by Linda Ladd
His eyes hardened as he watched Alysson wipe her tears with a lacy white handkerchief while the old German woman tried to comfort her. The little chit legally bore his name, but he had never known for sure if she was his. His teeth came together as the bitter memory punctured his mind like so many steel spikes. Twenty years had gone by since Judith Hampstead had humiliated him by running off with another man while she was betrothed to him—with a nobody, a penniless actor from the American colonies. He had never allowed her to forget the embarrassment she had caused him.
He had never really loved her anyway, of course. Their engagement had been arranged by Judith's father, Laurence Hampstead, and it was the Tyler name and title that Laurence had wanted, and the respectability and prestige that went with it. Daniel himself had been more than willing to marry into the wealthy merchant family. Judith's dowry alone had replenished his dwindling coffers. Laurence Hampstead had been enraged when his carefully drawn plans were thwarted by Judith's elopement, and it had been he who had hired men to bring her back. Their marriage had been performed the same day she returned, and when Judith had become pregnant at once, Daniel was never quite sure if she carried her lover's seed or his own. It galled him to this day that he had not been able to force the name of the man out of Judith, not even after Laurence Hampstead had died ten years ago and left both Judith and Alysson in his complete control, as well as the vast Hampstead fortune. It gradually had grown to the point where he couldn't stand the sight of her, and he had sent her here to Cornwall where he wouldn't have to abide her or her brat. But now she was dead, and it would be easier for him to force Alysson to marry the American.
He stared at his daughter a moment, objectively assessing her appearance. She had inherited her mother's hair, a rich red-gold that gleamed even now beneath the black woolen veil she wore. She was a beauty, as Judith had been before she began to age and lose her mind. Alysson's eyes were particularly lovely, as green as emeralds, breathtaking against her smooth white skin. He smiled. Donovan MacBride had tried for over a year to get out of the marriage contract he had signed years ago in a business deal with Laurence Hampstead, but perhaps when MacBride saw Alysson with his own eyes he might change his mind.
Daniel sat up as the parson finally ended his droning eulogy and stepped forward to pat Alysson's arm. Daniel signaled with a jerk of his head, and the two grave diggers he had hired clumped from the back of the room in their shabby homespun coats and mud-caked boots. They picked up the casket, both men casting compassionate glances at the beautiful girl weeping so pitiably. He stood as they passed him, swirling his heavy wool cape over his shoulders.
Outside, a fine steady drizzle drenched the ground, making it difficult to walk, and Daniel kept his regard on Alysson's trim figure as they walked slowly through the soggy yard to the gravesite on a hill behind the cottage. He had never paid much attention to her in her childhood years, and it mattered little to her since her grandfather Hampstead had fawned over her every word and action. It was Laurence's love for the girl that had prompted him to secure her future with the American, that and the lucrative business contract that went along with it. Laurence Hampstead had not been a man who neglected his business interests.
Daniel had spent those years working with the anti-American factions in Parliament. He had hated the upstart Americans with their talk of freedom and equality even before Judith had run away with one of them, and he was still ready to do anything in his power to see the United States brought back into the British harness. Now Alysson had become a very important, if unwitting, pawn to accomplish just that, and her beauty would be an extra enticement to persuade MacBride to honor the agreement. He really had no choice, anyway; he had been legally bound to Alysson since he had penned his name beneath Laurence Hampstead's signature.
Daniel chuckled to himself, pulling his cape tighter at the throat as wind drove stinging gusts to strike his face. He hadn't been able to believe his good fortune the day Laurence Hampstead's solicitors had presented him with the betrothal agreement between MacBride and Alysson. He had recognized the name at once. His informants in America knew MacBride well and had even heard rumors that he was involved in American espionage. If so, all the better, and if not, MacBride was still a prominent New York patriot and businessman. But even more important to Daniel and his agents, MacBride had high connections in the American Congress and even with President Madison himself. With Alysson married into such a household, Daniel's agents in New York would have legitimate social connections to the inner circle of American politics. With war about to erupt between England and America, he wanted Alysson there and married to MacBride, and he would see it done, by God, no matter what he had to do to accomplish it.
Alysson watched with hollow eyes as the coffin was lowered into the rectangular black hole to settle at the bottom, the ropes slapping against the wooden sides as they were pulled out again. Poor Mama, she thought with aching heart. Perhaps she was at peace at last. That's what Mathilde had said. She blinked back a fresh wave of tears, her fingers groping for the dainty cross of intricately wrought silver filigree where it hung around her neck. Adam Sinclair had given the necklace to her mother before Alysson had been born, and Judith had never taken it off, not until yesterday when Mathilde had removed it to prepare her body for burial. Now it was all Alysson had left of her mother.
A clod of dirt hit the top of the casket with a dull, final thud, and Alysson watched silently as the two men built a mound of red mud shovelful by shovelful. She felt Mathilde's arm around her shoulders, urging her to her feet, and she stood, moving to the grave to lay upon it the small bouquet of wild daisies that Freddie had picked early that morning. She turned to leave, but cruel fingers settled in a painful grip on her arm.
"Prepare yourself to come to London with me, girl,” her father's detested voice said close to her ear. “You are to be wed there."
Alysson jerked away from his touch, her face twisted with hatred. Daniel flinched at the look in her green eyes.
"Never,” she said through gritted teeth. “I will never marry and let myself be beaten and abused by a man as you did to Mother."
Daniel's initial surprise at her defiance turned to pure rage, and he swung the back of his hand at her face. Alysson groaned and fell sideways against her mother's grave, tasting the metallic tang of blood as it welled from her split lip.
"You'll do as I say, girl, or you'll end up in a hole like your whoring mother."
Mathilde began to cry as he strode away with long angry strides, then knelt by Alysson, dabbing gently at the blood oozing from the cut at the corner of her mouth.
"I won't do it,” Alysson murmured, her small chin rising with a determination that rose from the very core of her soul. “Never. I would rather be dead than do his bidding."
Chapter 1
The dainty ivory and ormolu clock on the mantel ticked softly, the only sound in the spacious bedchamber with its white canopy bed and lace-draped windows. It was the very room Alysson had occupied as a child before she was abruptly uprooted and transplanted to the wilds of the Cornish coast, and during the month that she had been back in London, she had slept there again, painfully reliving the happy days before her grandfather had died.
Now, as she stood motionless beside her chamber door, she had but one purpose in mind. Turning the polished brass handle ever so slowly, she peeked out into the marble-tiled hallway. The footman who had been instructed to guard her room sat in his place, his straight-backed velvet chair propped against the wall beside the door. He idly flipped a penny off his thumb and tried to catch it atop his other wrist as Alysson silently closed the door and slid the bolt into place.
The time had come to make her escape. After days of pretending to have resigned herself to the forthcoming marriage, she would flee her father's house forever. She moved quickly across the mauve and royal blue oriental carpet to where a tall lancet window opened out over the rear lawns. Twin pale blue satin settees flanked the window, and she stepped
up on the cushions of one to reach the high window latch. The window swung easily outward, a warm May breeze fanning the loose tendrils around Alysson's face as she leaned out over the sheer three-story drop to the ground.
Dusk was settling silently over the gardens and walkways of the Tyler ancestral mansion, but the cobbled drives were deserted since the servant staff were supping in their dining hall in the south wing. Daniel Tyler was busy in his study off the entry foyer with his solicitor, no doubt seeing to the final embellishments on the wedding between her and the unknown Donovan MacBride. This very night she had been scheduled to meet the bridegroom at his home, so it was imperative for her to be off the estate and lost in the crowded streets of London before anyone found out her escape plans.
Alysson's soft lips curved into a bitter smile as she envisioned the look on her father's face when he found her gone. The imagined visage also brought a shudder undulating down her back, and eager to be away, she picked up the small bag she had packed. She looked around again, then dropped it, watching as it fell into a box hedge growing against the first-floor windows. She let fall her heavy black cape next, then, without hesitation, she pulled the back of her dark blue silk skirt up between her legs and tucked it into the front of her bodice. That done, she climbed with the utmost self-confidence out upon the high window ledge.
She was not afraid of the drop yawning menacingly beneath her. She and Freddie had climbed down cliffs higher than that to reach the ocean caves, where the sea had thundered with magnificent echoes. She allowed herself a pang of regret at the thought of Freddie and Mathilde, wondering if they had made it safely to the village of Standington, where Mathilde's kin lived, after Alysson's father had callously cast them out of the farmhouse. She hoped they fared well, but now she couldn't let herself worry about anything but her escape.
Leaning around, she grasped the sturdy vines covering the outside wall, pulling down to test them with her weight. The glossy green leaves of the ivy held firm, inexorably tangled after a hundred years of steady growth on the facade of the red-brick house. She held on tightly, finding a foothold, then carefully began her descent, avoiding the windows. Three feet from the ground she let go, landing in a squatting position behind a fragrant oleander bush. She waited an instant, listening. There was no sound other than the trilling of songbirds in search of a night roost, and she struggled to part the hedge in order to retrieve her bag. Once she had it, the first wave of elation shot through her.
She was out of the house! She pulled on the cape and her heart sped wildly as she tiptoed along the side of the house behind the bushes. Like a dark wraith, she crossed a pebbled path and melted into another hedgerow that led to the rear wall of the estate where the rose gardens were laid out.
Long ago, when she had been five years old, she had discovered a crumbling portion of the high outer wall while playing hide-and-seek with her mother. It was well hidden by trees and a trellis of climbing roses, and she headed there now, knowing full well she could not escape down the carriage road or even through the rear servant's gate without being seen.
The scent of roses perfumed the air as she moved past beds filled with huge red roses from China, then others with delicate blossoms of white and pink, all blooming profusely. Behind a rare apricot-tinted bush, she found her road to freedom. The bricks were in disrepair just as she remembered, and she agilely climbed the low-hanging branches of a huge oak tree, bag in hand, then carefully pulled her skirts and cape over the black spikes mortared into the top of the wall before she climbed down the other side.
Outside the confines of the Tyler demesne, carriages rolled by with a loud clattering of metal wheels and clopping hooves, and Alysson's heart lifted as she stood in the shadows looking at them go by. She wasted no more time, however, hurrying across the narrow street, avoiding the black-clad lamplighter who was affixing flame to the corner lamppost. As she put distance between herself and her prison, few of the other pedestrians paid heed to the slender, heavily cloaked figure, most of them intent on reaching their own homes and hearth fires before it grew late.
Nearly four blocks away, she drew to a stop near a corner intersection. Across the way, a long line of hansom cabs sat along the curbing, the drivers congregated in the yellow circle of a street lamp. She hesitated there, trying to make up her mind. If she hired one of them, and her father found out, he could force her destination out of the driver. The thought shook her. She couldn't risk that.
Her next consideration was finding her way on foot to the Crownover Theater, but she was not ignorant of the dangers for a woman alone in the streets and alleyways of London. Her gaze alighted on a wagon being unloaded on the opposite corner, and she deliberated a moment longer as she watched several young servants lift down a metal-rimmed barrel of wine then roll it up an angled platform to the door of a tavern. She made her decision quickly as she was wont to do, then walked unhurriedly across the street toward the working men, dodging a smart landau rattling its way down the dark street.
The driver of the wagon slouched indolently against the tall front wheel of his wagon, hands resting upon his fat paunch, and he eyed Alysson with interest as she stopped before him.
"Do you know the way to the Crownover Theater in Southwark?” she asked him, and he shifted his booted feet, standing upright. He scratched at his groin as he peered askance at the young girl with coppery braids swinging over her ears.
"I reckon I do, missy, but wut do a purty little gull like ye want to go there fer?"
"That, my good sir, is none of your affair,” Alysson answered coldly, and the man's eyes widened in surprise before he let out a harsh guffaw.
"Ye be a saucy bit o’ a wench, ain't ye?"
"I have a piece of gold to pay for your trouble, but can hire yonder hack if my money does not interest you.
She gestured at the high-seated carriages across the street, but the man's small dark eyes riveted greedily on the shiny coin, one of the ten gold pieces that Alysson had taken from her father's desk drawer. He reached for it, intending to test its authenticity between his teeth, but Alysson pulled back her hand before he could touch it.
"After we arrive at the Crownover, if you please,” she said, one finely arched brow lifted, and the driver muttered a few unintelligible remarks before he agreed.
"Then be gittin’ in the back wid ye afore me change me mind,” he said with a grunt. Alysson smiled as she swung up into the bed of the dusty wagon. She had dealt with peddlers and tinkers in Cornwall and learned to haggle with the best of them. She leaned back into the corner behind the driver's seat and raised her hood as the man called out gruffly to the huge horse. The wagon lurched, then began its rumbling journey through the dark, twisting streets of London.
It was hard for her to believe that she had really managed to escape. For the first time in her life she was completely on her own. It was a little frightening, not having her mother or Mathilde or Freddie with her, but the important thing was to get away from Daniel Tyler and the man he intended her to marry. She reached down into the deep pocket of her skirt and retrieved a piece of parchment. The paper was old and yellowed, with well-worn creases where it had been opened and refolded for years by Alysson's mother. She carefully spread the playbill on her lap and strained to see the printed words in the dim light from the driver's lamp, though she knew them by heart.
It was an advertisement for the Crownover Theater dated the fifth day of March, 1790. Twenty-one years ago it had heralded the accomplishments of a London Shakespearean troupe performing The Taming of the Shrew, but it was the list of bit players at the bottom that Alysson sought. Adam Sinclair. Her mother's true and only love. Her mother had told Alysson how she had met the young American actor. It was by pure chance, when the wind had blown Judith's bonnet from her carriage and he had retrieved it for her. He had begged her to meet him in a coffeehouse, and although Judith had been engaged to Alysson's father, she had gone with him. Afterward, she had attended every matinee in which Adam Sinclair pe
rformed his small part.
Alysson folded the parchment and leaned her head back against the rough planks of the wagon. They had eloped, but Alysson's grandfather had found his daughter and forcibly brought her back. She had never seen Adam Sinclair again. It was so sad, Alysson thought. But now that she was alone in the world, she meant to find Adam Sinclair. He was an actor, and that alone was a kindred link between them.
All her life, Alysson had dreamed of performing on the stage, ever since an early age when she realized she had a talent for memorization and mimicry. And now she would try to obtain work at the Crownover Theater. Any kind of work, either as a maid or as one who cared for the wardrobe, until she was given a chance to prove herself. When she had enough money saved, she would buy passage to America, where she would look for Adam Sinclair, if he were still alive.
She slid the advertisement back into her pocket as the horse slowed. She stood and handed the gold coin to the driver, then looked at the white pillared building looming beside them, as she climbed from the back of the wagon. It was dark now but apparently too early for theater patrons to arrive for the evening's performance, and Alysson moved through a large archway supported by Corinthian columns to a long covered portico with four sets of arched doors. Huge lamps had been lit at intervals along the front, each with a sketch beneath it advertising the current play.
Alysson stopped before one of them, staring at the likeness of an elegant woman in the dress of Desdemona. “The acclaimed American actress, Madame Rosalie Handel, on her Grand European Tour,” she read. How many times had Alysson imagined her own name on such a playbill? Not as Alysson Tyler, but as Silver Sinclair. She liked the sound of the name she had chosen to use for her stage life. It was a name people would remember. She never wanted to use the name Tyler again.
She stared at the woman in the picture. The fact that Madame Handel was an American was a stroke of good luck. Perhaps she would even know of Adam Sinclair. Alysson deemed that highly unlikely, but nevertheless she scanned the names of the players beneath the picture. Adam Sinclair's name was not there, as she had known it would not be.