Miss Billings Treads The Boards

by Carla Kelly

  Kate sighed. “That does sound wonderful. My legs have quite gone to sleep.”

  “I am certain that I could sit up,” the marquess offered.

  Kate held him where he was with a hand on his chest and shook her head. “You would wake up Phoebe and Maria. I can manage. How are you feeling?”

  “My head aches,” he admitted, but flashed what Kate could only call a winning smile. “It has hurt before and probably will again, but I hope I will not be dealt any more stunning blows by a lady rejoicing in the name of Miss Billings. May I ask, is it Katherine Billings?”

  Kate looked at him for a long moment, as if considering her next statement. “You seem to know me,” she began cautiously. “How is this?”

  Before the marquess could answer her question, Malcolm Bladesworth, his eyes bleary and his hat askew, pounded on the side of the slowly moving carriage. “Rise and shine, everyone,” he boomed in his best stage voice. “The Scylla and Charybdis await us.”

  “This I must see,” murmured the marquess, “although my head already feels like clashing rocks. Help me up, my dear.” He grasped the strap near Kate’s ear, and with her hand under his back, hauled himself up to sit beside her. Phoebe and Maria squeezed closer together and sat rubbing their eyes and exclaiming over their papa’s loud voice.

  Kate looked at the marquess. He had closed his eyes and appeared a shade paler. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I think so,” he answered after a long pause. “I’ll feel better when this coach quits spinning about. Dashed unpleasant.” In another moment he opened his eyes one at a time and looked out the window. “So that’s the Scylla and Charybdis,” he murmured, his look of relaxed amusement at odds with the dried blood crusted on his neck and shirt.

  Ivy Bladesworth was awake by now. She shook her little girls awake and prodded the boys sleeping on the coach floor. “Yes, it’s an inn. We always stay here in Leeds, mainly, I suppose, because the innkeep is generous about lodging us. He has literary pretensions, as you can tell from the name, and he allows us to perform for him in his sitting room, as part of our keep.” She brushed at the wrinkles in her traveling dress. “We will make this our headquarters, at least for now.”

  The coach followed the prop wagon into the innyard. Phoebe and Maria straightened each other’s bonnets. “I hope Papa will let us go with him to the Banner Street Theatre,” Phoebe said. “I will stand on the stage and imagine an audience of one thousand.”

  Kate shuddered. “That makes my blood run cold.”

  Phoebe patted her cheek. “And you can sing between acts.”

  “Never!” declared Kate firmly.

  The coach rolled to a stop and the young Bladesworths, now wide awake, leaped down before the coachman, their older brother Davy, let down the step. Kate nodded to her Hortensio. “Can you help me with Lord Grayson?” she asked.

  With Davy helping him on the outside, and Kate on the inside, and Maria providing encouraging sounds, they helped Lord Grayson from the carriage. The bracing air of early morning brought color rushing to his face. In a moment he could stand by himself, even if he did lean against the coach wheel.

  “Much better,” he said. “Uh oh—there on the starboard beam.”

  The innkeeper was bearing down on them, all smiles that turned to a frown when he saw the marquess’s bloody shirt. “Think of a good fib,” the marquess whispered to Kate as he approached. “My brain is quite gone still.”

  Kate stepped forward, both hands outstretched. She smiled at the innkeeper and grasped his hand. “I am so glad to see you, sir. We have need of your assistance.”

  The marquess leaned away from the wheel. “Name’s Hal Hampton,” he said and managed a self-conscious laugh.

  The innkeeper came closer, the suspicion deepening in his eyes. “If this is foul play, lad, I don’t want the likes of you in my inn!”

  “Oh, la, no,” said Kate, clinging to the innkeeper by now. “Some scenery fell on him at the last performance. He was quite insensible, but is much more himself now.”

  “He won’t be requiring a surgeon, will he?” asked the innkeeper, patting Kate’s hand and giving her a knowing wink. “There’s a good barber just down the road.”

  Kate shook her head. “All he needs is a bed and a basin of warm water, sir, and if you have some soft cloths, that would be good.” She detached herself from the innkeeper and took Hal’s arm.

  The innkeeper looked Hal over. “I suppose we can arrange that.” He nodded to Ivy Bladesworth, who was getting down from the carriage. “You can’t be too careful, Mrs. Bladesworth. And isn’t everyone talking in Leeds about the foul murder on the Great North Road and the missing body!” Kate felt Hal stiffen under her grasp. “Murder?” he asked. The innkeeper took Hal by the other arm and led him toward the building. “Or something like. Seems a marquess was on his way to visit his friends.” He looked around, as if the murderers were lurking among the chickens and geese in his inn yard. “They’ve found the horse and a bloody riding coat, but that’s all. I don’t wonder but the runners will be on the trail soon.”

  “Oh, Lord,” said the marquess involuntarily. The innkeeper looked at him.

  “How’s that?” the man asked. “Say, are you sure that was just scenery?”

  “Couldn’t be more sure of anything,” Hal said. He leaned heavily against the innkeeper, who was hard put to remain upright. “It’s just that the pain comes and goes.”

  The innkeeper whistled and hurried faster until Kate had to skip to keep up on the other side of the marquess. The innkeeper led them into the inn, calling to his wife for hot water and towels, as he helped Hal up the narrow stairs. He opened a door at the top of the stairs and helped Hal to the bed.

  “There, laddie. I’m sure you’d rather that Mrs. Hampton helped you off with that bloody shirt. My wife will be here in a moment.” He looked around the room. “I’m sure you’ll be comfortable enough here.” He paused at the door then bounded back into the room to stand before Kate. “And what do you do, my dear?” he asked.

  “Do, sir?” she asked in surprise. Whatever did the man mean?

  “She sings between acts and performs small roles,” said Hal from the bed, where he sat with his head in his hands.

  “And you?” the innkeeper asked.

  “My head hurts so bad at the moment that I cannot remember, my dear keep,” Hal said. “Do excuse me while I lie down.”

  “Of course, laddie, of course. If you need anything, just send your wife to sing out. Sing out!” The innkeeper chortled at his own cleverness and closed the door behind him.

  Her eyes wide, Kate sank down into a chair next to the bed. “He thinks we’re married!” she exclaimed. “Oh, this is such a bungle!”

  “It is, isn’t it?” agreed the marquess with a serenity that tweaked her nerve endings. “I promise to be a most conformable husband.”

  Kate opened her mouth to speak, but the marquess wasn’t through. “Let your first official act in that capacity be the removal of my boots.”

  “I think not,” Kate said crisply, her hands on her hips. “I am beginning to suspect that you are a rascal.”

  The marquess grinned. “According to my own calculations I have not been a rascal in years. In fact I was getting a bit boring, even stodgy. Well, then, if you insist on being missish, send for Malcolm, dear wife, and ask if he has a nightshirt that might fit me. He seems the likely candidate.”

  Kate stormed to the door, turned back, jabbed her finger in the air at the marquess several times, and flounced from the room. Malcolm Bladesworth was coming up the stairs, baggage in hand, as she stood outside the door, wondering whether to laugh or to cry as she contemplated the ruins of her reputation slithering down about her ankles.

  “The landlord thinks I am the marquess’s wife,” she whispered to Malcolm. “What am I to do?”

  Malcolm threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Think of the absurdity, ‘my super-dainty Kate.’ You’ve gone from governess to marc
hioness in less than twenty-fours! I defy anyone to duplicate this feat among the peerage. I do hope Gerald is taking notes for the new play. This one could make our fortunes.”

  “Malcolm, you are not taking this very seriously!” she protested.

  He chucked her under the chin. “My dear Miss Billings, you must learn to be a bit more flexible.”

  He continued up the stairs, laughing as he went, but turned back to her on the landing. “I have an extra nightshirt. Davy!” he called down the stairs. “Lord Gray … Now, what is he calling himself?”

  “Hal Hampton,” she offered, her voice frosty.

  “My dear Kate, a man could hang icicles on your words,” he said mildly and then looked at his son. “Hal Hampton needs a nightshirt and some assistance, Davy. Lively, now.”

  Davy bounded past her. Malcolm removed a nightshirt that looked as large as a jibsail from his baggage and tossed it to his son, who caught it on the fly, grinned at Kate, and went into the bedroom.

  “The marquess is a big man, but I defy even him to fill that nightshirt,” Malcolm said. He winked at Kate. “There’ll be room in it for you, too, Lady Grayson!”

  Kate gasped and blushed as Bladesworth continued down the hall, laughing until he wheezed. In another moment the landlord was at her elbow with a basin of warm water and towels draped over his arm. “My wife has some powders somewhere for your husband’s headache,” he said, handing the bowl to her.

  I could end this right now, she thought as she accepted the towels and basin. I could declare that the man within is a marquess—the marquess—who was supposedly assassinated, and urge him to summon the constable. Then I could set down this bowl, walk out of this inn, and end this charade. I could make my journey to Wakefield and throw myself on the Leavitt’s mercy—and then what?

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Hampton?”

  Kate looked up into the landlord’s face. After a long minute she smiled. “I am fine, sir, and my … my husband and I thank you for your kindness. Those headache powders will be much appreciated.”

  “Excellent!” the keep exclaimed. “And I will direct my wife to bring up some breakfast for you and a bowl of gruel for the invalid.”

  “Gruel, by all means,” Kate agreed, without a twinge of remorse. “Thin, sir, very thin.” And I’ll make him drink every drop while I eat a poached egg and bacon right in front of him, she thought.

  The landlord nodded and hurried down the hall, calling to Malcolm about his first command performance in the downstairs parlor. Kate remained outside the door, waiting for Davy to finish. “Never let it be said that Kate Billings was not flexible,” she muttered under her breath. “Besides, Maria is jolly company, and I must see Phoebe act again.”

  Davy opened the door and motioned her inside, whispering, “He puts up a good front, but I know his head really aches.”

  “I’ll do what I can for him,” Kate said quietly. “Perhaps you could hurry up the landlady and her headache powders.”

  He nodded and clambered down the stairs. Without a sigh Kate cast all propriety behind her and closed the door. She set the bowl down by the bed, glanced at her charge, and giggled in spite of her mixed feelings.

  “You look as though you are drowning in that nightshirt,” she said as she raised his head carefully and spread a towel on the pillow.

  “Then I savor the experience,” he replied. “It’s comforting to know that there is someone wider and taller than I in the British Isles.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Lord Grayson,” she began as she dabbed carefully around his ear. “I am certain more women prefer well-fed men to those sprites of fashion who appear rail-thin. Now, hold still.”

  He did as she said. “Do I take that to mean that you prefer well-padded men, dear wife?”

  Kate blushed, set her lips in a firm line, and dug a little deeper around the wound. The marquess yelped. “I am not ‘your dear wife,’ ” she replied. “And I was merely making a harmless observation.”

  He put his hand up to stop her. “I apologize. But I do need to call you something for the duration of the little farce, for it appears that for propriety’s sake you are the wife of Hal Hampton, which, by the way, really is my name, or one of them, at any rate.”

  Kate sat down and looked at him. “You may call me Kate, I suppose. Only yesterday I was a respectable lady on her way to a governess’s post.”

  “And now you’ve fallen into a real den of thieves.”

  She shook her head. “No! I like these people.” Kate sighed and dipped the cloth in the water again. “I only hope I know what I am doing.” She wiped away the crusted bloodstains on his face. “It appears to me that you’re the one in danger.”

  “Only from women with heaving bosoms and candlesticks,” he said promptly.

  “Don’t remind me!” she said, her face fiery. “Turn over and let me survey the damage I did. And kindly do not refer to my ‘heaving bosom,’ Lord Grayson. All of us have some trials in life.”

  He grinned and obliged her, turning onto his stomach and moving over as an invitation to sit on the bed. Kate sat down, peering close and wincing at the sight of the wound. She dabbed at it until the dried blood was dissolved, and examined the results. “It is but a small cut, my lord. When the swelling goes down, it shouldn’t give you any trouble.” She touched his neck, her fingers gentle this time. “Well, it might rub against your shirt collar while it is healing, if you are a slave to the fashion of elaborate neckcloths. I am sure the sacrifice of fashion will be only temporary. It wasn’t a death blow.”

  Hal thought of the torture of fashionable excesses that Wilding had put him through since his return from Spain and dismissed them with a grunt. “I can easily forgo the pleasure of seeing myself trussed up like a Ubangi,” he said.

  Kate nodded. She wrung out the cloth and placed it over the cut. “Now lie there. This should help the swelling.” She returned to her chair by the bed, pulling it closer, and folded her hands in her lap. “Now tell me, my lord, how you came to know who I was, and what it all means.”

  “My lips are sealed until you quit calling me my lord. It’s Hal to you, remember?”

  “It seems so improper,” she protested.

  From his stomach Hal managed a glance around the room. “There is nothing proper about any of this, Kate. I insist.”

  “Oh, very well! Hal!” she exclaimed. “You are exasperating.”

  “Usually I am compliant to a marked degree and very much a lazy sort of fellow. I was beginning to disgust myself, until I, too, fell in with the Traveling Bladesworths.”

  Kate laughed, her good humor restored. “I am sufficiently chastised, sir! And didn’t Malcolm Bladesworth just abjure me to be more flexible? Now tell me, Hal, and no more putting off. How do you know who I am?”

  “We share the same solicitor, my dear. When I told Abner Sheffield I was traveling north to visit my friend Pinky D’Urst outside of Leeds, he asked me to give you a message. He described you, of course, with that wondrous mane of black hair. That was easy. And there is that heaving bosom which you told me not to speak of. The hard part was figuring out what you were doing with the Bladesworths. I had thought you were going to the Leavitts.” Hal took off the cloth and turned over onto his back. “Here, good wife, fluff up these pillows. I’m really not a supine sort of fellow when I am conversing with family members.”

  Flashing him a warning glance, she helped him sit up, reaching across him for the other pillow and plumping it behind him. “I was destined for the Leavitts, but I learned something about Squire Leavitt while I was traveling on the mail coach that made me …” She paused, groping for the right word. “Reconsider.”

  “And?”

  She looked at Hal, considering him. “I’ve never been raised to speak of such things, sir, but I heard that Squire Leavitt was a noted lecher, and I was afraid.” The words came out in a rush. She looked down at her hands, embarrassed at such plain speaking. “It’s difficult to be on one’s own, sir,” she co
ntinued, her voice barely audible.

  To her surprise Hal reached out and took hold of her hand. “We both seem to be experiencing difficulties on our own. Perhaps it’s just as well we combined forces with the Bladesworths.”

  Her hands were cold and his were warm, and she did feel inclined to not pull away. “I may have still gone to Leavitt Hall, but I made a mistake and got off at Wickfield instead of Wakefield, and there was Gerald Broussard waiting to pick up an actress. I assumed he was from Leavitt Hall, and he assumed I was the actress. The rest you can figure out.”

  Hal patted her hand and released it. “These strange people are so persuasive.” He sank a little lower on the pillow and closed his eyes. “And so kind.” In another moment he was asleep.

  Kate watched him, pulling up the covers higher against the room’s chill. She put the back of her hand to his forehead. He was warm, but not burning up. Likely he would recover without mishap. Surely this trouble with his heir would be quickly resolved, and he would resume his normal life. And I suppose this whole episode will be something to recount to your friends, Lord Grayson, she thought as she pulled the chair closer. “Are you asleep?” she whispered.

  No answer. Drat, she said to herself. I still do not know why Abner Sheffield wanted my attention. Perhaps he found new debts. The thought propelled her from the chair. She paced in front of the window for a lengthy time, then stopped her restless wandering to lean her head against the window frame. “Well, they can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip,” she said. “I suppose there is debtor’s prison.” She shuddered and turned from the window.

  Hal was awake again and watching her. “Did someone just dance on your grave?” he asked, his voice kind.

  She tried to keep her tone light. “No, silly. I was imagining that Mr. Sheffield wanted to tell me that there were more debts, and that I was bound for Newgate.” Tears came to her eyes. “Please tell me the worst.”

  “Sorry I dozed off. Sit down! You make me fidgety,” he ordered, but his tone was mild. “Do you still have a Giotto sketch in your possession?”