Drury Lane Darling Read Online Free

words so offensive. She hardly knew what tone to take toward him. In her experience, gentlemen came in two categories. There were the eligible ones, who were given the encouragement of smiles for any attempt at conversation, and there was the other sort. Despite his title, his fortune, and his fame, Breslau clearly fell into the latter category. She exchanged a bewildered look with Lady Raleigh.
    Her hostess was saved the exertion of being polite in the face of such levity by the arrival of the tea tray. “You may pour, Pamela,” she said, to show the actress who had pride of place in her saloon.
    “Do you get to the theater very often, Mees Calmstock?” the marquise asked.
    “Pamela doesn’t attend the theater. She was very well raised,” Lady Raleigh replied, and passed a plate of biscuits to the actress.
    The marquise accepted one with a gracious smile. She turned her head to Breslau and winked, covering her smile with a biscuit.
    “Oh, I say, Mama!” Nigel objected. “Everyone attends the theater. It’s not like the old days.”
    Pamela gave a conspiratorial smile in the general direction of the marquise. “I should love to see you perform sometime, madam—onstage, I mean,” she said daringly.
    “I shall send you tickets for my debut in tragedy,” the marquise promised, with a long look at Breslau, whose interest had wandered to Miss Comstock. Was it possible there was a spark of wit in Nigel’s little lump?
    “Well now, that should satisfy you, Lady Raleigh,” he said. “Miss Comstock will have a long wait to attend the theater if that is to be her first visit. Your next play is to be Crowell’s comedy, The Amazing Invalid, Fleur, as you very well know. He’s a new writer of great talent.”
    “I think not, Wes,” Lady Chamaude replied, and accepted a cup of tea. “When you, who haven’t approved of any writer since Beowulf was written, start praising an unknown, I know what you are about. You have found a silly farce for me. My next performance will be a tragedy. I have quite made up my mind.”
    Lady Raleigh’s nostrils tightened to see the actress on such intimate terms with Breslau. Breslau’s name was Westbrook Hume, but even his close friends called him Breslau. It was only family who were allowed the intimacy of Wes. She never used that nickname herself.
    “But I bought the Invalid for you. It’s a marvelous role,” he exclaimed.
    The marquise gave him a coy look. “I hear they’re trying to find someone to play Desdemona in Othello at the Garden.”
    “That’s hardly a starring role for a lady. The Moor is the star.”
    “Desdemona gets to die, and that can be the making of a tragic actress,” the marquise countered. “It’s a story much to my liking. Secret marriage, schemes and intrigues, jealousy, and, of course, in the end the men make a great mess of it all, just like real life. A lady would have handled it more adroitly. We are much better at intrigue, don’t you agree, Lady Raleigh?” she asked.
    Lady Raleigh gave a snort of disgust. “It is precisely the sort of play I most despise. Why should I pay to watch the dissipation I avoid in my own live, and that of my family?”
    The marquise gave her a glittering smile. “One might manage to free her own life of intrigue, if she has a taste for dullness, but how, pray, do you keep it from your family? Perhaps I should pose that question to the gentlemen,” she said, and cast a sly glance at Sir Aubrey.
    He frowned and said evasively, “Some plays are well enough. I prefer a comedy myself.”
    “Sheridan, the playwright—so clever—says tragedy is just comedy with the characters dying in the end instead of getting married.” Her infamous eyes flickered swiftly from Sir Aubrey to his dame. “Even marriage, I daresay, is not necessarily a guarantee of a happy ending.”
    Pamela bit back a smile. Her hostess was silently fuming. Sir Aubrey looked as if he had swallowed a hot coal, and Nigel was fidgeting