A Passionate Performance

by Eileen Putman

  Aunt Clarissa waited expectantly. Miss Simms’s eyes sharpened with suspicion. Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but not a word came out. Sarah clutched the letter, but it slipped her fingers and fluttered to the floor. Miss Simms rose speedily to pick it up. Just as the woman’s long, bony fingers reached for the pages, a masculine hand snatched them away.

  “Ah, the communique from the solicitors for your father’s estate,” drawled the familiar baritone. “I have been expecting it.” Lord Linton scanned the contents. When he finished, he gave no hint that anything was amiss. Instead, he turned to the ladies.

  “The solicitors believe they have several leads on the whereabouts of Miss Armistead’s relatives.”

  Sarah marveled at the ease with which the lie tripped off his tongue. Not for the first time she thought Lord Linton had missed his true calling. His acting abilities would have given Mr. Kean pause.

  Miss Simms’ gaze narrowed. “But that would be good news, would it not? One would have expected the opposite, judging from Miss Armistead’s reaction.”

  Lord Linton ignored her. Instead, he turned to Sarah. “There are some confidential matters we must discuss. If it is convenient, Miss Armistead, perhaps you will be so kind as to come to my library later.”

  Polite words for an imperial order, Sarah thought, knowing she had not mistaken the note of command in his voice. She dreaded the coming confrontation. On the other hand, there was something satisfying about the prospect of clearing the air. Lord Linton had canceled this morning’s shooting practice, and she knew it was because of the angry words they exchanged yesterday. Her own anger had carried her through dinner last night, but by today it was spent.

  Sarah was weary of the uneasy air between them, weary of trying to maintain her pride behind a mask of indifference. Anything, even another angry confrontation, was preferable.

  “I will be happy to do so, my lord,” Sarah said with such dulcet deference that his gaze quickly shot to hers. There was a message in those grey depths, but Sarah could not read it.

  Aunt Clarissa looked crestfallen, perhaps at not being let in on the confidential matters. Miss Simms smirked, as if she thought the whole episode suspicious. Lord Linton merely bowed and left the room, taking William’s letter with him.

  An hour later — it took her that long to gracefully extricate herself from the drawing room without an unseemly haste that might further raise suspicions — Sarah once more entered Lord Linton’s library.

  She found him seated at his desk, absently shuffling a deck of cards, scrutinizing some strange symbols in a book with a binding that bore the title Magus. He quickly put the book aside.

  “Sit down, Miss Armistead.”

  “I do not object if you use my given name,” she said quietly, seating herself in the chair he indicated. “You have done so on other...occasions. By now we surely are beyond formalities.”

  Only a single lamp on his desk illuminated the room, but it was enough to reveal his surprise.

  Did he suppose she would pretend that those “occasions” — including that scandalous kiss — had not occurred? Sarah could see no purpose to that. Enough subterfuge was already at work in this house. But when the sudden spark in his eyes indicated he recalled the matter rather well, Sarah wondered whether she had been unwise.

  Making a tent of his hands, he studied her silently for what seemed like an eternity. The moment in which he might have accepted her invitation to invoke her first name came and went. Sarah flushed in embarrassment.

  Then he surprised her.

  “My remarks after our shooting practice yesterday were inappropriate,” he said. “I meant no harm or disrespect.” Then he stopped himself. “That is not altogether true.”

  Sarah blinked.

  “I intended to wound you, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me,” he said. “For that I do not deserve your consideration but I hope you will grant it.”

  She stared at him in wonder. Had a man who resembled Lord Linton in form and appearance somehow invaded his form and spoken to her in his voice?

  His wry smile told her that he was still very much in possession of himself and had read her look precisely. “Would it be more convincing if I couched my apology in shades of irony?”

  “’Tis only that I am unaccustomed to hearing such sentiments from you,” she said.

  “Nay.” He eyed her in exasperation. “Have I not been compelled three times previously to apologize to you for my various sins? To be sure, I believed you to be my cousin’s wife at the time, but that counts nevertheless.”

  A sudden teasing glint in his eye took her aback. This was new. And, well, breathtaking.

  “Not compelled, surely,” she managed.

  His smile vanished. “No. Not then, not now.”

  Abruptly he rose from behind his desk and crossed the few feet to her chair. “I am sincere, Sarah. Will you forgive me?”

  He towered over her. His nearness — and hearing him say her name again — almost robbed her of breath.

  “I suppose so,” she said in a carefully neutral tone.

  He sighed, almost if he had been holding his breath, waiting for her response. But she knew that could not be.

  “I am as much to blame for our argument as you,” Sarah said. “I should not have called you a monster.”

  “Perhaps you spoke the truth.” His musing tone reminded her that there were currents in this man that she could not fathom. “No matter,” he quickly added. “Let us put it behind us.”

  The subject apparently now closed, he turned back to his desk and picked up William’s letter. “Who the devil is William? Why does he wish to visit you and, er, ‘Lady Justine’?”

  Sarah took a deep breath. “William is my brother.”

  He eyed her expectantly.

  “He is away at Eton,” she added. “He is fourteen.”

  Lord Linton registered that information with one arched brow that plainly indicated her meager response was inadequate.

  “If you plan to measure things out in four-word sentences,” he said, “we will be here for a long time.”

  Sarah knew this subterfuge, at least, was at an end. “I invented Lady Justine in order to explain my presence at Lintonwood to my brother.”

  He absorbed this for a moment. “I take it, then, that your brother does not know of our arrangement.”

  “There is much my brother does not know, including the fact that I am an actress.” Sarah resisted the temptation to look away from his penetrating gaze. “He believes that I have been employed by various ladies as a companion. I send him money each quarter from my wages.”

  Now she did look away. “In other words, William thinks me a respectable woman.”

  “I see.”

  But of course he didn’t, Sarah thought. He couldn’t know the depth of her financial desperation over the years. How she’d sewn and repaired the actors’ costumes and cleaned the playhouses. How even when bigger acting roles came her way, she’d still taken on extra duties to pay for the schooling to which a boy of William’s breeding was entitled.

  “Sarah.”

  Something in his tone made her heart leap to her throat. She looked up to find him studying her.

  “Why did you turn to the stage?” he asked softly. “You claim to be a baron’s daughter. Why not find employment as a governess or something more appropriate?”

  It would be impossible to explain her reasons to a man so wealthy that he could afford to satisfy his every whim. But since she had indirectly involved him in her lie to William, she supposed he was entitled to an answer.

  “When I was a child, I often put on little performances with puppets and the like. My parents and their friends praised my acting skill, though of course they had no thought that I would end up in such a profession.” Sarah rose and walked over to the window and its view of Lord Linton’s well-manicured lawn. But she did not really see it. Instead, she was envisioning her mother’s small vegetable garden, visible from the windo
w in her childhood room.

  “When our parents died, I learned that the estate was impoverished. A distant cousin was set to inherit, but he took one look at my father’s books and decided the place was not worth spending money on. He relinquished his claim to the property, but it was an empty victory, because by then we could not afford to live there.”

  “I see.”

  She turned. “Forgive me, my lord, but I do not think you do.”

  He arched a brow.

  “I had no choice but to seek employment. I was unable to find a situation as a ladies companion right away, so I thought of what else I could do and chose to believe that I would have sufficient success as an actress to secure a living wage.”

  She hesitated, guessing the direction of his thoughts. “I quickly discovered, as you and everyone else in civilized society undoubtedly know, that the best-paid actresses possess a rather wider range of skills that do not precisely, er, suit me.”

  Sarah waited for any sign that he thought she was spinning a Banbury tale. But his gaze was steady, his expression attentive. He was listening to her, she realized.

  “Finally, I found Mr. Stinson’s company,” she added. “He is not a bad sort. He gave me cleaning, sewing, and other jobs besides acting, and I was happy to have the work.”

  She gave a rueful laugh. “Suffice it to say, however, the theater was not what I envisioned as a child. And yes, it is a thoroughly unacceptable profession. The other actors are from many walks of life, and often unreliable. My parents would be horrified if they knew them all. Still, I love the stage.”

  “Why?”

  “I had seen Mr. Kemble, you see, and Mrs. Siddons as well, when my father took us to London one year.” So clear were the images, that joyous excursion might have happened yesterday. “Covent Garden was the most remarkable theater I had ever seen. The Greek portico, the grand vestibule — I thought I had entered a magical land.”

  Sarah wanted to make him understand, knowing, of course, that he couldn’t possibly.

  “But that was nothing to the stage itself,” she said softly. “It was enormous, and the actors who stood under the arches amid those lofty pilasters commanded all eyes. They were grand figures, larger than life, with voices that could project to the stars. When the curtain fell, it was as if the door to some exciting, exotic world had closed. I wanted to open it again. Again and again. How I wanted it.”

  Sarah caught herself, embarrassed at revealing too much.

  But there was no ridicule in the smoky gaze that held hers. Instead, it bore something very like understanding.

  “You are a fraud, Sarah,” he said softly. “It was not the money at all, was it?”

  She frowned. “I do not understand.”

  “Faced with the prospect of spending your days reading sermons to some deaf dowager,” he said, “the theater was a much more attractive alternative. ’Twas no contest.”

  She flushed. “Perhaps. But it is more than that. The notion of becoming someone else, if only for a moment, was vastly appealing. Indeed, I fear it has become essential.”

  “Essential? How so?”

  “It is difficult to explain,” Sarah said. “In immersing myself in a role, I leave all else behind. I stop worrying for a while whether I will have enough money to send William this quarter, or whether our old house in Surrey has a tenant.”

  He studied her. “You have taken much upon yourself. Too much.”

  “No.” Sarah shook her head. “A gentleman’s education is William’s birthright, and I am willing to work so that he has it. But I never thought our finances would be so tight. Squire Gibbons had promised to find a tenant for the house. But he never replied to my letters, and we have seen not a penny of any rent.”

  Lord Linton fingered the pages of her brother’s letter. “William’s holiday begins soon,” he said. “It would be awkward to have him join our party — Miss Simms can smell a rat at forty paces. Nor would it be appropriate for him to come with us to London.”

  Sarah eyed him apprehensively. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing at the moment. One has so little time when one is plotting revenge.”

  There might have been a self-mocking gleam in his eyes, but Sarah wasn’t sure.

  “My butler has a bit of time on his hands, however,” Lord Linton continued. “I believe he would enjoy entertaining young William.”

  Now it was Sarah’s turn to be confused. “I understood you to say that William’s presence would not be welcome here. I do see that it would raise many questions. Beyond that, my brother is rather spirited. I doubt that your butler —”

  “Many have made the mistake of doubting Anh’s abilities,” Lord Linton interjected. “Do not concern yourself. He will take care of everything.”

  His tone told her he considered the matter settled. Sarah suspected he was not making a kindly gesture — he merely wanted to make certain her brother did not jeopardize his plan. His butler would be assigned the task of making sure that did not happen. Still, she was grateful that he had decided to intervene.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He shrugged. Yet there was nothing calculating or cold in his expression, no evidence that mere expedience ruled him. If anything, the grey gaze held a strange, unsettling vulnerability.

  Still, Lord Linton was a master of illusion. It was best not to put too much faith in what she saw in his eyes.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Anh did not betray by so much as the blink of an eye his thoughts about playing nursemaid to a fourteen-year-old boy. Not that Justin would have noticed. He was too busy poring over Albert Magnus’s medieval magic manual.

  “I fear you search in vain, my lord. Mr. Magnus had no more possession of truth than the oracle of Delphi.”

  Justin looked up in irritation. “Who said anything about a search for truth?”

  Anh shrugged. “Meaning and being are inextricably entwined.”

  “Do not speak to me of metaphysics, man,” Justin warned. “I am not interested.”

  The butler drew closer. “I see that you have marked the passage on banishment of distractions. Indeed, I know that passage well. It is chiefly concerned with the distraction of lust.” Anh gave him a pitying look. “One can no more defeat the pull of yin and yang than one can ignore the five elements.”

  Wearily, Justin closed the tome. Debating such matters with Anh — or denying what the man could discern easily enough — was about as rewarding as trying to turn stone into gold. Or trying to prevent his Aunt Clarissa from placing her colorful flower arrangements throughout his house. Justin cast a dark look at the vase of daisies on his desk.

  “Magnus would have me carve out the heart of a turtle bird, encase it in wolf’s skin, and wear it the rest of my days,” he said with a sigh. “I daresay that will remove most anything from a man’s mind, but it is not precisely the cure I imagined.”

  “There is no ‘cure’ to what afflicts you, my lord. You must submit to the change. It is the only way.”

  Damned if he would get into that again. “The only immediate change I have planned is in your duties,” Justin replied. “I want you to find out all you can about the young Lord Armistead and his interests. You will fetch him from Eton, and I expect you to keep him fully occupied here while we are away in London.”

  Anh bowed his assent. “I shall consider it a privilege to meet Miss Armistead’s brother.”

  “One more thing,” Justin said, his tone deliberately casual.

  Anh eyed him expectantly, an anticipatory gleam in his dark eyes.

  “Look into the affairs of a Squire Gibbons of Surrey. Most particularly, whether he has rented out the late Lord Armistead’s property.”

  “Of course.” Anh bowed.

  The man’s enigmatic smile as he left the room was irritating, as if Anh knew precisely what ailed him.

  He’d been right about Magnus, though. Justin had been looking for something, anything, that might distract him from Sarah. It was a f
ool’s errand. He had never put much faith in magic. What some called magic, others called religion, still others science. As a youth, particularly during that time surrounding his father’s death, Justin had found magic a fascinating art, a way to manipulate aspects of his world and gain a measure of power over it. In time, he came to see that illusion, if properly conceived and executed, could hold more power than fact.

  Perhaps Magnus’s spells and chants had worked for some, but he knew they did not hold the secret to managing his warring impulses toward Sarah. Mixing potions and cutting out birds’ hearts would not curb his growing attraction to her. Anh’s mystical wisdom held no answers, either, especially given his butler’s limited experience of women. As for all that talk of yin and yang, Justin was sufficiently familiar with Eastern thought to know that the female yin, for all its association with life, also connoted darkness, weakness, something to be feared.

  Justin Trent — afraid of a female? It did not bear thinking.

  But neither had he imagined that behind Sarah’s bravado lay a story that would tug at his heartstrings. She had taken on too much for a woman so gently bred, entered a world that was not for the faint of heart. The least he could do was try to ease one or two of her burdens. It was nothing to him to look into the dealings of that shady squire. As for her brother, he could not allow William to interfere with his plan, so the lad must needs have a minder, a job for which Anh was more than suited.

  None of Justin’s efforts on Sarah’s behalf meant that she was anything more to him than a gifted actress in his employ. That she could also raise his pulse with a mere look was entirely beside the point. Lust was simply lust, nothing more. Baron’s daughter or no, Sarah had left that world in favor of one in which disguise and fraud were paramount, and women with few resources undoubtedly kept an eye out for potential benefactors. He could not blame her for that, but he knew that succumbing to her charms could ruin his scheme and destroy what he had worked for.