Louise Allen – Regency Pleasures: A Model Débutante (страница 24)

‘Boys or girls?’ he demanded.

‘Girls!’ Tallie said indignantly.

‘Never can tell,’ he observed obscurely. ‘Down there, turn left, down the stairs, follow the cackling. John, you idle bastard!’

With her hands clamped over her ears Tallie hastened down the corridor in the direction of his pointing hand. There was no denying that the noise betrayed the location of the dressing-room, and when Tallie peeped round the door she could quite see why.

At least two dozen girls in various stages of undress filled the room, which was overheated, glaringly lit and reeked of perspiration, cheap scent and face powder.

At the nearest makeshift dressing-table to the door a dark girl in a thin chemise was clutching a post while another in pink fleshings that left nothing to the imagination hauled on her stay laces. ‘Tighter, you silly tart,’ the first girl gasped when the second stopped heaving. ‘Tighter or I’ll never get into the costume.’

‘Fall out of it more like,’ her friend retorted with a chuckle. ‘That’ll be a crowd pleaser.’

‘Excuse me,’ Tallie ventured when they both subsided panting, ‘is Amelie LeNoir in here?’

‘Millie? Yes, over there. Here, luv, just stick your finger on that knot while I do the bow. Ta. Millie!’ She raised a voice trained to be heard from the front row of the chorus to the back seats in the gods. ‘Visitor!’

Tallie extracted her finger from the tangle of stay laces and hurried over to where Millie’s startled face appeared round a rack of costumes.

‘You forgot your purse,’ she explained, plumping down on a stool next to her friend. ‘May I watch the performance from backstage?’

‘Oh, thank you, Tallie,’ Millie said warmly. ‘Yes, of course, just take care you do not get in anyone’s way—and you won’t have to mind the language.’

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