A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester

A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester

Author:Natasha Lester [Lester, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cultural Heritage, Fiction, Historical, romance
ISBN: 9780733634642
Google: rfytCgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0166ZKM3W
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Published: 2016-04-25T23:00:00+00:00


Now that she knew he was there, Charles was impossible to ignore. He watched Evie from the front row for the entire second half, eyes crawling down her legs, over her chest and up to her throat.

Might as well go out with a bang, Evie thought as the moon was lowered over the stage and she began to sing, digging deep into her lungs so it wasn’t just another number but a showstopper. The applause at the end told her that the audience had loved every minute of her in a way that Charles, unclapping but giving her one slow wink, had not.

When she went backstage there was a note for her in Charles’s handwriting: Charles Whitman requests the pleasure of your company on the rooftop after the show.

Evie screwed it up. She scanned the costume racks, got dressed, added another layer of red to her lips, sprayed herself with perfume, then walked upstairs. She used the showgirl’s entrance, rather than the patrons’, which meant she had to traverse the glass runway Ziegfeld had installed to allow theatregoers the best view up the skirts of his girls. When she stepped out onto the roof, most heads swivelled her way.

The costume she’d chosen had a polka-dotted silk bodice. But the fabulousness really began with the skirt, a waterfall of white feathers long at the back and short in the front so that trails of feathers covered only the tops of her thighs, leaving the rest of her legs on display. In her hand she carried a fan with feathers as long as her arms. It was a fan to be carried aloft, with her elbow bent and her hand raised as if she was soon to plant her flag in territory she intended to claim.

The crowds had to part to let her through, because the skirt was as wide as the backsides of the Italian ladies serving up pasta on Bleecker Street. Charles was waiting for her, flanked by Thomas and a man she didn’t recognise.

‘Evie!’ called Charles. His voice was loud and she knew he wanted all the men on the roof to hear him, Charles Whitman, not just on first-name terms with a Ziegfeld Girl, but on shortened first-name terms, a sure sign of intimacy.

‘Charles,’ Evie said in a voice that had nothing of gladness about it.

‘This is Stanley Shields. A client of ours,’ he said.

Thomas nodded at Evie as if they were barely acquainted, and she kept up the charade with a nod of her own. She could feel Charles watching them and she was glad Thomas had forewarned her.

‘Spectacular show,’ Charles continued.

Evie fluttered her fan in reply and turned the full beam of her smile onto Stanley, who giggled like a little girl.

‘Stanley liked the look of the dark-haired one over there,’ said Charles, gesturing towards Louise Brooks, who, though only eighteen, worked harder than most to get her rent paid because her preferred domicile was the Algonquin Hotel. ‘Thomas, you should arrange an introduction for Stanley.’

Thomas clearly couldn’t refuse, because Stanley was a client.



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