by Aileen Fish
“Misfired?” She remembered the flare, the smoke. But there had been no painfully loud report. No wonder he thought her so foolish; she had failed to load the weapon properly!
The carriage rolled to a stop. She was home, safe for the moment at least. But none of them were safe for long. After an atrociously long day and night, she’d failed to make any difference whatsoever.
Northwick seemed not to notice they’d arrived.
“Yes, misfired. So now will you give me your promise?”
She pushed away from him and got her feet to the floor before the door opened into the breaking dawn. She lowered one foot to the step, but turned back to answer.
“I believe you would regret it, my lord. Marrying such a fool.”
She hurried into the house without looking back.
~*~
North dragged himself to bed with a numb head, a numb heart, and his soul had slunk back to wherever it usually went to hide, but this time, without the aid of expensive brandy. He expected it would curl up and die once and for all, now that he would no longer be in need of it.
On the morrow, he would murder Gordon, in cold blood if necessary. On the morrow, he would buy The Scarlet Plumiere a reprieve—a few more years on this Earth, until she enraged the next dangerous man. But next time, he would not be around to protect her.
Peter had lived through the night and given the doctor hope. Ashmoore had left word not to be disturbed unless it was a matter of life or death. The matter of a soul hardly qualified, even if North felt the need to talk about it, which he did not.
The house quieted. The soldiers took advantage of the snowy Sunday, to recover from a battle lost, to store up strength for the battle ahead. Ursula’s funeral. And there was where the war would end, if there was a breath left in him to see to it.
Who gave a hang what happened afterward?
Chapter 34
They gathered in the drawing room early Monday morning. Livvy entered like Bloody Joan of Arc, but instead of chain mail, she was draped in black crepe with a demi-veil already over her eyes. She may as well be bearing the company standard on the end of the lance considering the reaction she got from the room at large.
What were they thinking? That she’d escape them all Saturday night only to save them from the dragon?
Of course they would think just that, damn them. They’d all end up falling on their swords for her before the day was through, if they did not come to their senses.
Good lord, I already planned to do the same!
But there was nothing for it now. He only hoped Saint Joan would be haunted, for a very long time, by the memory of their final embrace.
“Is everyone here then?” She looked around her. “I thought Harcourt would be coming with Stanley and me.”
“He’ll be along,” said Stanley, covering his smile with a hand.
She turned her back as another woman in black entered the room.
“Anna! I did not know you planned to come, but please reconsider. It cannot be safe!”
The figure’s dark brim lifted, but it was Harcourt, not Anna who stood before Livvy.
“We’ve teased about it enough times. ‘Bout time it came in handy.” His voice raised painfully high. “Allow me to introduce my brother, Harcourt.”
Anna walked in dressed in a morning suit, her curls close to her head. If North had not been in on the masquerade, she might have fooled him from across the room.
“I will stand in the rear, so anyone counting Kings will believe they are all accounted for. Besides, there would be no keeping me from this funeral. It will be a crush, I am sure.”
~*~
Anna was correct. Drury Lane was impossible to penetrate. They eventually gave up and walked the final two blocks to the theatre, she and Harcourt on either side of Stanley. Harcourt had protested, but she assured him that the only way he would be believed as a woman was if he held a man’s arm. It was bad enough Stanley was the shorter of the two, but Anna was supposedly well known for her height.
Northwick, Ashmoore, and Anna were only steps behind them, having come in Ashmoore’s carriage. Northwick had insisted she travel in his unmarked vehicle. John and Everhardt shared the meager driver’s seat and their discrepancy in size had caused the box to list to one side the entire journey. On any other day, she would have laughed.
On any other day, her father would not have come to her room, handed her a short sword and sheath to strap to her leg, and demonstrated how to run a blade into a man’s heart.
“Throw your weight behind it, Livvy. If it glances off a rib, follow it through.”
Harcourt kept glancing at her skirts as they walked.
“Anna!” She shook her head. “Stop doing that.”
“I was only wondering if you have any of those dainty treats in your reticule—those little surprises you carried last evening.”
She could honestly say she did not. Northwick had certainly not returned them. When she shook her head, she could have sworn Harcourt looked disappointed.
“Well, Livvy darling, I have some. If you get hungry.”
Stanley glared up at Harcourt, then rolled his eyes.
As they walked beneath the portico, Stanley dropped behind her and Harcourt pushed ahead. All she could see was his broad back covered in a black shawl much too small for him. Glancing down, she realized an entire foot of black fabric had been added to the bottom of a rather pretty dress. She hoped, in the sea of black around them, no one else would notice.
Men stood on the stairway, directing the crowd through the main doors and away from the boxed seating.
“Ursula would have loved this.” Stanley gave her a watery grin. “She missed the stage, and the audience.”
They entered an empty row near the back, but Mrs. Malbury hurried up to them.
“Viscount Forsgreen, please. We’ve reserved seats near the front for you...and your companions of course.” She hardly looked Livvy’s way, but gave Harcourt a hard stare before she remembered herself.
They followed the Newspaper Queen to the fifth row and seats with ‘reserved’ markers draped over them, and suddenly a parade of people lined up to give Stanley a nod. Men and women alike.
Livvy leaned forward to cough, then glanced sideways to see how Harcourt was faring. Thankfully, the man was slouched in his seat with his hat brim down. One look at Stanley’s moist eyes and she remembered the man was not attending only to protect her.
She squeezed his hand and gave him a wink before settling back in her seat. He gave her skirts a nudge with his knee in answer. But then he stiffened and she realized he’d sensed the weapon beneath her crepe skirts.
“Now, Stanley. Do not get excited,” she whispered. “My father gave it to me, just in case. That is all. I am not planning anything.”
He relaxed just a bit and took a deep breath.
A coffin was carried onto the stage and the audience rose. Ursula’s last grand entrance.
A man with a dramatically curled mustache stepped to the edge of the orchestra pit and cleared his throat for attention before bidding them all to be seated. He introduced a friend of Ursula’s who gave a short, flattering account of Ursula’s life. For a moment, Livvy feared the woman might list all the gentlemen with whom Dear Ursula had fallen in love, but instead, she hinted at the woman’s determination to fight for the rights of women through her writings.
“Oh, please,” she whispered to Stanley. “The woman makes her out to be a regular Mary Shelley.”
Stanley smiled. “I believe Mary Shelley would view The Scarlet Plumiere as a welcome friend.”
Livvy rolled her eyes, but was quietly thrilled at the prospect.
Next presented was a small man who spoke more through his nose than his mouth. He claimed to be the deceased’s cousin, though many tittered when he made the claim. He read Lord Byron’s poem, And Thou Art Dead, As Young And Fair. She nearly came out of her seat when he recited,
“I know not if I could have borne
/> To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow’d such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish’d, not decay’d;”
Stanley’s hand descended and squeezed her forearm. He was practically shaking with laughter, but not at the poem; he was laughing at her.
“How dare he?” she hissed. “He would rather she died young than died ugly?”
“It was one of Urusla’s favorites. Or perhaps Lord Byron was one of her favorites. But you needn’t get your hackles up. The poem has been read at every young woman’s funeral for years.”
“Really?” The last funeral she had attended was her mother’s, and the poem had certainly not been read then.
“I beg your pardon. I forgot you have been in hiding.”
He patted her hand and moved his own away. Lucky thing, that; she would have liked to take a bite out of it. She had hardly been hiding. She’d merely chosen to remove herself from Society, that was all. Surely they did not believe her to be a coward.
Surely.
A musical number followed the nasally poet. Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 was played on the pianoforte, sans orchestra. Just as it was ending, Lady Malbury stood and made her way to the stairs, then up onto the stage. Livvy slid lower in her seat, pulled by a heavy dread in her stomach that seemed to grow with each of Lady Malbury’s steps. When she realized what the woman held in her hand, she groaned aloud.
A red feather.
The woman led the applause for the musician. Applause—at a funeral! Then she cleared her throat, twice.
“Ursula will be missed. But every time we see a scarlet feather, let us remember she fought for us. Let us remember to fight for ourselves.”
A few men booed, but eventually stopped after a mean glare from the powerful woman who could easily take up the gauntlet and expose their secrets herself.
“Ladies?” Lady Malbury backed a few steps and walked to the coffin. She laid her feather on the top and stepped to the side.
Livvy realized black dresses were lining up to her right, to take the steps to the stage. They all carried red feathers.
“Good God!” Stanley sat forward. After a moment, he turned to her and whispered. “Did you do this, Livvy?”
She could only shake her head.
Stanley looked about them with his handsome mouth agape. Livvy closed both eyes tightly, but she did not last long. She opened one.
The female mourners paraded slowly across the stage and placed their feathers on the coffin as if Ursula had been their dearest friends. Many wept. But they did not know Ursula! Most of them would rather have died than speak to the woman, but they were willing to overlook her profession because they thought she was The Scarlet Plumiere? It was not Ursula they mourned at all! It was her!
She shot to her feet. Not even Stanley’s insistent tug could have bent her knees. She wanted to run up onto the stage and set it all to rights. They had to know they weren’t alone. They still had a champion. Their champion was not lying there in a coffin! She was alive and kicking, and willing to stick around and fight for them.
But that was a lie. She was not planning to stay on and fight for them at all—she was willing to hang, and soon, to put her own monster in his grave. The Scarlet Plumiere was nothing but a selfish imposter. What these women needed was the real thing.
Or did they?
What had Lady Malbury said? Remember to fight for ourselves? Was it a call to arms? Would these women heed that call? Was it possible there was no further need for a champion?
She watched the parade, the determination on their faces after each woman placed her red feather on the pile that now scattered and swirled around the coffin. There were dozens and dozens of them now, like so many roses tossed on a grave—a tribute to what The Plumiere had done for them.
It was over.
She spun around and searched the audience. She had to find him. Had to tell him, somehow, with just a look, that it was over. She could let The Scarlet Plumiere go now. But she could not see him in the dark waves that moved through the seats, headed for the stage.
There, against the wall, stood a woman with a sack. She was handing out feathers to the women as they passed. That was her solution! He would see her tossing some metaphoric dirt on The Plumiere’s grave. He would surely understand then.
She tried to sidle past Stanley and he grabbed her.
“Let me go, Stanley. I must do this. It is not as if I am leaving the room.”
“Harc—Anna will go with you,” he murmured.
North noticed a woman a foot taller than the rest queuing up for the parade and realized it was Harcourt. A search for Stanley’s white hair confirmed the man sat alone, so he looked back at Harcourt to find Livvy. It was nearly impossible to tell them all apart in that unrelenting black sea of crepe, bombazine, and lace. If he did not see her soon—
“There,” Ashmoore murmured. “She’s with Anna.”
Finally he noticed the woman to whom Harcourt was clinging.
“What the devil are they doing?”
“I believe they are bidding farewell to The Plumiere along with every other female in the theater.”
Ashmoore could not know how his choice of words gave him hope. Could it be? Had Livvy had a change of heart? Was she willing to give up her dangerous game as he’d begged her to do in the carriage?
“It might have looked suspicious,” Ashmoore whispered, “had she not shown a bit of appreciation for what The Plumiere did for her.”
Ash was correct, as usual. Livvy was only playing a role, damn her little black heart.
Livvy and Harcourt reached the stage and moved to the coffin behind a woman with a long peacock’s feather bobbing above her head. Harcourt paused, allowing Livvy to go before him. It was unfathomable that he had fooled anyone at all, standing with his hands behind his back. He may as well have been standing at attention, saluting. Were they all blind?
Livvy was the opposite, of course. She was soft, rounded, elegant. She looked about at the mess of red feathers, then carefully placed her offering on the coffin. She paused for a heartbeat, then turned, looking directly to where he stood with Ash and Anna.
He heard her promise as if she had whispered it in his ear.
“Livvy,” he breathed.
She stepped to the side and waited for Harcourt. Lady Malbury strode to Livvy, took her hands, then leaned and said something. Livvy frowned and shook her head. Lady Malbury looked horrified.
Again, Livvy looked in North’s direction, but this time, she was frightened. Harcourt took her arm and they fell into the path of the other women, exiting to the left of the stage. Only when North lost sight of them did he realize he was already running down the center aisle. The flow of women re-emerged through the side doors and fanned out into the seats, so he watched for her to do the same.
Not yet. She would not have had time to reach the doors yet.
“Lord Northwick.” Gordon stepped into his path as if he had not noticed his hurry.
“Another time, Gordon.” He stepped to the side, but so did the other man.
“I was under the impression you would not be attending today.”
“Did Mister Franklin misinform you? He is in my employ, you know.”
Gordon’s eyes lit with rage, but it was quickly hidden. Good. Perhaps Mr. Franklin would receive his just desserts from the hand that fed him.
Over Gordon’s shoulder, he saw the feather of a peacock bobbing up the aisle. He looked to his left where Ashmoore stood searching the crowd. His friend looked over and shook his head.
“Pardon me, Gordon.” North feinted to the right, then to the left, then easily stepped around the bastard. “Whatever has been done to her, Gordon, will be paid back a hundred fold!”
“I do not know who you mean.” Gordon’s denial was followed by a guttural laugh that stopped North’s heart. Luckil
y, his feet were still able to move.
Finally he and Ash broke through the side door and into the hallway. The stage door was open, but blocked by a steady stream of female mourners—none of them overly tall. He sidled through at the first chance, then ran up the steps to the stage.
Lady Malbury stood fretting near the heavy red curtains.
Livvy and Harcourt had disappeared.
He ran out again. Ash was already heading down the hall toward the dressing rooms. North searched every shadow as he ran, then noticed the large door leading outside.
“Ash!” He pushed through the door and saw a hack exiting the alley. He charged after it, willing the ground to move faster beneath his feet. He reached the corner but his momentum got the best of him and the snow he stepped upon gave way to mud. He went down on one knee. The hack had already turned again and was gone.
North threw his head back and bellowed his frustration against the lowering clouds. The street before him quieted. Somewhere, Livvy was moving further away from him.
He closed his eyes and almost hoped the darkness would take him, but it did not.
Someone tapped his shoulder and extended a black gloved hand.
“You cannot despair. She still has Harcourt,” Ashmoore said.
His friend hauled him to his feet and together they ran back to the theatre door. They found Stanley and Anna leading a shaking Lady Malbury from the stage. Stanley raised a hand to stop them.
“Gordon is gone, but we know where he is headed. Milton followed.”
At least he could take a moment to catch his breath and discover what the blazes had happened on that stage. He fought the image of that hack moving further and further away, then he realized the idea of it reaching its destination was even more frightening. To keep his fears in check, he imagined the single horse plodding slowly down the lane.
Once they found a quiet room, Stanley found the distraught woman a chair.