The Wicked Marquess (10 page)

Benedict only half-heeded Lady Cecilia’s chatter. His attention was focused outside. When the lights flared at the theater entrances, the surrounding area came alive with the clatter and rattle of hooves and wheels, the cries of street-vendors hawking their wares. Heavily painted women in gowns cut low to reveal rouged nipples lounged at alley corners or strolled the streets.

Baird was not listening to her. Ceci’s voice trailed off. If he could withdraw into his own ruminations, then she was likewise entitled to hers, which were largely concerned with gambling losses and wins. She knew a great deal about games of chance, courtesy of her departed spouse. Only a halfwit could have lived with Harry and not learned from his mistakes. Unlike him, she had a flair for the cards, and a cool caution that he had lacked.

Faro was a complex game, involving one banker and an unlimited number of players who placed bets with the dealer concerning certain combinations of cards. The odds in favor of the banker were second only to roulette. Ceci’s drawing room could easily be fitted up with tables and chairs and a faro bank. How many additional servants would be required? A minimum of four maidservants, she concluded; along with two waiters, a coachman and a croupier. Which was, of course, impossible.

Faro banks were, in that moment, the furthest thing from her escort’s thoughts. He had progressed from contemplation of the dangerous streets through which they drove to consideration of a recent conversation with his man of business concerning odd occurrences on one of his estates. Benedict was determinedly
not
thinking about a certain young – very young – woman whom he was resolved to absolutely, most definitely, not seduce.

The lamplighters had long since been about their duties when Lord Baird’s carriage joined the crowded rank of vehicles lined up in front of the Catherine Street entrance of the Theater Royal at Drury Lane. A great statue of Apollo crowned the façade. Inside the theater, countless candles blazed. Benedict guided Lady Cecilia through the noisy crowd and to his box, where Percy Pettigrew was regaling his companions with a great deal of animated and malicious conversation about the foibles and indiscretions of the gay and polite, a great many of whom — according to Percy — had a weakness for worldly pursuits and adulterous affairs. Viscount Penworthy tutted, Lady Margaret tittered, Major and Mrs. Watson gave every appearance of being equally entertained.

The final member of the party smiled politely. A newcomer to Town, Paul Hazelett was an unremarkable gentleman with brown hair and sleepy eyes. He was dressed very correctly in long-tailed coat, white waistcoat, and black pantaloons. Percy was more daring in his costume: this evening he had affected a black cravat.

“There you are!” he said, as Lord Baird and Lady Cecilia entered the box. “We had given you up for lost. You are in looks, Ceci. Haven’t I seen that gown before?”

Lady Cecilia cast a reproachful glance at her cousin. Not only must the wretch comment unkindly on her garments, he had invited a stranger to join their party, which was just the sort of impertinence that one might expect of him. Still, Mr. Hazelett seemed pleasant enough, and she was soon engaged with him in a conversation about the play. Gaily she chattered, and flirted, and smiled. If certain damsels had not learned that a lady’s success lay in her ability to please the gentlemen, Lady Cecilia knew it well.

Benedict settled back in a chair, prepared to endure an interval of boredom. Pit and gallery were crowded, as were the boxes and balconies. Ladies and gentlemen of fashion displayed themselves and talked and laughed, ignoring the music of the orchestra, and the action on the stage. Benedict recognized this person and that, and there in the opposite box— He frowned.

 “The piece is surely not so bad as that.” Ever alert, Percy followed Benedict’s gaze. “Ah, the little Russell. Not in your usual style, is she, my friend? Ceci! Behold this season’s Nonpareil.”

Chapter Twelve

The key rotated in the lock. The door sank with a great crash. An interior apartment was revealed.

In the center of the chamber, a skeleton sat on its tomb. Over its head, written in blood, were the words, ‘The Punishment of Curiosity’.

Miranda leaned back in her seat. Despite a certain skepticism concerning why someone would marry a man with an ugly blue beard and mysteriously disappearing wives, she had enjoyed the play. So she said. Mr. Dowlin beamed.

At this indication of his rival’s increase in favor, Mr. Atchison paused in his discourse concerning the history of the theater – built under a royal patent in 1663 by the playwright Thomas Killigrew for his company, the King’s Servants, and scene two years later of Nell Gwyn’s acting debut – and Mr. Burton scowled. Mr. Burton could have cared less that the boards at Drury Lane had been trod by such luminaries as David Garrick and Dorothea Jordan, John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons. Mr. Atchison’s infernal prosing made a fellow yawn until his jaw cracked.

The ladies were not similarly affected. They hung on his words. Furthering Mr. Burton’s annoyance was the fact that he was not enjoying the play. For one thing, he disliked loud noises. For another, the fanciest theatrical backdrops could only fail to impress someone who had seen the shiny roofs of Tipoo Sultan’s palace, the sugar-white minarets of his mosque, the flat boulders of the River Cauvery which encircled the island of Seringapatam, and the shell-shattered trees and hedges that had concealed the British siege-works.

Mr. Burton was mistaken upon at least one matter: no one was hanging upon Mr. Atchison’s words. Nonie, though she had enjoyed the entertainment, preferred Gothic melodrama enacted in gloomy, ruined abbeys and featuring outcasts and ghosts, long lost relatives and long concealed crimes, for example
The Castle Spectre
, written by Monk Lewis, which had had a prodigious theatrical run due largely to the wondrous effect of sinking the ghost in flame. Sir Kenrick was contemplating improvements in the Argand lamps, stage lighting devices that employed cylindrical wicks and glass chimneys to control the relative proportions of oxygen and oil. Miranda was mulling over the moral of the evening’s entertainment, and comparing herself to the heedless young wife who persuaded her husband’s servant to admit her to the forbidden Blue Chamber.

But Miranda hadn’t been admitted, had she, and thus had no opportunity to discover whether skeletons lurked in Sinbad’s lair. Even though he had agreed to assist her in – what had he called it? – her ‘fall from grace’.

The curtain descended, a hazy green drapery depicting the classical muse of Comedy and a waterfall in a glade. One of the actors stepped forward and announced that following a brief intermission there would be renderings by a popular vocalist and some conjuring tricks. The audience applauded, shouted, hissed. The actor bowed himself out through one of the doors, with brass knockers on them, which always stood open upon the stage.

Mr. Atchison immediately suggested that the ladies might benefit from gentle exercise and a breath of fresher air. Mr. Dowlin, less fast on his feet but nonetheless no flat, allowed that he would benefit from the same, a statement that caused Mr. Burton to gnash his teeth, because he hadn’t been attending and had therefore allowed his rivals to pull such a sly trick.

Mr. Burton refused to trail after Miss Russell like some love-struck clunch. He withdrew to the Green Room behind the stage, a general dressing area scattered with tables and wig stands, where gentlemen visited with the cast between acts. Sir Kenrick, who agreed with Antoinette’s opinion that none of these youngsters would do for Miranda, took himself off to quiz various of his acquaintances about their marital aspirations under the pretext of discussing Argand lamps.

Lamps were also on the mind of Mr. Atchison, and candles as well, for fire was a constant danger in the theaters. It took only one careless sceneshifter to set flimsy stage dresses and scenery alight. The original theater at Drury Lane had been badly damaged by fire some nine years after it opened, and had subsequently been rebuilt. But the ladies were not to worry! The current theater was rendered fireproof by water tanks placed in the roof, the contents of which had been used to good effect in
The Virgin Unmasked
, when they were emptied splashing and dashing and tumbling over artificial rocks. Though he could not know it, there was considerable irony in Mr. Atchison’s claims: the theater would burst into flame some few years hence and blaze with such fury that it illuminated Lincoln’s Inn Fields with the brightness of day.

Mr. Atchison was trying very hard to win favor with Miranda. He had even applied juice of whatever-it-was to the freckles on his face. He hoped Miranda would not next require him to drop something in his ears. But if she did, so be it. He would have trod hot coals for her, if only she had asked.

Mr. Atchison spoke, and the others listened, as they made their way through the noisy crowd. Rather, Mr. Atchison spoke, and Nonie and Mr. Dowlin listened; Miranda had again withdrawn. She was trying hard for patience, a lack of which was one of her many character flaws.

She had not heard from Benedict since they met in the gardens. Should she send another note? No, Miranda had made her proposal, and he had accepted, and she didn’t want to be the
pushing
sort.

She must see all she could of London before she was sent back to the country and left at last to tend her garden in peace. Oddly, the prospect of peaceful garden tending did not appeal as much as once it had.

Suddenly her senses prickled. Miranda looked around. Strolling in their direction was Lord Baird, in company with several other people. Lady Cecilia was by his side.

How fine they looked together. How possessively the blasted woman clung to his arm. No doubt Lord Baird had kissed Lady Cecilia any number of times, and engaged in more intimate pursuits as well.

Miranda had known that Lady Cecilia was Benedict’s particular friend. Yet she had foolishly assumed the marquess would not continue to pay court to another woman while he contrived at her own disgrace.

Not that the marquess was doing much contriving. One might almost think that he didn’t truly wish to do the deed. Miranda raised her chin and watched Lord Baird and his party approach, and not by the quiver of an eyelid did she reveal that she felt like Blue Beard’s wife discovering the contents of the forbidden room.

“Miss Russell.” Percy Pettigrew executed an elegant bow. “May I present my companions?”

Graciously, Miranda acknowledged the introductions. Carefully, she kept her expression blank. Resentfully, she discovered that Lady Cecilia was even more beautiful when viewed at close range.

In turn, Lady Cecilia scrutinized Miranda. Every other female became a rival when one reached a certain age. Miss Russell was not only depressingly young she was also abominably attractive. Ceci discovered in herself a positive loathing for caramel hair and violet eyes, both of which, she assured herself, were altogether unfashionable.

“Do you enjoy the theater, Lady Cecilia?” Mr. Atchison inquired politely. Ceci admitted that she enjoyed the theater very well. She had even enjoyed seeing Mrs. Jordan as Miss Racket in
Fashionable Friends
, and Mr. Kemble as Sir Dudley Dorimant, though the play had been withdrawn after two performances and condemned as consisting of material as flimsy and sentiments as indecent as had in many years debased the British stage. Mr. Atchison could not comment with any certitude on the subject of
Fashionable Friends
, not having seen the play, but he was able to converse with considerable assurance about an accident that had befallen Mrs. Jordan while she was playing the part of Peggy in
The Country Girl
at the Margate Theater. The actress had nearly burnt to death when her gown burst into flame quite up to the waist, and had concluded her last scene in her petticoat. So very well did Mr. Atchison and Lady Cecilia get along that Miranda grew even more annoyed. She had intended Mr. Atchison for Nonie, but Lady Cecilia was monopolizing every gentleman in the vicinity.

Not every gentleman. Mr. Hazelett awarded Nonie a polite smile. “A penny for your thoughts, Miss Blanchet,” he said.

“They are hardly worth so much,” Nonie replied.

“My dear Miss Blanchet, you underestimate yourself,” interjected Percy. There was smoky something in the wind and it wasn’t the smell of the Argand lamps. Miss Russell appeared to be on the fidgets, he observed.

Miranda was indeed on the fidgets. With each passing moment she grew more convinced that a certain rakehelly marquess had offered her false coin. She had been enjoying her adventure very well and now her pleasure was destroyed.

He drew her aside. She awarded him a scowl. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Russell,” Benedict said, then lowered his voice. “I’ve not forgotten my promise. More opportunities will present themselves now that we’ve been properly introduced.”

 “I have not the least distant guess what you are talking about, my lord.” Miranda turned her shoulder on him and suggested to her companions that since the intermission was nearly over, they should resume their seats, because she was eager to observe the conjuring tricks.

Definitely Miss Russell was an Original, mused Percy. Few young women would rather watch a conjurer than converse with Baird.

Miranda reseated herself in her uncle’s box. No one, especially Benedict, must realize that she was upset. Miss Russell laughed, and chatted, and set out to charm, with the result that even her uncle, who should have known better, was disarmed.

Nonie sat quietly apart from her companions. Miranda could hardly get into mischief in the midst of so many people – or if she could, probably she would not, since her guardian was present – and so Nonie might enjoy a brief respite from her responsibilities.

That respite did not last long. Though the sight of a certain person and his companion quite revolted Miranda, she couldn’t prevent her gaze straying to the source of her distress.

What had caught the girl’s attention? Nonie leaned forward so that she too might observe what was of such interest in the opposite box. Oh heaven, could the gentleman Miranda wanted to kiss her be
Sinbad
?