A Night Like This (12 page)

“Don’t worry, Frances,” Harriet said, giving her hand a pat, “we won’t perform
The Marsh of the Frogs
. I wrote that years ago. My recent work is much more nuanced.”

“How far along are you on the one about Henry VIII?” Miss Wynter asked.

“A yen to have your head lopped off?” Daniel murmured. “She did want to cast you as Anne Boleyn, didn’t she?”

“It’s not ready,” Harriet said. “I have to revise the first act.”

“I told her it needs a unicorn,” said Frances.

Daniel kept his eyes on the girls but leaned toward Miss Wynter. “Am I going to have to be a unicorn?”

“If you’re lucky.”

He whipped his head around to face her. “What does
that
m—”

“Harriet!” she caled out. “We realy must choose a play.”

“Very wel,” Harriet said, sitting up exceptionaly tall in her seat. “I think we should perform . . .”
Chapter Ten

“T
he Strange, Sad Tragedy of Lord Finstead
???????”

Daniel’s reaction could best be summed up in two words:
Oh
and
no
.

“The ending is realy quite hopeful,” Harriet told him.

His expression, which he was fairly certain hovered somewhere between
stunned
and
aghast,
added
dubious
to its repertoire. “You have the word
tragedy
in the title.”

Harriet frowned. “I might have to change that.”

“I don’t think it’s going to work very well as
The Strange, Sad Comedy,
” Frances said.

“No, no,” Harriet mused, “I’d have to rework it completely.”

“But
Fin
stead,” Daniel persisted. “Realy?”

Harriet looked up at him. “Do you think it sounds too fishy?”

Whatever mirth Miss Wynter had been holding onto burst out in a spray of eggs and bacon. “Oh!” she exclaimed, and realy, it was difficult to summon any sympathy for her plight. “I’m sorry, oh, that was rude. But—” She might have meant to say more. Daniel couldn’t tel; her laughter got hold of her again, cutting off all inteligible speech.

“It’s a good thing you’re wearing yelow,” Elizabeth said to Frances.

Frances glanced down at her bodice, shrugged, then lightly brushed herself off with her serviette.

“Too bad the fabric doesn’t have little sprigs of red flowers,” Elizabeth added. “The bacon, you know.” She turned to Daniel as if waiting for some sort of confirmation, but he wanted no part of any conversation that included partialy digested airborne bacon, so he turned to Miss Wynter and said:

“Help me. Please?”

She gave him an abashed nod (but not nearly so abashed as she ought) and turned to Harriet. “I think that Lord Winstead refers to the rhyming qualities of the title.”

Harriet blinked a few times. “It doesn’t rhyme.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Elizabeth burst out. “
Fin
stead
Win
stead?”

Harriet’s gasp very nearly sucked the air from the room. “I never noticed!” she exclaimed.

“Obviously,” her sister drawled.

“I must have been thinking about you when I wrote the play,” Harriet said to Daniel. From her expression, he gathered he was meant to feel flattered, so he tried to smile.

“You have been much in their thoughts,” Miss Wynter told him.

“We shal have to change the name,” Harriet said with an exhausted sigh. “It’s going to be a horrible lot of work. I shal have to recopy the entire play. Lord Finstead is in almost every scene, you know.” She turned to Daniel. “He is the protagonist.”

“I’d surmised,” he said dryly.

“You will have to play his role.”

He turned to Miss Wynter. “There’s no getting out of it, is there?”

She looked utterly amused, the traitorous wench. “I’m afraid not.”

“Is there a unicorn?” Frances asked. “I make an excelent unicorn.”

“I think
I’d
rather be the unicorn,” Daniel said glumly.

“Nonsense!” Miss Wynter chimed in. “You must play our hero.”

To which Frances naturaly replied, “Unicorns can be heroes.”

“Enough with the unicorns!” Elizabeth burst out.

Frances stuck out her tongue.

“Harriet,” Miss Wynter said. “As Lord Winstead has not yet read your play, perhaps you can tell him about his character.” Harriet turned to him with breathless delight. “Oh, you will love being Lord Finstead. He used to be very handsome.” Daniel cleared his throat. “Used to be?”

“There was a fire,” Harriet explained, her brief sentence ending with the kind of sad sigh Daniel assumed was normaly reserved for victims of actual fires.

“Wait a moment,” he said, turning to Miss Wynter with growing alarm. “The fire doesn’t occur on stage, does it?”

“Oh, no,” Harriet answered for her. “Lord Finstead is already gravely disfigured when the play opens.” And then, in a burst of prudence that was both reassuring and surprising, she added, “It would be far too dangerous to have a fire on stage.”

“Wel, that’s—”

“Besides,” Harriet cut in, “it would be hardly necessary to help you with your character. You’re already . . .” She motioned to her own face with her hand, waving it in a bit of a circle.

He had no idea what she was doing.

“Your bruises,” Frances said in a very loud whisper.

“Ah, yes,” Daniel said. “Yes, of course. Sadly, I do know a bit about facial disfigurement at present.”

“At least you won’t need any makeup,” Elizabeth said.

Daniel was thanking God for small favors, but then Harriet said, “Wel, except for the wart.” Daniel’s gratitude was swiftly retracted. “Harriet,” he said, looking her in the eye as he would an adult, “I realy must tell you, I have never been a thespian.” Harriet waved this off like a gnat. “That is what is so wonderful about my plays. Anyone can enjoy himself.”

“I don’t know,” Frances said. “I did not like being that frog. My legs hurt the next day.”

“Perhaps we
should
choose
The Marsh of the Frogs,
” Miss Wynter said innocently. “Bottle green is all the rage in men’s clothing this year. Surely Lord Winstead will have something in his wardrobe in the color.”

“I am
not
playing a frog.” His eyes narrowed wickedly. “Unless you do, too.”

“There is only one frog in the play,” Harriet said blithely.

“But isn’t the title
The Marsh of the Frogs
?” he asked, even though he should have known better. “Plural?” Good Lord, the entire conversation was making him dizzy.

“That’s the irony,” Harriet said, and Daniel managed to stop himself just before he asked her what she meant by that (because it fulfiled no definition of irony
he’d
ever heard).

His brain hurt.

“I think it would be best for Cousin Daniel to read the play for himself,” Harriet said. She looked over at him. “I’ll fetch the pages right after breakfast. You can read it while we do our geography and maths.”

He had a feeling he’d rather do geography and maths. And he didn’t even
like
geography. Or maths.

“I’ll have to think up a new name for Lord Finstead,” Harriet continued. “If I don’t, everyone will assume he is realy you, Daniel. Which of course he’s not.

Unless . . .” Her voice trailed off, quite possibly for dramatic effect.

“Unless what?” he asked, even though he was fairly certain he did not want to hear her answer.

“Wel, you’ve never ridden a stalion backwards, have you?”

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Surely he would be forgiven for such a deficit, because, realy. A stalion? Backwards?

“Daniel?” Elizabeth prodded.

“No,” he finaly managed to say. “No, I have not.”

Harriet shook her head regretfuly. “I didn’t think so.”

And Daniel was left feeling as if he somehow did not measure up. Which was ludicrous. And galing. “I’m fairly certain,” he said, “that there is not a man on this planet who can ride a stalion backwards.”

“Wel, that depends, I would think,” said Miss Wynter.

Daniel couldn’t believe she was encouraging this. “I can’t imagine on what.”

One of her hands did a little flip in the air until the palm was facing up, as if waiting for an answer to drop down from heaven. “Is the man sitting backwards on the horse, or is the horse actualy moving in reverse?”

“Both,” Harriet replied.

“Wel, then I don’t think it can be done,” Miss Wynter replied, and Daniel almost thought she was taking the conversation seriously. At the last moment she turned away, and he saw the teltale tightening at the corners of her mouth as she tried not to laugh. She was poking fun at him, the wretch.

Oh, but she had chosen the wrong opponent. He was a man with five sisters. She didn’t stand a chance.

He turned to Harriet. “What role will Miss Wynter be playing?” he asked.

“Oh, I won’t be taking a role,” Miss Wynter cut in. “I never do.”

“And why is that?”

“I supervise.”

“I can supervise,” Frances said.

“Oh, no, you can’t,” Elizabeth said, with the speed and vehemence of a true older sister.

“If anyone is going to supervise, it ought to be me,” Harriet said. “I wrote the play.” Daniel rested one elbow on the table, then rested his chin in his hand and regarded Miss Wynter with carefuly studied thoughtfulness, maintaining this position for just long enough to make her shift nervously in her seat. Finaly, unable to take his perusal any longer, she burst out with, “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing, realy,” he sighed. “I was just thinking that I hadn’t taken you for a coward.” The three Pleinsworth daughters let out identical gasps, and their eyes, wide as dinner plates, darted back and forth from Daniel to Miss Wynter, as if they were folowing a tennis match.

Which he supposed they were of a sort. And it was definitely Miss Wynter’s turn to voley.

“It is not cowardice,” she returned. “Lady Pleinsworth hired me to shepherd these three young girls to adulthood so that they may join the company of educated women.” And while Daniel was trying to folow
that
overblown bit of nonsense, she added, “I am merely doing the job for which my services were engaged.” The three pairs of eyes lingered on Miss Wynter for one more second, then lobbed over to Daniel.

“A noble endeavor to be sure,” he countered, “but surely their learning can only be improved by watching your fine example.” And the eyes were back on Miss Wynter.

“Ah,” she said, and he was quite certain she was staling for time, “but in my many years as a governess, I have learned that my talents do not lie in thespian pursuits. I would not wish to polute their minds with such a sad talent as myself.”

pursuits. I would not wish to polute their minds with such a sad talent as myself.”

“Your thespian talents could hardly be worse than mine.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That is perhaps true, but you are not their governess.”

His eyes narrowed. “That is certainly true, but hardly relevant.”

“
Au contraire,
” she said, with noticeable relish. “As their male cousin, you are not expected to set an example of ladylike behavior.” He leaned forward. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

She smiled. Maybe a little bit. “Very much so.”

“I think this might be better than Harriet’s play,” Frances said, her eyes folowing her sisters’ back to Daniel.

“I’m writing it down,” Harriet said.

Daniel looked over at her. He couldn’t help it. He knew for a fact that the only utensil she was holding was a fork.

“Wel, I’m committing it to memory so that I might write it down at a future time,” she admitted.

Daniel turned back to Miss Wynter. She looked terribly correct, sitting in her chair with her perfect posture. Her dark hair was puled back into its requisite bun, every strand pinned meticulously into place. There was nothing about her that was remotely out of the ordinary, and yet . . .

She was radiant.

To his eye, at least. Probably to every male eye in England. If Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances couldn’t see it, it was because they were, wel, girls. And young ones at that, who wouldn’t know to view her as a rival. Unfettered by jealousy or prejudice, they saw her the way he rather thought she wanted to be seen—loyal, inteligent, with a fierce and clever wit.

And pretty, of course. It was the strangest thing, and he had no idea where the notion had come from, but he had a feeling that Miss Wynter liked being pretty as much as she hated being beautiful.

And he found her all the more fascinating for it.

“Tell me, Miss Wynter,” he finaly said, choosing his words with measured deliberation, “have you ever
tried
to act in one of Harriet’s plays?” Her lips pressed together. She’d been cornered by a yes-or-no question, and she was not happy about it. “No,” she finaly replied.

“Don’t you think it’s time?”

“Not realy, no.”

He settled his eyes firmly on hers. “If I’m in the play, you’re in the play.”

“It would be helpful,” Harriet said. “There are twenty characters, Miss Wynter, and without you, we’d each have to play five.”

“If you join in,” Frances added, “we’ll only have to do four each.”

“Which,” Elizabeth concluded triumphantly, “is a twenty percent reduction!”

Daniel still had his chin resting in his hand, so he tilted his head ever so slightly to give the impression of increased consideration. “No compliments for the excelent application of their mathematical skils, Miss Wynter?”

She looked about ready to boil, not that he could blame her with everyone conspiring against her. But the governess within her was quite unable to resist pointing out, “I told you that you would find it useful to be able to do sums and tables in your heads.” Harriet’s eyes grew bright with excitement. “Then that means you’ll join us?”

Daniel wasn’t certain how she’d reached that interpretation, but he wasn’t one to let an opportunity pass by, so he immediately threw in his support with, “Well done, Miss Wynter. We all must occasionaly venture outside our areas of comfort. I’m so terribly proud of you.” The look she gave him clearly said,
I will eviscerate you, you pompous wretch
. But of course she could never utter such a thing in front of the children, which meant that he could watch happily as she seethed.