Twelfth Night (7 page)
Authors: Deanna Raybourn
He looked down at the sleeping boy. “Our son,” he said, and in his voice was a note of wonder.
Chapter Ten
I
had
rather
adopt
a
child
than
beget
it
.
—
Othello
, I, iii, 189
Contrary to his prediction, Brisbane unearthed no trace
of Lucy outside of Blessingstoke. It made me uneasy that we could not find her,
but I held out the hope that if Brisbane could not run her to ground, neither
could Black Jack. Other matters were resolved to greater satisfaction. The
Twelfth Night rehearsals continued smoothly, apart from my sister Olivia
twisting her ankle and claiming she could no longer play the Turkish Knight.
Bellmont stepped in with alacrity, and waved the great sword with tremendous
enthusiasm, nearly taking off Valerius’s nose in the process.
“I think he is quite suited to playing the Turkish Knight,”
Portia told me. “His pomposity is perfectly appropriate.” She smiled at me, and
we exchanged conspiratorial looks, as if we were schoolgirls escaped from our
lessons. Jane the Younger was tucked up in the nursery as was John Nicholas,
both of them far too young for the chill of the Twelfth Night Revels. For the
weather had turned again, briskly beautifully cold, with a frosty nip that
caused the air to sparkle in the torchlight. Portia handed me a cup of Plum’s
special punch, brimming with spices and potently intoxicating.
As we drank, my eyes lingered on Perdita, costumed as a
woodland mushroom. I had neglected to take her back to the cottage with me, and
she had accepted my apology with her usual eccentric grace.
“That’s quite all right, Aunt Julia. If I had been there,
Cousin Lucy might not have confided in you.”
“Is that so important?” I asked, intrigued.
She nodded solemnly. “Without that meeting, she might not have
decided to give you little Jack.”
I opened my mouth to correct her, but she was already gone,
flown away to some other place like the bit of thistledown she was. I turned to
Brisbane. “Did you hear that? The family have decided to call him Jack. I don’t
know that I like it. It has overtones of your father.”
“Well, he definitely isn’t a John,” he told me. “John is a very
simple proper name, and what he did on the wall of our room last night was
neither simple nor proper. It took Morag the better part of the morning to clean
it off, and the paintwork will never be the same.”
“Serves her right,” I said mildly. “She insisted on being his
nanny instead of my lady’s maid. I have almost never called upon her to clean up
my bodily functions.” But I was still thinking of Perdita.
It was Perdita, much to the chagrin of Tarquin and Quentin, who
discovered that the oysters had been deliberately left out in the warm kitchens
to poison the family. The undercook, jealous of Cook’s position, had hoped to
shift the blame on her ailing superior. But Perdita unmasked her villainy, and
after Aunt Hermia boxed the undercook’s ears and sacked her without a reference,
justice was served. Brisbane, impressed with Perdita’s abilities, promised her a
job one day, and I was not entirely certain he was jesting. But before I could
enquire too closely, the Revels were upon us.
For the first time in ten years, the March family gathered to
perform the Twelfth Night Revels for the village of Blessingstoke, just as they
had done in Master Shakespeare’s day. The dragon breathed fire while the Turkish
Knight brandished his sword at St. George, and when it was finished, the
resurrected saint and his sad dragon stood in tableau while the white-robed
chorus, of which Portia and I made two, sang of the blood-berried holly and the
sweetly clinging ivy. Rather like Brisbane and myself, I thought fancifully.
Both evergreen and hardy, one sturdy, one tenacious, and forever undivided. But
now there was a new little branch grafted to our union.
I glanced to the nursery window, glowing warm and yellow
against the black walls of the Abbey as Jane the Younger’s nanny and Morag
looked down upon the frolics. I turned to see Brisbane’s eyes fixed on me, a
slow smile spreading over his face. I knew what he was thinking. We had a new
life ahead. New home, new work, new child, new cases. One case in particular
would prove particularly intriguing, and it was that case that persuaded me that
little Jack was forever and completely mine. But that is a tale for another
time.
* * * * *
1.
SILENT NIGHT
2.
THE DARK ENQUIRY
3.
DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING
4.
THE DARK ENQUIRY
About
the
Author
A sixth-generation native Texan,
New
York Times
bestselling author Deanna Raybourn graduated from the
University of Texas at San Antonio with a double major in English and history
and an emphasis on Shakespearean studies. She taught high school English for
three years in San Antonio before leaving education to pursue a career as a
novelist. Deanna makes her home in Virginia, where she lives with her husband
and daughter and is hard at work on her next novel.
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ISBN-13: 9781459256187
TWELFTH NIGHT
Copyright © 2014 by Deanna Raybourn
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