The Tortured Rake

‘You’re incredibly talented. One day someone is going to discover you.’

‘Well, I wish someone would discover me quickly.’ Panic streaked through her. ‘The house sucks everything I earn. It’s like a monster.’

‘You have to tell your Mum how much you’re struggling. She doesn’t really need three bedrooms, does she?’

‘It’s the home she lived in with Dad. It’s full of memories.’ Emotionally and physically exhausted, Katie closed her eyes. ‘Every time I go there she tells me that living in the house is the only thing keeping her going since we lost him. Despite everything, theirs was such an incredible love story. Anyway, if I get this job it will all be fine. Another step up the ladder.’

‘I bet your sister would be interested if she knew you were working with Nathaniel Wolfe.’ Claire stretched out her legs. ‘Do you prefer him in Alpha Man or Dare or Die?’

‘Alpha Man.’

‘Seriously?’ Claire frowned. ‘Alpha Man was about a Special Forces soldier. I didn’t think it would be your sort of thing.’

‘I loved the fact he thought he had no heart and then when he met the daughter of his enemy—’ Katie’s eyes misted ‘—that bit at the end when he sacrifices himself to save her. I cried for days. I must have watched it a hundred times. Nathaniel Wolfe was crazily good in that movie. And totally gorgeous. If they awarded a Sapphire for Best Physique, he’d win.’

‘Talking of the Sapphires—’ Claire threw her the magazine ‘—flick through the rest of that when you get a minute. There’s an article on dressing for the big night. They’re predicting who will wear what at the ceremony in two weeks’ time. You might be interested.’

‘Why? I’m never going to be invited to the Sapphire ceremony, which is just as well because I don’t think you’re allowed to wear holey jeans.’ Katie slipped the magazine into her bag to read later and Claire glanced at her watch and jumped to her feet.

‘Whoa, look at the time. Less than five minutes to go. Sure you won’t change your mind and come?’

‘No, thanks. You can drool for both of us.’

Nathaniel walked centre stage and stared into the darkness. He didn’t see the audience. He wasn’t thinking about the critics.

He was King Richard II, the doomed king.

He opened his mouth to deliver his opening lines to John of Gaunt when a spotlight illuminated the front row of the audience.

Holding the crown in his hand, Nathaniel looked down and his eyes locked onto a familiar face. Familiar and yet unfamiliar. Twenty years had wrought changes, but not so many changes that the features were unrecognisable.

Shock froze time.

The features blurred.

And then the past rushed forward with terrifying speed and his concentration shattered like glass dropped onto concrete. The momentary lapse released a lethal cocktail of memories and they swirled around his head, delighted to be free after so many years incarcerated in the locked vault of his brain.

Shouts and terror. Stop it, stop it! And blood. Blood everywhere. Do something…

He felt helpless. Utterly helpless.

His heart pounding, Nathaniel stared down at his hands clasping the crown. There was no blood. His hands were clean. But still he couldn’t move, his brain frozen by the ghosts of his own inadequacy. The knowledge that he hadn’t acted, hadn’t done something, gnawed at him….

Guilt crawled over him like a poisonous insect and he wondered how it was possible to shiver and sweat at the same time.

Dimly aware of the ripple of speculation that slowly spread through the audience, Nathaniel fought with ruthless determination to close down that side of himself.

Richard, he thought desperately. King Richard.

He gripped the crown and tried to slip back into his character’s skin. But it no longer fitted him. Control slid from him like a cloak.

Each time he opened his eyes he saw the same face looking at him from the front row reminding him that he wasn’t King Richard II—he was Nathaniel Wolfe, an actor with a family background more dramatic than anything penned even by the Bard himself.

If Shakespeare had been alive, Nathaniel thought bitterly, he would have written the Wolfe family history as a tragedy in three acts.

No comedy. No happy endings. Just life at its darkest.

Desperate now, he tried to claw his way through that darkness back to the surface but he could feel himself sinking, drowning in the thick mud of his past.

Why choose this moment to come back? Why now, when they’d all rebuilt their lives?

Anger ripped through him, hot and sharp.

He had to warn Annabelle. That, at least, he could do. He had to contact her right now.

The ripple of speculation grew to a restless buzz from the audience. People who had assumed he was pausing for maximum effect, suddenly realised that something was terribly wrong. Silence turned to murmur and murmur to conversation.

Bracing his shoulders like a fighter poised for impact, Nathaniel tried one more time to deliver his opening lines but he couldn’t even remember them. Sucked back in time, the layer he put between himself and the world simply melted away.

Stripped of his camouflage, he was forced into the skin of the one character he’d avoided playing all his life.

Nathaniel Wolfe.

Last time, he’d let her down. This time, he wouldn’t.

‘Ladies and gentleman…’ His voice, cold and devoid of emotion, carried to the back of the auditorium. He made a point of not looking at the man in the front row. It took all his self-control not to stride into the audience, grab him by the throat and knock him out cold. ‘Tonight’s performance is cancelled. Please see the box office for a refund.’

Having finished her preparation for the interview, Katie rolled her aching shoulders and left the wardrobe department. Backstage, the theatre was eerily quiet. Everyone was watching Nathaniel Wolfe.

She stood for a moment, breathing in the smells and the atmosphere. History was embedded deep in the fabric of the building. How many famous actors and actresses had trodden the boards of this theatre?

For a moment she was a child again, six years old and playing dress-up with her sister, Paula.

You can’t be the princess, Katie, you’re too fat and your hair is curly. I’m the prettiest so I’ll be the princess. You can dress me.

What had started as duty fast became a passion. When Paula had decided it wasn’t cool to hang out with her dumpy little sister, Katie had continued to dress her friends. Every night after school they’d put on plays, and Katie had been the one who decided what they were going to wear. She’d loved experimenting with different combinations, loved the challenge of designing a costume that conveyed the essence of each character. A princess with a sword. A fairy in breeches and boots. She’d listened to her friends discussing roles and knew instinctively which costume they needed to fully express the part. She’d dressed her friends, she’d dressed dolls, she’d dressed her mother…

The only person she never dressed again was Paula, whose modelling dreams had taken her far away from her humble roots.

But Katie had continued to dream.

A loud crash from the wings brought her back to the present.

Katie turned her head and listened. What began as a purposeful masculine stride, suddenly increased to a run.

Frowning, she stood her ground, ready to point out to whoever it was that the noise could probably be heard all the way across London’s West End.

Who could possibly be running? An inexperienced stagehand, presumably. Or possibly one of the hangers-on who had been lingering backstage in the hope of catching a glimpse of Nathaniel Wolfe’s virile, muscular frame and flawless features.