The Stepsister's Triumph

by Darcie Wilde

  Yr. Faithful,

  Cousin Henry

  * * *

  “Madelene!”

  Henry Cross strode boldly into the green parlor of No. 48, both arms stretched out in front of him. Madelene leapt to her feet, entirely disregarding manners and decorum, and incidentally scattering many of Helene’s papers. They’d been laboring over guest lists for their party a minute ago, but Madelene forgot it all in an instant as she ran to greet her cousin. Henry grasped both Madelene’s hands but did nothing so prosaic as kiss her cheek. Instead, he spun her in a tight circle, just as he had when she was small. She was so delighted by the sight of him she entirely forgot to be embarrassed.

  Henry Cross had always seemed a friendly giant to Madelene, but strangely graceful for a man of his size. His hair was the same shade of strawberry blond as Madelene’s own, although it was just beginning to turn gray at the temples, and his eyes were as bright and blue as she remembered, and his smile as warm and merry. His clothing was of better quality than it had been when she’d seen him last. His jacket of blue superfine wool had silver buttons, and his Hessian boots shone bright as mirrors.

  Cousin Henry had never failed to make her and Mother laugh with his stories and antics whenever he visited, an event that inevitably occurred when Father was away from home. Father said, repeatedly and loudly, that Mother should not have any connection to an actor, whether he was a relative or not. Mother replied that if Father approved of the money he ought not scorn the family that brought it.

  The arguments that followed these remarks left behind far less pleasant memories.

  When Henry finally released his cousin, he turned at once to their hostess. “My dear Miss Sewell! How magnificent to see you again!” He made as elegant a bow as the confines of the parlor allowed. “I am enchanted by your latest work. Scandalized, of course, but enchanted nonetheless.”

  “It is very good to see you again, Mister Cross. Let me introduce you to my other protégés.” As she did, Helene bobbed a calm and correct curtsy.

  “I thought your King Henry was simply marvelous, Mister Cross,” breathed Adele. She looked slightly stupefied but was rallying. Madelene couldn’t help but smile. Cousin Henry had that effect on people who weren’t used to him, especially women.

  “Thank you so much, Lady Adele,” Henry replied as they all settled themselves in their places and Miss Sewell rang for the coffee. “It was a privilege to be allowed to portray my infinitely more noble and worthy namesake. And here, if I have heard correctly, you three are readying for your own Saint Crispin’s Day?” He cast his eye over the stacks of lists and cards that covered the coffee table. “My dear cousin tells me that a grand gathering is being arranged under the auspices of your excellent chaperone?”

  There was a change in Henry’s voice at this, the casual cheerfulness becoming so slightly forced. Madelene glanced at Miss Sewell to see if she noticed, but Miss Sewell seemed to be fully occupied by directing her maidservant where to set the coffee things, since the usual table was full of papers.

  “Well, yes, we do mean to give a ball,” Madelene said, to cover the awkwardness. “I know it won’t sound like much to you, Henry, but . . .”

  Henry waved this away. “My dear, if it has moved you to contact your lonesome cousin after all this time, it is the whole of the world to me.” He was looking at Miss Sewell as he said this. “Tell me all.”

  “Do you still take two spoons of sugar with your coffee, Mister Cross?” Miss Sewell replied.

  “I do,” he answered. This time Madelene knew she was not imagining the change in his voice.

  No, don’t be ridiculous. You’re overly sensitive, after what . . . happened with Lord Benedict.

  After what did and didn’t happen.

  “The party is Helene’s idea, really,” Madelene said quickly, before the spark in Adele’s eye could lead to any pointed questions about Miss Sewell, or her.

  “Lady Helene shall have the floor, then.” Henry accepted the coffee cup and saucer Miss Sewell handed him and raised it in salute. “Lady Helene?”

  So, Helene told him about their plans for the season, with Adele filling in any gaps. Cousin Henry was a treat to watch when he was listening. His eyebrows were better than most comedies, rising and falling and wriggling in such exaggerated expressions that Madelene could not help but smile. Helene frowned at him, obviously uncertain whether she was being mocked. But by the time she finished, Henry was entirely sober.

  “Very well, ladies.” Henry set his empty cup down on the round table at his elbow. “I am engaged.”

  “That’s what Miss Sewell said when she took us on,” Adele remarked.

  “Is it? She always has been a woman of great wit.”

  “And you a man of great flattery,” Miss Sewell replied tartly.

  “Guilty, madame.”

  “Do you mean it?” Madelene breathed. “You will come to our party?” Relief rushed through her, and she knew why. If Cousin Henry agreed, she wouldn’t have to finish the portrait. They wouldn’t need it. She’d never have to see Lord Benedict again. She’d never have to put herself through that confusing, shameful tangle of emotion and imagination, or anything like it, again.

  Cousin Henry laid his hand on his breast and gave a solemn, seated bow to them. “I will be there at the hour you appoint, and I will speak or be silent about my acceptance of the invitation as you command. However”—he raised his hand to forestall their thanks—“you must be ready to pay my price.”

  “Price?” Helene said sharply.

  “You are engaging me in a professional capacity. You wish me to expend my trained and professional wit, charm, and, dare I say, panache in your service. I am willing, but I expect to be compensated.”

  Madelene’s heart plunged. She hadn’t anticipated this. It was . . . crass. Not that she’d entirely believed Henry would be willing to return to her life after she had cut him for so long. But she had hoped for a courteous refusal at least.

  Helene, however, remained undeterred. “Will this be on an hourly basis or a set fee for the entire evening?”

  Henry threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, nothing like that, I assure you. My price is that my dear cousin come have luncheon with me. I have engaged a private parlor for us in Matheson’s Coffeehouse in the square and . . .” He consulted his pocket watch. “Yes, we are just in time. I took the liberty of assuming we would go from here to avoid . . . awkwardness.” He rose and extended his arm. “Cousin?”

  Of course she agreed at once.

  * * *

  A very short time later, Madelene found herself seated in a pleasant and sunny room upstairs at Matheson’s Coffeehouse. The landlady and three serving boys bustled around them, laying out a luncheon of cold roast fowl, fresh bread, salads, and cakes. All of them wore the same slightly stunned and bashful expressions that Adele had displayed earlier. It was very strange, Madelene thought, how the one person she felt truly comfortable with was the one who could make everyone else trip over their own feet.

  They ate, and the food was all very good and fresh. Henry kept up an easy flow of conversation, mostly about his travels, laced with little gossipy anecdotes about the famous actresses he had played beside, such as Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Jordan. At last, after Madelene had declared she could not eat another slice of the sugar-topped cake and Henry had allowed her to refill his teacup once more, he changed the subject.

  “Now, Madelene, I have an important question for you.” As he spoke, Henry regarded her with the steady, perceptive gaze that had been known to make grown theater managers stammer like schoolboys.

  “Oh.” He was going to say something about her stepmother. Or that he’d heard about Lewis and his gambling. Could he know something about Benedict? Had he heard about her meeting him in the gallery? About the portrait? No, surely it was too soon for that news to have gotten out. All the same, fear sq
ueezed Madelene’s heart, and she tried to cover it up with a gulp of tea.

  “What is it you really want from your cousin?”

  Madelene swallowed too quickly and had to set her cup down. “I don’t understand. I thought . . .”

  “Yes, yes, the ball.” He waved his hand. “I approve of the plan, as I said, and I am perfectly willing to serve as your crowning ornament for the occasion. By the by, I’m very glad to see you with Miss Sewell.” He swirled his tea, watching the sunlight play across the amber liquid. “Very glad for a number of reasons. She’s a good woman, and you can trust her.”

  “Then you do know her . . . well?”

  “I did.” He sighed. “When we were both much younger, and I was a bigger fool than I am now. Yes. But, to my question.” He pointed one finger at her. “What is it you really want of this season of yours? You cannot seriously be mounting such an effort for the sake of getting some attention from a lot of fat cats in the drawing rooms.”

  “Cousin Henry!”

  “Is a terrible rude creature as actors often are and he’s shocked you. A pox upon him!” He slammed his great hand down on the table, rattling the dishes. “But more seriously, Madelene. I’ve thought about you often, and I’ve kept an eye out on you as best I could. Tried to contact you a few times.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I didn’t make a very good job of it. But I did try. Please.” He leaned forward. For a moment, the cheerful countenance that was all part of his charming and public face slipped, and Madelene saw the man underneath. She also saw a deep affection and a concern that could not have been anything but genuine. “Won’t you tell me how I can really help you?”

  Madelene rubbed her hands together. You’ve already done it. Now that we have you, we don’t need the painting. I don’t have to go back. I don’t have to see Lord Benedict again. I don’t have to look at him. I don’t have to want him.

  Except she did. Every night. Every time she saw a man in the street with chestnut hair and a lean frame, she remembered Benedict and wanted to see his dark eyes looking at her, as they had looked in that one burning moment. She wanted to feel him near her. She could not endure it, but she could not stop it.

  “Madelene?” Henry said gently. “What is it, my dear? You can tell me anything.”

  Not this. She bit her lip. But she must tell him something. So she told him the other truth.

  “I’m afraid, Henry,” she said. “All the time. I’m scared of my own shadow. When I’m in a crowd sometimes I can barely breathe. I can’t . . . I can’t talk. I can’t think.” She lifted her eyes.

  “I want to stop being afraid. I want a life of my own. A . . . soul of my own.”

  “You have a soul, Madelene,” he whispered, and the affection in his voice caused tears to prickle in the corners of her eyes. “A bright and brilliant one.”

  “I doesn’t feel that way. It feels like . . . like I’m hollow inside. Like if I try to resist . . . anything, I’ll just break. I told my friend Helene this season is about my . . . my freedom, and it is. But I’m going to make an absolute fool of myself at the ball if I can’t control my fears. I’ll ruin everything.”

  He leaned back and touched his finger to his lip. “And that’s what you want? Not to ruin things for your friends?”

  “Yes. That. But it’s more than that. Unless I stop being afraid, I can’t ever be free to live or do . . . or do anything . . .”

  “Like love?” Henry murmured.

  No. Madelene expected the shameful blush to burn her cheeks, but nothing happened. There was only Henry, looking at her with all the kindness she remembered. “Yes,” she heard herself say. “Like love.”

  He nodded. He also folded his arms. “Is there someone in particular?”

  She bit her lip and looked in the pot to see if there was any tea left. There wasn’t.

  “What’s his name, Madelene?” Henry asked softly.

  “Lord Benedict Pelham.”

  Henry let out a very long breath, and Madelene felt her heart sink.

  “Do you know him?” she asked.

  “Slightly. Artists and actors may be expected to move in similar circles.”

  “Did you . . . Do you . . . approve of him?”

  “I never knew him well enough to approve or disapprove. He has some excellent friends, which always speaks well of a man.” He paused. “But an artist can be very strong drink, Madelene.”

  “Oh yes,” she murmured. As she spoke, she remembered the heat of Benedict’s gaze washing over her. Strong drink? Her cousin had no idea.

  Henry was silent for a long time. She waited for him to tell her to forget Benedict. Perhaps he might even forbid her to see him again. It would be a relief. Then it wouldn’t be her decision anymore. She’d have to obey, because she couldn’t risk angering her cousin, who was essential to her friends’ success and futures. With his disapprobation to bolster her, she couldn’t be tempted to try to set aside her fears and her doubts and go back to Benedict’s studio.

  “Well,” Henry said, “I wish you the very best of luck with him.”

  Madelene’s head jerked up to meet her cousin’s shrewd gaze.

  “You’re not . . . going to forbid me to see him?” she asked.

  Cousin Henry quirked one brow. “Did you want me to? Ah. I see that you did. Why?”

  “Because it’s all in my head.”

  “You mean your heart.”

  Her treacherous heart at that moment fluttered, almost as if mocking her. “No, no, not that,” she said to him and herself. “I mean, he, Lord Benedict, doesn’t feel anything for me, and it’s . . . awful to sit in a room alone . . .”

  “Alone?” For the first time, Henry sounded genuinely surprised. “You were alone with him?”

  “I wasn’t meant to be. Lady Adele came with me, but, well, I asked Adele if she . . .”

  “I see. And when you were there in his company, you felt a great deal for him, and he, as best as you can tell at this time, felt nothing for you.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Therefore, you now desire your beloved and forceful cousin to provide the excuse for you not to go back and face him again?”

  Madelene did not answer.

  “Well,” Henry said, “I won’t do it.”

  “Why not?” The words were out before she could even think of censoring them. Cousin Henry just smiled.

  “Because, Madelene, unless Lord Benedict was an actual blaggard toward you, you should go back. You should sort out for yourself what you and he feel.” His smile faded, and he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking toward the window and the square beyond. “If you try to hide from him, what you wonder and what you feel will continue to stand in your path. This freedom you desire, this life you want to live, it will only have another stumbling block.”

  “You sound very sure.” And I sound very peevish.

  But Henry did not seem to notice that. “I am sure, my dear,” he said. “To my own sorrow, I’m positive.”

  “But what if . . . he doesn’t care for me?”

  He shrugged, shaking off her words and his own abstraction with the one gesture. “Then you will know, and you will grieve and you will move on with your own life.”

  He spoke so casually. How could he? He didn’t really understand. Or maybe he did.

  “I will tell you this.” Henry leaned forward and planted one finger on the tabletop. “This Lord Benedict had better treat you honorably, or he and I shall have an exchange of . . . words.” He smiled coldly, and Madelene felt as if a shadow had passed over the sun. “Now, Madelene.” With those two words, the cold hint of danger vanished entirely from her cousin’s manner. “I ask you again, how can I really help you?”

  This much she knew. She’d been thinking it over since she’d written him, but now
that it came to the point of speaking out loud, it seemed unbearably silly, nothing at all like Helene’s neat and methodical plans.

  But she took a deep breath and said it anyway. “You can teach me to act like I’m not afraid,” she said. “If I can just pretend I’m not, then maybe, one day . . .”

  “It will become real,” Henry finished for her. “Yes. That can happen. I’ve seen it.”

  “You have?”

  “I have, and one day I’ll tell you about it. The real question is where to begin. Such lessons cannot be too broad, or they will overwhelm. Is there something particular you’d like to gain confidence at? Pouring out tea, for example?” He gestured toward the pot. “Conducting yourself at the table?”

  “Teach me to dance,” she said at once. “I can’t dance. I forget the steps, and that makes me nervous, and when I get nervous, I get so shy and I hate it and that makes me nervous all over again. But I remember how when I was little we used to dance in our parlor, and you dance so often on stage. It’s not just the dancing, of course, it’s everything around it, how to behave and not show how I’m . . .” She looked away and took a deep breath. “I know I’m not making any sense . . .”

  “Au contraire, my cousin, you are making perfect sense. The bard tells us all the world’s a stage! Why should we not treat it that way? We shall craft the very scene of the party, and I shall direct! And dancing lessons are the perfect place to begin.”

  “Oh, thank you!” she cried. “I’ve been so afraid. I waltz like a plank.”

  “And if you ever again see the vile monstrosity who told you that, you will point him out to me so that I may strike him down on your behalf.”

  “It was my father.”

  “I stand by my promise,” Henry said soberly. “Madelene . . . I was not going to say this yet. I could not say it before, because you were too young, but, well, now it’s hardly less awkward because you have grown into such a lovely young lady and I remain an old bachelor, and people are suspicious . . .” Madelene stared. It could not be that Cousin Henry was growing red in the face. “But, if you find things have become too difficult for you in your father’s house, you can always come to me.”