Gail Whitiker

by No Role for a Gentleman

  He sat quietly for a moment, thinking pleasurable thoughts of her, while allowing other ideas to eddy and swirl like currents in a stream. Then, as they began to coalesce and take form, he dipped his quill into the bottle of ink, drew the parchment towards him and steadfastly began to write.

  * * *

  Joanna was alone in the drawing room when Mrs Devlin arrived to pay a call a few days later.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my stopping in unannounced,’ she said with a smile, ‘but my husband was to have taken me for a drive and at the last minute had to cancel and so suggested that I take a friend instead. I wondered if perhaps you might like to accompany me, Lady Joanna. It is such a delightful afternoon and I did so enjoy our conversation the other evening.’

  A little taken aback by the lady’s singling her out for attention, Joanna nevertheless said, ‘Yes, of course, I would be delighted. If you will give me but a moment to change...’

  It did take little more than a moment. Joanna exchanged her shawl for a spencer, her slippers for a pair of leather shoes, and her lace cap for the newest and most fashionable of her bonnets. Given Mrs Devlin’s stylish appearance, it would not do to go out looking anything but her best.

  Less than ten minutes later, they were seated opposite one another in Mr Devlin’s comfortable carriage, with Mrs Devlin chatting about this and that as they made their way through the streets.

  ‘Oh, and if it is not too much of a bother, I did say I would stop at the theatre and pick Laurence up on our way back,’ the lady said. ‘He went down for a meeting with our uncle and was originally to have come back with Mr Devlin and myself. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ Joanna said quickly, hoping her pleasure at the thought of seeing Laurence again was sufficiently disguised. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since their night together at the theatre.

  You take my breath away. That was what he had said to her upon her arrival at the theatre, but it was not only the words he had used, but the manner in which he had said them that gave such special meaning to the phrase.

  And then, at the conclusion of the play had come that moment when the audience had begun to call his name and Laurence had stood up in the box. Joanna knew she would never forget how handsome he had looked as he’d risen to acknowledge their cheers. How confident he had appeared, yet how unassuming. There hadn’t been a trace of arrogance or pride in his manner, yet he must have known he held everyone there in the palm of his hand.

  Just as he held her.

  The two ladies chatted about inconsequential matters for the next little while: the price of gloves, the scarcity of good lace, where to go for the finest linens. As such, the time passed unnoticed, and before Joanna knew it, they were pulling to a halt in front of the Gryphon Theatre. ‘Oh, we’re here!’

  ‘Yes, though I did think Laurence would have been outside waiting for us,’ Mrs Devlin said, looking around. ‘Oh, well, I suppose we shall have to go inside and find him. You don’t mind coming in, do you?’

  Joanna glanced at the imposing façade of the theatre and briefly wondered if they might not be better sending the coachman in, until she remembered that Mrs Devlin’s uncle owned the theatre and that it was very respectable as far as theatres went.

  ‘I suspect he’s with my uncle,’ Mrs Devlin said as they made their way into the auditorium. ‘You can wait for us here if you like. I’ll just be a moment.’

  Joanna had never been to a theatre when the actors weren’t on stage and all the seats were empty. As such, it seemed strange to walk in and not hear the cheers and the laughter of the crowd. She glanced at the stage and wondered how it would feel to know that every eye in the room was on you. For someone who preferred anonymity, being the focus of such intense public scrutiny must be excruciating.

  Suddenly, a man walked on to the stage. He emerged from the wings with his head down, looking at the papers in his hand. He wore no jacket, only a waistcoat over his shirt, and his boots made a clicking sound on the wooden planks.

  Joanna swallowed as her heart gave a lurch. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Bretton.’

  Laurence stopped, and raised his head in astonishment. ‘Lady Joanna? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came with your sister. Did you not see her?’

  ‘No, I’ve been in the green room.’

  Having no idea what a green room was, Joanna said, ‘She mentioned something about...going back to your uncle’s office. I think she expected you to be there.’

  ‘That would make sense since I told her I was here for a meeting with Theo,’ Laurence concurred. ‘But I have just been reviewing a few old plays for which I found scripts in the back office.’

  It occurred to Joanna, as she drew closer to the stage, that Laurence could easily have been an actor. He was certainly handsome enough to be a leading man and, holding what might have been a script in his hands, he looked completely at ease on the stage, ready to deliver his lines.

  ‘Are you going to perform for me?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘I would, but the scene calls for two people. Rosalind and Duke Frederick.’

  ‘As You Like It!’ Joanna said. ‘That was one of my governess’s favourites.’

  ‘Then perhaps you would care to come up and read it with me?’ Laurence said. ‘I have two copies.’

  Joanna blanched. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’

  ‘Why not? You said it would be fun to pretend you were someone else.’

  ‘Yes, but I never thought I actually would.’

  ‘Come, come, Lady Joanna, what better opportunity than this to indulge in a bit of wickedness? There is no one around to see you break one of society’s rules.’ Laurence gazed down at her, every word a challenge. ‘Why not take the opportunity to do something you might never do again? And that you might actually enjoy?’

  Joanna felt her pulse begin to race, both from nervousness and from the thought of doing something she had never done before and that by rights she shouldn’t be doing now!

  Yet she wanted to, so very much. Laurence was right when he’d said there was no one else here—not a soul to watch her make a fool of herself. There was just the two of them. And it might, after all, be fun...

  ‘Come on, Lady Joanna, where’s your sense of adventure?’ Laurence whispered. ‘The theatre is a world of make believe. Here you can be Rosalind or Cleopatra. Lady Macbeth or Juliet. Or just...Lady Joanna Northrup pretending to be someone else.’

  He was the devil in disguise, Joanna decided as she reluctantly walked on to the stage. Only the devil could make the doing of something immoral feel like it was anything but. ‘If anyone finds out about this—’

  ‘No one is going to find out,’ Laurence assured her as he handed her one of the scripts. ‘The only people in the building are my uncle, my sister and an elderly stage hand. If there was anyone who I thought might take note of your actions, I would tell you. You believe me, don’t you?’

  For whatever misguided reason Joanna did. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then let’s give it a go, shall we?’

  It all seemed harmless enough. Joanna glanced down at the script and saw that her part, or rather Rosalind’s, was marked in red. Duke Frederick, the part Laurence was reading, was in black. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  At her nod, he took a few steps away. When he turned back, it was as though Duke Frederick stood in his place. He appeared straighter, stiffer, his shoulders thrown back, his head held high. ‘“You, cousin, within these ten days if that thou be’st found so near our public court as twenty miles, thou diest for it.”’

  Joanna stared at him in disbelief. Dear Lord, even his voice was different! It was stronger. Richer, imbued with the authority of a royal duke—

  ‘Lady Joanna?’ He was Laurence again.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yes.’ Joanna glanced down at the page. Her hands were shaking and her heart was pounding. She’d never felt so self-conscious in her life. She took a deep breath, and began to read. ‘“I do beseech you
r grace, let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me—”’

  ‘Slower, Joanna,’ Laurence said, surprising her by the easy use of her first name. ‘In speaking to thousands of people, you must not rush your words. Feel the richness of the language. The beauty of the Bard’s words.’

  Joanna nodded and, gripping the papers harder, began again. She wanted to do this well, if for no other reason than to look good in his eyes. ‘“I do beseech your grace, let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me. If with myself I hold intelligence or have acquaintance with mine own desires, if that I do not dream or be not frantic, as I do trust I am not, then, dear uncle, never so much as in a thought unborn did I offend your highness.”’

  ‘“Thus do all traitors,”’ Laurence replied, striding back towards her, ‘“if their purgation did consist in words, they are as innocent as grace itself. Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.”’

  ‘“Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor,”’ Joanna said, hearing her voice echo in the emptiness of the theatre. ‘“Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.”’

  ‘“Thou art thy father’s daughter,”’ Laurence intoned, taking her chin in his hand and tipping it up so that their eyes met. ‘“There’s enough.”’

  ‘“So was I when your highness took his dukedom.”’ Joanna trembled at the touch of Laurence’s hand, yet it was as though she saw in his face, the face of her scheming uncle and all he stood for. ‘“So was I when your highness banished him. Treason is not inherited, my lord,”’ she said proudly. ‘“Or if we did derive it from our friends, what is that to me? My father was no traitor. Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much to think my poverty is treacherous.”’

  She went to pull free of Laurence’s grip, but he held her firmly in place, his eyes burning into hers as he stared down at her.

  Joanna met his gaze boldly, still viewing him as Rosalind to Duke Frederick, the tension between them causing her breath to quicken and her chest to rise and fall in the drama of the moment.

  And then, abruptly, everything changed. It wasn’t Duke Frederick’s face she saw a heartbeat away from hers, but Laurence’s—one that had become dearer to her than any other. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face, smell the fresh citrus scent of his soap as he drew closer. In that moment, they were totally alone in that deserted theatre. No one else there...only the two of them.

  ‘Joanna,’ he whispered. His head bent towards hers, his lips drawing closer as she closed her eyes and reality slipped away—

  She heard the applause first. A slow, steady clapping of hands. Then, ‘Bravo, Lady Joanna, bravo! ’Pon my word, I have never seen such a compelling Rosalind these many years.’

  Joanna gasped and jumped back, thrusting the script behind her. ‘Mr Templeton!’ To her horror, Laurence’s uncle and sister were smiling up at her from the pit. ‘I had no idea you were there!’

  ‘I could tell,’ Mr Templeton said. ‘You were amazing! Totally consumed by the part. Laurence, why did you not tell me the young lady could act? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person with no experience step into a role so quickly.’

  His words, though flattering, did nothing to lessen Joanna’s mortification. She had been caught on a stage, with her chin clasped in Laurence’s hand, staring up at him as though her life depended on it. And while Rosalind’s had—hers most certainly had not!

  ‘Yes, well, that was...quite thrilling,’ she stammered, tugging self-consciously at her spencer. She thrust the script back at Laurence, aware that the wretched man was grinning from ear to ear. ‘I really must be going.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Laurence said. ‘Or we could, if you like, run through a scene from Antony and Cleopatra. I happen to have some pages from it here—’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bretton, but I have had quite enough performing for one day! Good afternoon, Mr Templeton.’

  Her face burning, Joanna fled. She didn’t wait for either Laurence or his sister to join her. She ran out to the waiting carriage, only to sit there with her face in her hands, wondering if she would ever recover from the humiliation.

  What must they be thinking? It was bad enough she had been heard reciting lines from a Shakespearean play with a certain degree of...enthusiasm, but to be caught staring at Laurence like some love-struck schoolgirl was beyond all explanation! Had they been enacting Romeo and Juliet she might have been able to put the look down to the part she was playing, but there would have been no love in Rosalind’s eyes when she looked at her uncle. There would have been antipathy. Hatred. Disgust.

  None of which Joanna had felt—or communicated—during her last few minutes on stage with Laurence. Her secret had been revealed by a man who had been dead for centuries!

  Truly, the gods were not smiling upon her today!

  * * *

  It was a quiet ride home.

  At least, Joanna was quiet. Laurence and his sister chatted the entire way and though Joanna knew they were trying to put her at ease, she could not so easily be comforted.

  ‘Please do not be embarrassed by what happened on stage. Lady Joanna,’ Mrs Devlin said, her warm eyes filled with compassion. ‘My brother can be very persuasive when he sets his mind to it, and for what it’s worth, I thought you made a superb Rosalind!’

  ‘Indeed, you were exceptional,’ Laurence said as the carriage drew to a halt in front of Joanna’s home. ‘You played the part splendidly.’

  Somehow, Joanna managed to rouse a smile in the midst of her embarrassment, even though praise for her acting ability was not what she wanted to hear. ‘Thank you.’ She wanted to tell them it wasn’t playing the part of Rosalind that she regretted, but that look. The one that had revealed far too much about her feelings for Laurence in front of both his uncle and his sister.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell your father that I will call on him in the morning,’ Laurence said, walking the short distance from the carriage to the door with her. ‘If he has time.’

  Joanna’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You wish to speak...to my father?’

  ‘Yes. About the Rosetta Stone,’ he said. ‘I did make mention of that the other night.’

  ‘Of course,’ Joanna said, wishing a cataclysmic event would sweep her away like the eruption of Vesuvius had swept away Pompeii. Why else would he wish to speak to her father?

  ‘I shall make mention of it to him over dinner this evening. If you do not receive word to the contrary, you will know that he has time.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Laurence bowed, but his eyes never left hers. ‘And again, please do not regret what happened this afternoon, Lady Joanna,’ he said softly. ‘For what it’s worth, I most certainly do not.’

  * * *

  Joanna’s father was not otherwise engaged the following morning. When Quenton arrived to tell them that Mr Bretton was at the door, Bonnington instructed that he be shown in at once.

  Joanna, sitting at her desk in front of the window, kept her head down and endeavoured to pay attention to her reading. Unfortunately, just knowing that Laurence was in the house made that all but impossible.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Bretton,’ her father said when the gentleman appeared. ‘You look in fine fettle this morning.’

  ‘It is a superb morning and I slept uncommonly well,’ Laurence said. ‘At least, I slept well when I did finally get to sleep. I have been up the last few nights working on a new play. Good morning, Lady Joanna.’

  Joanna looked up, as though only just having become aware of his presence. ‘Mr Bretton. How nice to see you again,’ she said, moved to think that he did look uncommonly well for all the protestation of a late night. Casually dressed in a dark-blue jacket over buff-coloured breeches, and with that wicked sparkle in his eye, he was as dashing as she had ever seen him.

  ‘So, you wish to talk to me about the Rosetta Stone,’ her father said, thankfully drawing Laurence’s attention away from her.

  ‘Amongst other things. I have been reading about the deciphering of the hieroglyphic symbols
at length this past six months and wondered what your thoughts on the validity of the stone were,’ he said, his expression at ease, but the excitement in his voice palpable.

  Joanna recognised that for what it was. She felt exactly the same way whenever an opportunity to talk about some aspect of Egyptian culture or history came up. But as the minutes passed and she listened to the conversation taking place, she couldn’t help but again be impressed by the extent of Laurence’s knowledge. His questions were intelligent and his opinions, when her father asked for them, were logical and made on the basis of knowledge rather than speculation.

  ‘Well, Mr Bretton, I admit to being surprised,’ Bonnington said when the maid arrived with a tea tray. ‘Your knowledge of life during the reigns of Ramesses II and III is impressive. Tell me, if an opportunity came up for you to accompany us to Egypt, would you take it?’

  Joanna’s head snapped up. Her father was inviting Laurence to come to Egypt with them? Oh, no, no, this was not good. Captain Sterne was going to be on that expedition. If she and Laurence went, she could only imagine how difficult life would be for all of them. Sterne would be there every day, watching what she and Laurence did. Listening to everything they said. Putting his own interpretation on every casual smile and every innocent gesture.

  It would be torture! How could the three of them possibly exist in such close proximity for all that time? More importantly, how could she work so closely with Laurence for all those months and not give herself or her feelings for him away?

  Please say no, Laurence! Joanna whispered silently. Please do not make me go through this!

  Sadly, Laurence did not say no. After a brief hesitation, he leaned forwards in his chair and said in a voice of unmistakable pleasure, ‘Yes, I most certainly would.’

  And with those five words, Joanna saw her carefully mapped-out life begin to unravel. ‘But...what about your plays?’ she blurted out.

  ‘I would still be able to write,’ Laurence said, his gaze sharpening as it turned to rest on her. ‘There would simply be more time between plays. But I wouldn’t miss the chance to go to Egypt. It has long been an ambition of mine.’