Just a Little Heartache Read online

  Just a Little Heartache

  Merry Farmer

  JUST A LITTLE HEARTACHE

  Copyright ©2020 by Merry Farmer

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your digital retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)

  ASIN: B08BX16B2C

  Paperback ISBN: 9798573439099

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.

  If you’d like to be the first to learn about when the next books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/RQ-KX

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  London – September, 1890

  Niall hadn’t let the letter out of his sight since the moment he’d received it. Or rather, in the week since Lily Logan had handed the letter to him in the middle of a particularly chaotic rehearsal, it had lived tucked in the inner pocket of his jacket during the day and on the table next to his bed through the night, even when it was too dark to actually see it. He felt its presence at all times, in stillness or in chaos. And the rehearsal for his latest show was utter chaos just then, since the curtain was set to rise on Love’s Last Lesson in just over a fortnight. But all Niall could think about as he rushed from the hall to the dressing rooms—where he’d been approving a change to the lead actress’s Act Two costume to comply with the woman’s vanity—to the wings on stage left so that he could deal with yet another catastrophe, was the letter burning against his heart.

  “But sir,” the harried director, Mr. Abrams, argued from a small platform set up over a few rows of seats in the house, “you are addressing this song to the chorus of royal courtiers. You cannot deliver it downstage with the chorus behind you.”

  Niall skittered to a stop just past the wings on stage left, already rolling his eyes at the battle unfolding in front of him.

  “The audience has come to see me, sir,” Everett Jewel, the star of the production and a legendary actor in his own mind, snapped back to the director. Even though they were merely rehearsing, Everett was in full costume and make-up—although he always seemed to dress in full costume and make-up, whether he was on the stage or strolling through Hyde Park. His back was straight and he looked as indignant as Niall had ever seen him.

  “The audience has come to see Mr. Cristofori’s work,” Abrams shot back, narrowing his eyes at Everett.

  “I can assure you, the crowds are already gathering outside the theater to see me,” Everett continued to argue. “Or did you not see the line outside the stage door after rehearsal yesterday.”

  “I’m convinced you pay them to fawn over you,” Abrams grumbled.

  Niall winced as Everett’s back shot even straighter and his kohl-rimmed eyes flared. Unsurprisingly, Everett’s partner, Patrick Wrexham, was only a few feet away, leaning against the proscenium, where he had been watching the rehearsal with a copy of the script and a pencil in his hands. Niall sent a look Patrick’s way, wondering if the former police officer would need to step in to break up yet another fight between Everett and Abrams. Patrick only answered Niall’s questioning look with a shrug and a half-grin as though it were just another day with Everett.

  “Haven’t you read my reviews, man?” Everett strode a few feet to the right, as if delivering a stirring monologue. For all Niall knew, that was what Everett thought he was doing. “Have you not seen the likenesses of me printed in the papers? And you dare to suggest I have to pay my adoring public?”

  “Is he serious or is he just winding Abrams up again?” Niall murmured to Patrick, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with the burly man as they watched the argument pick up steam.

  Patrick shrugged. “A little of both. He didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Nightmares again?” Niall asked. He knew enough about Everett’s horrific past to know there were nightmares.

  “At first,” Patrick replied with a self-satisfied grin.

  Niall answered that grin with a knowing chuckle. He also knew enough about Everett and Patrick’s relationship to know Patrick Wrexham was the best thing that had ever happened to London’s hero of the stage and that Patrick knew exactly how to deal with the peacock.

  “This is Mr. Cristofori’s show,” Abrams argued on, pointing to Niall and alerting Everett to his presence. Everett spared a cheeky smile and a nod for Niall, but Abrams went on with, “You, sir, are but an instrument used to convey his work—a tool, if you will.”

  “I’ll show you a tool, you—” The rest of his insult was drowned as Everett began to unfasten his trousers and several of the stunned chorus girls standing behind him gasped, either in fright or in expectation.

  “Everett,” Patrick barked, barely moving from where he leaned. When Everett glanced his way, shoulders dropping slightly, Patrick shook his head.

  Everett cleared his throat, face going pink, and refastened his trousers before anything untoward could be revealed. Once that was done, he rolled his shoulders and tilted his chin up. “Perhaps we should ask Mr. Cristofori where he thinks I should deliver the outstanding solo he’s written expressly for me, which is custom tailored to satisfy the tastes of my adoring public?” He arched one eyebrow and glanced from Abrams to Niall.

  Abrams crossed his arms and looked to Niall as well.

  “How can you live with a man who believes the sun shines out of his arse?” Niall muttered to Patrick.

  Patrick chuckled. “He knows that arse belongs to me.”

  Niall laughed before he could stop himself. But at the same time, a pang of longing squeezed his chest. He’d had a love like that once. He’d been able to make ribald jokes and back them up with long, sleepless nights. He’d once had someone who looked at him the way Everett was looking at Patrick now, like nothing else mattered but him, and he’d been able to return those looks, those kisses, those touches.

  All that was gone now. All he had left was the letter that practically screamed in his pocket, right over his aching heart.

  He cleared his throat and pushed forward to the center of the stage. Once at Everett’s side, he turned to study the chorus, then pivoted forward to judge the distance to the audience. He walked down to the apron of the stage, glanced back at the chorus again, then gauged the distances to both of the wings. Finally, he strode back to where Everett stood, chin still tilted up, and motioned to three of the chorus girls.

  “Cheat your way downstage,” he instructed them. “That way Everett can stand closer t
o the audience for the number without looking as though he’s ignoring the chorus entirely.”

  The girls rushed to take up their new places. Everett preened as though he’d scored a victory. Abrams scowled from his platform in the house.

  “Do you have a problem, Mr. Abrams?” Niall asked.

  “Only that I thought you’d hired me to direct this production,” he answered.

  Niall smiled reflexively. It was what he always did when faced with a confrontation where he knew he was right but didn’t want to offend anyone. “So I did, Mr. Abrams. Because you are the best there is. However, I do have directorial experience, and Everett is right, in part, when he says that the audience is coming to see him as well as my work.”

  Everett crossed his arms and smirked at Abrams as if to say he’d told him so. At least, until Niall turned to him and murmured, “You’re not helping, and stop being such a pillock.”

  Everett dropped his arms and sighed. Abrams shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking as though all he really wanted to do was get on with things.

  “Can we finish the number?” Niall asked, glancing from Everett to Abrams and back. “We have to clear off the stage in a few minutes so that Gerald and the others can finish with the set anyhow.”

  “Whatever you say, Niall,” Everett answered with a smile and a pointed look to Abrams. Niall suspected Everett had used his given name as proof that he was personal friends with Niall, whereas Abrams was hired help.

  “Behave,” Niall told him in a low voice as he moved to leave the stage. “Or else I’ll have Patrick punish you later.”

  “Ooh, yes please,” Everett cooed in a particularly fey manner, winking past Niall at Patrick.

  Niall shook his head as he left the stage. “Make sure he doesn’t get arrested before opening night,” he told Patrick as he passed.

  “If it hasn’t happened by now….” Patrick let the rest of the sentence fade.

  Niall chuckled and moved on, heading back to the theater’s workshops to put out whatever other fires had started with his production before it was too late. His grin over Everett’s antics and Patrick’s understated adoration faded before he’d made it to the hall. The letter in his pocket demanded his attention once again, as if it were literally on fire. He thought about it every spare second of the day. Whenever the necessities of his production, on stage and off, or essentials, such as sleeping and eating, weren’t at the forefront of his mind, the letter was.

  He’d read it so many times that he didn’t need to take it out of his pocket to remember the words.

  “Dearest Niall. I will be blunt. Since seeing you again after such a long and bitter separation a fortnight ago, my life and my world have utterly fallen apart. I don’t know how to explain the heaven and hell that my life has been for the last ten years—heaven because it has brought me three wonderful children, whom I love more than life itself, and hell because I have been forced to spend those years without you. Oh, Niall, I was so wrong to pretend that you didn’t matter to me and that what we shared was nothing more than the folly and experimentation of youth. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t remembered you with a smile…or more. Seeing you again after so long only proved to me that my self-inflicted wound of a decade ago has not only failed to heal, it has only gotten worse.”

  “Oh! Mr. Cristofori! Mr. Cristofori!”

  Niall nearly jumped out of his skin as Martin Piper seemed to leap into his path out of nowhere, he’d been so lost in remembering the letter.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Martin went on, his words rushed and his color high. “I wanted to ask you about this line of dialog in Act One, right before the ballroom scene.”

  Martin’s arms were filled with prop swords, and a small, wooden shield was fastened over one of his arms. He held the script in his right hand and something that looked like a rubber bat in the other. Combined with the man’s perfect oval face and large, hazel eyes that looked perpetually startled, Niall had a hard time determining whether the man was coming or going.

  “What do you need to know?” he asked all the same.

  “This is my first speaking, singing role, you see,” Martin said in an almost apologetic voice, as if Niall hadn’t been the one to cast him as Everett’s page, one of the secondary leads. “I want to make sure I get it right. I’ve always wanted a life on the stage, but all I’ve done so far is work with props. I’ve done that in theaters all across England though, but never for very long at a particular theater. I have no idea why—” Two of the swords slipped out of his arms as he attempted to fumble his way closer to Niall in the midst of his ramble to show him the script. “Oh, dear.”

  Martin bent to pick up the swords, which caused him to drop three others and the rubber bat. As the man turned to retrieve a sword that had bounced out of his reach, he knocked into a small table containing the remnants of someone’s tea, sending a teacup crashing to the floor.

  “Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Martin said, whirling the other way to reach for some of the shards of teacup. Another of the wooden swords fell out of his arms, and he kicked the bat against the wall. He grunted and seemed to reassess what he was doing, then reached for the bat, knocking the table again and toppling a discarded glass of water as he did.

  “Martin, Martin, stop!” Niall told the man, grabbing his arm and hoisting him upright. “You’re going to bring the entire theater down if you don’t stand still for three seconds.”

  “That happened once,” Martin replied, wariness in his eyes. “At the Community Playhouse in Durham. I was responsible for changing out the stage during intermission and—”

  As he spoke, he leaned over to pick up a few more swords. The few he’d managed to get back in his arms spilled to the floor. This time, Niall bent to help pick them up. As he did, the letter fluttered out of his pocket and landed near the shards of teacup and spilled tea. Throat squeezing with irrational levels of fear over ruining his precious missive, Niall snatched at the letter.

  “What’s that?” Martin asked with a curious smile as they both straightened. Martin held so many wooden swords and in such an awkward manner that he looked like an overgrown hedgehog as he eyed the letter. “It must be important, the way you jumped at it.”

  “It is important,” Niall said, flustered, tucking the letter back in his jacket pocket, hands shaking.

  “Who’s it from?”

  Niall eyed the man warily. “An old friend,” he said. “Lord Selby.” He didn’t know what prompted him to give Blake’s name to a man he’d only come to know recently. There was no way Martin could possibly know the nature of his connection to Blake, though even if he did, like almost everyone else in the theater world, he wouldn’t care. In fact, Niall had seen Martin ogling some of the male dancers from the ballet that the Concord Theater shared an alley with during breaks. But that didn’t mean Niall was ready to spill the whole sad story of his shattered love affair.

  “Oh.” Martin seemed satisfied enough with the cryptic answer. “Friends are lovely, aren’t they?” Before Niall could answer, Martin breezed on with, “Anyhow, about this line.” He managed to hold the script up enough so that Niall could see the scene in question. “Do you want me to be serious or comedic with this line? Or with the whole part. I mean, I would never want to steal focus from the Everett Jewel, but it strikes me that quite a bit could be made of this part.”

  Niall’s mouth twitched into a grin. Martin would never be competition for Everett in terms of leading man material, but as a comedic performer, Martin was perfectly capable of stealing shows, whether he knew it or not. That was precisely why Niall had pushed to have him cast in spite of Abrams’s hesitation.

  “Make the most of it, I say,” he told Martin, resting a hand over his heart to make sure Blake’s letter was secure. “Go ahead and challenge Everett’s standing as the star of the show.”

  “Oh, I could never be the star of any show,” Martin went on, eyes round.

  “I would
n’t be so sure of that.”

  Niall gave the man a friendly smile and would have slapped his shoulder in encouragement, if he didn’t think it would cause Martin to drop wooden swords all over again. Martin truly was the clumsiest man Niall had ever known, but he was also far, far more intelligent than anyone gave him credit for.

  Not unlike Blake when they’d first met at university.

  Another pang hit Niall’s heart as he walked on. He remembered the way Blake had smiled modestly whenever Niall complimented him in those early days, remembered the bright and youthful energy in Blake’s eyes. He remembered the warmth of Blake’s smile and the way his lips had tasted the very first time they’d kissed, remembered the way his heart had sped up, the bittersweet fear that they two of them would be caught. He remembered the perfection of Blake’s arms around him, the joy that had infused every part of him as their bodies entwined. He remembered the sounds of surprise and pleasure Blake made when he was worked up and the explosive way he cried out when he came.

  Suddenly, the cramped hallways of the theater were too much for Niall. He changed direction, telling himself that costumes and set decoration and whatever other problems his production had could wait. He needed to get away from the closing walls of the theater, from the reminders of everything he’d lost.

  He found the nearest door leading outside and burst into the balmy September afternoon. The heart of London buzzed with activity in the middle of the day. Carriages rolled up and down the streets of Covent Garden, men and women going about their business dodged tourists who stood marveling at the theaters and restaurants packing the streets. More than a few working girls—and rent boys—watched them or called out, carefully hawking their wares. It was the world Niall had immersed himself in after university, the world he felt most comfortable in. Yet, he felt the need to get away from it more strongly than ever. He needed to be alone with his thoughts, which had been suspended in the past ever since receiving Blake’s letter.