One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney Page B

was real. The audience loved it. We always play Isabella , here by popular demand.”
    His dark brows rose. “You tell it as a joke, but surely that must have been upsetting to a small child.”
    She stiffened as his words triggered an unexpected stab of emotion. Feeling chilled, she pressed her hand to the center of her chest as she remembered those moments when her adored foster mother lay dying. Anguish and terror beyond bearing…
    Stephen caught her arm, his expression concerned. “Are you all right?”
    Drawn back to the present, she gave an embarrassed laugh. “How strange. For some reason, your words brought back the experience as if it were happening right now. Foolish of me.”
    â€œNot foolish at all,” he said quietly. “You had already lost your natural mother. To see your adoptive mother apparently dead must have been terrifying. Like the end of the world.”
    â€œThat was it exactly.” Something dark and horrifying stirred in the depths of her mind. Her mother’s death. The end of the world.
    She shivered and forced the unformed thought back into the shadows. Odd that Stephen had recognized the connection instantly when she herself never had. But then, she tried not to think of her life before the Fitzgeralds had adopted her.
    He squeezed her hand comfortingly. “Do you ever try to remember what your natural mother was like?”
    â€œSometimes. With no success. But Maria says she must have been a good mother, because I had very nice manners for a small child.” Disquieted by the conversation, Rosalind glanced around the theater. “Edmund isn’t here, is he? We were supposed to rehearse the afterpiece because it’s one we haven’t done recently.”
    Stephen dropped his hand, accepting the change of subject. “What is it called?”
    â€œ The False Lover . It’s a foolish bedroom farce. A nice change of pace after the melodrama of Isabella .” She frowned as she saw her father pacing around the entrance to the theater. “Papa is not happy that Edmund is missing.”
    Sure enough, a moment later Thomas slapped his palm with the sheaf of papers he held, then pivoted and came to the stage. “Stephen, I need you to fill in as the villainous lover in the afterpiece. Very little dialogue—mostly a matter of looking noble and wicked and bedding the wrong woman.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Stephen said, startled.
    Rosalind laughed, her good humor restored at his expression. “You’re Claudio, the wicked duke who lusts after Annabelle, a virtuous maiden played by Jessica. You threaten to execute her father unless she lies with you. Annabelle agrees on the condition that you come to her in the dark to preserve her modesty. Then she and her beloved Anton, played by Will Landers, cleverly decide to ask her less-innocent friend Ethel—that’s me—to take her place. I’m the duke’s abandoned mistress who still yearns for him, so I agree to take part in the deception.”
    His brows arched. “Apparently I can make a modest career out of playing dukes.”
    â€œYou have the right look,” Rosalind and Thomas said simultaneously. The three of them exchanged glances, then broke into laughter.
    â€œCondemned to dukeliness,” Stephen said wryly. “Is that the script there?”
    Thomas handed it over. “The dialogue isn’t particularly witty, so it’s all right to improvise a bit if you can’t remember the exact words. The important thing is to act broadly. Larger than life. Naughty but not vulgar.”
    Stephen nodded and began scanning his part while Thomas collected the other players who would be in the farce. By the time they were ready to run through the piece, Stephen had most of the dialogue down, not always word for word but well enough to fake his way through his scenes. Mostly he had to look arrogant and demanding, which he did with