Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,57

she appeals to the gentlemen more than the herd of cows you haf now. Look at that bosom, those legs.’ She grabbed Rosa’s skirt at the knee and hiked it up.

The harried little man stopped fussing with his papers and leaned forwards.

‘Hold up your skirts and tvirl once more,’ the woman said.

Blushing, Rosa did as she was bid. This time she landed on balance and placed her heels neatly together and turned out her toes.

The woman laughed, waved an airy hand. ‘See, she dances. But, Frederick, you must do vot you please. Just tell me my gown for tonight is ready.’

‘It’s ready,’ a woman sitting at the back of the theatre called out, holding up swaths of fabric.

‘Gut. Ver gut.’ The woman, who had to be Fräulein Helga Von Geldhardt, the soprano and leading lady, wandered back into the wings. ‘Take her, Freddy,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘She’s the best you’ve seen today.’

‘Which is not saying anything,’ the little man screeched, pulling at his frizzy blond curls.

‘Do you want me now?’ the girl halfway out of the wings said in the nasal tones of London.

‘You—’ the assistant pointed at Rosa ‘—go and find Señor Paloma and tell him you are in the chorus. Be ready for rehearsal at six tomorrow morning. You—’ He glared at the girl hovering half on and half off the stage. ‘Can you dance?’

‘I’m a singer.’

‘No,’ Frederick screamed.

Rosa fled before he changed his mind about her.

Walking around the back of the stage in search of the dancemaster, she decided the position of chorus dancer was better than nothing. She had a foot firmly over the threshold. All she had to do was let them hear her sing and they’d realise they’d made a mistake.

And if Fräulein Von Geldhardt was right and the gentlemen did love her, then she might find a rich protector, because a dancer in the chorus did not get paid nearly as well as a soloist. And a protector would have influence and be able to get her a starring role.

A flutter of disquiet ran through her stomach. Her mother would have been so disappointed to find she’d been forced to sink so low. If only they would give her a chance to sing. Let her nerves settle. But it was better than the loveless marriage proposed by Stanford where she had no guarantees he would help her sisters. This way, her earnings were her own to do with as she willed.

If he’d wanted to make her his mistress, it might have been easier to agree to stay. Her parents’ marriage had worked because they’d loved each other. Stanford didn’t love her any more than she loved him. That feeling she’d felt for him had been infatuation. It had to be. She could not fall in love with a rake who had no intention of changing his ways.

It wasn’t possible life would be so cruel.

Enough whining. She had a position in the opera. She would send the rest of her earnings from Lady Keswick’s to Meg for the moneylender and find a way to get another audition.

As soon as they heard her, they would give her a better role. She drew in a deep breath. She could do this.

In the green room she found a collection of young women standing around a rotund man with curling black moustaches and thinning black hair. ‘Is he Señor Paloma?’ she asked.

One of the girls nodded.

A pair of beady black eyes swivelled in Rosa’s direction. ‘Who are you, señorita?’

‘I’m to join the chorus,’ she said, feeling every eye in the room focusing on her.

The man waved his fat hands in the air. ‘Now he sends me a spilungona? First I get all these pale little English midgets, now I get a giant. Where I put you?’

‘At the back?’

His eyes widened. Then he laughed, and every part of him jiggled: his cheeks, his belly, even his thighs in their tight-fitting buff pantaloons.

He stopped as suddenly as he’d started. ‘No amusing.’

The little redhead who’d been waiting while Rosa was on stage crept in. He glared at her. ‘You are the last?’

She nodded.

‘Bellissimo.’ He clapped his hands. ‘All of you. Be here at six in the morning.’

Rosa followed the rest of the girls along a passage and out of the back door of the theatre into the depths of Covent Garden.

‘Where do you live?’ the little redhead asked.

‘I have yet to find a room.’

‘You can stay with me,’ the girl offered with a hesitant smile. ‘I’m Bess. The room

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