, it was clear that she had never done this before. Even an inexperienced whore would have some idea of her worth. “A pound?”

He laughed. “I would not pay a pound for the ladies in the Kama Sutra. But for the nerve to suggest it, I would give you a shilling.”

“Done.” Before he could make his offer, she had grabbed him by the scarf and hauled him into the shadow of a nearby pillar. She had to stand on the tops of his feet to reach his mouth, but she did so, and planted her lips on his, pushing back with her body to pin him to the bricks as she kissed.

Far be it from him to correct her form. But she would not let him catch a breath to tell her that streetwalkers were never so eager as this. If they kissed at all, it was not with such desperate enthusiasm. It seemed that, if this was her first step on the road to ruin, she meant to run the rest of the way down it before losing her nerve. Her mouth was open, and his tongue played along the straight, clean teeth, and bit the lips that were ice-cold but barely chapped by the weather.

Oh Mother, but this was sweet. He squeezed her breasts through a gown that was fine enough for a drawing room, and felt her shiver. But it was more from the cold than anticipation. His own body was answering, ready. Perhaps, if he had been a gentleman, he’d have refused her. It should be beneath him to take this unfortunate against a wall.

If things went as he expected, she’d be his leading lady soon enough, and that inevitably lead to a situation much like this one. If they got the first intimacy out of the way before he negotiated her salary, there would be no questions later about what he might wish from her.

He took control, and pulled aside his scarf so that he might open his greatcoat to wrap it around them both. Then he turned their bodies so that she was the one braced against the bricks, and lifted her skirt.

Her shivering ceased and he could feel her fumbling with the buttons of his breeches. But either she was still frightened, or her fingers were numb with the cold. He lifted one hand to his lips and kissed it, breathing the life back into it. With his other hand, he touched her yahni, trying to tease some warmth to it as well.

She might be inexperienced, but clearly she was no virgin. She did not seem surprised by his touch. Her breathing quickened and then stopped in fear as voices passed within a few feet of them on the other side of the pillar.

He used her fear against her, pressing into her and increasing his teasing, pulling on the lips of her body, tracing the place between them, and thrusting a finger into the wet center of her, in and out as the strangers on the other side of the pillar discussed whether it would be better to go to Ma Brown’s for a girl or to a hell to play faro.

She clenched her body against his hand, fighting the excitement. He added a second finger and increased his speed. And then he guided her warm hand back to his buttons, helping her undo the flap, guiding himself to the body that was wet and ready to receive him, and filling her.

If this act was any indication of how they would fare on stage, he had chosen well. She was responsive to him, sensing his desires almost before he knew them, twisting her hips, pushing back in rhythm with his thrusts, sucking his tongue into her mouth and raking it with her teeth as he took her.

The strangers had moved on, but he did not know or care. He could think of nothing now but the climax, bracing her hips with his hands and hammering into her, losing his control in a tide that seemed to pulse in time to her cries of pleasure and the spasms of her body.

Dear God, he was almost too weak to stand. If it hadn’t been for the wall, he’d have dragged them both down to the ground in a heap. As it was, it would take a few moments to recover sufficiently to get her back to his apartments above the theater, and to explain the real reason he had accosted her.

But for now, he fumbled in his purse and pushed a crumpled pound note into the tiny hand that rested against his side.

Chapter Two

Sarah Branford was appalled with her own behavior. She had made love to a stranger on the street. Worse yet, he was a foreigner. He had caught her staring at him, as though she had cast off her ladylike manners the moment she had made the decision to fall.

But that was only because she had seen very few men like him. He appeared to be a Punjabi: strikingly handsome, with thick black hair and skin dark as well-tanned leather.

But he was, for want of a better word, elegant. His clothing was almost foppishly well tailored, and his voice as clearly English as any gentleman of her acquaintance. He seemed as at home in Covent Garden as a Londoner.

And she flattered herself when she thought of what had occurred as love. She had whored herself in the street, against a wall, with people walking scant feet from her. The dark-skinned stranger had teased her until she was wet, and then thrust his considerable manhood into her and used her shamelessly.

Perhaps she was as bad as her husband had said. He had accused her of wanting this often enough, calling her whore and worse for no reason at all. He had treated her as though she deserved punishment, until she had feared for her life and run from him.

And now she had done the worst thing she could imagine doing. Worse yet, she had enjoyed it. She had been aroused and climaxed along with her partner. She would do so again, if she thought too long on what had occurred, for the memory of it was exciting her all over again. He was still inside of her. His mouth pressed little kisses against the skin of her throat. But the movement slowed until his head rested on her shoulder, as though his ardor was fading along with his erection.

She calmed herself by thinking of the pound note, and the fact that it was more than enough money for a bed and a meal. It was cold tonight, and she was so hungry. The smell from the vendor down the way had been driving her mad all evening. She could be in her own parlor right now, with a bowl of those chestnuts in her lap, planning her Christmas house party.

She put the thoughts firmly from her mind. There would be no Christmas for her this year: no house party, no chestnuts. And the activity she’d just engaged in had not required mistletoe. When the money in her hand ran out, she would likely have to do this again, and the next man might not be as pleasant.

But at least she would not be hung for it, as she might have if she’d attempted to cut purses. And it would be quite some time before she was downtrodden enough to beg. Three days on the run had not broken her dignity to the point where she was a convincing object of pity. Those she had asked for help had suggested she do just as she had done: offer the only thing of value that she had.

It would be better to be a courtesan, she was sure. But the word would surely get back to the Earl of Sconsbury that his wife had accepted an offer of protection from another man. The consequences to that gentleman would be swift and brutal. Then Sconsbury would haul her home and make sure that she did not escape again.

She had needed to disappear completely. Anonymity would be her salvation, and what better place to be lost than on the street?

But her first customer did not seem to be in any hurry to leave. It was just as well, she supposed. He had given her sufficient money so that she did not need to seek another. And wrapped in his coat she felt warmer than she had felt in days.

He gripped her shoulder, and muttered something under his breath that sounded like approval of her height. Then he asked, quite clearly, “How much do you weigh?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I asked you how much you weigh. If you are not sure, an estimate will be sufficient.”

Less than she had, after several days without food. But she could not think what it might have to do with the present situation. Did he mean to eat her? The thought of his teeth on her body raised scenarios that were terribly wicked. And before she could help herself, she giggled.

He ignored it and ran hands quickly over her body, as though measuring her girth. “Between eight and nine stone, I should think,” he supplied, since she had not answered. “That is just about right for my purposes.” His fingers closed on her arm, pulling her away from the wall and letting her skirt fall back into place. “Come with me.” He was pulling her farther into the darkened alley, and her excitement changed to panic.

She set the heels of her shoes into the slush and muck of the cobbles, trying to stay him. “Why?”

“I wish to talk with you.”

“Here is good enough,” she insisted. She had thought him…well, not exactly a gentleman. But he had not seemed particularly dangerous. Now she was not so sure.

He ignored her hesitance and smiled at her, releasing her arm to do up his trouser buttons. “I mean you no harm. And I have money. I wish to talk with you. In a warm room. It will take, perhaps, an hour of your time to hear me out. Then you can stay or go, as you wish.” He glanced down at her, as though he could see how empty she was. “Either way, I will give you dinner.”

Her stomach rumbled in response. Her mouth watered. Her mind ran wild with thoughts of roast goose, stuffing, sprouts and Christmas pudding. It was foolish. He’d said nothing about a feast. But any food would do. Even if he killed her, how much worse could her life become than what it had been a few days ago? When he turned and walked away, she followed him without further argument.

He led her through a doorway, up the back stairs of the theater she had been standing in front of. They passed through the gallery that led to the boxes, and higher still to a set of apartments that must be almost on a level with the cloud-painted ceiling.

He produced a key to the plain door, so she assumed the rooms were his. They were small, clean and serviceable, and quite clearly empty. Though he did not have a servant, at least he did not seem to share them with anyone. And it was good to be out of the weather. Resting on the thick rug, her feet felt much better than they had on the wet cobbles.

He lit several candles, chasing away the last of the shadows in the room, and returned to her, standing back to observe her and placing his hand thoughtfully upon his chin. “Strip, to your shift.”

She hesitated.

“If you please,” he added. “And put this on.” There was an ornate gown hanging over the back of a nearby couch, and he thrust it in her direction. “We must see if it fits you, before we go any further.”

It was a strange request. But he did not seem aroused by the idea of her nakedness. He was staring at her expectantly, as though the change in garments was some obstacle to be overcome before they got to whatever truly interested him.

What right did she have to pretend modesty, after what had just happened between them? She dropped her shawl and pulled awkwardly at her gown, letting it fall to the floor and standing before him in stays and stockings. She took the one he had indicated and dropped it over her head. “If you would help me with the lacings?” She turned her back to him.

He did them up efficiently, and then turned and admired the results. “Can you read?” he asked. And then said more to himself than to her, “I should have asked that first. For if she cannot…” He closed his eyes for a moment, as though praying that she would not disappoint him.

“Of course,” she interrupted, slightly offended that he would doubt her literacy. “What language do you wish me to read in? I can manage three, at least.”

“English will do,” he said, chastened. “And your memory. How is it?”

“I can remember that you promised me dinner,” she said, glancing around her. There was a little space in the corner of the room that he seemed to treat as kitchen, but she saw no sign of a meal laid for company.

He went to it and rummaged in a cupboard, removed an apple and a dry bit of cheese, and placed them on a plate along with a half loaf of bread and a boiled egg. “It is not much, but it will hold you until we can finish this discussion. Can you recite, from memory, if I give you the words?”

She grabbed the plate and ripped off a bite of bread. “I can manage well enough,” she said, around a mouthful. It felt as though she’d not eaten in ages and was extraordinarily good for something so simple.

“Do you dance? Sing? Juggle?” He was pouring her a glass of wine.

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