Love’s a Stage Page 10

  Frances had met his gaze bravely as long as she was able. When she could do it no longer, she turned her head as though to look out of the window at the passing night scene. Unfortunately, the window had been broken and replaced with a wooden shutter. She felt ridiculous staring at it, and the acid silence burned her nerves.

  “You make it very difficult for me to say thank you,” she said in a suffocated tone.

  “I know,” he said. “Is it so important to you, saying thank you, or is it another thing you think you ought to do? Your hand’s trembling. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m tired, and you make me feel uncomfortable.”

  “I can’t help that, dear.” His voice was soft. “Unless you’ll let me.”

  His hand slid through the front of her coral brocade pelisse and made a warm cup over the thin chintz gown that covered her shoulders. Quickly, fearfully, she braced her small mittened hands on his chest, resisting him.

  “Frances, lovely Frances, you know what happens between a man and a woman, don’t you? I couldn’t possibly do that to you here; there’s not enough room. You can stop fighting for a moment.”

  “Tricks,” she said, trying to free herself, “and more tricks!”

  His expert grip held her easily. “Very astute,” he said with a dangerous sparkle. “I wouldn’t like you so much if you were stupid. Besides, you’ve got a fighting chance. I’ve been honest with you—I told you what I wanted within an hour of meeting you.”

  If only she were not so keenly aware of his closeness. “You won’t be able to seduce me.”

  It was his most attractive smile—tender, faintly amused. “If I’m not going to be able to seduce you, then what are you so worried about?”

  He coaxed her closer with the light urging of one hand. “You can then let me do this with perfect safety.” He rested the other hand against the back of her head, bringing her face up to his own. Then his lips were at the side of her face, nestled in the thick dark hair; she felt his soft breath and the warm, living texture of his skin. He touched his lips in a slow, circular motion over her smooth brow, down her small, perfectly shaped nose. “And this,” he said, “shouldn’t disturb you at all.”

  He moved her in his arms and then brought his lips down on hers. She made a sudden startled motion to pull herself free, but he was ready for it, and ruthlessly held her still. Landry was careful to cause her no pain. His grip was all steel but lined with velvet. He wanted nothing to distract Frances from her slow and frightened meeting with the aching, unexplored needs of her body. Cool and dry on her quivering softness, his searching lips taught her the lesson nature had intended her to learn. The delinquent scorch of passion began to burn away her rebellion, and as he felt it, he drew from her and studied her face. Her eyes were closed, the lovely dark lashes outlined against the blushing cream of her cheeks; her cheekbones stood out rigidly, yet delicately, the curving sculptured contours leading up from the small round chin. Frances’ hands were clasped before her in an attitude of fervent supplication, her lips slightly parted and full. As he watched, her eyes fluttered open, gazing at him in raptured inquiry.

  “It feels sweet when you don’t resist, doesn’t it?” he asked gently.

  She shivered, and shook her head weakly in denial. Landry laughed under his breath, and pulled her mouth once more to his, this time letting her feel some of the warmth of his desire, not enough to scare her, but only to feed her fledgling pleasure. He framed her face in his hands, dragging his lips back and forth across hers, then moved his mouth to the soft curve of her throat. Her response was a sharp, catching gasp. He covered her opened lips again, and gathered her close. Whispering her name against her softness, letting his fingers part and filter her curls, he shifted the slim girl tenderly against his body. He kissed her lips a last time and put her from him. His fingers spread on her cheek, caressed her dulcet and pliant lips with his thumb, feeling her shaky breath. Breaking contact, he opened the door of the still carriage, and escorted her silently to her aunt’s house.

  “You don’t know half my tricks, preacher’s brat,” Landry whispered to her before taking his leave.

  * * *

  The bells of St. Peter’s had rung in the dawn before Frances drifted into an uneasy, exhausted slumber. Her reflections had been no lullaby, and regret that she had entered the bawdy house struck repeatedly with the force of a brick heaved through a window. There seemed to be no end to the evil consequences! If she should be recognized by anyone who had seen her there, she knew she would achieve a notoriety that would stain her name as long as she lived. But paint had hidden her features, even if the white gauze had done the opposite for her body. Who had seen her closely? Madame and Beamer, she discounted. She wasn’t likely to see them again, and if she did, their treatment of her rendered them vulnerable for prosecution. They would never claim her acquaintance. There remained St. Pips, with whom she had sat for more than an hour, and Lord Landry’s cousin Giles, whose assessing gaze had been shrewd and thorough. Never, never must they find out her real identity!

  Oddly, not for a moment of her gnawing anxiety did it occur to her that Lord Landry would betray her. All thoughts of Landry she suppressed with a near-fanatic vigor. When that frenzied effort failed, she could only twist wretchedly in her bed, trying to find a cool spot on her pillow to soothe her hot cheeks and stinging lips. Why, oh why, had she not screamed or shoved him from her with quelling revulsion? So much for her fine talk of virtue and resolve! He must have thought her the veriest straw damsel! Tomorrow, without a doubt, she must find a way to discover more of Kennan; the sooner it was done, the sooner she could return to the protective wing of her family. The thought was a poor little solace to her misery, but it was her only one.

  At last she shut her eyes and awoke with a headache a painfully few hours later to see the parrot, Mr. Bilge, perched on the footboard of her bed, flapping his wings and emitting ear-piercing screams. Frances brought herself, on stiff arms and elbows, to a semi-sitting position, and stared at the bird. To her fuzzy morning eyes, he looked like a large gray blob.

  “Hello there,” said Mr. Bilge in a soft feminine voice.

  Frances felt her wounded pride swell; she had spent hours trying to teach the bird that phrase. Finally, he was repeating something she had taught him.

  “Hello there,” she answered with sleepy enthusiasm, rubbing her scratchy eyes. “Hello there.”

  Mr. Bilge beamed at her with hook-billed benevolence, then suddenly stiffened, spread his wings, and shrieked:

  “Move yer arse, ye swab.”

  Frances lay back and pulled the cover over her head. Mr. Bilge hopped down from the footboard, landing with a flump on the bed, and walked his way up her legs, his large talons digging fiercely into her, screaming, “Open the gunports! Fire!”

  She rolled to escape the bite of his claws. His footing disturbed, Mr. Bilge flapped over to sit on the wardrobe and gave her a knowing look with one beady eye. Frances sighed, slid from her bed, and began to dress.

  The parrot watched with approval as Frances covered her arm with the protective glove of heavy leather that she wore when carrying him. She attached a braided leash to one of his scrawny legs.

  “Pretty Polly,” she said. “Do you want to go for a walk, Mr. Bilge?”

  The city air was heavy with soot and stank from the yeast house near the river, making Frances pine for the stark salt breezes of her coastal home. In spite of that, the exercise did succeed in clearing her headache, and mingling with the animated crowds did something to dispel her melancholy. She bought her baby sister a penny jack-in-the-box that emitted a high-pitched squeal as it leaped from its box, and she chatted with a street hawker selling “lily-white vinegar” who had stopped to admire Mr. Bilge. Meeting Mr. Rivington in the hallway on her return, she was able to greet him with a measure of her customary equanimity.

  “Well! Frances Atherton!” he said when he saw her. He had been maneuvering a giant wicker basket through his apartment door
way, but he stood upright to smile at her, flex his shoulders, and run a hand through his crisp brown curls. “Good morning! An important purchase?” he said, indicating the box she carried.

  She flipped the catch on the jack-in-the-box, which snapped silently open to expel its nodding, grimacing prisoner. Mr. Bilge dived from Frances’ arm and flew as far as the reach of his leash to the stair handrail with a noisy flurry of wings. He cocked his head sideways and looked at Rivington.

  “It didn’t squeak!” exclaimed Frances. “When the vendor showed it to me, it made the most charming cry.”

  The corners of Rivington’s blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “A hoodwink, Miss Atherton. The sellers make that sound themselves without moving their lips.”

  “A fine swindle,” said Frances, returning his smile. “I shall have to learn the squeak myself before giving my sister the toy.”

  “Or teach Mr. Bilge,” he said. “Has he learned to speak like a gentleman yet?”

  “Not in the least! Yesterday he hopped on the tea tray and told Henrietta that rats had fouled her flour store. And she so neat! It was the greatest injustice, and Henrietta vows she’ll cook the creature yet. Aunt Sophie only says that if Mr. Bilge is cooked, she hopes he may not be served to her! Did you and your father finish the untangling of your balloon lines?”

  “Yes. There are some rents in the balloon skin, though, that must be dealt with before we’ll be able to make another flight. While I have you here talking, I’d better mention that David . . .”

  From outside the building door came the sound of a boot toe banging against the unyielding threshold, accompanied by the coarser sort of oath occasionally applied by gentlemen freed from the civilizing presence of the Fair Sex. Rivington met the interruption with a gesture that begged Miss Atherton’s pardon and opened the heavy door to admit Captain Zephyr, who came into the hallway bearing a greasy armload of machinery fittings. Captain Zephyr dropped them in a clanking heap on the hall carpet when he saw Frances, wiped his arms with an oily hand rag, and shook Frances’ hand.

  “Charming to see you again! Looking bright as a cherry, too. Over your head cold, are you? Good. Good! What’s that you’ve got? Richard, isn’t that the parrot that comes flying sometimes through your window? A fine fellow! Do you have the keeping of him, Miss Atherton?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Frances, looking at Mr. Bilge with more fondness than he probably deserved. “Though I have the feeling that he resents me for it. His disposition is remarkably independent.”

  “Is it?” Captain Zephyr gave the parrot his smiling approbation. “Must be the nature of flyers. Tell you what, Miss Atherton, come over here. I’d like you to have a look at something.” Zephyr walked to the wicker basket and snapped up the lid to expose a handsome mass of folded silk richly dyed in red, blue, and gold. “Ever seen a deflated balloon? It’s a lovely creature. Not half the glory it is in the air, though.” He grinned as he added, “Been laundered since we had it in the pigpen, of course.”

  Frances exclaimed delightedly as she stroked the colorful silk.

  “I can imagine it floating in a sky blue as cornflower, passing a soft, white sun. . . .”

  Rivington raised his eyebrows and pointed out unromantically that any balloon that floated past the sun would be in a very sober predicament.

  “Hush!” admonished his father. “The child has a poet’s heart!”

  Frances appeared surprised and disconcerted. A poet’s heart? It didn’t sound quite respectable. She was about to deny possessing so frivolous an organ when Captain Zephyr continued:

  “It’s those with large ideas who recognize the potential of flight! Bonaparte for one. He planned to invade England, carrying his army over on balloons. Did you know that, Miss Atherton?”

  “I believe that I did hear that it was perhaps under consideration at one time but that it was abandoned as hardly feasible. . . .”

  “Hardly feasible! That’s what his generals said, the damned chuckleheads. Not a scrap of imagination among’em. The military’s the same in this country. March around like stickmen and blow each other’s heads off with a cannon, that’s all they know. Times out of mind I’ve proposed to General Wellington that we establish our own Air Navy of ballooncraft. We’d better have a fleet of balloons for defense, before someone else builds one. Now you take the Germans . . .”

  Mr. Bilge had not the slightest intention of taking the Germans, at least not until after he had breakfasted. Clamping his powerful black bill on his leash, he began to tug with brutal insistence and an angry moan. Captain Zephyr was startled into a chuckle, and Frances decided that she had best take Mr. Bilge upstairs to be fed. She excused herself and made her good-byes. As she mounted the stairs, she turned back to look over her shoulder at Mr. Rivington.

  “Oh. I seem to recall that you were going to mention something to me about your cousin. . . .” She contrived to instill an indifference in her voice.

  “Lord, yes! David was around before you came in from your walk and asked me to pass on a message from the Drury Lane. It seems Scott’s changed his mind. If you come to the theater this afternoon, he’ll place you in the company.”

  It might have been only Frances’ sensitive imagination, but it seemed to her that Rivington’s tone smacked of irony. Bristling, she said:

  “Scott changed his mind—or did Lord Landry change it for him?”

  Rivington’s shrug was carefully noncommittal. He turned toward his apartment, but stopped before reaching his door. He hesitated, then returned to the stair-floor and looked up steadily at Frances.

  “You’ll have to ask David that yourself,” he said, with a trace of impatience. “This whole business is—” He seemed to alter his choice of words. “—is between you and David. You weren’t here when he called, I’m only repeating what he told me. That’s it. Full stop. I’m not interested in becoming a . . .”

  “Panderer?” suggested Frances, glaring at him.

  “Go-between!” snapped Rivington.

  Captain Zephyr had at first been confused by the flash-flood suddenness of the quarrel, but at his son’s words a light dawned. Into the silence, he said gloomily:

  “I see what it is. David’s been bothering Miss Atherton.”

  “No!” exclaimed Frances, flushed with embarrassment and wishing she had not let her temper get the better of her.

  “Don’t have to douse cane sugar over the thing on my account,” said Captain Zephyr, looking comfortingly paternal. “I know how these young bucks are. More females than they know what to do with, but forever thinking they must have one more. I’ve seen Richard here, and Giles go that same route times out of mind.”

  A certain glint in Rivington’s blue eyes informed Frances that he in no way relished the fatherly strictures. Concern that she might have inadvertently provoked an argument between the two men led Frances to intervene hastily.

  “I wouldn’t like you to think that Lord Landry has been brutal or . . . or coercive. It’s just that I shouldn’t care to be in his debt.” The one hundred guineas he had expended to remove her from Chez La Princesse swept unpleasantly into her mind. Her voice was uncomfortable as she amended, “Anymore than I am already.”

  Captain Zephyr shook his head, tsking while he sat on the bottom step, and still looking at Frances, patted the space beside him invitingly. She joined him with a pretty air of uncertainty and he removed the irritable Mr. Bilge from her arm and consigned the grumbling bird once more to the handrail with the words:

  “You stay there!” To Frances he said, “You want to act at the Drury Lane Theatre, am I correct?”

  “It’s not exactly that I want to . . .”

  “Yes or no?” interrupted Captain Zephyr sternly.

  “Yes.”

  “Very well then! Don’t stand-muffit fretting about a lot of false obstacles. This thing with David; I love the boy like he was one of my own. Does the family proud! Aye, he’s a good lad, but mind you—with the ladies, that’s another sonnet. Pretty
filly like yourself has got to watch her step, I know! I’m not saying that it would have been a good idea for you to ask David to help you out, not with him pestering to make you one of his light O’ loves. Cat’s on a different cot entirely, if he’s gone and talked to Scott without consulting you. All you do is to write out David a note going something like this, see: Miss Atherton chooses to inform Lord Landry that she is willing to accept the Drury Lane role with the understanding that her gratitude shall be expressed in no other form than the thank-you herein.”

  “Would that really serve, sir?” asked Frances, doubtful but impressed by this unexpected stroke of savoir faire. The question was directed at Captain Zephyr, but it was his son who answered.

  “That might deal with David.” Rivington braced his shoulders against the hallway wall and folded his arms in front of him. “But the more I come to know you, Frances, the more I regret having suggested trying the Lane. You should never have so much as set your little slippered foot in the back door. Won’t you consider giving up the idea?”

  Frances swallowed her misgivings and stood with what looked like a lot of determination. “Certainly not! It can’t be so bad if your father approves.”

  “My father,” said Rivington sardonically, “approved when my sister wore red lamé to her come-out ball and kicked her shoes off for the waltz. Every tabby in the place had a spasm.”

  Richard Rivington’s friendship with his older cousin David had been one of unmixed harmony. There was trust and affection on both sides, and because they never interfered in each other’s lives, they never clashed. Since Richard would have loathed to so much as pass judgment of Lord Landry’s snuff sort without being invited to do so, the past was void of any precedent that would have allowed Rivington to condemn his cousin’s attentions toward Frances. When Rivington had first met Frances, it had not occurred to him that he might ever want to do so. What was she? Pretty, yes, and stuffy in an appealingly droll fashion. Her obsession with Kennan had seemed a schoolgirl intrigue that she would soon be forced to abandon by some parental authority. When no such intervention came about, Richard found, in his growing fondness, a nagging sense of being somehow responsible for Miss Atherton. He had no right to tell her what to do, of course, and no right to protect her; undoubtedly she would have erupted like an Italian volcano if he tried. He wished he knew what to do with the girl!