The Last Suitor. A J McMahon
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are worse.’
‘They are all rogues, Miss Ashton.’
‘And what are you, Mr Raspero?’
‘Whatever I am, I am not a rogue.’
‘That is what you are not. What is it that you are?’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘I am a gentleman with no money.’
‘Why did you not take any of Jolly’s money, Mr Raspero?’
‘Because I am not like the men who did take his money, Miss Ashton.’
Angela considered this answer for a moment.
‘Everybody needs money, Mr Raspero.’
‘That’s true,’ Nicholas agreed.
‘But you have no money, Mr Raspero.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Do you not want any money, Mr Raspero?’
‘I would be very happy to be rich, Miss Ashton.’
‘You could have twenty million strada in your pocket right now, Mr Raspero.’
‘No, Miss Ashton, that twenty million strada would have me in its pocket.’
‘I do not understand you, Mr Raspero.’
‘Do you want to?’
Angela made no reply. She sat on her seat by the mirror, which she had turned around so she could sit on it facing him, and played with her fan. Nicholas sat where he was and watched her in the ever-lengthening silence.
‘You have done so much for me, Mr Raspero. How can I ever repay you?’
Nicholas considered the question for a moment. ‘Free theatre tickets to your plays should cover everything, I think,’ he said.
‘But is that all, Mr Raspero? I could not deny you anything you asked for. Anything at all.’
Angela looked so meaningfully at Nicholas then that he looked away. He was aware that she was continuing to look at him, and he was also aware of the nature of the offer she had just made.
‘I will let you know if anything comes to mind, Miss Ashton,’ he said eventually.
Angela laughed then, catching herself by surprise. It was the second spontaneous moment of laughter she had experienced since Nicholas had sat down in her dressing room, and she wondered if Nicholas was having a bad influence on her. She was quite deliberately never spontaneous, yet here she was, laughing without a moment’s planning beforehand, laughing before she even knew herself that she was going to laugh. She knew why she had laughed, however. Nicholas was not saying yes and he was not saying no; he was, in short, treating her as she treated her clients in the early stages of her seduction of them. Now she had to behave as a client would behave and it took her a moment to work out the correct response on her part.
‘I will still be here if anything does come to mind, Mr Raspero,’ she said.
‘Yes, well, there we are,’ Nicholas said awkwardly, not knowing what else to say, and for the third time that evening Angela Ashton laughed, and this time she threw her head back and laughed merrily for the first time in eleven years.
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