by Tracy Grant
"Thomas Thornsby?" Lewis's scholarly elder brother was the last person Laura had expected to hear named.
Edith nodded. "We already—we already were friends. I liked him. Not that I expect him to believe that if—when he learns the truth."
"You'd be surprised at what people can understand. But—Thomas is obviously a brilliant scholar, but the League have little interest in scholarship. Why did they want information about him?"
"I'm not sure. I asked and they wouldn't even give the sort of vague hints they gave me about the Wiltons. But I think it may have been the family connection."
"Family? Edith—" Laura studied the younger woman. "Who recruited you? Was it Beverston?"
"Beverston? Oh, no. It was Lady Shroppington."
For a moment Laura felt she was holding herself upright by sheer willpower. "Lady Shroppington is part of the League?"
"You didn't know? The way they talk, I got the sense the Rannochs knew most of those in the League."
"A great many. But evidently not all. We didn't know they had women as members."
"Not a great many, I think. And not official members. But Lady Shroppington seems to have been involved from the beginning, from what I can make out. She found me because she came to hear Thomas lecture at the Classicists' Society. Wanted to see what he was up to, she said. At first I thought she was worried I had designs on him." Edith gave a rough laugh. "I was quite prepared to get huffy and assure her I had no interest in marrying. When she said she had no desire to discourage my interest in Thomas—though she also made it clear it could never lead to marriage—I wasn't sure what to think. She explained the blackmail over my brother so delicately I wasn't quite sure I understood at first. But in the end it was abundantly clear what she meant. She can be very plainspoken."
Laura was still struggling to assimilate this new image of Lady Shroppington and of the League, seemingly a group of debauched men, having a dowager amongst their number. "Do you think Lord Beverston involved Lady Shroppington in the League? She's his godmother. Perhaps he thought she could more easily talk to a young woman?" Of course the Duke of Trenchard had had no trouble blackmailing Laura into working for him, but then they'd been ex-lovers.
"Lord Beverston came with her to talk to me once," Edith said. "They were definitely working together in the League. But I didn't get the sense Beverston had brought her in. She did most of the talking. Beverston seemed to be taking his cues from her, which was odd because he struck me as a man who is accustomed to leading. The next time I saw her, she was alone. I asked her about Beverston and she said he had to learn his place. That at times he had delusions that he had more power than he did, and they were no longer allies. I was a little surprised she admitted as much to me. I had a sense they'd just had a confrontation and she was still trying to come to terms with it. That day I started to really understand who Lady Shroppington was." Edith met Laura's gaze for a moment. "I don't think Beverston brought her into the League. I think she brought him into it."
Chapter 30
"Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs. Rannoch?" Bessie, the Tavistock seamstress, stopped beside Mélanie's chair.
"Thank you, Bessie." Mélanie curled her hands round the steaming cup. In truth, it was welcome. So was the chance to talk to Bessie. "You used to bring Mr. Thornsby tea."
Bessie blushed. She was little more than seventeen, with a freckled face and the sort of warm brown hair that turns golden in summer. "He spent so much time at the theatre. And he was always so kind." Bessie twisted her fingers in her skirt. "Have you and Mr. Rannoch and Inspector Roth learned anything about why he was killed?"
"Not anything that would tell us who killed him," Mélanie said. "Not yet." She gestured to the chair beside her. "Bessie, did Mr. Thornsby ever talk to you about his life?"
"Not really. I mean, he was a gentleman and I was a servant to him, and gentlemen don't really talk to servants, do they?"
"Unfortunately, no. In most cases. But sometimes they let things slip. I've been undercover as a servant."
"Mr. Thornsby wasn't—he never flirted with me. He didn't have eyes for anyone but Miss Blanchard. Sometimes he'd talk about her. How lovely she was. Once—" She hesitated.
"Anything he said might be relevant," Mélanie said in a gentle voice.
"Once he asked if I thought she cared for Mr. Carmarthen."
"What did you say?"
Bessie drew her feet back beneath the chair. "That Miss Blanchard had eyes for no one but him."
"Is that what you believed?"
Bessie frowned. "Miss Blanchard cared for him. I'm sure she did. You can tell how upset she is now. She's not counterfeiting. But—you only have to look at her onstage with Mr. Carmarthen to tell there's something between them."
It was true there was an undefinable magic between Letty and Will onstage. It was on display in today's run-through for all both of them had been through. They were too professional to let emotional chaos interfere onstage. But from her childhood in a theatre company, Mélanie had known onstage chemistry didn't necessarily mean anything between the couple offstage. "Manon and Brandon give that impression onstage too," Mélanie said. "And it's pure theatrical illusion."
"Yes, perhaps. But I've seen Miss Blanchard and Mr. Carmarthen offstage as well. Not holding hands or anything. Just the way they look at each other sometimes." She shook her head. "But I didn't want to hurt Mr. Thornsby. And I didn't want to tell tales on Miss Blanchard. I don't know that Mr. Thornsby believed me, though. I'd see him watching Mr. Carmarthen. As though he was trying to puzzle him out. And then one day last week, he said the oddest thing to me."
Mélanie set her tea cup down. "What?"
"He asked me if I knew Mr. McDevitt. Which I do, of course."
Mélanie nodded. Donald McDevitt, like Thornsby, hung about the theatre. And like Thornsby, she was quite sure he was a Leveller. "Did he say why?" Mélanie asked.
"Oh, yes. He asked me if I thought Mr. McDevitt and Mr. Carmarthen looked alike. I hadn't actually thought about it before, but they do."
Mélanie frowned and considered Will Carmarthen and Donald McDevitt. High cheekbones. Full-lipped mouths. Pointed chins and slanting brows. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen them side-by-side, but comparing them in her mind there was a similarity. "Did Mr. Thornsby say why he'd asked?"
"No, but he did ask if I'd ever seen them together. And the funny thing is, I have. Once after a performance when I'd gone to gather up the costumes that need mending. I heard voices from Mr. Carmarthen's dressing room and then Mr. McDevitt came out. It wasn't my place to wonder what they were talking about, and I think they were both—"
"Part of the Levellers," Mélanie said. "They were."
"So they could have had lots of things to talk about. But in the regular run of things, I never saw them together. So it is a bit odd."
"Yes," Mélanie said. "So it is."
"Mélanie." Will looked up as she appeared in the doorway of his dressing room. "Do you have notes on Act I?"
"No, it's going splendidly." Mélanie pushed the door to behind her and stepped into the dressing room. Sometimes the best way to draw out the truth was to confront someone with what one suspected. "Your real name is McDevitt, isn't it?"
Will's gaze locked on her face. "Whom have you been talking to?"
"Bessie. She noticed your resemblance to Donald. But only because Lewis Thornsby asked her about it last week. She also saw you and Donald talking in here late one night."
"That doesn't prove anything,"
"No, but once she mentioned it, I could see the resemblance as well." She watched him for the length of a line of iambic pentameter. "Malcolm's country house is in Forfarshire. We spent quite a bit of time there. I know there's a McDevitt family who are large landowners near Inverness. I could go back to Berkeley Square, pull down Debrett's, look for the names of the children. But for the sake of the play, please don't ask me to do it."
Will gave a faint smile, his gaze not leaving her face. "
I grew up in a small village near Inverness. Your family go back and forth from Scotland all the time, but my family didn't. I didn't even go to Edinburgh until I went to university. My mother had died when I was born. My father was happiest when he was fishing or hunting, and my elder brother took after him. I was like a changeling. I liked the outdoors well enough when I could sit down with a book, but I hadn't much interest in fishing and I abhorred hunting. I spent a lot of time on my own."
"It sounds much like the way my husband describes his childhood," Mélanie said.
Will flashed a smile at her. "I liked stories. I liked learning about other parts of the world. But I had no idea what a play was. Not until a group of traveling players came to our village when I was eight. My nurse took me to see the performance in the market square. St. George and the Dragon. Funny now to compare that declaiming to what we do at the Tavistock. But I was spellbound from the first. I got her to bring me back to every performance while they were in the village. I read every play I could find in my parents' library." He paused for a moment and pushed his hair back from his forehead. "My father died putting his hunter over a stone wall when I was ten. My brother and I went to live with my uncle and aunt. Our cousins were all mad for horses and fishing too, the girls as well as the boys. My brother fit right in. They all looked at me as though I'd stumbled in from the realm of the fairies. Especially when I tried to organize them to put on theatricals. But occasionally they'd indulge me. We managed a decent version of Two Gentlemen of Verona when I was home from school one summer. And of course at school and university I was in every play I could manage."
"So was Malcolm," Mélanie said. "He met Simon and some of his other best friends in a production of Henry IV Part 1. But while he knew he'd always love plays, I don't think he ever saw it as his whole life."
"And I couldn't imagine it as anything but my life. My last year at university in Edinburgh my uncle started talking about my taking orders. He had a living he wanted to set me up in. When I balked, he suggested Parliament. Or offered to buy me a commission. All very generous. But when I dragged my feet again and again, he said 'that theatrical nonsense' had addled my brain, and it was time I gave it up. My last holiday at home before I finished up at Edinburgh, he gave me an ultimatum. I had two months after I came down and then I had to decide on a suitable profession. I had an inheritance from my father, but I didn't come into it until I was five-and-twenty, which seemed an eternity at that point. So when I finished up at Edinburgh I didn't go home. I took a stagecoach to London and set up at an inn under the name Will Carmarthen. I'd never been to London before. All I had was the part of my allowance I'd managed to save. I hadn't a clue about earning a living if I couldn't get work as an actor. I tried to get auditions at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, but I couldn't get past the doormen. By the time I showed up at the Tavistock I was starting to wonder if I had enough left to get a coach to a provincial town with a theatre. I remember being a bit lightheaded when I went to the Tavistock, because all I'd had to eat was an apple and a cup of coffee from a Covent Garden stall. That and desperation may have made me bold. Bold enough to get past the doorman and to launch into the St. Crispin's Day speech before Simon could politely say no. I knew that speech by heart by the time I was ten. Even with that and the hunger and desperation, I was shocked when he hired me."
"Were you really?" Mélanie asked.
Will gave a faint grin. "I know I'm good. I was probably more arrogant then, untrained, than I am now. Still, to have a man I admired so much take me seriously and be ready to put me on the stage of one of London's major theatres—yes, that was a shock. Followed by relief at the promise of earning some money. When I asked him how soon we got paid, he gave me an advance on my salary. I went to the White Rose and had my first hot meal in weeks. And along with the relief, I was deluged by the terror of my London debut as Benvolio. Terror and exhilaration. I was happy as I'd never been before."
"Surely you worried you'd be recognized?"
"Constantly, for the first few months. I dyed my hair—it's not much darker than Letty's naturally. My family tended to stay in Scotland. My uncle and aunt hadn't been to London since their wedding journey and my brother and cousins had never been."
"Did you communicate with them?"
"I sent a letter three months after I got my position at the Tavistock. When I was sure it wasn't all a dream. I said I'd gone on the London stage. I was over one-and-twenty and my own master, so they couldn't try to stop me. But I said I'd use a different name and avoid letting anyone know who I was, to avoid sullying the family name. And that I wouldn't attempt to access any of my inheritance. So long as they left me in peace. I sent it off with some trepidation, though I told myself they couldn't drag me off like an eighteen-year-old at Gretna Green."
"What did they reply?"
"They didn't. I never heard from them. After a few months I stopped expecting to."
"That must have been hard."
Will shrugged. All these years later, the gesture was still a bit defensive. "Easier this way. A clean break. No need to wonder if I should try to go home, no need to fear a confrontation. No need to feel torn. None of my family were likely to come to London. But some of my school and university fellows might. Some were English, some were from Scots families who traveled south more than ours did. Someone who knew me could stumble across my path. I remember the first time I saw someone I'd gone to university with in a Covent Garden coffeehouse. I was sitting with a group of actors, he walked in with two other young blades. He looked right at me with no hint of recognition. Funny how much context does. We see what we expect to see."
"Yes," Mélanie said. "We do. Sometimes even when we're trained to look beyond the obvious."
"I'd stopped worrying about it," Will said. "Occasionally I'd see a familiar face in a coffeehouse, in the green room, passing on the street. But no one seemed to recognize me. One time a chap from school stared at me for a bit. I just looked back and after a moment he shrugged and said, 'Sorry, you reminded me of someone I used to know.' I started not to be sure if I recognized people because I'd known them in my old life or because I'd seen them at the theatre or elsewhere in London. Being William McDevitt started to seem not much more real than being Benvolio or Mercutio or Prince Hal or any of the other roles I'd lived deeply while I portrayed them onstage."
"I know the feeling," Mélanie said. "In a sense. From being under deep cover." There were so many times, before Malcolm learned the truth, when her life as Suzanne Rannoch had seemed more real than her life as Mélanie Lescaut.
Will nodded. "When you're an actor, what happens onstage often seems more real than the real world, in any case. I belonged in the theatre as I'd never belonged at home." He hesitated a moment. "I know it must seem odd, my turning my back on my family. Especially my brother."
"Not necessarily," Mélanie said. "My husband's relationship with his brother was complicated. They were very different. I could never quite make sense of it when I first married Malcolm. It wasn't as complete a break, but they didn't see each other much for years, though they'd been close as boys."
"Ted and I weren't," Will said. "We lived in a sort of mutual toleration. I didn't dislike him. But I confess I found him deadly dull. I don't think he disliked me. But I think I completely baffled him. I was glad to hear he'd married—our cousin Jane, as it happens—glad to hear they had children. But I felt no desire to see either of them. As I said, I'd come to believe I'd left William McDevitt behind completely. Until one night I walked offstage as Laertes, went into the green room, and saw my cousin Donald sitting with John Stanhope and Lewis Thornsby."
"He was with Thornsby?"
Will nodded. "Though that wasn't what struck me at the time. For a moment I thought I'd been found out. But Donald gave no sign of recognizing me. I walked over to some of the other actors and gave no sign of recognizing him. I thought perhaps he, like my school friends, really didn't recognize me. But the next night, he showed up at a Levellers me
eting with Stanhope. Even then he gave no sign of knowing me. I told myself it really might be coincidence. Until later that night when Donald caught me by the arm in the alley behind the Tavistock. He gave me a bear hug, actually, which was a bit of a surprise. He said he was glad to know I was well and he had no desire to disrupt the life I'd made. That was why he hadn't said anything to me sooner. We repaired to a table at the back of the White Rose. He said he hadn't come looking for me. He hadn't had any notion I was Will Carmarthen until he went to the theatre with his friend Stanhope and saw me onstage. Stanhope had already told him about the Levellers and offered to bring him to a meeting. That surprised me because none of the family had ever shown much interest in politics, and what interest they had shown had been staunchly Tory. Donald said that had changed when he went to university. He's three years younger than I, so he'd been quite young when I'd last seen him. He said he could understand wanting to make a new life, and he wouldn't disrupt mine. But he wanted to be part of the Levellers. He wanted to make a difference. He sounded a bit of a starry-eyed idealist, but then I suppose we all started out that way."
"You didn't let anyone know you knew each other?" Mélanie asked.
Will shook head. "Donald asked me if I missed home. I told him what the theatre meant to me, and he seemed to understand. He said my uncle and aunt had been very concerned when I first disappeared, which made me feel a bit of a rotter. Then after three months, he said, they told everyone they'd had a letter from me saying I was taking ship for America. And another one saying I'd found employment in New York about six months later. So I knew they'd got my letter. And they'd spun a story to explain why I'd disappeared and wouldn't be back. I suppose I should be grateful they hadn't told my brother and cousins I was dead."