Was this what it felt like—to fall in love?
“Maddie!”
And suddenly Juliana was there, bright-eyed, eager, and completely oblivious to the undercurrents between her elders. “Are we going back to the theater soon?” she asked, glancing from her sister to Lord Saxby. “We’ve got three more acts to get through.”
Madeline cleared her throat and rose from the window seat, avoiding Lord Saxby’s eyes. “Of course, darling. Let’s round everyone up now, shall we?”
Three nights later, Hugo peered out from the wings into the rapidly filling auditorium, the sea of expectant faces, and swallowed hard. Withdrawing into the shadows, he let the curtain drop into place, tried to calm his pounding heart. If this was stage fright, then he had the deepest sympathy for every player who’d ever trod the boards!
A rustle of satin behind him, accompanied by the beguiling fragrance of rose and neroli. “Nervous, my lord husband?”
Hugo exhaled, turned to face Lady Madeline, regal in wine brocade trimmed with sable, her dark hair confined within a jeweled net. Costumes did indeed make a difference: she looked like a Renaissance portrait come to life. “Petrified. My one consolation is that no one will see my knees knocking together under this.” He indicated Lord Capulet’s heavy velvet robe, which fell nearly to his ankles.
She reached out, touched his sleeve gently. “You’ll be fine! You were flawless at our last rehearsal—unlike some I could mention.”
Despite his apprehension, Hugo felt his mouth twitch in a reluctant smile. The final dress rehearsal had been nothing if not memorable. Some half a dozen cast members had forgotten lines they’d known perfectly the day before; Castlebrooke had almost poked Lord Reginald in the eye with his foil, for which he’d apologized profusely; and Lord Reginald had knocked Denforth on his backside during the Tybalt-Mercutio duel, for which he’d apologized not at all. Somehow, Lady Madeline had kept the ship afloat, saying with tight-lipped tolerance that it was best that they got all the mistakes out of the way beforehand. “I can only hope that means the performance itself will be perfect.”
“So do we all! But we have two prompters, just in case, and you can depend on me if you have trouble in our scenes. But I think it will be fine,” she added bracingly. “And so will you.”
Buoyed by her encouragement, he mustered a smile. “I shall endeavor not to disappoint.”
After their conversation three days earlier, he’d gone looking for more interesting facets to explore in Lord Capulet. A doting father—who could become choleric and unreasonable when crossed. A husband unsure of his wife’s affections. A man’s man, out of his depth at dealing with women, by turns frustrated and confused by them, and apt to bluster when he felt most insecure.
He wasn’t sure how much of the cast had paid attention to his interpretation, but he’d glimpsed a spark of approval in Lady Madeline’s eyes during one of their more charged scenes together. At the very least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was giving her Lady Capulet a more interesting foil to play opposite.
She smiled back at him now before turning to the rest of the cast, who’d gathered in the wings behind them. “Five minutes to curtain. Places, everyone!”
Those five minutes seemed to last an eternity—and then not long enough. Waiting in position with Lady Madeline, Hugo watched as the curtain rose upon a courtyard in Verona, where the feuding Capulets and Montagues stood with drawn swords and upraised fists, but frozen in place like figures in a tableau. An appreciative murmur arose from the audience, and Hugo felt Lady Madeline relax beside him. So, for all her poise, she was not immune to nerves, but then as director, the success of this play, of this vision, rested largely on her shoulders. He sent her a reassuring smile, as Lord Gervase as Chorus strolled onstage to deliver the prologue.
“Two households, both alike in dignity, / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…”
He’d a fine speaking voice, Hugo thought as he listened. Perhaps even better than his brothers’: clear and resonant, with a gravity that made him seem older than his years. A definite advantage, as Lord Gervase would be doubling as Friar Laurence later in the play.
The prologue ended, and the Chorus melted into the crowd, which immediately unfroze and began to brawl. Seconds later, Wilf-as-Benvolio ran onstage to part one set of combatants, only to be engaged by Lord Reginald’s fiery Tybalt, forever bristling and spoiling for a fight. The part of Hugo that was not awaiting his cue experienced a pang of pride that his brother was giving a good performance as the earnest, peace-loving young Montague.
The cue came at last, and Hugo hurried onstage, scowling mightily, with Lady Capulet at his heels. “What noise is this?” he bellowed. “Give me my long sword, ho!”
Lady Madeline’s voice rang out in mocking response. “A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?”
Hugo spared “his wife” a withering glance, but continued to demand a weapon while glowering across the stage at Branscombe, whom Lady Madeline had persuaded—through some sorcery, no doubt—to take on the small role of Lord Montague. Getting into the spirit of things, Branscombe glared back and lunged towards him, restrained only by Olivia Middleton’s Lady Montague pulling on his sleeve.
All around him, Hugo could sense the energy rising, along with the enthusiasm, as his fellow actors threw themselves into their parts, surpassing their earlier efforts in rehearsal. By the time the Capulets’ feast began, it was clear that, if not perfect, this production was on its way to being very good indeed.
The star-crossed lovers dominated the first half of the play, so Hugo spent the scenes when he wasn’t onstage watching from the wings. During rehearsals, he’d developed a strong appreciation for many of the younger cast members. Lady Elaine was appropriately innocent and sweet as Juliet, but there was a budding maturity to her portrayal as well: a sense of a girl becoming a woman almost overnight after falling in love. And Castlebrooke played up to her with a sincerity that some Romeos lacked. Hadn’t Lady Madeline hinted at an attachment between them? It worked to good effect here, to have a Romeo genuinely attracted to his Juliet and hanging with rapt fascination on her every word during the balcony scene.
Meanwhile, Lord Gervase transformed effortlessly into Friar Laurence, donning a coarse brown habit and a greying tonsured wig while his bearing and speech patterns altered subtly to those of a much older man. And Lady Margaret, her slim figure padded with pillows under a loose gown, worked a similar magic as the earthy Nurse, whose Yorkshire brogue lent itself admirably to the bawdier speeches. And Denforth made a dashing, spirited Mercutio—Hugo suspected that the earl was essentially playing himself, but it was still a good performance, and the character’s death moved several ladies in the audience to tears.
Once Mercutio and Tybalt were slain, the older generation came to the fore again. As Lord Capulet, Hugo watched aghast as his wife flung herself, alternately weeping and raging, on Tybalt’s corpse. Madeline had dispensed with her coif, so her hair spilled wildly over her shoulders like a Maenad’s, and her eyes burned with grief and fury as she demanded of Escalus, “I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give. / Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live!”
Then it was Lord Capulet’s turn to rant and storm as his formerly docile daughter resisted his plan to marry her to Paris. Hugo did his best to convey confusion and disappointment as well as temper as Capulet railed at Juliet, even dragging her from her bed and flinging her to the floor—Lady Elaine’s suggestion, which hadn’t stopped Castlebrooke from glaring daggers at Hugo the first time they’d tried it in rehearsal.
A few scenes later, standing over the seemingly dead Juliet, Hugo let his shoulders drop as though bowed by the weight of the world as he numbly pronounced his only child’s epitaph: “Death lies on her like an untimely frost / Upon the sweetest flower of the field.” United in grief, Lord and Lady Capulet withdrew, leaning heavily on each other as they made their exit.
Once in the wings, Lady Madeline straightened up and smiled
at Hugo. Despite the rigors of the scene they’d just played, her eyes were shining. “That was marvelous,” she breathed, squeezing his forearm. “I think we’ve done the thing, my lord!”
Infected by her excitement, he grinned back at her. “I’d say we have, my lady! You were brilliant, by the way.”
“So were you! Now, all that remains is for Alasdair and Elaine to bring it home. And they will,” she predicted with complete confidence.
Lady Madeline’s faith in her two leads proved more than justified. Watching from the wings once more, Hugo felt his eyes sting and his throat tighten as Friar Laurence’s plan to reunite the lovers went horribly, tragically awry; as a grieving, defiant Romeo drank poison to join his wife in heaven; as Juliet unhesitatingly stabbed herself and fell lifeless across her husband’s body, their limp hands meeting in one last “holy palmer’s kiss.” Beside him, Lady Madeline stood like a statue, her lips parted and her own eyes suspiciously bright.
Moments later, they were back onstage for the final scene, as Capulets and Montagues learned the full extent of the lovers’ tragedy. Hugo did not have to feign the emotion that hoarsened his voice as Lord Capulet extended his hand to his old enemy and offered the peace that had come too late to save their children. And as Escalus somberly uttered the last lines, the feuding families now moved to embrace, freezing into position once again as the curtain fell.
A moment of silence yielded to thunderous applause and even an enthusiastic whistle or two. Taking his bows with the rest of the cast, Hugo felt a heady rush of accomplishment and exhilaration unlike anything he’d experienced before. While he wasn’t sure he wanted to make a habit of appearing in amateur theatricals, by God, he could finally understand their appeal!
Especially when acting opposite someone like Lady Madeline. Catching her eye, he sent her a tentative smile, to which she returned an incandescent one, fit to launch a thousand ships.
Never before have I felt so alive.
The doublets and hose, the coifs and wimples, the farthingales and stomachers had all been put away, the swords and bucklers returned to the prop boxes. And everyone who’d been a part of tonight’s performance had been acknowledged and thanked, from the cast to the small cadre of servants who’d kept things running smoothly behind the scenes.
“Our revels now are ended,” Madeline murmured as she fastened a locket on a fine gold chain about her throat and shook out the skirts of her rose-red evening gown, bright as her mood.
Tomorrow, everyday life would resume, and she suspected there would be a number of aching heads in the morning, along with a general sense of anticlimax. But tonight was for celebration. As had become the tradition after their amateur theatricals, an elaborate buffet supper awaited them all in the Grand Salon, courtesy of Maman.
Accepting a gold tissue shawl from Albertine, Madeline draped it over her shoulders and hurried downstairs to join her castmates. One castmate in particular, she acknowledged with a secret smile. She only hoped that Lord Saxby wouldn’t be too hard to find in the crowd—or excessively besieged by new female admirers!
As expected, the Grand Salon was teeming with people, several of whom descended upon Madeline the moment they saw her, lavishly praising the play and her performance.
“Trés bien, chérie!” her mother pronounced, kissing her lightly on both cheeks. “You and the others have outdone yourselves tonight!”
Smiling, Madeline thanked her and returned the salute, before accepting the equally heartfelt congratulations of the Duchess of Langdale and Lady Middleton. Fortunately, Elaine and Margaret entered the salon a few minutes later, freeing her to go in search of Lord Saxby.
Spying him in a group of several young men that included two of her brothers, she made her way towards them.
“We always have a good turn-out for our shooting parties,” Hal was saying as she approached. “Mind you, the weather can make a big difference to one’s success in the field!”
“Not necessarily,” Reg pointed out with typical contrariness, and Madeline stifled a sigh. “A superior marksman can bring down a bird in any conditions.”
The implication was as obvious as it was insulting, and Hal flushed, his blue eyes narrowing. “Shall we make a wager, then, Reggie?” he inquired, using the diminutive their brother hated most. “Five guineas says I bag more birds than you on New Year’s Day.”
“Keep your money, Little Harold.” Reg’s voice was deceptively soft. “I promise to eat all of your killing.”
“Wrong play,” Madeline interposed crisply, stepping between them. Much as she longed to crack her brothers’ heads together, a conciliatory approach was more likely to work, so she favored them with her sweetest smile. “Can we not concentrate on tonight, instead? I wanted to tell you how splendid you were in the play. All of you,” she added, noticing that Lord Rupert Bonham and Mr. Moresby were also in the group. “It was a pleasure to perform with you.”
They preened at that, even Hal and Reg, and Lord Saxby sketched her a bow. “Thank you, Madam Director. I believe I speak for us all when I say you brought out the best in us.”
Murmurs of “hear, hear” and “quite so” greeted his remark. Touched, Madeline thanked them, then turned to her twin.
“By the by, Hal, Margaret’s come down,” she informed him brightly. “I’m sure she’d be delighted if you brought her some refreshment. You know she’s one of those who can’t eat a morsel before going onstage!”
Their eyes locked, and Madeline could almost see the wheels turning in her twin’s head as he weighed the merits of staying to bandy words with Reg or waiting upon a betrothed he regarded as another sister. The latter won out, barely; Hal turned away with a shrug and a slightly martyred air. “Ah. If you’ll excuse me, everyone—duty calls.”
He strolled away and Madeline gritted her teeth, relieved that Margaret was in no position to have heard that graceless remark. But at least her friend would receive some attention from her soon-to-be-fiancé. Better still, Hal and Reg had been separated—for the moment.
“Talking of refreshments,” Lord Saxby began, “may I escort you to the buffet table, Lady Madeline? You must be quite hungry yourself, by now.”
“Famished, my lord, so I accept your invitation with pleasure. Gentlemen.” She nodded to them as she passed, her hand resting on the crook of Saxby’s arm.
“Deftly managed, finding a way to send Denforth off like that,” he observed.
“There are advantages, sometimes, to being the eldest.”
“Are Denforth and Lord Reginald always so… competitive?”
“I’m afraid so,” she admitted. “I suspect it’s often difficult, when the heir and the spare are close in age—and want so many of the same things! I can’t remember a time when they weren’t at odds.” Which wasn’t helped, she reflected, by Father favoring Hal and Maman Reg.
“And your other two brothers? Are they part of this rivalry as well?”
Madeline shook her head. “Jason’s too young to be caught up in this. And Gervase tends to stay out of it, unless he sees some particular advantage to getting involved. Mostly, he goes his own way.” She gave Lord Saxby a rueful smile. “I imagine things are a good deal more peaceful in your family.”
“They’re quieter, perhaps,” he acknowledged. “But my sister Charley might argue about whether that’s a good thing. She thinks my life needs stirring up!”
“Truly?” Smiling, Madeline tightened her hold on his arm. “Well, in that respect, the Lyons family is more than happy to oblige!”
“It seems a task to which you and yours are eminently suited,” Lord Saxby agreed, his eyes crinkling. “Ah, supper!” He gestured to the laden table before them. “Anything in particular tempt your appetite, my lady?”
“All of it does,” she confessed, hungrily surveying the platters heaped high with French and English delicacies. “But I’m partial to just about anything with lobster! And Mrs. Hill makes these wonderful chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents, and petit-fours…”
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“Say no more.” Lord Saxby set about preparing plates for them both. He was just pouring out two glasses of champagne, when Madeline sensed a familiar presence behind them.
Her blood chilled even before he spoke, his rich baritone as warm and jovial as she remembered. “Madeline, my dear! I was hoping I might find you in this crush.”
Schooling her features into a mask of perfect courtesy, she turned to face him. “Good evening, Father.”
What the devil…?
Hugo stared at Lady Madeline who, with the utterance of three words, had seemingly changed from a warm, vibrant woman into a cool, remote effigy—Galatea reverting to a statue. Dismayed, he transferred his gaze to the man who had effected the transformation: the Duke of Whitborough himself.
“And Lord Saxby,” His Grace continued, turning a genial smile on Hugo. “My compliments on your performance! I’ve seen Romeo and Juliet put on several times, but can’t recall a more memorable Lord Capulet.”
“Thank you, Duke,” Hugo replied, a touch guardedly, his eyes still on Lady Madeline.
“And you, my dear,” Whitborough set his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, “surpassed yourself in every way.”
“Thank you, Father.” Lady Madeline stood perfectly still, let the duke embrace her and then kiss her brow, but her own arms remained at her sides.
Hugo’s uneasiness grew. Perhaps playing Lord Capulet had honed his instincts, but just as Juliet had hidden her true feelings beneath a show of docility, he suspected that Lady Madeline was doing likewise. Impossible not to wonder what those feelings were: Love? Hate? Betrayal? Certainly not indifference.
If Whitborough noticed his daughter’s constraint, he concealed it well. “You should be proud of your triumph tonight. I know I am.” He released her, still smiling. “Enjoy your evening, sweetheart—and try not to drink too much champagne! You’ll only regret it in the morning.”
The Advent of Lady Madeline Page 6