The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

by Lauren Willig

  Ah, memories.

  Sally turned to share her recollections with the duke, but he was already halfway down the aisle.

  “It was only—hic!—one.” The leading man’s tones were just as mellifluous as Sally remembered, if slightly impaired by a bad case of the hiccups.

  “Can’t you stay off the sauce, Ned?” The woman onstage with him set a hand on her hip. “’Ow—I mean, how a woman’s supposed to work with—”

  “All right.” There was a third man, standing facing the stage, his back towards Sally, a sheaf of papers in his hand. His voice had a reluctant edge of amusement. “The play we are meant to be rehearsing, Mr. Kenyan, is The Rogue’s Progress. Do you think you can remember that?”

  The player essayed a sweeping bow, marred only by a bit of a stumble. “Sir,” he swore, “I shall be that rogue and progress as no rogue has progressed before.”

  “That’s just what I was telling Mr. Quentin,” said the woman ungratefully. “If you’d leave off pinching me—I mean, pinching my—bum and learn your bloody lines— Oh! Hello, there!” She caught sight of the duke, in his caped coat and curly-brimmed hat, and mustered a truly impressive simper, as well as a marked change in her accent. “Were you lookin’—looking—for someone particular, sir?”

  Well, really, thought Sally, feeling more than a little put out. She needn’t sound as though she assumed the duke was there for her.

  The third man turned in the direction of his visitors. Unlike the actors, who were turned out in a facsimile of the fashionable mode, he wore a simple brown coat that was nearly the same color as his short-cropped hair, his cravat loosely tied. He had a long face with a wide, humorous mouth.

  “Forgive me. I’m afraid you find us in some disarray.” He stepped forward, one hand extended, a question in his voice. “I am Mr. Quentin.”

  He spoke the name as though they were meant to know who he was. A playbill was lying discarded on one of the benches. Hamlet, with additional dialogue by Mr. T. S. Quentin. That was it. Mr. T. S. Quentin, playwright and proprietor.

  Sally turned to the duke, but the duke was staring at Mr. Quentin, staring like Hamlet confronted with his father’s ghost.

  “Sherry?” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Lucien?” said Mr. Quentin incredulously. “If I didn’t think my eyes deceived me . . . It is! By all that’s holy— Lucien!”

  He looked as though he would have stepped forward to embrace him, but the duke stepped back.

  Mr. Quentin recovered himself quickly. “I forgot. It’s Belliston now, isn’t it?”

  The duke’s face was hard as marble. “Yes.”

  “I take it you’re acquainted?” said Sally, who didn’t like to be left out of things.

  “Acquainted?” Mr. Quentin’s face broke into a broad smile. “I taught this lad his numbers.”

  Sally looked to the duke. “You never told me your old . . . tutor?”—In the half-light of the empty theater, Mr. Quentin hardly looked old enough to have been the duke’s tutor, with his long, lean frame and carelessly cropped hair. That was, until one noticed the fine lines at the sides of his eyes and lips—“tutor was the proprietor at Pudding Lane! One would think you might have mentioned that.”

  The duke’s gaze never wavered from Mr. Quentin’s face. “You’ve changed your name.”

  Mr. Quentin opened his hands. “There was already one man in the world of theater named Sheridan. There didn’t seem room enough for two.” His voice changed; the creases at the corners of his eyes deepened. “But you, Lucien. I left you a boy and now you’re a man grown! How have you been?”

  The duke didn’t return his smile. “As well as could be expected.” His voice was clipped and very ducal. “How long have you been . . . here?”

  “It’s five years now since I struck out on my own. Before that I was with my cousin, Richard, at Drury Lane.” When the duke didn’t respond, Mr. Quentin tried again: “You’ll remember I always did have a taste for the theater. I haven’t the talent to tread the boards, but I’m not a bad hand at turning a phrase.”

  The duke was not inclined to share tender reminiscences. “All this time, you were all of a mile away.”

  Mr. Quentin’s keen brown eyes softened. He set his script down on a stand. “I wanted to visit, you know. I tried, more than once, after . . . They told me you’d gone away to school.”

  “Of course you did,” said the duke satirically. “That’s why you left without a word.”

  “Do you think I didn’t want to say good-bye?” Mr. Quentin’s long face looked even longer. “I’d have stayed with you if I could—”

  “I’m sure,” said the duke unpleasantly. Before Mr. Quentin could protest, the duke said, “But we haven’t come about that.”

  “So this isn’t a social call, then?” Making a valiant attempt to redeem the situation, Mr. Quentin turned to Sally. “Our accommodations aren’t the most opulent, but I can offer you a dish of tea to chase the chill away, Miss—”

  “Miss Fitzhugh.” It belatedly occurred to Sally that since she wasn’t supposed to be here, perhaps it would have been wiser to give a false name. Oh, well. She’d remember for next time.

  Besides, there was something she rather liked about Mr. Quentin. And someone needed to maintain the social amenities.

  She held out a hand. “I very much enjoyed your Hamlet, Mr. Quentin. I much preferred your ending to the original.”

  Mr. Quentin’s strained expression relaxed a trifle. “Did you, now? If only the critics agreed. They seemed to take umbrage at it.”

  “Critics.” Sally dismissed those worthies with a wave of her hand. “I thought a wedding was much tidier than having the stage littered with dead bodies. It was very affecting when Ophelia came back to life. In fact—”

  The duke cleared his throat. Twice.

  Oh, right. The memory of their purpose sobered Sally. Unfortunately, it was only onstage that dead bodies rose to take a bow.

  “In fact,” she amended what she had been about to say, “we’re looking for your Ophelia.”

  “That would be me,” announced the actress on the stage, who had been following their colloquy with interest, her colleague having lapsed into sodden slumber beneath the tower of Elsinore Castle. “I’m his Ophelia, so I am.”

  She was not, on any account, the woman Sally had seen in the role last week. Her hair might have been red, but that brassy shade had never come from nature.

  “Your other Ophelia,” Sally said firmly.

  “You mean Miss Logan.” Mr. Quentin’s eyes snaked over to the duke, who was still doing his best impression of a Doric column. Recalling himself, he dragged his attention back to Sally, mustering a rueful smile. “I hate to disoblige, but I’m afraid she’s left us. As you can see”—his gesture encompassed the other Ophelia—“it has left us in some disarray.”

  “There ain’t nothing wrong with my array,” protested Ophelia stridently.

  “Lovely as always!” called Mr. Quentin soothingly. In an undertone, he added, “Molly usually plays our saucy serving wenches. But with Fanny gone so suddenly and her understudy taken to her bed with a broken leg . . . well, you see the bind we’re in. You aren’t by any chance an actress, are you, Miss Fitzhugh?”

  “Well . . .” Did playing the Angel of the Lord in Miss Climpson’s Christmas festivities count?

  “No,” said the duke flatly. “She’s not.”

  Sally sent him a reproachful look.

  Mr. Quentin’s eyes crinkled. “You’ll not take offense, will you, if I tell you that’s a pity?” He ruined the compliment by adding, “We’re sorely in need of a new leading lady.” He cast a covert glance at Molly. “Another new leading lady.”

  “Mr. Quentin—” Sally jumped in quickly, before Molly could remonstrate. “Just when did Fanny leave you?”

  The playwright
looked puzzled, but answered readily enough. “It was two days ago—which is why you see us here, rehearsing now. She’d an offer from a better prospect and away she went, without so much as a thank-you or a by-your-leave.”

  “Is that so?” said the duke grimly.

  Mr. Quentin glanced swiftly at the duke. “Why all this interest in our Fanny?” The playwright’s brows drew together. “You don’t mean to tell me, Lucien, that you were our Fanny’s mysterious protector?”

  “Her— No!”

  Mr. Quentin fingered the pages of his script. “I’ll not deny that she could be a taking little baggage when she chose. And she was certainly easy on the eyes. But . . . I’d never thought you were one to be so taken in.”

  “Neither would I,” said the duke, and Sally had the impression he was referring to something else entirely. He said shortly, “I never met your Fanny. Not to speak to.”

  Mr. Quentin looked frankly confused, and Sally couldn’t blame him. “Then why—?”

  “We believe she was murdered,” said Sally. “That is, we know a woman was murdered. We believe she was your Miss Logan.”

  Somehow, that hadn’t come out quite as succinctly as she’d intended.

  “I found her,” Sally added. “I’d seen her in Hamlet last week and— Well. Here we are.”

  Just one big happy family.

  “I see.” Mr. Quentin looked deeply shaken. “Are you sure— No, of course you are. How very unpleasant for you, Miss Fitzhugh.”

  “More unpleasant for Miss Logan.” The duke was watching his old tutor closely. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Mr. Quentin drew himself slowly up. He was roughly of a height with the duke, but his lanky frame made him seem taller. “What are you implying?”

  The duke’s voice was hard. “You do seem to leave a trail of bodies in your wake. First my parents. Now Miss Logan.”

  Sally frowned at her duke. Really, if he was going to make these sorts of accusations, he ought to consult with her first, so they could coordinate their strategy. In Brook Street, he’d told her that spies had done away with his parents. Admittedly, it did seem rather dodgy that their murdered woman had led them straight to the duke’s old tutor—and even dodgier if he had, in fact, fled the scene—but Sally had a hard time imagining the playwright as a cold-blooded killer.

  On the other hand, a man who would rewrite Shakespeare would shrink from nothing.

  “A trail . . .” Mr. Quentin shook his head in disbelief. He pressed his fingers to his temple. “Would I kill my own leading lady?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “I may not have particularly liked Fanny, but she knew her lines and she pleased the punters.” Mr. Quentin gestured emphatically towards the stage. “You’ve seen the alternative.”

  “Oy!” said Molly.

  Mr. Quentin turned to Sally. “Are you sure—are you quite sure—that it was Fanny?”

  “It did seem to be she,” Sally hedged.

  The light had been dim and she hadn’t looked all that hard. She had seen Miss Logan only from a distance, on the stage.

  She would feel excessively foolish if Miss Logan were, right now, sitting in comfort, drinking a dish of tea, in some warm lodging.

  Sally grasped at a convenient straw. “You say Miss Logan disappeared?”

  “Left,” Mr. Quentin amended. “Left. She gave me her notice herself.”

  The duke was standing quietly, a little off to the side. “And who do you have to corroborate that?”

  “No one. Only my own word of honor.”

  “From a man with no name,” retorted the duke.

  “He’s a man with three names,” Sally pointed out helpfully. “He’s merely rearranged the order of them.”

  Neither man paid any attention to her.

  Mr. Quentin’s eyes moved over his former charge, subjecting him to a long, thorough scrutiny. “You’ve changed.”

  The duke didn’t blink. “You haven’t.”

  “I wish I could think you meant that as a compliment.” Mr. Quentin tugged at his ink-stained sleeves. “If I could change the past, Lucien, I would do so. Believe me. But I was young then, as young as you are now—and when they said to go, I went. Don’t you think I’ve regretted it?”

  The duke’s Adam’s apple bobbed beneath his cravat, but all he said was, “Tell me about Fanny Logan.”

  “The devil with Fanny Logan,” said Mr. Quentin impatiently. “Her kind are a shilling the dozen: a girl on the make with a pretty face and grasping fingers. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead—if she is dead—but Fanny was the sort who’d have trampled her own mother for the sake of something shiny.”

  The duke’s expression didn’t change. “And what of my mother? What did she do to deserve to die?”

  “Oy!” called Molly from the stage. “My shoes are beginning to pinch something fierce.”

  “Take the rest of the day for yourself,” said Mr. Quentin, without taking his eyes from the duke. “We’re done here.” And then, “I would never have hurt your mother.”

  The duke raised a brow. “Oh?”

  On the stage, Hamlet snored.

  Mr. Quentin shook his head in a helpless gesture. “All right, then. Let’s be blunt. Man to man. You’re old enough for me to say it. I was more than a little bit in love with her.”

  The duke’s lips were white around the edges. “They said as much at the time. I didn’t believe it.”

  “It wasn’t like that. She was my Gloriana—my Faerie Queene. Everything that was great and good. And unobtainable.” Lost in memories, Mr. Quentin looked ten years younger, a boy with a boy’s enthusiasms. He looked up, his expression disarmingly frank. “She’d never have returned the sentiment. It was a boy’s love, nothing more. I was hardly older than you are yourself at the time. If that.”

  “You had some knowledge of botany,” the duke said stubbornly. “You could have prepared that fatal draught.”

  “And for what?” The pages of the script crumpled beneath Mr. Quentin’s fingers. His knuckles were white against the dark wood of the stand. “I was happy at Hullingden. Your father gave me free use of his library; I even liked teaching you, precocious brat that you were.”

  There was no mistaking the affection beneath the insult. Sally saw something like pain cross the duke’s face.

  So did Mr. Quentin. He pressed his point home. “Why would I ruin it all? Why would I make it all go away?”

  The duke’s voice was tight. “Two women, Sherry. Both with connections to you.” After a pause, he said, “That woman—Fanny—was dressed up in a black wig. Someone had left my father’s snuffbox by her body.”

  Mr. Quentin recoiled as though he had been struck. “I swear to you, Lucien, I knew nothing about it.” And then, in a quieter voice, “Did you think I kept your father’s box—as a trophy?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” The duke stepped back, drawing the folds of his dark cloak around him.

  Sally opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again. Something in the duke’s face precluded easy raillery.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” said Mr. Quentin. He smoothed the crumpled pages of his script with one hand, in an absentminded gesture. His hands were large and long-fingered, with calluses on the right hand from holding a pen. Large enough hands to subdue a small woman, especially if she wasn’t expecting foul play. “After Tuesday’s performance, Fanny announced to me that she wouldn’t be appearing again. She said she was moving on to better things—a new protector, I assumed.” He bowed towards Sally. “My apologies, Miss Fitzhugh. Such arrangements are common in the world of the theater.”

  “Naturally,” said Sally grandly, trying to look as though she discussed such affairs all the time. “A new protector? Does that mean there was an old one?”

  Mr. Quentin’s l
ips twisted wryly. “With such a one, Miss Fitzhugh, there is always a protector. As to his identity . . . Fanny was always close-lipped about her affairs.” A shadow crossed his face. “She was convinced she was destined for greater things. She thought her face would be her fortune.”

  Sally thought of the woman’s face as she had last seen it, garishly adorned with lip rouge, glassy-eyed in death, and she shivered. True, she might be wrong; it might have been another woman entirely, but . . . She shivered again.

  “Here.” The duke unfurled his driving cape from around his shoulders. “Take this.”

  Before she could protest, a heavy weight of wool enveloped her, smelling a great deal of wet, and a little bit of the duke’s cologne. The duke’s arms slid around her shoulders to fasten the clasp at her neck. As Sally turned to look up at him, the side of his gloved hand brushed her cheek in an unintentional caress.

  Their eyes met over her shoulder. The duke looked, thought Sally, as though he’d lost something incredibly dear.

  Sherry, he’d said, and there had been such a wealth of confusion and affection in that one word.

  How would she have felt, two years ago, if Arabella had slipped Turnip a poisoned Christmas pudding and then fled? Like someone had torn the heart right out of her chest, that was how. Hurt. Confused. Angry. And too proud to say it.

  Without thinking, Sally reached up and covered the duke’s gloved hand with hers.

  “It is a bit nippy in here.” Mr. Quentin’s voice was carefully neutral.

  Sally dropped her hand. The duke stepped quickly away.

  “Thank you,” said Sally primly. “It is, indeed, rather chilly.” Gathering together the folds of the cloak and her dignity, she turned a beady-eyed stare on Mr. Quentin. “You were telling us of Miss Logan?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Quentin rubbed his forehead, looking deeply weary. “There isn’t terribly more to say. She told me she would be here today to clear out her dressing room—but she never came.” There was a pregnant silence. “Now I know why.”