Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,58

ain’t much, but I’ve a bed big enough for two and I need help with the rent.’

Rosa stuck out her hand. ‘Rosa. Rosabella di Camisa.’ She decided to use one of her mother’s names. It sounded more operatic and Grandfather would never recognise it. ‘I would love to help with the rent.’

Bess grinned. ‘What about a kipper at the chop shop, then, afore we go home?’

‘Sounds wonderful.’ Rosa’s stomach growled agreement. It would be the first food she’d eaten since yesterday. She’d stayed at a nearby inn and hadn’t dared pay for a meal, too.

Finally, she thought, things seemed to be going as planned. Well, almost. Everything would be perfect when they let her audition for a singing role.

The next few days had flashed by in a blur of long rehearsals and short nights spent in exhausted sleep. Today was dress rehearsal.

‘Oh, no.’ Rosa regarded her costume with dismay. It was even worse than she’d imagined, when her brain had any energy left for such pursuits. ‘I can’t wear these.’

She held up the breeches and stockings. She didn’t need to try them on to know they would hug her legs.

Señor Paloma had solved his problem of what to do with his giant after an hour of their first rehearsal. She would play a trouser role. A silent trouser role. While the girls occasionally sang, all she got to do was lift them and carry them about the stage. They might just as well have employed a horse.

‘Never mind,’ Bess said, twirling around in a bit of gauze that barely covered her knees. ‘Remember Mrs Robinson.’

Mrs Robinson had snared the Prince of Wales in seventy-two. Since then every actress had hoped for the same.

‘It didn’t do her a bit of good,’ Rosa grumbled. ‘And besides, in these, who is even going to know I’m a girl?’

Was that really so bad? Even though she slept the sleep of the dead every night, she kept having the same dream. Stanford arriving to cart her back to Grandfather’s house. Not that he had a clue she even had a grandfather. He knew nothing about her and would never find her here. Not that he’d want to, she assured herself, remembering the look on his face when he’d realised she’d never been married. The hunted look. It still made her feel hot and cold by turns.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

She slipped on the breeches and shirt. ‘What do you think?’

Bess laughed. ‘With that bum and that bosom, they’ll have no trouble guessing you’re a girl.’

Should she try to be more realistic? She frowned. ‘Perhaps I should try to disguise them.’

‘Don’t you want to be whisked off to the prince’s bed?’

There was only one bed she wanted to be whisked into, but she’d had the strong sense that once the passion was over, his bed would grow cold. And that she could not bear. He’d certainly acted with chilly reserve after only one night. ‘You heard Señor Paloma. I’m a giant. What man would want me anyway?’

Bess tilted her head full of red curls and pursed her lips. ‘You could bind your jugs. And perhaps if you gave yourself a nice little package in front, no one would notice the hips.’

‘Package?’

‘You know, sausage and spuds—in the front of your breeches.’ She pointed at Rosa’s smooth placket.

‘Oh. I see what you mean. And if I put padding around my waist, my bum won’t look so out of proportion.’

‘That’s the ticket.’

And thinking about it, she wouldn’t garner any more unwanted male attention.

Unwanted? If she didn’t garner male attention, how would she possibly gain a rich protector?

If only they would let her sing. She could make a lot more money as a solo performer, and have the pick of the gentlemen. The men who came around the stage door for the members of the chorus didn’t look at all rich or in the least bit gentlemanly.

It might be better pretending to be a boy for a while, until she had a better role.

‘Do we have any bindings or padding?’

‘Mrs Ellis is sure to have something, if that’s what you want.’

‘It will make me true to my character.’ Something Mama once said was the secret to her long-ago success.

Rosa huddled in her usual dark corner of the green room after the performance. The final performance of the week. And tomorrow the company left for Birmingham.

Fräulein Von Geldhardt had been a huge success and the chorus had come in for its share of praise and attendant gentlemen, all of