The Scoundrel Takes a Bride

by Stefanie Sloane

  Sophia slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and allowed him to gently guide her down the sidewalk. “As to these ‘sources’ you mentioned in your note … Are they truly reliable enough to warrant a visit to Drury Lane?”

  “Really, Sophia,” Nicholas grumbled, drawing her protectively nearer as a carriage rolled by and splashed the sidewalk with muddy water. “You are far too inquisitive today. Know that my sources are ones I trust. They tell me there are only three companies who’ve performed Dido Queen of Carthage within the last fifty years.”

  Sophia peeled a clinging, wet panel of her humble dress away from her leg and attempted to discreetly ring it out.

  Nicholas cast a critical eye over Sophia’s dress. “Now, are you prepared to play your part?”

  Sophia shook out the soaked fabric and inspected her appearance as best she could. Lettie had done a fine job of finding a serviceable gown suited to the daughter of an actor. “Of course. I am Annabelle Farnsworth. My father, James Farnsworth, the wildly talented actor and equally errant sire, has inherited a tidy sum from his brother. It is my understanding that the last company he was known to work for was …”

  “The Gloriana Acting Troupe,” Nicholas prompted.

  “The Gloriana Acting Troupe,” Sophia repeated. “Therefore, I’ve started the search for my missing father in London, with you by my side. And you are …?”

  Nicholas adjusted the garish blue and red scarf tied about his neck. “Lucius McVeety, the toast of Edinburgh theatre and a dear friend of your father’s.”

  “Your accent is spot-on,” Sophia marveled, “I wonder, though, do you think it wise to adopt a persona so unlike your own?”

  Nicholas arched one eyebrow in response. “And who says it is, lassie?”

  Sophia attempted to smile at his antics, wanting to forget the real purpose for their masquerade.

  “What is it, Sophia? What troubles you?” Nicholas asked, the tenderness in his voice catching Sophia off guard.

  “I cannot decide whether I am excited or frightened by the prospect of finding the Bishop,” she answered honestly, dodging the edge of a passing woman’s parasol.

  Nicholas pointed up ahead to the wooden sign marking the Gloriana Theatre. “Because once we find the Bishop, we’ll be forced to tell Langdon? Yes, I feel precisely the same push and pull. But right now I need you to play your part, Sophia.”

  Her steps slowed as they neared the sign, watching as it swung lazily in the wind. “I always did enjoy a good play.”

  “Your answer, Sophia. Are you ready?”

  She purposely slumped her shoulders slightly and scraped the side of her boot along the filthy walkway, smearing the cheap leather with mud. “There, now I am.”

  Nicholas patted her hand in silent approval and they walked the remaining distance to the theatre entrance. “And just in time,” he replied, pulling the scarred door open and waiting for Sophia to enter.

  “It’s about bloody time, you two,” a man barked, taking Sophia’s arm and dragging her across the lobby. “Stratham said he’d have you here before ten. Last time I take the dishonest bloke’s word. Go on with you. They’re waiting in there,” he said, nodding at the door he was about to push open. “You’ve cut into Beaton’s morning pub call,” he warned. “He’ll be mad as a breeding bull by now. Best have your lines memorized.”

  Sophia looked over her shoulder at Nicholas for help, only to see him waving her on as he followed. “I’m sorry, sir. My lines?”

  “From the balcony scene, love. Don’t tell me you haven’t got them memorized?” The man shook his head in disbelief, dramatically rolling his eyes at the very thought as he pushed the door wide. “There’s scripts on the stage for you—’course you’ll be lucky if Beaton allows you to finish. Interrupted ale and unprepared actors? I don’t think his tiny little heart can take it. Still, you might as well have a go.”

  The man released Sophia’s arm and swatted her backside, turning her toward the stage and giving her a shove when she dared to protest.

  “And you too, Romeo,” Sophia heard the man say to Nicholas as she narrowly avoided tripping up the narrow aisle.

  “Here we are, Mr. Beaton,” the man called out to a small group gathered in the front row. “Stratham recommended them both, so I thought it might be worth a wait.”

  Sophia turned to look at the group as she made her way to the stage. A man rose to tower above the rest, his mannerisms those of an overly proud peacock.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Mr. Beaton answered imperiously, capturing Sophia with an icy glare. “If you want to be considered for Juliet, I suggest you take the stage. Now.”

  “As it so happens—”

  “We apologize, Mr. Beaton,” Nicholas interrupted, prodding Sophia forward with one finger against her spine. “Ach, if you’ll just bear with us for a minute more, please.”

  “A Scottish Romeo?” Mr. Beaton demanded. “Well, now I have seen everything.”

  Sophia attempted to drag her feet and succeeded instead in almost tripping for the second time. “What are you doing?” she hissed in Nicholas’s ear as he bent to help her up.

  “You heard the man; he’ll be off to the pub once we’re through. Then we’ll have the run of the place,” Nicholas explained, righting Sophia and urging her forward. “He would have little time for Miss Farnsworth and her missing father in such a state.”

  “And I suppose you know Romeo’s part?” Sophia pressed, lifting her skirts as she ascended the stage stairs.

  “Why on earth would I?” Nicholas replied, bounding up the stairs and past her.

  “We do not have time for the entire scene,” Mr. Beaton bellowed. “We will start from the nurse’s arrival. ‘Yoo-hoo, Juliet,’ ” he cried out in falsetto, and then gestured for them to begin.

  Sophia scanned the stage for the scripts that the burly man had mentioned out front. She knew Juliet’s lines by heart, of course, the play being her favorite of all of Shakespeare’s works. Still, Nicholas would need help.

  “O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.

  Being in night, all this is but a dream …”

  The voice, tinged with a Scottish brogue, was most definitely Nicholas’s. Sophia turned to find he’d assumed a spot near the base of a newly constructed turret.

  “Go on. Up the turret with you,” Beaton hollered, his impatience growing.

  This is absolute madness. Sophia caught up her skirts and trotted toward the turret, going around to the back, where she found a set of stairs. Relieved, she ran up the short flight and came out on a small landing, a view of Mr. Beaton and his men appearing through the hole cut for a window. Sophia looked down at Nicholas and glared.

  “Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.

  If that thy bent of love be honourable,

  Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow …”

  “Madam,” Beaton’s falsetto rang out, startling Sophia

  “I come, anon.—But if thou mean’st not well,

  I do beseech thee—”

  “Madam!”

  “By and by, I come:

  To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief:

  To-morrow will I send.”

  Nicholas tipped his chin up and closed his eyes reverently.

  “So thrive my soul—”

  “Skip to your last lines in the scene,” Mr. Beaton demanded, his thirst—and perhaps, Sophia realized, their performance—getting the better of him.

  She gazed upon Nicholas, much the same as Shakespeare must have envisioned his Juliet looking into the eyes of the fictional Romeo hundreds of years before. Despite Mr. Beaton’s impatience, Sophia wanted to savor the moment and its pure emotion.

  “Sweet, so would I:

  Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.

  Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

  That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

  Nicholas opened his eyes just as she finished, tears well
ing up in them.

  “Well, it was rather better than I was expecting,” Mr. Beaton stated, as though he was disappointed. “Still, not quite what we’re looking for. I always like to have a few attractive actors milling about, though—window dressing, if you will. Go see the costume mistress. If we have anything in your sizes, we’ll find a small part for each of you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Nicholas replied, gesturing for Sophia to come down from the turret.

  “And you’ll do something about the bloody accent, yes?” Mr. Beaton added.

  Sophia came around the turret and stood next to Nicholas. “Of course he will, sir. I’ll see to it myself.”

  “Good girl,” Mr. Beaton told her, then sauntered off without saying good-bye.

  “You heard the man,” Nicholas whispered. “Ach, it’s to the costume mistress with us.”

  22

  Nicholas took Sophia’s hand and led her into the wings, only to find their way blocked by a massive papier-mâché sphinx. He turned about and stalked back across the stage and into the curtained wings on the other side, finding the stairwell to the pass-through quickly enough.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Sophia asked as they descended the stairs and walked along the narrow passageway used by the actors and crew to travel from one side of the stage to the other.

  “Yes—and no,” he answered, mounting the stairs at the opposite end of the corridor. “Most theatres are situated in a similar fashion, with dressing rooms and the costume shop on the right, above the stage; props and director’s office, etcetera, on the left.”

  They reached the stage level and Nicholas gestured toward a second set of stairs. “This way.”

  “I did not know you were an admirer of the theatre.”

  Nicholas was about to respond when he realized his explanation involved a particular actress. And nothing to do with her stage skills. “May I be honest?”

  “I wish you would,” Sophia replied, squeezing his hand.

  Nicholas paused at the top of the stairs and pulled Sophia around to face him. “I am familiar with the general layout of a playhouse not because of my particular affection for the theatre, but because of my particular affection for an actress—an affection, let me be clear, that has since died a most dramatic and salacious death.”

  “I know.”

  Nicholas looked at the stairwell, then back at Sophia. “Did I not hear your question correctly?”

  “No,” Sophia murmured, a soft, dewy quality settling in her eyes. “You heard me correctly. I simply needed to be sure that you meant it when you swore absolute honesty.”

  He looked at the stairwell a second time and back at Sophia again, her gaze nearly doing him in. “Then that was a test.”

  “Of sorts, I suppose,” she answered, furrowing her brow as she frowned. “Do you know, I hadn’t thought of it as such, but that’s precisely what it was. I’m sorry, Nicholas. It’s just that with Langdon, every aspect of our relationship was assumed. There was nothing earned or sorted out. It simply was—like the Almighty,” she explained, smiling shyly up at him. “I’ve never needed to prove myself, nor has he.”

  Nicholas swallowed hard. Yet another complication to their relationship he hadn’t considered. “I know there is nothing simple about you and me—”

  “Which is what makes me happy,” Sophia interrupted, raising her hand to rest one slim finger on his lips. “Love is not meant to be assumed, Nicholas. It’s meant to be discovered—even fought for.”

  “So you want to fight with me?” he asked, relief beginning where her soft, warm body touched his and spreading out to the end of each limb.

  Sophia smiled, affectionate amusement returning to her eyes. “Amongst other things, yes,” she said, taking her fingertip from his lips and holding up her reticule, which contained the sketches.

  “Aye,” Nicholas answered. He looked down the corridor before them. “This way.”

  He stepped forward and turned right, Sophia following closely behind. Scanning the closed doors, he found the one marked “Costume Mistress,” just beyond the dressing rooms.

  “Is there anyone about?” Nicholas called in a strong Scottish voice, rapping on the door with his knuckles.

  A grumble of annoyance could be heard through the cheap wood panel, then a series of clicks as someone walked across the room and opened the door. “I thought the Scottish play had been postponed until next year.”

  A tiny woman stood before Nicholas, a pronounced frown on her lips as she stared at him. Her hair, a stark white that seemed to double as a light source, was piled on top of her head, the height extending her diminutive size. Her face was expertly painted, so much so that Nicholas suspected she was far older than she looked. A thick pair of spectacles threatened to slip off the end of her nose as she cocked her head to the right and captured him with her intelligent eyes. “Oh well, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong door. This is the seamstress’s workshop.”

  “No, no, we’re here for our fittings,” Sophia answered from behind Nicholas.

  “Is there someone with you?” the birdlike woman asked, peering around Nicholas and finding Sophia. “Ah, well, you I can work with.” She gestured for Nicholas to move aside and grasped Sophia’s hand, pulling her into the room.

  “You’ve misunderstood. He is also here for a fitting,” Sophia added, planting her feet firmly on the threshold and forcing the costume mistress to stop.

  The elderly woman turned back and eyed Nicholas once again, her lips pursing into a makeshift beak. “Well, there is not a costume in all Britannia that will hide your brogue, but I’ll see what I can manage. Come in, then, and close the door after you.”

  Nicholas stepped over the threshold after Sophia, pulling the door shut behind them.

  “Now, then, I’m Camilla, though everyone calls me Mistress,” the woman explained. “And you are?”

  “Annabelle Farnsworth,” Sophia lied smoothly.

  “Lucius McVeety, at your service,” Nicholas answered, sweeping a flamboyant bow.

  Camilla let out a chirp of approval. “I adore the Scots. So passionate—so lively! Still, this is Romeo and Juliet, my boy. Can you manage an Italian accent? Or at the very least, an English one?”

  “I believe so,” Nicholas answered in his own voice, thankful for the chance.

  “Perfect!” she replied, then turned to a rack of costumes. “Now, your parts?”

  “Window dressing,” Sophia said proudly, attempting to show some measure of enthusiasm for the inconsequential role.

  “I see. Well, you must start at the beginning, I suppose,” Camilla commiserated, pausing to inspect a dress.

  “And Annabelle is doing just that,” Nicholas replied. “She’s gained some experience in York and Leeds, but nothing compared to the London stage.”

  Camilla whirled around and went straight for Sophia, holding a gown up to her and eyeing both dress and female critically. “This is hardly the London stage, Mr. McVeety. Still, I admire your positive attitude.

  “Yes, this might do nicely. Go try it on,” Camilla ordered Sophia, pointing to an oriental screen set up in the corner of the cramped room. “Now for you, Mr. McVeety. Something in green, I believe.”

  Sophia discreetly dropped the reticule at Nicholas’s feet and walked to the corner, disappearing behind the screen.

  “It might not be quite the London stage, Mistress,” Nicholas began, watching her flit and fly from one stack of clothing to the next, her moves as precise and quick as a hummingbird, “but you’ll be proud to know that, once upon a time, word of one of your productions spread all the way to Scotland.”

  Camilla grasped a folded linen shirt and a bolt of deep green fabric before returning to stand in front of him. “Is that so?” she asked, a gleam of curiosity in her eyes.

  “Oh yes. I even have a sketch of the play with me,” Nicholas said, bending low to retrieve Sophia’s bag.

  “You carry a reticule, Mr. McVeety?” she asked, arching one p
erfectly drawn eyebrow in amused disbelief.

  Nicholas smiled at her and winked. “Annabelle was kind enough to shield the sketch from the rain.”

  He opened the small bag and lifted out the thick folded paper, then dropped the reticule on the floor. “It would have been a great pity to have damaged such a lovely sketch. Wouldn’t you agree?” He held it up to Camilla’s eye level and watched the woman’s face fill with surprise and pleasure.

  “Why, that is Maggie Pemble—and in my own creation, I might add,” she exclaimed, reaching out to reverently touch the faded piece of paper. “Do you know, the troupe only performed Dido Queen of Carthage five times before the piece was retired? Such a shame. That dress was one of my favorites. In fact …”

  Camilla abandoned the shirt and bolt of fabric on the floor and returned to the rack of costumes, thumbing through each one quickly. “Wait, that’s right, I put it with …”

  She swung around and came back toward Nicholas, shooing him out of the way and continuing on to a trunk shoved against the wall. She lifted the lid and set it back on its hinges, then bent over, nearly disappearing into the cavernous interior. “No … no … no … Aha!”

  Sophia returned to stand next to Nicholas. The costume she’d donned looked odd. “I could not undo my own buttons,” she explained, lifting up the hem to reveal her own gown below.

  “Oh, my creation is as glorious as I remember,” Camilla gushed, standing upright with a bundle of blue silk in her hands. She grasped the outer gown by the straps and let the fabric fall, miles of blue silk unraveling to reveal a bodice encrusted with beading that glittered in the light. “I hadn’t been with the company for very long—and truth be told, I’d lied to get the job. This dress, though …” She paused as if remembering the very moment she’d stitched the soft fabric together. “This dress proved me right. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I’d been blessed with Maggie. The woman could’ve worn a potato sack and looked beautiful.”

  “Maggie?” Sophia asked innocently, steering the conversation to what she instinctively felt was the important information.