“Name me one aspect of this production that has been free of trouble, Tom. Arlecchino can’t be everywhere at once.”
“Seems like he is.”
“If he makes Molly happy, then he stays.”
“I take yer meaning. Like the blacksmith makes Lizzie happy, you mean.”
Terence covered his face with his hands and peered out through his fingers. “Oh, no. I hoped she would wait a little while.”
“I happened to overhear—” Tom began.
“Yes, go on. That is what I pay you for, among other things: overhearing.”
“But you haven’t paid me. Anyway, Lizzie whispered somefink to Dora about what a fine man Longwood was and how she wasn’t getting any younger while they were all waiting backstage.”
“But that does not mean that she and the blacksmith are—”
“The sofa squeaks in her dressing room at odd hours, sir.”
Terence rose from his desk and paced the carpet. “We could remove the sofa.”
“You know how performers is, sir. Sneaky. Very sneaky. Especially when they are feelin’ amorous. Any horizontal surface will do.”
“I cannot argue the point. You have worked in the theater far longer than I have, Tom.”
“Aye, sir.”
Terence paused and took a deep breath. “I wonder who else will be struck by Cupid’s arrow. Do you know, Tom, I have not been in love for the longest time myself. Perhaps I will be next.”
“Well, I would not say Molly and Lizzie are in love, sir. They just want a bit of fun, is all.”
“Then we must pretend that we don’t notice. And do not breathe a word of this to Lord York. He thinks theater folk are immoral as it is. And he also thinks Jo should not spend so much time here. He had his coachman drive her and Ginny to the gardens of Chelsea yesterday.”
“I know. I spoke wif him late in the afternoon. Just before he went in that fine carriage o’ his to bring her home.”
Terence raised an eyebrow. “He went? How very interesting. I did not know that he had met her there. Jo was asleep when I got home, and she said nothing of it at breakfast.”
“I am sure our Miss Jo has done no wrong,” Tom said nervously.
“Of course not. As far as I know, my sister has never even been kissed. Lord York seems to think of her as a friend. We all grew up together in Richmond, you know.”
“Ye may have mentioned it, sir.”
“I have tried my best to bring them together.”
“Ye yelled at him to look into her eyes when we was testing the lights. That oughter have done the trick.”
Terence picked up a bottle of madeira and poured himself a small glass. “I did not yell. I requested that he look into Jo’s eyes. And he did. But the magic … didn’t happen.” He tossed the thick, sweet wine down his throat in one go and poured another glass. On second thought, he poured one for Tom as well. “Will you join me?”
“Yes, sir,” the stage manager said with alacrity, taking the glass. He imitated Terence and swallowed all of it at once. “What magic would that be, sir?”
“The magic of love, theater style. A rosy glow in the air—lighting is very important, Tom—and a table for two. All make-believe but somehow very real. It didn’t work, though.” He gave Tom a sad look. “Shall we have another?”
“Certainly, sir. I am happy to be of assistance t’ye. Whenever ye need a bottle finished, call old Tom.”
Terence poured and they drank.
“But Miss Jo is very young,” Tom pointed out. “She will have many a suitor, mark my words.”
“Of course,” Terence said moodily. “But it would be so convenient if she and Lord York would hurry up and fall in love. I would rather not interview potential suitors for her. She is here and he is here … she likes him, he likes her. What more do they need?”
“Give them time, sir.”
Terence poured another glass and sipped it. He had decided to slow down but not stop. “Time? Is that all? Well, it is free, even if we are running out of it. But this damned show takes all my time.”
“Opening night is not far away, sir. Your first.”
“Do not remind me,” Terence said gloomily. “At least we are no longer running out of money, now that Daniel has taken over the books. I checked his entries and calculations, just for the practice. It seems to me that there is income, though we have sold no tickets as yet. Perhaps Daniel is covering our expenses from his own pocket. But I could be wrong. I have no head for such things.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom said amiably. “Pass the bottle, if you would.”
The madeira changed hands briefly and ended up on Terence’s desk. He poured himself another and set it down unsteadily, but managed to right it just before it spilled.
“Do you know, Tom, I had hoped to make money in the theater.” Terence laughed. “What a joke, eh?” He put his feet up on top of a pile of ledgers and slid down into his chair.
Tom grinned and gulped his wine. “There are straighter paths to the poorhouse, sir.”
“Well said.”
The stage manager settled himself in the large armchair and put his feet up on the seat of a smaller one. “It is a risky business and no mistake.”
“What I need, Tommy boy, is an heiress.”
Tom took another gulp. “Can’t help ye with that. Don’t know any.”
“I have courted several. Most assiduously.”
“What happened?”
Terence leaned back in his chair. “They would not have me. Heiresses are a bit skittish, Tommy. They prefer tame fellows, and I am not like that.”
Tom thought it over. “Ye could pretend t’be tame for as long as it took to get one to marry ye.”
“Ah, but the feminine mind is subtle. Even an inexperienced heiress would see through a ruse like that. They tend to be educated, though a few are too silly and nothing sticks.”
“Have ye looked for a silly girl, sir?”
“Of course. And I found one. But her papa was extra-vigilant and she had five older brothers.”
“Ye might’ve been horsewhipped,” Tom murmured. “Young fellows is hotblooded when it comes to defendin’ the family honor.”
“They advised me to cease and desist my attentions to their sister in no uncertain terms.”
“What did ye do?”
“I flicked a glove at them, picked up my hat, and left their house at once.”
The stage manager gave him an admiring look. “Ye do live dangerously, sir. I have never flicked a glove at no one nor faced a gang of horsewhippers. No, I flirt with barmaids.”
“That has its advantages,” Terence said.
“Aye, free ale.” Tom grinned and let his head loll back. “And my Jill don’t seem to mind if I don’t come home every night. I expect she has a stagehand on the side herself.”
“Ah, yes, your Jill. The wardrobe mistress at Drury Lane and our part-time spy. She has not been a fountain of information lately. Perhaps you ought to let the barmaids alone.”
“Jill don’t care about them. But she ain’t been paid by you, neither.”
Terence scowled and dug in his pockets. He handed Tom a few coins. “That is all I have. Please see that it gets to her.”
“May I have the bottle of madeira into the bargain? Jill does like a drop of it now and then. Says it makes her ears warm. She likes the feeling.”
“By all means.”
Terence handed the madeira to Tom and began to pace upon the carpet. “Now, to return to the problem of heiresses. I need one, but not an ordinary one.”
Tom swirled the thick wine in his glass and watched it trickle down the sides of the glass. “Can ye afford to be so particular, sir?”
“Let me explain. I need an heiress with something to hide. A shocking episode in her past, perhaps. An affair that ended badly, with someone else’s outraged wife flinging crockery.”
“Always a pity about the crockery. That sort o’ fight gets expensive.”
“Yes, Tom. I
myself once had a turkey platter cracked over my head.”
“By someone else’s wife?”
“No. Never mind the details. The doctor’s bill was exorbitant.”
“That there exorbitant sounds like a bad business, sir.”
“Indeed it is.”
Tom grew thoughtful. “You could advertise—no, no, that won’t do. Heiresses don’t answer ’em. Wouldn’t be proper. And they wouldn’t place a notice themselves, because of the need to hide from them outraged wives and vigilant papas. You could look for advertisements for crockery menders. They might know a naughty heiress.”
Terence sighed. “You think things through, Tommy. I like that about you.”
“Thank’ee kindly, sir.”
“There must be a way to find the woman of my mercenary dreams.”
“Ask yer sister to help. She goes to the mercer’s every day for thread and such.”
“Mercenary means moneygrubbing, Tommy. It has nothing to do with thread. I cannot ask Jo. She still believes in love and sees nothing romantic in marrying for money.”
A long silence fell.
“She is a good girl with a good heart, sir. We is all very fond of her.”
“As am I,” Terence said.
“She will understand, Mr. Shy. She has learned a lot about life in this here theater.”
Terence ceased his pacing and looked at Tom. “What has she learned?”
The stage manager hemmed and hawed. “Well, I don’t know exactly. Perhaps that things ain’t what they seem sometimes. That is a useful thing to know.”
“But a sad one.” Terence’s expression grew wistful. “I never should have brought her here. She was so innocent—”
“She still is, Mr. Shy, mark my words.”
“I didn’t mean that, Tommy. I was only feeling maudlin. Pass the wine. I will become loud and sentimental next. I might even weep.”
Tom clutched the bottle. “Ye said my Jill could have it!”
“So I did,” Terence said irritably. He strode back to the desk and pulled out an unopened bottle from a dark recess. “This is the last of it. But in return Jill has to provide current information on the Drury Lane production. We must outdo them if we are to make a profit.”
“Have ye given up hunting an heiress, then?”
Terence grinned at him. “Hmmm … Hunting the Heiress. What a wonderful title for a play. I will suggest it to Hugh.”
“Tell him I came it up wif it.”
“Of course. He will be very pleased. But I will tell him nothing else of what we said.”
“It were extremely confidential.”
“Yes, and you must not repeat a word to anyone. I was merely … thinking aloud and making cynical jokes. I would not marry just for money, you know.”
“Course not. You were a little drunk.”
“Yes.”
“My lips is sealed, sir. Just as soon as I finish what’s left in the bottle.”
Terence waved a hand. “Drink up. Wine, women, and song are life’s great diversions.”
“I wish you luck with finding the right woman, sir,” Tom said, draining the dregs of the wine and coughing. “One with plenty of mercenary.”
“Thank you, Tommy. I will take that empty bottle, if you don’t mind. Wouldn’t want Lord York to think the worst.”
“No, sir.” Tom exchanged the one in his hand for the unopened bottle Terence held.
“Give Jill my regards. And don’t worry about me, Tom. An heiress would be an easy way out of my financial difficulties, but I am no more likely to find one than our singing castaway upon his lonely rock.”
Tom got to his feet and swayed. “You missed his rehearsal. He sang well, even if Molly wasn’t there.”
“Good. This ridiculous production is coming together slowly but surely. Bit of a hodgepodge, to be sure, with so many acts, but it has tremendous potential. I would even dare to call it good. In spots.”
“Don’t say that, sir.”
“But it is good. It will be better. It might even be a hit.”
“Shh! Ye mustn’t say things like that!”
“Why not, Tom?”
The stage manager’s expression collapsed into worried wrinkles. “It’s bad luck.”
“Oh, surely you don’t believe that superstitious nonsense.”
Tom scowled. “I do believe it. Brace yerself, sir. The worst is yet to come.” He clasped the unopened bottle of madeira to his chest and left without a backward glance.
Terence looked after him, shaking his head.
The golden light of afternoon streamed through the tall windows of the library in the Mayfair house. Daniel sat in the armchair by the fireplace, just as he had upon the night when he first contemplated the courtship of Jo. But he sat a little straighter, well pleased with himself, and he sipped from a glass of wine.
The latest wrinkle—getting her away from the theater and the watchful, gossipy players—had been a stroke of genius. Ginny had helped with that business about needing lavender, of course.
Their interlude, however brief, had been sweet. Dear Jo. She had looked so pretty under the trellis of rambling roses. Daniel had been ready to kiss her then and there. But Ginny had been too close and Jo had seen her. She was an intelligent girl and would have realized instantly that the whole thing had been planned if she’d seen Ginny scurry off.
No, the wardrobe mistress had played her part well. Jo had not suspected a thing.
His invitation to Derrydale had been accepted. He’d had to invite a few others, for the sake of decency. Daniel remembered Jo quoting Lizzie on the subject—decency be damned—and smiled to himself.
He was more determined than ever to observe every propriety, though Jo sometimes twitted him for being a stuffed shirt. Terence, eccentric as always, simply did not seem to care about his sister’s reputation. But Daniel did. For all that Jo kept company with theater folk, she was not of the theater nor was she a performer. She might find them amusing, but then, she was young.
It crossed his mind that he was not that old, and theater folk were amusing. Very amusing. He had even begun to like Lizzie Loudermilk and her outrageous jokes at her own expense.
His parents would have been shocked, but his parents were no longer alive. Daniel looked up at the portrait of his mother over the fireplace. It was she who had taught him to love music and all the arts, for she had loved them as well. Like Jo, she had been a vicar’s daughter, gently born but poor.
She had married his father before anyone knew he would come into the title. The eventual earl had lived in harmony with his young bride for years in a cottage very like The Elms, before his six older brothers succumbed one by one to the deleterious effects of heavy drinking, whoring, and consumption.
As far as Daniel was concerned, the great house upon the Derrydale estate still seemed to resonate with his mother’s presence, though she had died when he was young. He looked forward to showing it to Jo again and wondered what, if anything, she remembered of her few visits there.
The earl had not remarried, and grew old too soon, distressed to see that his oldest son, Daniel’s brother, Gerald, was more dissolute than the six bad uncles put together.
They were long dead. Their sins and sorrows were all water under the Richmond bridge by now.
Daniel raised his glass and toasted the uncles. Their portraits were much smaller—almost miniatures—and had been set upon a shelf in a neat row.
Perhaps, he thought, he had inherited a little of their wildness or else he would not enjoy the theater as he did.
He did not toast Gerald’s portrait. His brother’s smug face and bibulous nose already showed the signs of drinking to excess, even prettied up in oils by a society painter.
Daniel again turned his thoughts to Jo. The carriage ride home had gone exactly as planned, the happy culmination of their day away from the endless rehearsals.
He had sat to one side, with Ginny in the middle and Jo on the other side. But Ginny had asked to be let
out first, at the small shop in the Strand where she shared an apartment with another woman.
And he had been alone with Jo at last.
She had immediately moved the bag with the portable desk between them, into the space that Ginny had vacated, and its corners had poked him in the thigh. He had not moved it, somewhat amused that she had used it as a barrier. It had not stopped him.
He had let one arm slide over the back of the seat and had drawn her to him. Jo had not resisted. She had leaned over the desk and sought his lips, returning his kisses with tender passion.
That was all they had done. He had not permitted himself to go further.
Daniel took another sip of the mellow wine and wondered what she was doing now.
The postman had come to Guilford Street, slipping letters through the slots of each neatly painted door. There was only one for Jo. She recognized her mother’s spidery hand at once. So their letters would cross, as often happened.
She ran upstairs to her bedroom, where she preferred to see to her correspondence, and rattled about in the drawer of her desk for a letter opener. She slid it under the wax seal, which came away from the paper with a faint pop.
Jo unfolded the missive and leaned back upon the bed to read. But the pillows were too plump and neat. She turned around to thrash them into a proper state of submission and finally settled down.
My dearest Jo,
So much has happened since I last wrote, I scarcely know where to begin. It seems that Penelope and her bespectacled scholar—whose name I will not mention, it is anathema to me—have gone too far.
Their moonlight meetings, supposedly to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, were a ruse. I must admit that I was fooled. Penelope has declared her eternal love for this persuasive snake in the grass, who has disappeared. No doubt he plans to elope with her. He is penniless, of course. Her fortune and her reputation are at grave risk. My dearest girl, I am ever so glad that you do not go in for clandestine kisses and that sort of thing!
Jo sat bolt upright upon the bed. She had just experienced that sort of thing—well, not the ultimate sort of thing … they had not done more than kiss—in Lord York’s big black carriage. With the door closed.
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