Lupton cast Nimble and Archie a melancholy sort of smile, while around them groups of men muttered varying opinions of both Archie and his uncle. Silas was not without his supporters. The fact that he so often invoked the Good Lord never failed to impress certain peers, who believed above all else that their wealth and privilege resulted from divine benediction—certainly not the exploitation and oppression of the lower classes.
“Good to see you back at the club, Archibald,” Lupton said. “Neet was fretting that we might never have the pleasure of your company again, if a certain lady didn’t come to her senses soon.”
“He needn’t have feared. I’m not so easily disheartened,” Archie replied.
He formally introduced Lupton to Nimble. Lupton didn’t seem to know how to proceed beyond that. Archie wasn’t certain if it was because so many sponsors treated their Prodigal companions like exotic pets, to be displayed but not interacted with, or because he was well past his first glass of brandy. But then Nimble performed a few sleight-of-hand tricks, mostly pretending to pull coins from Archie’s ears, and Lupton warmed to him.
Miraculously Nimble produced Lupton’s own pocket watch from thin air. (Archie had lifted it and passed it along while Nimble provided the distraction of broad gestures and amusing dialogue.)
“Amazing! You must come around to the stage and meet the other performers!” Lupton declared. He handed off his empty snifter to a passing servant, then beckoned Archie and Nimble both to follow him along to the sedate little chamber theater where the club’s recitals and variety shows took place. Archie and Nimble followed him down past aisles of green velvet seats and right up onto the polished boards of the stage itself. Neither the silver-haired crone at the piano nor any of the pink-robed dancers took much note of Lupton as he strode past. Someone up on a catwalk issued a wolf-whistle, which inspired a few twitters.
As they stepped between the black velvet curtains of the left wing, a spindly Prodigal child in a polka-dotted leotard dropped down from a handstand to favor Lupton with a smile. In return Lupton fished into his jacket pocket and handed over his snuffbox.
The towheaded child took a pinch in a quick, practiced sniff and thanked Lupton, saying, “Ta, Pops! Who’s the gents?”
“The handsome youth is none other than Lord Fallmont from the society pages. And this strapping blue jewel is Mr. Hobbs, who is something of a magician, Maggie.” Lupton grinned, and Archie thought this might have been the first time he’d really seen the other man seem happy without a drink in his hand.
Maggie sauntered after them to the backstage. Some twenty people in various states of dress and activity populated the space. Jugglers and acrobats, all costumed much like Maggie, stretched and chatted. Musicians lounged with their instruments. A pair of older men strained to tighten the corset that held two women back-to-back in the illusion of conjoined twins. A plump lad crouched next to a birdcage, tinkering with the cogs of the clockwork parrots inside. Four clowns shouted up to the indistinct shadows scurrying above on the catwalk. Archie picked out a pair of very pale yellow eyes gazing down at them. Then several fat sandbags descended slowly from the rigging overhead and a backdrop painted like the stormy sea rose. A canvas displaying a night sky and city roofs lay behind it.
For just a moment, Nimble stilled and gazed at the painted stars with an expression of longing. Archie recalled that Nimble had used to volunteer for night watch because he loved to stand out under that wide-open sky and witness those stars stretching out forever. Despite the roars of big guns and the groans of the wounded all around them, Nimble had always looked more at peace in those times.
“Flossy painted that one,” Lupton stated. “She’s a keen student of the sky. Did another that’s got a moon so detailed, you’d swear it was transported from the heavens.”
Archie made admiring sounds, and Nimble pulled his attention away to point to the wall of closets that seemed to serve as prop rooms and dressing rooms. Most of the doors hung ajar. Archie glimpsed a few figures leaning close to mirrors, applying makeup. Others napped on divans. But it was the big table where two men sat playing cards that Nimble indicated. Archie recognized the nearest one as Mr. Pugg. His three big deerhounds dozed in their huge kennel cages a few feet behind him.
“Your club magicians?” Nimble asked.
“Well, Burns is.” Lupton indicated the elderly fellow opposite Pugg. He wore a green satin morning coat and long underwear. His trousers hung over the back of an empty chair. “Young Pugg there assists him but has his own routine featuring his trained dogs. Shall I introduce you?”
“Oh, I’d be very much obliged,” Nimble replied. “Never thought I’d get a chance to meet the Incredible, Incombustible Burns in person.”
Archie cast him a sidelong glance, half expecting to catch a hint of sarcasm in Nimble’s expression, but he seemed sincere in his awe of the half-dressed elderly stage magician. Archie felt a little chagrined. He’d not even heard of the man before this moment.
“My pleasure, then!” Lupton straightened and puffed up his chest a little as he strode to the table. He made introductions in a friendly, breezy manner, and Burns invited them all to join him and Pugg playing cards. Pugg smiled, but there was something a little too measured in the way his gaze moved over Nimble’s face and then darted to Archie. Did he suspect they were onto him about Nancy’s disappearance, or was he worried they might notice the cards tucked in his sleeves?
“You understand that we’re all cheats at this table, Lord Fallmont?” Burns said as he handed the deck of cards over to Lupton. “We don’t play for money, and we don’t mean any harm by it, just practice of our craft.”
“I shan’t take offense,” Archie replied.
Pugg appeared to relax slightly then, so maybe it had just been a matter of having three aces tucked under the broad cuffs of his shirt.
“Oh, never fear,” Lupton said as he shuffled the cards. “Archibald here is a great sport. He even let Charlie claim a tie after a boxing match, when we could all see half Charlie’s stuffing had been knocked out of him.”
As Lupton dealt, Nimble declared his great admiration for the elderly Mr. Burns. Apparently, the magician originally hailed from the same ward of Hells Below as Nimble and was still highly regarded there for having once performed for the young Queen. That was as near as any Prodigal could hope to come to a world tour. The old man grinned when Nimble admitted that as a lad, he’d scorched his eyebrows on several occasions attempting to swallow fire as Burns had so famously done.
Archie accepted his cards, noting that Pugg immediately switched one of his out, while Burns hardly glanced at his own hand. He appeared far too taken with Nimble.
“Oh, it’s all catching bullets nowadays,” Burns said, and he pointed his crooked index finger like the muzzle of a pistol and pretended to fire at his own chipped front teeth.
“Fire a real pistol for the audience. Then your assistant switches it for a fake?” Nimble asked.
“Of course,” Burns replied. “The tricky bit is slipping the spent bullet into your mouth while you’re tying on the blindfold…”
“No, the tricky bit comes when some drunken sot staggers onto stage and demands to take a shot with his own iron barker,” Pugg put in.
Alarm at the notion zinged through Archie. Nimble, too, looked horrified. But to Archie’s surprise, Burns laughed and Lupton grinned.
“You should have known it was contrived, Pugg,” Burns said. “Though your stricken expression did thrill the entire audience.”
“Lady Wedmoor looked like she was going to rush the stage and murder me!” Lupton told Archie. Out of the corner of his eye, Archie noticed Burns shift ever so slightly on his elbows. He felt certain the motion had hidden Pugg passing him a card.
“What’s your game, then?” Burns inquired of Nimble, who as far as Archie could tell was playing the hand dealt him and showing no sign of Archie’s own desire to cheat even a little.
“I dabble in quick changes, as no one ex
pects a cove my size to move too fast, but recently I’ve been trying to work out a disappearing girl routine.”
Both Pugg and Burns scowled.
“That’s all props and trap doors. Nothing of the real art to it,” Burns said dismissively.
“Oh, but it never does hurt to have a pretty lady on stage. She draws the eye and everyone wants her to come back. She gives an act a compelling sort of story, doesn’t she?” Lupton commented. He gazed at one of the passing dancers, but then returned his attention to his hand of cards. “You know, the trick I can never work out is the reverse of the rabbit coming out of a hat. The one where the magician stuffs rabbits back in. I keep expecting that the creatures ought to kick the hat over.”
“Nah. You just train them right,” Pugg responded, and Archie felt certain the man was being facetious. As Archie understood it, the trick was to use dead rabbits, which were obliging of any amount of manhandling.
After that, the conversation skimmed over a number of subjects, from newly opened ice cream shops to the Queen’s decision to at long last entertain the Nornian ambassador at her palace.
“We’re all going to have to brush up on our Nornic at court, I suppose.” Lupton frowned and Archie understood. It was hard to feel any warmth toward a nation he’d nearly died fighting, and at the same time, they all wanted peace. Lupton’s gaze met Archie’s, and surprisingly he smiled. “But you know, before the war, the Wedmoors owned lands over there. Charles and Agatha both vacationed there as nippers, so Agatha could school you in the language, I’d imagine…. Come to it, I suppose Charlie could as well.”
“If this ambassador becomes a permanent fixture, I suppose I will need tutoring,” Archie replied. “Only phrases I ever learned would certainly be inappropriate for the Queen’s court.”
That earned him a laugh, and they played on. Burns won the first three hands and Pugg the next two, by which time Archie had to concentrate so as not to slip into the habit of counting cards or secreting any away when it came his turn to deal. He lost with good grace, though it made him want to gnash his teeth. It must have shown to some extent, because Nimble cast him a look of amused camaraderie at one point.
Actors, actresses, singers, and dancers came and went around them. Most greeted Lupton warmly. A few flirted with Archie or teased Nimble about joining their company. Burns looked on and offered advice with the air of a sage elder. The stage hands in particular were keen to hear his thoughts.
Throughout it all, Pugg chatted and cheated with a blithe smile on his pretty face. He gave away very little that Archie could see as suspicious. Since all of the Prodigal entertainers appeared to know one another, the fact that the people who’d disappeared had met Pugg seemed to wane in significance.
And it was growing late. Soon the green velvet seats would fill with club members, and Archie’s place would be out there among them. He folded while the others played out this last hand. Behind Pugg, the three deerhounds seemed to sense the hour as well. They stood and stretched, yawned open huge gaping mouths filled with long white teeth. They truly were immense animals, originally bred not just to hunt stags, but to hold off wolves that might attempt to claim the kills for their own. Of course, wolves were all long dead, but the huge hounds lived on. Archie wondered how Pugg managed to convince these three brindle-coated beasts to wear the elaborate costumes he paraded them around the stage in.
Train them right. Yes, that was likely the answer.
By chance Archie’s gaze fell on the letters etched into the steel of the cages. At first glance he read it as Pugg. But there was something not quite right about the messy engraving of blossoms that followed the name. And the top of the capitol P was slightly too scalloped, almost as if adornments had been scratched in over a different letter. An F, Archie realized, and once he saw that, he easily picked the rest of the name out from beneath the flurry of blossoms: Fuggas.
ARCHIE PAID terribly little attention to the actual performances, despite his best efforts. The strange pleasure of being able to sit so very close to Nimble in the darkened theater distracted him. Every so often his hand grazed Nimble’s. Nimble’s leg nudged against his occasionally. He was reminded of the winter nights they’d shared blankets and foxholes. Only cannons weren’t firing now, nor were either of them shaking with cold. No, they were warm, comfortable, and companionable. Such simple luxuries likely went unnoticed by the majority of the club members surrounding them, but Archie felt the enormity of them as a sharp flush of happiness. He wished this moment would never end, the lights never come up again.
But all too soon the performers took their final bows and applause quieted. The house lights, dozens of little gaslights on the walls, blazed to life. Archie felt Nimble’s weight shift away from him, a slight chill crawling in where the heat of Nimble’s calf had rested against his own.
In the seat to Archie’s right, Lupton gave a few more claps. Then he gestured to someone across the room. Charles Wedmoor, Archie thought, though he couldn’t be certain.
“What a show!” Lupton turned his attention back to Archie and Nimble. “I sponsor Lilly Vale and her father, Dickey, so my opinion may be a little biased, but by God, I swear Lilly is just as talented as any of the girls currently entertaining the Queen or touring the great cities!”
“I won’t argue with you,” Nimble replied. “Fine pipes on that bird, and not a bad set of lungs on her dad either.”
Both of them looked to Archie. He couldn’t for the life of him remember if Lilly had been the vivacious blonde soprano or the lively brunette. Both hit notes like sharpshooters shattering the highest-flying clay pigeons.
“Yes. Very impressive,” Archie said.
Really the only acts he’d watched attentively had been Pugg’s and those moments when Pugg had donned a white satin mask to play the role of Burns’s assistant. He wondered what Nimble had been paying attention to and what he’d seen through the gloom that Archie had missed. Perhaps he ought to accompany Nimble back to the Briar, where they could be alone and discuss matters. The bed there was comfortable so, if the hour grew late, then perhaps they could lie together for a few hours and maybe….
Archie rose from his seat. Nimble stretched, his limbs testing the strength of his chair. Then he, too, stood. He cast Archie a sidelong look that seemed particularly hungry. They’d neither of them had any supper. Maybe they could snatch up a couple of pasties on their way back to the Briar Hotel. If they were fish-filled, it would no doubt offer Nimble the opportunity to recite another poem.
“Charlie!” Lupton called, and Archie’s attention lurched back to his current surroundings as Charles Wedmoor approached. He wore a smile like death rictus and looked to Archie like he’d lost more than one round in the boxing ring quite recently. A tiny sprig of snapdragons poked up from the buttonhole of his charcoal satin jacket.
“Lupton, Archibald! Just the gentlemen I was hoping to see.” Charles didn’t quite meet Archie’s gaze. “Would you care to join me for brandy and cards at Wright’s? We could take my carriage before everyone else—”
“The company sounds delightful,” Lupton answered over Charles’s mumbling about busy streets. “But I don’t see why we should decamp when there’s cards and plenty of fine brandy to be had right here. On top of that, I’ve found Wright’s terribly iniquitous. They won’t allow Lilly to accompany me in, and I’m certain they’d turn up their noses at Archie’s friend, Mr. Hobbs, here. I don’t fancy spending my coins there.”
Charles took in Nimble’s presence as if he was a specter materialized from the ether. “Oh. I hadn’t realized that Archibald had managed to….”
“Fascinating fellow, Charlie! A stage magician and a poet!” Lupton waved his hand, and a nearby servant placed a snifter of brandy in his grasp. “He even sent the older Granville slithering away. That cad, Silas, had the gall to sound off about how edifying we must have all found the bloody damn war.”
“Yes. I think I heard something about that.” Charles words came out flat, bu
t he smiled and thrust his hand out to Nimble. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Charles Wedmoor, Lord Umberry. But everyone here calls me Charlie.”
Archie couldn’t recall Wedmoor ever before introducing himself to a Prodigal instead of waiting for another club member to provide his name and title. There was something almost apologetic about his tone. Archie wondered if Lupton’s objection to Wright’s had shamed him a little.
“Nimble Hobbs.” Nimble shook his hand. “Hobbs, if you like. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. Archibald has said very good things.”
“Has he?” Charles stole a quick glance to Archie. “Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint. We shall stay here and play.”
After that, Archie supposed they were required to tromp over to the smoky card room if only to demonstrate that they weren’t the sort of pigs who’d exclude a man like Nimble or a woman like Lilly. A few hands of cards wasn’t the worst fate to face, nor the card room a dank sty. The paintings adorning the walls were beautiful, and the dishes of mustard and sausages, as well as oysters, were generous. The crowd of gamblers and onlookers exuded a noisy air of boozy geniality.
Lilly Vale—the lively brunette, as it turned out—joined their company, as did her vivacious blonde friend Gina Wydly. Both of them did an admirable job of picking up any lulls in the conversation and smoothing over the charged moments when Charles tossed down his cards in frustration but then insisted they all continue to yet another hand.
A number of other Prodigal women, many still wearing stage makeup, circulated between the tables where male club members sat drinking and gambling. Archie noted that one seemed to linger a little too long near their table before hurrying back to the dark corner where Silas sat brooding over his port. Nate and Mike stood to either side of him, while a stocky man in in his fifties hunched in front of Silas. Something about the man’s tweed clothes and the display of gin blossoms spread across his nose reminded Archie of the dozens of old sports forever on hand at country houses, harrying the maids and riding their horses lame at hunting parties. Whatever the man had gotten into, Archie imagined Silas would blackmail him for every penny in his possession. Or perhaps the payment had been made already, because the man gave a quick nod and then skulked away.
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