Christopher Richman.
He was without a doubt the most irascible, intractable man she had ever known. Why else would he persecute her so, skulking around her stage door, always with that same amused smile lifting the corners of his immaculately trimmed mustache? They'd hardly spoken in over a year, so what had excited this new attention, this grand patronizing between the dark, dusty curtains of Booth's Theatre? Why her, why now, she wondered, as night after night she recovered from the dishabille of "Hamlet's Mother's Closet," yanking her chemise onto her shoulder as she rushed by him in the wings. He would always yield just short of propriety, so in the closeness of the little theatre she was forced to rake her whole frame against his en route to the dressing rooms. Fiend. Unusually tall, he'd look down upon her with the wry condescension of one who knew a secret. It was infuriating. She swore he splayed his fingers at the opportune moment, just enough to graze the top of her corset. It was the fourth night he'd been so bold and tonight she'd very nearly knocked poor Hamlet down in her indignation. Young Peter Jordan had steadied her, spreading his hands over her hips, rather like righting a clumsy star onto a Christmas tree. She pried the youthful fingers loose and the boy rushed on to change, leaving her nose to nose with her nemesis.
Christopher Richman indeed. What the devil? Their history was not unknown. He was more than four years her junior, which was not so very scandalous, but she'd always held it to be a great obstacle as she went through one marriage and a string of hapless lovers. He'd had his share of lovers, including a perfect pigeon of a lass whom he'd tearfully forsaken. Whether they were her tears or his own Melissa did not know but she did know this. The theatre world was small, and Christopher Richman's sudden lascivious hoverings would not go unnoticed.
Christopher Richman. Rake. Lothario. He was now quite the man, and he so knew it in his claret colored brocade waistcoat and fur trimmed cloak. With his inheritance, The Richman Playhouse, great spectacle that it had become, The Hope of the Living Drama, apex of society . . . Well Christopher Richman had transformed right alongside the cherub framed proscenium and red velvet curtains. She allowed he'd become a handsome rake, staggeringly so. But she was not about to let him know it.
His black-brown eyes appraised her. She a ... slightly . . . aging grand dame, an ephemeral queen, who made the most of it. She had perfected the lift of her nose, the coquettish angle of her neck, and when she did so onstage Christopher Richman would always ... always have to shift in his seat. Yes she was proud, and manipulative, and a very angry woman of experience. Yet he saw otherwise. He knew more. Eighteen years had not passed for naught.
It was not always this way, this battle of wills. He had known Melissa since his father was scene painter for Booth's Theatre, before pauper papa could afford his own theatrical digs. She'd been Lawrence Barrett's newest find, and as the lowly stage hand Christopher could only watch as she made love to Lawrence or Edwin Booth in the way that he imagined her voluptuous frame should press against his own. She was a wayward child of 26 then, yes, far too old to be so bold. She should have been married, Christopher would often cluck to himself, yet secretly allowing, "Well done, well done." He liked bold women, and he liked Melissa. He wanted Melissa at any price. But the opportunity never came. There were flirtations and exchanges, marriages and mistresses, fleeting touches. Nothing more. It was fairly maddening.
Now the time had come when Christopher Richman had had enough and was ready to pluck his prize from the footlights. There is much to be said of history and he'd written his ten times o'er. Melissa was between husbands. He'd flung the little pigeon skyward. He was ready, nay, aching, for her favor.
And so there they were yet again. She'd finished her scene with Peter Jordan, a sensitive gifted boy who just might turn her head if he had the sense to do anything about it. But Christopher knew she had nothing for the young ones. The pups. She needed a man. And he knew he worn her down this night as his fingers grazed the top of her emerald corset, his fingernails fairly imprinting a horizontal brand over her hidden nipples. She'd jolted back, been steadied by Peter Jordan, and pushed the finger of her right hand into his chest to make a point. Her irascible little mouth had only begun to twist into a sneer before he ran his fingers under her corset and yanked her near.
"Stop it. It is done," he said, his breath a hot mist on her cheek. "I've groveled like a stagehand for nearly a week. Do you think I've nothing to do but wait your leisure?"
