The Captain and the Theatrical

by Catherine Curzon

  “Indeed yes!” He slowed to allow the ladies to draw level. “Have you visited my homeland, Madame? It is a paradise. All gentlemen with Italy in their blood are raised to appreciate only the finest beauty.”

  Mrs. Tarbottom laughed, her head tipped to one side as she toyed with the cross around her neck. “I have never visited Italy, but I long to. And so does my daughter.”

  “Oh, yes, Mama!” Harriet smiled at both men. “Papa says I should take my honeymoon there before we head back to America.”

  “Things are politically interesting at the moment,” Orsini informed her with a laugh. “But it is the finest land, is it not, Captain?”

  “I cannot think of a finer place. Besides England, of course, but I am biased!” Ambrose nudged Orsini, as if indicating to the ladies that they were being polite, yet still combative.

  “Yet I think America might prove to have attractions of its own,” Orsini purred.

  “You have never visited?” Mrs. Tarbottom turned toward Orsini and managed to brush against him. “You might enjoy it.”

  “I shouldn’t like to visit America myself,” Mrs. Pendleton remarked, apparently unaware of the adulterous flirtation occurring under her watch. “I’ve never been one for sea journeys. We traveled down the English coast once and—oh, heavens, I have never in all my days been so unwell!”

  “I believe my mother would agree with you. She is of a mind to make her life here in England.” Orsini sighed. “The country has stolen her heart.”

  Ambrose glanced at Orsini, heat in his eyes but nothing else in his demeanor to hint at what battled within his breast. He dropped his gaze.

  “Will you take my arm, Orsini?” Harriet beamed at him. “It is not every day I can claim to be on the arm of the son of a real Italian count!”

  “The brother of a count now,” he pointed out. The hamper made it somewhat difficult but he lifted his elbow to accommodate her. “My eldest brother is the head of our family today.”

  Harriet nodded with enthusiasm, her ringlets springing about her face, for all the world giving her the appearance of an excited spaniel. She surely wouldn’t transfer her affections—or her attentions, at least—from Ambrose?

  “Somewhat more exciting than being the brother of a colliery magnate!” Ambrose laughed as he took his mother’s arm.

  “I can tell you, being a colliery magnate’s wife has its compensations,” Mrs. Pendleton remarked, her eye on Mrs. Tarbottom. “Though it’s not quite the same as having a title, I’m sure.”

  “My brother is married and father to a brace of fine children, his title is shared already,” Orsini informed them. He lifted his other elbow slightly and met Mrs. Tarbottom’s gaze. “Madame, might I escort you too?”

  “I should be delighted.” A soft timbre had crept into her voice, the tones of a seductress hiding in plain sight. She took Orsini’s arm with delicacy, but ensured that every few steps her bosom would collide with some part of Orsini’s person. The thought of this creature daring to pass judgment on Cosima left Orsini’s blood boiling in his veins, for no woman so accomplished in the art of deception was new to the practice. From the grip of Harriet’s hand on his arm he knew that the mother had tutored the daughter just as well, though as Harriet’s gaze slid over his ruby stock pin, he wondered again if it wasn’t the jewels that she found attractive, not the fellow wearing them.

  “Do all the men in Italy dress as you do?” Harriet asked him.

  “We are a colorful people,” he replied. “But few are as colorful as Orsini!”

  “Very true!” Ambrose laughed, and his mother laughed along with him.

  Not to be outdone, Harriet and Mrs. Tarbottom joined in, laughing with droll amusement as if Orsini had made the most hilarious comment ever heard. Orsini joined in, though he couldn’t help but think that this heavy hamper could be doing La Cosima’s slender arms little good, let alone that he would have to compensate for the sun with even more powder tonight, when she sang before the guests. It was that thought which caused him to slow as they reached the shade of a spreading tree and glance back at the house and its beautiful gardens beneath them.

  “Shall we make our camp here, ladies, where we might look out over our world like those on Olympus?”

  “What a charming spot—you have such an eye, Orsini!” Mrs. Tarbottom finally relinquished his arm, but it was clear that she expected to sit beside him.

  “Oh, he does, Mrs. Tarbottom!” Mrs. Pendleton sank down onto the grass, her silk dress billowing up around her. Ambrose assisted her, and the two laughed as her parasol got caught in her shawl. How Orsini wished he could join in with their chuckles but instead he was stuck with the Tarbottom women, one staring at his jewels, the other letting her gaze roam where no married woman should. Even Pagolo squawked with mirth, before he straightened Mrs. Tarbottom’s lace cap with a tug of his beak.

  “As much as I like a picnic, you can’t beat a chair!” Mrs. Pendleton laughed. “Now, if you two gentlemen would unfasten the hampers, we can enjoy our p—”

  Mrs. Pendleton swatted at a wasp that was dancing between her and the food. “Picnic. That is, if the wasps behave themselves.”

  “Your house is beautiful.” Orsini opened the hamper he had carried and waited for Ambrose to open his too. “And built from coal, after a fashion? Mr. Pendleton built his own fortune, I believe, but I’ll wager it took a special sort of lady at his side to do it.”

  “You are too kind, Mr. Orsini!” Mrs. Pendleton blushed under his gaze, and nudged Ambrose to unfasten his hamper. “But I am sure Mrs. Tarbottom has had a similar experience. What was it like, in the early days, Mrs. Tarbottom? Tough work, I imagine, like it was for me?”

  “No, not at all.” Mrs. Tarbottom poked her supercilious nose into the air. “My family were already wealthy.”

  “We Orsinis were wealthy a few hundred years back, then we were not, but we were still happy.” Orsini shrugged. His family history was filled with the sort of drama that would keep Ambrose in drama for a long time, after all. “We had palazzos and jewels and the ear of the pope and the doge but money? Not so much. Presently we are back in the financial sun, thanks to a few generations of sensible Orsinis to put us straight. Let us hope the sun never sets.”

  “Indeed, let it not!” Mrs. Tarbottom nodded. She was trying very hard to look elegant and seductive with a checked cloth on her knee bearing a slice of game pie.

  “Bread?” Ambrose offered round a plate with sliced and buttered bread. “There’s cheese too if anyone should want it.”

  “Would you please pass me a slice?” Harriet had asked Orsini rather than her intended. Orsini was sitting nearer, it was true, but it left an unpleasant tang in his mouth. Orsini made great play of taking a piece of bread and offering it on his palm as though it were a fine jewel, his head slightly bowed.

  Then he asked her mother, “Madame, might I oblige you?”

  “Indeed you may.” She leaned toward him, the soft mound of her bosom heading his way at nightmarish speed. Mrs. Tarbottom delicately sniffed the air. “And what is that scent?”

  “That’d be the cows, Mrs. Tarbottom,” Mrs. Pendleton helpfully informed her. “Home Farm’s only on the other side of the rise.”

  “No—” Mrs. Tarbottom sat back, adjusting her sleeve. “No, I mean to say, Orsini, that cologne you wear, it has such a marvelous aroma.”

  “Me, Madame?” He pressed his hand to his embroidered brocade. “It is a simple fragrance from the east, delicate as a spring dew.”

  Mrs. Tarbottom danced her fingertips against her neck. Orsini was taken aback that she dare be so forward as that, for it was bold indeed, there in front of Mrs. Pendleton. “It really is a beautiful scent. I adore it.”

  “Yes, I noticed it too.” Harriet beamed at Orsini. “It is very pleasant.”

  He lifted his hand to brush away the compliment, watching Harriet’s gaze follow the ruby. What a magpie this girl was. What an expensive bride she would make some poor fellow.

&n
bsp; From Ambrose’s side of the picnic, Orsini heard a distinct cough. Was he trying not to laugh?

  “My sister tells me she intends to entertain you with a little post-supper music this evening,” Orsini observed, seeing the American girl’s face harden. “Alas I cannot be present for I have a mountain of correspondence to attend to. Our mother must know that all is well, and a good many others besides.”

  “I shall look forward to her performance, as shall Harriet.” Mrs. Tarbottom finished her sentence with a stern tone which told her daughter in no uncertain terms that she would look forward to Cosima’s performance whether she wished to or not. “What a shame you are to be busy, Orsini! Can you really not put your correspondence aside for the sake of an evening’s entertainment?”

  “My mother worries so,” he said by way of an explanation, sensing an opportunity for a little more mischief. “I believe that a little distance would do my sister and I no harm either, for a good many angry words were exchanged this morning. All is happy now, but I know she will enjoy performing without my scrutiny.”

  As he fell silent, Orsini shot Ambrose a dark look as though all was certainly not well with him.

  Ambrose did a passable impression of his mother’s haughty sniff. “Mother, you are looking forward to the contessina’s performance as well, are you not?”

  “I most certainly am! We are lucky to have such a well-known personage of the stage perform at Pendleton Hall.” She smiled down into the valley where her many-windowed house nestled. “Of course, I should love one day to see Cosima on stage.”

  “And one day, I hope, you will all be my guests at a performance.” Orsini opened a bottle of homemade lemonade. “When all of this is behind us and the delightful Signorina T. is instead a delightful Signora P.!”

  Mrs. Tarbottom laughed politely. “You are most magnanimous, Mr. Orsini.”

  “I am known for my tender nature as well as my passions,” he replied, meeting her gaze. Those eyes, so avaricious and cold when turned on his sister, flashed with heat now and an understanding passed between them, an unspoken promise. What a horrible thought that was. “Both beat in the heart of Orsini.”

  And both beat only for Ambrose Pendleton.

  And that damn sash.

  “Is that so?” Mrs. Tarbottom replied, her voice but a wisp escaping her pouted lips.

  “It is why he and I were friends,” Ambrose said through a mouthful of cake. He swallowed and went on. “And why I lament the wedge that has come between us—my dear, tender Orsini.”

  “Time shall mend it,” Orsini told him, barely glancing away from his admirer. “If I do not have at you with my weapon first.”

  Ambrose pursed his lips. To the Tarbottoms, it must have seemed as if Ambrose was reining in an imprecation, but Orsini knew that his lover was reining in something else entirely.

  Weapon, indeed.

  “There are many stones strewn along life’s highway.” Mrs. Pendleton nodded sagely. “One steps around them or over them and continues on the way. But the journey is easier if we have our friends beside us.”

  “Hear, hear!” Orsini filled their glasses then lay back on the grass, his hands pillowed beneath his head and his eyes closed against the sun. Oh to be here alone with Ambrose, the grass beneath them, the clouds above and only kisses in between. That would be perfection.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After returning from the picnic, Ambrose spent most of the afternoon with his mother and the Tarbottoms, with Orsini tantalizingly within reach but lavishing all his attention on the ladies. Pagolo provided most of the entertainment so Ambrose was free to sit at a discreet distance and write.

  “Letters, Mother,” he said. But it wasn’t letters at all, but a new play—Avarice and Ambition; or, the Magnate’s Misfortune. The main character was a put-upon young man with a stubborn father, who was about to be hoodwinked by a liar. However, a charming young lady from the continent was about to rescue them all.

  Really, where did Ambrose get his ideas from? He just couldn’t say—they appeared in his mind as easily as daydreams.

  Eventually, as the shadows lengthened and even the gentlemen must be setting their business aside in the study, Orsini was the first to rise. He bowed low to the women and told them all, “Forgive me, ladies, I should look in on my sister before I retire to my correspondence. I am still tired from my journey. I believe I will be abed before you leave the table! Forgive me my absence at dinner, please, it is not my usual way.”

  With another bow of gratitude at the assorted gentle good wishes from the ladies, Orsini was gone. It seemed to signal that the day was over and the night was to begin. Time to dress for dinner which, far from being its usual chore, was suddenly the start of something even more exciting, for Cosima was to appear once more.

  Ambrose bundled up his papers and hurried upstairs to dress. If only he could see Orsini for even a moment or two, to relate what his mother had told him about the grandfather he had never met—the man whose name was never mentioned, as if Barnaby Pendleton had risen from the dust like Adam himself. But Orsini would be in Cosima’s chamber by now and by no means could Ambrose enter, or be seen anywhere near the door. He paced back and forth in his own room until it was time to go back downstairs again.

  Harriet was on Ambrose’s arm as they went in to dinner, but she seemed almost as reluctant as he was. He tried his best not to stare too much at Cosima, but it was very difficult not to. Though Harriet was wearing one of those perfectly chosen gowns, understated and expensive, the height of fashion, Cosima had let fashion be damned. Just as Amadeo Orsini had once told Ambrose proudly that he didn’t follow fashion, but led it, so too did Cosima, it seemed.

  And for dinner with her rival, Cosima and Pagolo matched. Her dress was bright blue, a shimmering silk that clung to her slender form while the dainty, embroidered yellow and red feathers that formed a pattern at the skirt’s hem and along the edges of the sleeves and neckline must have taken somebody—Orsini, probably—long hours and immeasurable patience to stitch. She wore a pendant of a single sapphire set into a teardrop of gold and it nestled against her olive skin, though Ambrose reminded himself that he mustn’t look too long at that embroidery nor that jewel, let alone imagine what lay beneath the delicate blue silk. Not for her the fussy hair of Harriet Tarbottom, pinned and primped into place, instead she wore her locks scandalously loose over her shoulders, her only ornament a dainty silver comb into which she had pressed one of Pagolo’s fallen feathers. There must be makeup, Ambrose knew, for there was no Cosima without it, but what there was subtle and soft, like the woman his friend had created.

  Mrs. Tarbottom’s displeasure was clear from her smile, which was curling into a snarl. Whether this was because Cosima had outshone both Mrs. Tarbottom and her daughter, or because Mr. Tarbottom was obviously enchanted by Cosima’s outfit, it was impossible to say. If Ambrose had to place a wager, he would have said it was both.

  “Now is that an Italian gown, my dear?” And with that question, Mrs. Pendleton was off, initiating a conversation between the women about silks and satins and fashionable cuts. In Ambrose’s other ear, all he could hear was his father and Mr. Tarbottom trying to out-compete each other with tales of their industrial exploits.

  From the corner of his eye, Ambrose saw Cosima lean forward and gently touch her fingers to Harriet’s neck. Then she said, “Those pearls are the most perfect I have ever seen, Miss Tarbottom, they are exquisite! I have an eye for jewelry and I have never seen pearls like these!”

  Harriet beamed. “Oh, Cosima, really? What can I say, other than that I am very lucky to have an indulgent papa!”

  “Wherever did you find them?” Cosima asked Mr. Tarbottom, who lifted his gaze from the sapphire at her breast and blinked. “The pearls, Mr. Tarbottom?”

  “A family heirloom,” he said with a wave of his hand, then turned back to Mr. Pendleton to continue their discussion, but Cosima was far from finished.

  “No heirloom like this exists w
ithout marvelous stories attached to it,” she told him sweetly. “Do tell!”

  He took a sip from his glass and said, “I confess I hardly recall, Contessina, I’m sorry to disappoint.”

  And that seemed to be that, as the ladies went back to their chatter and the gentlemen to their talk of money. Eventually cutlery was laid down and the bustle at the table grew less and less until dinner, it seemed, had reached its natural conclusion. Pagolo, who had been contentedly dining from his own silver dish of nuts at Mrs. Pendleton’s elbow, now hopped onto her shoulder again and told her in a cryptic, low squawk, “Painting, Mamma!”

  Mrs. Pendleton smiled and rose from her chair. “Gentlemen, I’m sure you’ll happily delay your port for ten minutes? Only Pagolo and I have something rather exciting to show you. Come, everyone!”

  Without waiting to be escorted from dinner—though, arguably, that was Pagolo’s role—Mrs. Pendleton swept from the room and beckoned her dinner guests to follow. Through the corridors they went until they were in the entrance hall.

  “There! It’s been off to have a new frame fitted. Is it not glorious?”

  Mrs. Pendleton gestured toward a huge painting that now adorned the hallway. The vast canvas showed the Pendleton family, nearly thirty years ago. They were posed before a backdrop of dark foliage, with Pendleton Hall peeping through the branches, minus its two most recent wings. Barnaby Pendleton was grand in profile, neatly bewigged, his chest proudly puffed. His expression was almost stern, but softened perhaps by the angle of his gaze, which took in his lady and their boys. A younger version of Mrs. Pendleton held out one hand to a lively boy on a hobby horse, a drum around his neck—this was Ambrose’s older brother. And on Mrs. Pendleton’s lap, nestled in the shiny blue silk of her gown, was a baby in a lace cap and frilly frock. None other than the infant Ambrose Pendleton, his little pink lip stuck out as he held a silver rattle aloft to his mother.

  “He’s grown a bit since then!” Mrs. Pendleton grinned. “I was young once, truly—and back when Mr. Pendleton took me for his bride, I had no idea what my life would become. Posing for a grand painting—I ask you.” She nodded, as if imparting the wisdom of the sages. “But the wheelwright who I nearly married…he’s still making wheels.”