Miss Billings Treads The Boards

by Carla Kelly

  “Oh, please, do not stop breathing!” she implored.

  He had no intention of dying. He opened his eyes as her hair tickled his face. The dark tresses smelled of lavender and of woman. His hand went to her hair, and she raised her head to look deep into his eyes. He had never seen such concern before on a woman’s face, and it warmed him.

  “I am not dying, but it was a close call.” He paused for what he hoped was good dramatic effect. “I was set upon first by assassins and fled to your wagon.”

  Henry had not misjudged his audience. The women in the circle gasped, and Bladesworth gathered him into his arms.

  “My God, man, did they shoot you, too?”

  Henry nodded and groaned, not so much from the pain, but to keep the woman’s hand on his arm. To his extreme gratification it tightened. “I was shot in the head.”

  In another moment the woman was running her hand gently over his head. Her fingers stopped above his left ear and gently traced the route of the ball.

  “Oh, Mr. Bladesworth, he is not fooling! Assassins?” the woman asked. She looked about her, resting her hand on his head in an oddly protective gesture. “Sir, who are you that someone would wish to assassinate you?”

  “I am Henry Tewksbury-Hampton, Marquess of Grayson. The assassin was my nephew and heir, Algernon Mannerly.”

  To his surprise Bladesworth chuckled and helped Henry into a sitting position. He looked over Henry’s head to his wife. “Ivy, think how lucky we are to be so poor! None of our numerous offspring has ever been tempted to do us in.”

  Several of the young people standing about in the circle chuckled, and Henry wondered if the Bladesworths grew their own acting troupe. The young woman still kneeling beside him on the grass took his hand. Henry tightened his grip on her fingers. “Don’t leave me here,” he begged her. “Who knows but what Algernon will come back for another attempt?”

  She returned the pressure of his fingers, leaning closer until he wanted to bury his face in her obvious charms. “I am sure Mr. Bladesworth would not consider such an uncharitable act, sir, my lord.”

  Call me Henry, you beautiful creature, and let me rest my head on your magnificent bosom, he wanted to say. He closed his eyes instead, thought a moment, and groaned again. “ ‘I have it, and soundly, too! Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint.’ ”

  To his intense delight the people standing around burst into applause. What an odd gathering this is, he thought, as Malcolm Bladesworth helped him to his feet, with the beautiful young woman assisting from the other side. He allowed his head to loll against her creamy shoulder, which also smelled of lavender and woman.

  “Well, sir, or laddie, or Lord Grayson-whoever-you-are, you know your Shakespeare, too,” murmured Bladesworth. “Act three, scene one. Come, Ivy, let’s put him into the coach.” He directed his words back to Henry. “We have to travel, laddie, but you’re coming with us. When you’re feeling better, we can sort all this out.”

  “I am relieved to hear it,” Henry said, noting from his viewpoint that the lovely woman had a mole right where her cleavage disappeared into her bodice.

  They led him slowly to a shabby coach from another era, one that he had not seen the likes of in his own stables for many years. Painted elaborately on the side in peeling gilt letters were the words, THE BLADESWORTH TRAVELING COMPANY. Actors down on their luck, he thought, as someone opened the door.

  Before he tried to figure how they were going to get him up the two steps and inside, the woman stopped. “Mr. Bladesworth, I must change first,” she said.

  Oh, no, Henry wanted to beg, but he sighed instead, and was rewarded with the touch of her gentle fingers on his face. “I won’t be long,” she whispered as Malcolm lowered him to the ground again.

  He sighed again as she hurried away, and lay there in the grass by the coach, watching as the men loaded the prop wagon. Everyone worked surely and swiftly, as if they had done this a hundred times before. Benches from the barn were lashed securely to the outside of the wagon, and the rear board raised and chained in place. Still dressed in Elizabethan costume, one of the young men of the company hitched the horses to the wagon traces, and another climbed onto the wagon seat, holding the reins.

  After what seemed like half the night to him, the young woman returned to his side. Henry could barely suppress his disappointment. She was dressed sensibly in pelisse and traveling dress, with no sign of the beautiful bosom bared for his viewing pleasure. She knelt by his side and produced a damp cloth that she dabbed carefully around his ear, following the route of the ball.

  “Well, my lord, I think you will have a rather lower part to your hair,” she suggested finally, a smile in her words. Her voice was low and deep for a woman and sent a pleasurable tingle down his spine. She moved him onto his side and dabbed next at the back of his neck. “I am so sorry for my contribution to your misery,” she said.

  He touched her hand. “I am sure I will feel right as a trivet in a day or two,” he said. “Don’t trouble yourself with remorse.”

  “I should, you know,” she said seriously. “It isn’t every day that I brain a marquess with a candlestick.” She sat back on the grass and smiled at him. “Of course this hasn’t been what you would call a regular day.”

  “I heartily concur,” he agreed. “Highly irregular.”

  Before he could explore any more channels of conversation with her, two of the younger Bladesworths helped him to his feet. The woman climbed into the coach and held out her arms as they laid him across her lap. He sighed with contentment, even as his head throbbed. In another moment the older woman Bladesworth had called Ivy and two other young girls sat down, Ivy sitting with her younger children. The floor was covered with boxes. The marquess was draped across Kate, Phoebe, and Maria, and covered with a blanket.

  “Dreadful awkward of me to put you all out,” he said, even as his eyes closed. It was harder and harder to remain awake.

  “My lord, we are used to inconvenience,” Mrs. Bladesworth replied. “Indeed, I think that next to Shakespeare and Sheridan, it is our specialty. We’ll find a bed for you in Leeds, our destination.”

  “Leeds?” he asked. “Leeds?” That was close to Pinky D’Urst’s lair. He laughed softly to himself. I will be within hailing distance of my wardrobe, so carefully packed by Wilding, that ridiculous excuse for a valet, and even more inept highwayman.

  The glorious female leaned over him. “Do you know someone there?” she asked, her voice so melodious to his sorely tried ears.

  “Not a soul,” he lied without a qualm and closed his eyes.

  “We will make our fortune in Leeds,” Maria confided. “Papa’s business partner is to meet him there with the purchase price for a theatre.”

  “A theatre?” Kate asked.

  Phoebe nodded. “It is a wonderful old building, but in much disrepair. We will repair it and perform great plays there.” She sighed. “For the past two years we have traveled about between England, Ireland, and Scotland, and sent all our receipts to Papa’s partner to invest for us.”

  “It has been a sacrifice,” said Ivy, looking fondly at her daughters, “but none of my dears have complained. Soon we will be able to stay in one place.”

  “And Gerald will write wonderful lines for all of us,” said Phoebe.

  “For you, at least,” quizzed Maria. “Especially parts where you have to kiss the handsome émigré Frenchman!”

  “Mama, she is deliberately baiting me!” said Phoebe with great dignity, and ruined the effect by sticking out her tongue at her sister.

  “So she is, my dear, but let me remind you that you opened that conversational line,” Ivy replied.

  The door closed, and they rumbled off. For all its antiquity, the coach was well-sprung. They rolled along sedately, and the motion was soothing, but not soothing enough to compel Lord Grayson to slumber. He wanted to open his eyes, but they were too heavy.

  For several miles the younger children spoke quietly among the
mselves. Soon Henry heard their deep breathing as sleep won out over the discomfort of sitting upright and traveling country lanes. The beautiful woman did not sleep. In a gesture that must have been absentminded, her fingers caressed his hair, smoothing it down and then running her fingers back through it until he wanted to purr with contentment.

  The older woman seated across from her spoke. “My dear Miss Billings, the actions of this day must surely be different from what you envisioned when you woke this morning!”

  Miss Billings! His eyes fluttered, but he did not betray himself. Surely this could not be the Miss Billings Abner Sheffield had requested he find? But she was speaking.

  “Indeed it is!” said Miss Billings. She hesitated, until Ivy Bladesworth assured her that the younger girls were asleep.

  “Maria, Phoebe, and I can be trusted with your confidence,” she said.

  Kate touched Lord Grayson’s hair, grateful that he slept. “I was sent to be governess at Leavitt Hall.” Her voice hardened. “I discovered in the mail coach from one of the other passengers that Squire Leavitt is a well-known rake. And then Gerald Broussard made his mistake at Wickfield, and I have ended up with you, instead of the Leavitts.”

  As the coach rumbled through the sleeping countryside, she told the Bladesworths of Papa’s death and her need to make her own way in the world. “I don’t know what to do, Mrs. Bladesworth,” she concluded. “My resources are so limited.” She sighed. “I have a worthless sketch by Giotto in my trunk and a few books.”

  “And a lovely singing voice,” spoke up Phoebe suddenly. “I think you should stay with us.”

  Stay with them, Lord Grayson thought. Please, Miss Billings, stay with them, and I will find a way to stay, too, even if I have to perjure myself beyond redemption.

  “Stay with you?” Kate asked softly. “I am no actress, Phoebe.”

  “You’re a fine lusty widow,” chimed in Ivy.

  “And no one else can do justice to that corset,” teased Maria.

  Amen to that, thought the marquess, his eyes still closed.

  The four women laughed companionably. Maria reached around her sister to touch Kate’s arm. “I thought I would lose all countenance when you bowed so low after your song, and the farmer in the first row swallowed the snuff he was dipping!” She laughed again at the memory.

  They were silent a moment, then Ivy spoke up, her voice filled with decision. “You say you are a governess?”

  “Yes, ma’am, or so I had hoped to be. I know enough of history and poetry, and a little arithmetic to teach the young. And my Italian is conversable.”

  “Then teach my young ones,” Ivy urged. She looked at her two younger daughters, asleep and jumbled beside her. “They know their Shakespeare, my dear—it’s almost mother’s milk—but they don’t remain in one place long enough to have regular instruction.”

  “I don’t know,” hesitated Kate.

  “Kate, it is a wonderful notion!” Phoebe agreed, warming to the idea. “You could play the small roles and sing between acts to please Papa, and be our governess, too!”

  Ivy sighed. “I fear we could not afford to pay you, but it would be a situation this summer that might allow you time to think about your future and plan a bit.” A crease appeared between her eyes and her voice was firm. “I, for one, could not willingly turn you over to the Leavitts. And neither would Malcolm, I’ll be bound.”

  Kate was silent, her hand resting on the marquess’s shoulder. “I have discovered that it is not safe to be alone in the world.” She ran her hand lightly over the wound above Henry’s ear. “You may have to keep the marquess, too, if his life is truly in danger,” she mused out loud and then looked at Ivy. “Very well, I will do it.”

  Phoebe clapped her hands, and Maria, with a meaningful glance at the marquess, told her to hush.

  “I will do it if Mr. Bladesworth agrees,” Kate amended.

  “He will,” said Ivy. “Trust me.”

  Kate smiled and leaned back against the well-worn cushions. The marquess was heavy on her lap, but he was warm and proof against the chill of early summer. Her fingers went to his hair again.

  “How sad it must be that Lord Grayson has no one he can trust.”

  Ivy’s voice was stem again. “Imagine a nephew so venal that he would shoot his own flesh and blood.”

  Phoebe sighed. “I think it is romantic. Gerald should write a play about it.”

  “… and cast you as Kate Billings, beautiful governess who thumps him with a candlestick,” teased Maria.

  “It would be a good play,” Phoebe insisted. She leaned over the marquess’s blanketed legs to peer at Kate, whose face was growing rosy for no accountable reason. “And Kate would fall amazingly in love with him, and they would marry and create a houseful of little heirs who would not want to brain their papa!”

  Kate giggled and then grew serious. “It would take a marvelous playwright to compose such a play. Is it a tragedy? A comedy? I hardly know yet.” She smoothed down the marquess’s hair again. “I wonder why he is not married already. He must be somewhere in his thirties, and I think he is handsome.”

  You dear girl, thought Henry. Keep speaking so, and soon my head won’t ache at all.

  “His hair—what there is of it—is a handsome chestnut shade,” said Kate. She shrugged. “And if he is a bit over his weight, who cares?” She giggled, her hand to her mouth. “At least he won’t be one of those men who is compelled to pad himself here and there to make an impression.”

  “Yes! Especially there.” Maria laughed.

  “Maria!” admonished her mother. “You are too vulgar by half!”

  Maria turned the full force of her gaze upon her mother and opened her eyes wider. “Mama, what do you think I meant?” Ivy uttered an exclamation and resolutely shut her eyes, but she was smiling. In a few minutes Maria and Phoebe arranged themselves against each other with the practiced air of veterans of late-night coach travel. After a few more drowsy words passed between them, they slept as the coach rumbled through the moon-filled summer night.

  It was then that she first noticed the even rhythm of Lord Grayson’s breathing. Good God, she thought in panic, did he only just now go to sleep? Has he heard all this conversation? She watched him closely for a moment and then gradually relaxed again. Kate, you are entirely too suspicious, she scolded herself. Surely a marquess can be depended upon not to dissemble. She watched him sleep, her own tired eyes taking in the dried blood on his face and the disturbing reality of that bullet path above his ear.

  “You are a lucky man, my lord,” she whispered out loud. “Another inch …” She couldn’t see the ugly lump on the back of his neck where she had struck him with the candlestick. “I hope you will forgive me.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder again and closed her eyes.

  Forgiven, my dear Miss Billings, he thought. When she was breathing evenly, he opened his eyes. From where his head rested in the crook of her arm, he could see the wonderful profile of her face at rest. Her nose was straight and matter-of-fact and exhibited no tendencies of curving downward to meet a rising chin, like Pinky D’Urst’s unfortunate sister. Her lips were full and soft, and he wanted to kiss her, even though his head pounded and his body ached. He contented himself to be cradled in her arms, and tucked in such wondrous proximity to her fine bosom. How grateful I am that you feel such remorse, my dearest Miss Billings, he thought. I am feeling just unscrupulous enough right now to hope that it rebounds to my benefit.

  He reflected on the vagaries of fate. If someone had told him that morning, as he mounted his horse and continued his journey toward Pinky and the other inmates at D’Urst Hall, that by nightfall he would be shot in a misguided prank by his former valet who was in league with his own nephew and heir, he would not have believed it. Even less would he have believed that he would promptly fall in love with a governess treading the boards with some shabby traveling troupe.

  In his mind, even disordered as it was by the events of
the day, there was no question that he was in love. He had often wondered what love would feel like, and how he would know. Indeed, as he approached his middle thirties, he had begun to despair over the subject. Was there someone special for him? Other of his friends seem to have tiptoed their way through the delicate business of wooing and stayed on their feet. Why not him? Was he too particular? Had he never given the matter his full attention?

  But here he was, looking up at the sleeping face of the woman he loved. It was so simple. He frowned. No, it was not simple; far from it, in fact. Somehow he had to remain with the troupe and woo this luscious woman at his leisure. He sighed. He would be a lucky man indeed if Abner Sheffield, once he got wind of Algie’s foolishness, did not set a Bow Street Runner on his trail. He smiled and relaxed as much as he could without waking up his love. I hope I am skillful enough for this little tableau, he thought. And bless her heart, she seems even partial to overstuffed men.

  He watched her in the moonlight until his own eyes began to droop. All pretense aside, I shall sleep now, he thought.

  Chapter 6

  They arrived in Leeds with the farmers’ carts hauling produce and animals to the city’s great open-air markets. Kate woke to the protest of chickens trussed upside down in a nearby cart and the rumbling of Lord Grayson’s stomach. She looked down at the man still sprawled across her lap, and he looked up at her, a smile on his face.

  “Beg pardon,” he apologized. “Hearing all those chickens led me inevitably to eggs—which I prefer poached—and that led to the obligatory rasher of bacon, and then toast with marmalade, and a really fine oolong.” His stomach sounded again. “Now, if an aubergine cart or turnip wagon should happen by, there will be no difficulty.”

  Kate laughed out loud and then looked quickly around her at the Bladesworths, who slumbered on, oblivious to the early morning racket of a market town. Lord Grayson’s eyes followed her gaze.

  “I think the Bladesworths have different sleeping habits than we do,” the marquess whispered. “Not for them the dawn peeking through lace curtains, and the luxury of stretching one’s toes and waiting for the maid to lay a morning fire.”