A Passionate Performance

by Eileen Putman

  It had happened to his father. It would not happen to him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sarah did not believe in witchcraft; otherwise, Lord Linton’s library would have greatly unsettled her.

  As it was, she found it only a bit unnerving — and more than a little fascinating. There was, for example, an engrossing book by Thomas Hill, entitled Natural and Artificial Conclusions, which seemed to be an English translation of an Italian work from the sixteenth century. In it, Mr. Hill described many ways of astonishing one’s friends with skills that ranged from preserving fresh roses through the winter to using a loaf of bread to locate a drowned person. Sarah could not believe that Lord Linton supported such notions, but she did not know what to make of the fact that he had such a book on his shelf. He seemed to have an inordinate interest in the natural arts, as well as those that could only be described as mysterious.

  Another sixteenth-century treatise appeared to be more practical. The author, Reginald Scot, wished to debunk certain myths about witchcraft by pointing out that what was often taken to be magic — especially in the art of healing — was merely the skill of matching an illness to the appropriate cure. That made sense to Sarah, as did Mr. Scot’s argument that the cure must needs bear some similarity to the nature of the illness. But some of his “cures” seemed dubious. He cited a Biblical example, wherein Jacob peeled twigs to give them a streaked appearance and showed them to sheep as they copulated. As a result the lambs were born with streaked and spotted coats.

  Sarah absorbed this information in amazement. Her mother’s Biblical instruction had certainly omitted that particular passage from Genesis.

  There were books on necromancy, alchemy, and astrology, as well as one entitled Malleus Maleficarum, several herbals, and an intriguing article on one Dr. John Lambe from the last century, who was known as “the Duke’s Devil.” Dr. Lambe was renowned for curing diseases, finding lost items with the help of his familiar, and using magic potions to bring about death. He was apparently an egregious rapist as well, but escaped being called to account for his crimes due to the influence of his master, the Duke of Buckingham. Sarah was not overly dismayed to read that a London mob finally caught him in the streets and beat him to death.

  Seeking refuge for her turbulent thoughts, Sarah had sought out Lord Linton’s library in the morning, but she became so engrossed in his collection that it was afternoon before her rumbling stomach gave her reason to tear herself away.

  No one had missed her, she realized as she put The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus back on the shelf. Apparently Miss Porter and the other members of the household were busy with other things. Lord Linton had not summoned her, although she knew he would eventually. That prospect filled her with a mixture of impatience and trepidation. She wanted to learn her part and be done with it, but she was also relieved not to face him today. Idly, she ran her fingers over the Faustus binding.

  “Thinking of selling your soul to the devil?” a silky voice asked.

  Sarah whirled toward the doorway. Lord Linton stood there, dressed in black, save for the white lawn shirt visible under his waistcoat.

  “I warn you, Miss Armistead: That will not acquit you of your obligation to me.”

  Sarah willed her racing pulse to calm. The peculiar reading material in which she had been absorbed for so many hours undoubtedly lent a sinister air to Lord Linton’s presence, but in truth he was no sorcerer. He could not possibly believe in the black arts, much less practice them. Still, his eyes did hold something of the devil as they regarded her.

  His gaze slid to the bookshelves, then returned to study her, as if to determine whether she had indeed taken the books to heart. “You do not strike me as the superstitious sort.”

  “Nor am I, sir,” she replied. “But I do find such material provoking. Your interest in the magical arts appears to be... consuming.”

  There was an odd pause. “I am interested in many things, Miss Armistead,” he said at last. “I am consumed, however, by only one.”

  Yes, that would explain much: the steel in his eyes, the tension in his voice, the rigidity of his bearing. Sarah wondered what was so powerful as to obsess a man like the viscount. Did some dark episode lie buried in his past, some heinous crime, some unforgivable wrong? Whatever it was must have something to do with his strange plan. He had not shared the details with her. Perhaps now he would.

  “And what would that be, my lord?” Sarah prodded. “That thing that consumes you?”

  “Justice.” His tight voice held an undertone of violence. “I want only justice.”

  Fear warred with fascination as Sarah studied him. She wondered why he affected her so. What, after all, did she know of this man and the shadowy forces that drove him? She was, however, certain of one thing: More than a simple craving for justice held him in its sway.

  “In Chester you spoke not of justice, but revenge,” she pointed out.

  His sudden, unpleasant smile conjured an image of Lucifer himself stepping out of the pages and off the shelves into the library.

  “Revenge, justice — they are the same, are they not?” His gaze held velvet and steel. “As a woman, surely you understand that. Nothing is sweeter to a woman than revenge.”

  Sarah tried to marshal the thoughts that had scattered the moment he turned those smoky eyes on her. “You can have no understanding of women if you believe that.”

  “Oh?” His brows arched. “What is more gratifying to a woman than to destroy the man who has wronged her?”

  “A woman is no more apt to seek revenge than anyone else,” Sarah insisted. “Perhaps she is even less inclined to do so. A woman wronged would still rather have love than vengeance.”

  Bitter amusement leapt to his eyes. “You are either refreshingly naive or incredibly stupid, Miss Armistead.”

  “And you, sir, are exceedingly rude,” she fired back.

  “Perhaps.” But his admission held no repentance. “Let us just say that I am intrigued by your notion of love as an emotion that does not include the darker passions.”

  Sarah frowned. “I did not say that, exactly.”

  “Oh, but you did.” He crossed the room to stand next to her.

  His sudden nearness made her shiver. Carefully, Sarah took a step away from him.

  Lord Linton did not appear to notice. Instead, he idly scanned the shelves. “Perhaps the alliances in your life have lacked a certain...flair.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Think of the lines you recite on stage. Recall the tragedies the poets and playwrights have penned — the paeans to love and loss. And revenge.”

  He turned to her. “Do you not see how the human soul lusts for vengeance? Have you forgotten your ‘Hamlet’?”

  There was an odd subtext to this conversation, she decided, though she had not yet puzzled it out. “But Ophelia did not seek revenge for Hamlet’s ill treatment of her,” she replied.

  “Ophelia was weak.”

  “No. She was a woman of passion,” Sarah said.

  “And yet, she did not seize her own destiny,” he parried. “She merely succumbed to it.”

  “That is your view, my lord.”

  “It is the only view.”

  “Nay,” Sarah said. “Ophelia wearied of the men in her life telling her what to do. And so, she made her own choice.”

  “She was mad.”

  Sarah eyed him scornfully. “And you think Hamlet was not?”

  “Hamlet alone behaved with nobility. He exacted revenge for his father’s death.”

  Sarah was surprised to see the dark currents in his eyes yield momentarily to something else. Sorrow? Guilt? She could not tell.

  “But it was a sorry business,” she put in. “Innocent lives were lost. Hamlet’s revenge killed him in the end.”

  He merely shrugged. “Because he was a ditherer. Had he been more resolved, the thing could have been accomplished cleanly.”

  “Misery begets misery,
my lord,” she said. “As for revenge, I believe it is the impulse of a deformed soul.”

  “In that, Miss Armistead,” he said with a self-mocking smile, “we are in complete agreement.”

  ***

  There was no getting around it. Sarah looked up from the pages in her lap and cleared her throat.

  The viscount, who had been perusing other pages, eyed her expectantly. “What is it?”

  Sarah pursed her lips. Lord Linton would not like what she had to say, but she considered herself a fair judge of such matters and owed him the benefit of her opinion.

  “This is dreadful.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “These lines.” Sarah fingered the pages he had given her upon summoning her to the library an hour after nuncheon. “No one would say such a thing: ‘If I cannot have you, I vow that no other woman can.’” She shook her head. “’Tis not realistic. I could not say such words convincingly.”

  “Your opinion is of no concern,” he said brusquely. “And may I remind you that you displayed little concern for verisimilitude when you were endeavoring to persuade me of your wifely devotion to my cousin.”

  Sarah flushed. “That was different.”

  He snatched the pages from her hand. “You will not persuade me that you find my lines more difficult to say than ‘Harry is all I want in a husband.’ If you did not choke on those words, I imagine you will manage these easily enough.”

  Sarah shook her head. “It is not just the words that are a problem.”

  “Oh?” He glowered at her.

  “’Tis the entire scene,” she said. “You wish me to say these dreadful lines, then shoot you in front of dozens of people. Ladies do not have such violent notions. Certainly they would never act upon them in company.”

  “You are not playing the part of a lady,” he growled. “You are playing my mistress.”

  “That may be,” Sarah returned, “but I do not think you would have selected a mistress as coarse as a fishwife. Or one who did not know the rules of society.”

  “You know nothing of my taste in mistresses,” he said pointedly. “Although I daresay you are familiar with the topic itself in a multitude of ways.”

  Swallowing such insults was necessary for the job, Sarah told herself. The viscount seemed bent on reminding her that she was beneath him in station and repute. Yet it infuriated her that he was sitting in judgment of her, a man who by all accounts was himself something of a satyr. With an effort, Sarah bit back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips.

  “Nevertheless,” she said evenly, “you intend for this woman to move in the first circles, do you not? A woman like that would be compelled to abide by the rules of behavior.”

  The papers fluttered impatiently in his hand. “We are speaking of a woman consumed by anger, a woman sufficiently out of control to shoot a man,” he insisted. “She would not give a fig for the rules of behavior.”

  “I cannot accept that. Mistress or no, women do not shoot their lovers. At least not before the entire ton.”

  There was a muttered oath, and then the script sailed past her to the floor. Neither of them spoke for a rather long moment.

  On her earlier visit to the library, Sarah had thought the room pleasantly cozy, but now she felt keenly its close confines. Both the subject matter under discussion and Lord Linton’s temper made her exceedingly uncomfortable.

  “What do you know of such things?” he demanded. “The ton, or fine ladies, or any of it. You are just — ”

  “Just an actress?” Sarah’s eyes blazed. “I know as much about that world as you do. I am a baron’s daughter.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “What nonsense is this?”

  “I care not a fig as to whether you believe me or no, but you are foolish to imagine that this scene you have written smacks of anything credible,” Sarah insisted. “Clearly, you know nothing of women. Or their passions.”

  “And you know a great deal, I imagine. A respectable lady would not be exposed to such things.”

  Sarah leveled a gaze at him. “A respectable lady is exposed to a great deal when she has not a feather to fly with. Your arrogance chief among them.”

  He rose. “I will not tolerate your rebelliousness, Miss Armistead. As I told you, there is no room in my plan for improvisation. You will play this scene exactly as it is written.”

  If she gave in now, Sarah knew she would never have the courage to raise the issue again. Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound. She took a deep breath.

  “And you said you would tell me exactly why you are staging this little drama. You have not done that.” She also rose. “I do not believe I will give you the benefit of my considerable insight into theatrical matters until you do so.”

  Gifting him with her haughtiest gaze, Sarah turned toward the door, preparing to sweep out of the room — a move she had long perfected, since almost every scene she had played on stage involved grand entrances and exits. She was beginning to suspect that at last she had something with which to bargain in this very odd job she had taken on.

  “Damnation, woman!” he thundered. “I do not need your insight, only your performance.”

  Her suspicion was correct, then: He needed her as much as she needed the work. It would be time-consuming for him to find another actress after he had already established her in his household with that elaborate cover story for his aunt’s benefit. She turned.

  “You need a believable performance,” she corrected. “And I shall not do it unless you tell me what this is about. At the moment, it smacks of vulgar comedy, not drama. I demand that you tell me the whole.”

  “You are in no position to make demands.”

  “Nevertheless, I am making them. And I will have answers before I continue.” She widened her eyes, as if struck with a sudden thought. “Oh, dear. I fear it is rather improper for me to be here alone with you. Do you wish me to find your aunt and ask that she join us? Or better yet, Miss Simms. I am certain she would be happy to oblige.”

  His glare would have brought the most defiant hellion to heel, and Sarah wondered whether she had gone too far. But this was a matter of honor. After his talk of revenge, she needed to know what was behind this — and some assurance that he was not involving her in anything criminal.

  Lord Linton’s brows drew together like those of a wrathful god as he regarded her with no little loathing. Then, suddenly, he sighed. He crossed the room to the window.

  “Very well,” he said.

  Sarah waited. It was some time before he spoke.

  “I am attempting to duplicate an event that happened many years ago.” His voice was flat, disembodied, distant, his gaze fixed somewhere outside the window.

  When he did not immediately continue, she prodded, “A shooting?”

  “A woman killed my father fifteen years ago. She was also responsible for my mother’s suicide. I intend to force her to confess to those crimes.”

  If he had said that pigs could fly, Sarah would not have been more stunned.

  “How will you accomplish that?” she asked after a moment.

  He turned. “By recreating everything about that night in precise detail. You see, Miss Armistead, as far-fetched as you think the events in my scene to be, every one of them is true. My father was shot at a masquerade exactly like the one at which you are going to put a period to my existence — or appear to, anyway. The woman who killed him was dressed as Marie Antoinette, as you will be. We will stage an exact replication of events before the very woman who killed him.”

  This was stunning news indeed. “Was she not apprehended?”

  “She fled immediately afterwards,” he replied. “She was never arrested. Nor did she come forward.”

  “Then how can you hope to identify her?”

  “Oh, I know who she is.” There was a new intensity in his gaze. “My father’s former mistress, Lady Evangeline Greywood. She is presently residing in London.”

  Sarah drew closer. “How do
you know she committed this crime?”

  He waved away her question as if it were a bothersome insect. “There is no doubt that she murdered him. My mother’s death is on her plate as well.”

  “How?” she ventured.

  “The day after my father’s death, my mother killed herself. In taking her own life, she also took that of her babe yet unborn.” The viscount’s gaze hardened. “Lady Greywood has much to answer for.”

  He renewed his perusal of the view out the window, but Sarah suspected he did not truly see the sloping valley or the mists that had begun to enshroud the hills and scrub heather. His powerful shoulders were rigid, unmovable.

  Looking at him, realizing the depth of his intent, made Sarah unaccountably sad.

  “The lady has kept silent, then, all these years?” she asked softly.

  He nodded. “After the shooting, her husband whisked her out of the country. By the time they returned, the scandal had blown over. Lord Greywood died several years later. I understand that Lady Greywood is a very unhappy woman, given to megrims and the like. At the moment, I believe she is dangerously unstable.”

  Sarah did not like the ominous chill in his voice. But she was beginning to understand.

  Lord Linton turned, his bleak gaze transformed by a malevolent light. The devil himself could not look as fiendish.

  “I have gone to considerable lengths to duplicate precisely the events that led up to my father’s shooting,” he said. “I believe I have the lady on the verge of breaking down and confessing.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “You mean to destroy her.”

  “Yes. We will spring the trap. My ‘murder’ will be the coup de grâce.”

  The malevolence of his words floated through the room, past the shelves filled with witchcraft lore and stories of men consumed by black magic and deviltry.

  I am interested in many things, Miss Armistead. I am consumed, however, by only one.

  Revenge. Revenge was the thing that consumed Lord Linton, drove him, spawned his diabolical plan. And he would carry out that plan, no matter what she thought or said.