Miss Billings Treads The Boards

by Carla Kelly

  He settled himself comfortably in the bed, pillow behind his head, hands folded over his stomach. There was no denying that he had been first attracted to her beauty. Lying in her lap all night, miserable beyond belief, he had still wanted to touch her bosom to see if it felt as soft as it looked. And when she leaned over him that morning to get the other pillow to prop behind his head, her amplitude had brushed his chest. He had wanted to grab her right then, except that his head pounded.

  He thought of Amanda Braithwaite, his fiancée of eight years ago, who had waited for several years through his imprisonment, then given up and married another. She, too, was a beautiful woman. “But I was never tempted to make mad, impetuous love to her. Why is it?” he asked out loud.

  There was no answer. He closed his eyes, a smile on his face. If it is not beauty, it must be character. He frowned and turned on his side, considering this new puzzle. No one could deny that Amanda had possessed furlongs and furlongs of character. What was the difference? He considered Katherine Billings and then knew the answer to his riddle. It was her gallantry that held him captive. Here she was, poor and unescorted, and he wanted to protect her. Lord Grayson, who hadn’t lifted a finger on anyone’s behalf since his return from Spain, was ready to exert himself for a woman he hardly knew.

  “Katherine Billings,” he mused out loud, lingering over her name as over a good port after dinner. “You are a brave woman. I used to possess that quality. Perhaps I shall again.”

  Then another thought intruded, an unwelcome one that brought a frown to his face. Why the deuce did I ever tell her about the Giotto? he thought. So much for my plotting. She will be gone by nightfall.

  He thought about possible solutions to this predicament, worrying it around in his head until it began to ache again. “This will never do,” he said at last, closed his eyes resolutely, and kept them slammed shut until he slept.

  Kate returned to the Scylla and Charybdis, hungry and out of breath hurrying from imaginary Bow Street Runners. She came into the inn cautiously, looking about her for suspicious characters. She peered into the taproom, but there was only a mild-looking young man thoughtfully nursing a pot of ale and staring out the window. This will never do, she thought. I am turning into a worrywart for nothing. I will be out of here by evening.

  She started up the stairs, hoping for a moment to lie down before the Bladesworths returned and then stopped. She had no idea which rooms had been allotted to Phoebe and Maria, and she was not about to go back to Lord Grayson and tell him to move over so she could rest. The thought made her blush. She looked back down the stairs, toying with the idea of asking the landlady about the room arrangements. She abandoned that notion. It would appear suspicious in the extreme if the wife of Hal Hampton chose not to return to her husband’s room. “What a bumble broth this is,” she murmured out loud.

  As she stood, hesitating, on the staircase, the landlady came from the kitchen, a tray in her hands. The woman, her hair frazzled about her face from the heat of the cooking stove, smiled and gestured with the tray.

  “Mrs. Hampton, this is for your husband. Surely he feels like eating by now.”

  If he doesn’t, I will, Kate thought as she accepted the tray with a smile. “You’re so good to us,” she said.

  “ ’Tis nothing, nothing at all,” said the landlady. “I peeked in your room a few minutes ago, and there he was sitting up, with a deck of cards on the bed. I think he’s ready for something besides gruel and sympathy.” She winked at Kate. “But do go easy on him, lovey!”

  Kate blushed and hurried up the steps as the landlady laughed. She tapped on the door, then opened it.

  Lord Grayson looked up from the cards. “Ah ha! Food! I seem to remember food. What ho, good Kate?”

  Kate set the tray on the chair by the bed while she scooped up the cards and then set it on his lap. “You’ll have to share it, Lord Grayson,” she said.

  “Hal,” he reminded her.

  “Very well, then, Hal.” Kate sat in the chair beside the bed and took a good look at Lord Grayson’s head. There was no new blood from the wound by his ear, and the swelling seemed to be going down on the back of his neck. While he pounced on the slices of crisply cooked mutton with cries of delight, she took the strawberry ointment from the canvas bag and applied some to the back of his neck.

  “There, now. That should help,” she said and accepted the half-eaten plate of food from the marquess. She looked at it dubiously. “Are you sure you’ve had enough?”

  “Positive,” he said, as he grinned and slid back down in the bed. “Kate, you must look on this whole experience as high adventure.”

  “Malcolm tells me to be flexible,” she said as she shoved aside convention and ate the rest of the marquess’s dinner. “Delicious.”

  Lord Grayson was observing her, and his expression was quixotic. “Well?” he demanded at last when she set the tray aside. “Well? Did you locate Sheffield’s art appraiser?”

  She nodded and touched the canvas bag at her feet. “Oh, Hal, he paid me 4,250 pounds. Imagine!” Kate laughed out loud. “When the Bladesworths return, I will thank them for their many kindnesses and take the next mail coach south.”

  “Oh.”

  Kate peered at the marquess. “That’s all you can say?”

  “Delighted for you.”

  Exasperated, Kate leaped to her feet and took a turn about the room, stopping before the bed. “You didn’t really think I would remain here with the Bladesworths?” she asked when he said nothing.

  “Well, I had hoped you would,” he replied. “Besides all that, what will the landlady think when you leave me? She will lose all faith in young love.”

  Kate stamped her foot. “Lord Grayson! This is all a great fiction!”

  Pointedly Lord Grayson turned his face to the wall. “This is our first quarrel,” he said.

  Kate stared at his back. “You are so provoking!” she exclaimed.

  No reply.

  There was a knock at the door. The landlady came into the room, carrying a tray with a can of hot, soapy water, a shaving brush, and razor, which she held out to Kate. Exasperated with herself, Kate took it.

  “He’ll feel much better after a good shave, Mrs. Hampton,” said the landlady. She picked up the luncheon tray. “How long have you two dears been married?”

  Kate took a deep breath, determined to confess. “You need to understand …”

  “One week,” came the voice from the bed.

  Kate stopped in surprise. Would this man never quit?

  “One quite splendid week,” Lord Grayson amended.

  The landlady sighed. “Summer is such a wonderful season for lovers.” She was still sighing as she left the room.

  Lord Grayson turned around. He sat up, caught the towel that Kate threw at him, and winked at her.

  “I think I will slit your throat,” she hissed as she lathered up his face.

  “My dear, that would be so rude,” he said serenely from under the shaving lather.

  She took up the razor and sat on the bed. He winked at her again, and she burst out laughing.

  “Much better!” he observed. “No sense in getting lathered up over a farce that surely can’t continue much longer.”

  “You are so right,” she agreed and turned his head to one side so she could begin. “I will put this all down to experience. Perhaps I will even write a guide for young ladies on how to avoid the pitfalls of traveling alone on the mail coach! Hold still now.”

  She shaved his face in silence, admiring, despite her irritation, Lord Grayson’s rather fine, straight nose, and the pleasing way his mouth seemed to curve in a natural smile. Even with lather on it, it was a handsome face. She wondered again why he wasn’t married. “It seems a pity,” she said, speaking without realizing it.

  “What does?” he asked as she wiped the lather off his face.

  “Was I talking out loud?” she asked. “I was merely wondering how you’ve managed to escape Parson’s Mousetr
ap.”

  Lord Grayson took the towel from around his neck and tossed it toward the door. “I was wondering that same thing about you.”

  Kate returned to the chair and smiled, her charity restored. “That’s easy, my lord. Who on earth wants a woman with no dowry?”

  By God, I do, he thought. You could come to me barefoot and in a shift, and it would be enough. “Surely you exaggerate,” he protested, keeping his voice light.

  “No, I do not,” she assured him. “Nothing scares off a man faster than the news that the cupboard is bare.”

  “This doesn’t speak well of my sex,” he protested.

  “It hardly matters,” Kate replied, waving away his objections. “But I asked my question first. If you had a wife, my lord, and children, your nephew wouldn’t be taking pot shots at you on the Great North Road.”

  “No, he wouldn’t, would he?” the marquess agreed. “I was engaged once to a lovely lady.” He chuckled and put his hands carefully behind his head. “It was all a wretched plot between her family and mine, one of those cradle conspiracies. Don’t laugh! They let me in on it only at the last minute, when they couldn’t keep it silent any longer, and they needed my signature.”

  Kate clapped her hands, completely diverted. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Well, perhaps I am poking a little fun. But that was what it seemed like to me. It seemed that I woke up one morning after a night of too much whisky to read an announcement in the paper with my name in it. She even picked out the ring.” He chuckled at the memory. “And stuck it right through my nose.”

  Kate laughed and shook her head. “You were entirely too complaisant, my lord!”

  “Yes, wasn’t I?” he agreed. “There was only one thing to do, and I owe my salvation to Napoleon. I went thankfully to war and eventually landed in prison. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I did have the decency to help my men escape one at a time. It hardly seemed sporting for me to keep them incarcerated because I had no backbone.”

  Kate could only stare at him, her mouth open. “I do believe you are serious,” she said at last.

  “Never more so,” he replied, his voice firm. “Dratted thing was, she hung on for three years, pledging undying love and loyalty to the family fortune, I think. The week I got news of her marriage to another—my first lieutenant who escaped, by the way—the coast was clear. Funny how that worked out.”

  “But, why?” Kate asked finally when the silence stretched out. “My lord, you are a marquess. Surely you can do what you want.”

  “I wish it were so, Kate,” he said. “You’re overlooking family obligations and all that. I have observed that there is something about a title that brings out the worst in one’s relatives. Of course, when I returned from Spain finally, they washed their hands of me, and only tolerate me because I bail them out of scrapes and keep them a step or two ahead of financial ruin.”

  Kate touched his arm. “Here I am, bemoaning the fact that I am alone in the world.”

  “Permit me one more pomposity, my dear. Being a marquess is a damnable business. I envy you your freedom.” He patted her fingers, and she drew her hand away. “I think I’ll cast my lot with the Bladesworths for a while yet, as long as it isn’t too much of an exertion. Perhaps you could, too, as a favor to me.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say. When she did not respond, the marquess closed his eyes. When he was breathing evenly, Kate took off her shoes and curled up in the chair, tucking her feet under her. How odd, she thought. Here I have been feeling sorry for myself because things are far from perfect. At least I haven’t a passel of relatives badgering me for money and shooting me to inherit.

  She rested her chin on her hand. Where are the Bladesworths? she asked herself. The room filled with the shadows of deep afternoon as she sat thinking of their eccentricity and kindness. She knew she should still feel impatient to be off, but the thought of traveling alone again kept her from slumber.

  Dusk settled on the room. The marquess sighed and changed position, groaning softly as he turned over. Kate reached out and touched the back of her hand to his neck. He was still too warm, but not as feverish as before. He should be fine by tomorrow, she thought.

  But where are the Bladesworths? Kate got to her feet and stretched.

  “Light the lamp, Kate,” came the voice from the bed.

  “You are so quiet, my lord!” Kate said, startled. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

  She lit a lamp on the bureau by the door and brought it to the bedside stand. Without a word she put her hand on the marquess’s forehead and reached for the remaining headache powders. Lord Grayson put his hand over the glass.

  “No, Kate. They make me drowsy. I am worried about the Bladesworths,” he said simply. “Just sit by me and I’ll feel better.”

  She did as he said, perching on the edge of the bed. He edged closer to her hip, as if drawing comfort from her presence, and she hadn’t the heart to move away. She rested her hand on his chest. “I am sure they are all right.”

  “Then why do they not return?” the marquess fretted. “I fear something is wrong.”

  “Surely not,” she said without conviction. “What could be wrong?”

  They sat close together in silence. At last Kate got up and went to the window. The lamplighter was finishing his rounds on the street. She watched him shoulder his ladder and move away into the growing darkness toward another street.

  As she stood by the window, hugging her arms, she saw the Bladesworths. They walked slowly, heads down, as if every step hurt. The younger Bladesworths, who had started out skipping beside their parents, plodded along, too, as though they had added forty years to their lives since that morning. Kate nearly opened the window to call to them, but there was something about their slow progress that brought an icy chill to her heart. She returned to the bed and sat down, her hand on Hal’s shoulder. She shook him.

  “I am awake,” he said, protesting in that mild tone she was becoming familiar with. “What is it?”

  “It’s the Bladesworths.” She leaned closer. “I fear something has gone terribly wrong, Hal.”

  He took her hand and held it in a firm grip. “We’ll soon know, won’t we?”

  In a few moments they heard the Bladesworths on the stairs. Hal tightened his grip on her fingers. Someone knocked and the door opened.

  Phoebe, white faced, ran into the room first. She threw herself down by Kate and burrowed her head in Kate’s lap, sobbing. Kate’s arms went around the weeping girl. Soon Maria was beside her, her tears mingling with her sister’s. Hal patted her head, and then gripped Kate again, this time on her arm.

  Kate bowed her head over the sobbing girls. “My dears, what can be the matter? Surely it is not the end of the world?”

  “I fear it is, Kate,” came Malcolm Bladesworth’s voice from the doorway. “I fear it is.” His voice had none of that theatrical brilliance she had already come to recognize. There was bitterness that made Kate grasp Hal’s hand, even as his grip tightened.

  Malcolm came into the room, Ivy beside him, her face a mask of shock.

  “Good God, man, speak out,” said Hal, his voice urgent.

  It was a moment before Bladesworth could conquer the struggle within him that was so visible on his expressive face. “My partner has lost all our money. We haven’t a farthing to buy the Banner Street Theatre.” His voice shook. Ivy reached up and touched his face. He kissed her fingers, his eyes bleak.

  “My dears, we are ruined.”

  Chapter 8

  Phoebe burst into louder sobs. Tears in her own eyes, Kate kissed her and rested her cheek against the young woman’s curls. “Oh, Malcolm,” was all she could say.

  On feet made of lead, Bladesworth crossed the room and sank heavily into the chair by Hal’s bed. Without a word Ivy curled up in his lap and closed her eyes. He rested his hand on her hair, his eyes far away beyond the distant wall. Gerald and the little girls came into the room, shut the door, and
sat on the floor.

  “What happened, man?” Hal managed at last, his own voice unsteady.

  It was a long moment before Malcolm could speak, and even then each word was a struggle. “We stopped at Crossett Row for Mr. Dawkins, who owns the theatre.” Bladesworth kissed the top of Ivy’s head, as if to get strength to continue. “I cannot believe how excited we were!”

  The bitterness in his voice filled the room to overflowing. The girls sobbed louder. Ivy put her fingers on his lips for a moment, and then he continued, each word dragged from him.

  “We waited all day for my partner to appear. Lord Grayson, if you could have seen us, measuring the floor, calculating how much paint and gilt we would need for the walls! Oh, God, it tears me!”

  He bowed his head over Ivy, his misery too great to continue. Gerald Broussard stepped out of the shadow by the door. His face wore a stricken expression so at odds with the brightness of his personality that Kate could only look away. He continued, his voice subdued, but under control.

  “That … that infamous villain sent Monsieur Bladesworth a letter that arrived only an hour ago. He lost everything in bad investments.”

  “Everything?” Hal asked in disbelief.

  “Everything.”

  “And he had not the courage to tell me in person!” Malcolm burst out. “He sent a letter!” He spit out each word as though it were poison.

  As if on cue, the girls sobbed louder. Kate patted them, looking at Hal in mute appeal. Hal sat up, but did not relinquish his hold on Kate’s arm.

  “Where is the rest of your company, Malcolm?” he asked, more by way of diversion than from any desire to know.

  Malcolm shook his head. “When that infamous letter arrived, they informed me that they could no longer stay.”

  “It is not their fault,” Ivy whispered, sitting up on her husband’s lap and running her hand up and down his arm. “They have to earn a living, too. I, for one, do not blame them.”