Love’s a Stage Page 12

  Landry disengaged himself with deadly friendliness, pinched her chin, and gave her a kind smile before resuming his study of Kennan’s dreadful brainchild. “You designed the monster, Edward? Is it safe?”

  Kennan’s face showed clearly that he relished not at all the implied doubt of his engineering ability. “Of course it’s safe! You see the pipe sections here? They’ll catch the blade before it comes close to Sheila’s pretty neck.”

  Frances said daringly, “Would you put your own head in it, Mr. Kennan?”

  Arrogance and cruel enjoyment of the grotesquerie before them were in Kennan’s face. “If my part called for it, yes. But, as I play Robespierre in Marie . . .” He shrugged.

  “Robespierre followed Marie Antoinette to the guillotine, don’t forget,” said Landry smoothly, with amusement. “Perhaps I’ll write a sequel to accommodate you.”

  “You’re too kind,” said Kennan sardonically. “Which calls to mind that I promised Her Grace the Duchess to entreat you to attend her masquerade ball on Sunday evening. No occasion could be a success without your . . . so charming presence! The Duchess has spent thousands preparing Fowleby Place for this event.”

  “I’ve already thanked the Duchess for her kind invitation and told her of my previous engagement that evening.” Landry’s gaze focused with unconscious volition on Frances, and she stared back. She had no intention of spending that evening or any other with Landry, nor, she was sure, had he meant the accidental linking of their gazes as an invitation; yet Frances felt some desperate undertow of emotion tugging her toward him. She was sure Sheila Grant had seen the attraction in her eyes, for the actress gave Frances a look of suppressed hatred. Too clever to show jealousy, Miss Grant attached herself once more to Landry’s arm and spoke sharply, as though to cut through any budding connection between Frances and the golden playwright by her side.

  “I’m surprised the Duchess has continued with the idea of a masked ball after the dreadful thievery of His Grace’s art collection. Four masterpieces stolen in as many months; the Fra Angelico, two canvases from Filippo Lippi, and then the El Greco. Is he not worried for another attempt?”

  “He worries about it day and night.” Faint contempt seasoned Kennan’s voice. “He’s done what he can. There are guards watching the door into the gallery and anyone entering who is not a member of the household is stopped instantly. Fowleby grieves over his lost paintings as if they were lost children! The Duchess feels it best to go ahead with the ball to divert His Grace’s mind.”

  Landry was as relaxed as ever, but it seemed to Frances that he was studying Kennan closely during this last speech. “They still have no clues, then?” asked Landry.

  “None,” answered Kennan. “The canvases were slit from their frames, the last three practically under the noses of the guards. The only sign of the thief’s presence was a window left open downstairs after the first theft. The mansion has been searched from tip to toe but not a single piece of evidence has been turned out.”

  A search! The word sparked in Frances’ mind. She had regretfully acknowledged that her discovery of the Blue Specter’s costume was useless. It was impossible to prove that Kennan was the man who had worn it to Beachy Hill. If, though, she could find an opportunity to search Kennan’s apartments at Fowleby Place, she might find positive evidence to link Kennan with his crime. If she could find one incriminating letter, one list of names, perhaps it might be enough! And Sunday night’s masked ball would be exactly the chance she needed to enter the Duke of Fowleby’s guarded mansion.

  Chapter Eight

  By Saturday morning Frances’ plan to gate-crash the masked ball at Fowleby Place had so far advanced that she had obtained the necessary disguise from Miss Freelove, who, Frances had discovered, made a generous addendum to her otherwise modest salary by arranging illicit loans of theater wardrobing upon request and the presentation of two pounds, six shillings.

  That left the problem of how to get into the party. No one in the Drury Lane company was invited, save Kennan, in his privileged position as Fowleby’s grantee. It was an affair open only to the first stare of fashion. The gentlemen of that lofty breed might choose to pass their leisure time with dramatis personae, but ladies of birth, except for an infamous few, would have as soon enjoyed an evening with a tribe of wild nomads. Even Aunt Sophie, a lady of quite respectable birth and reasonable fortune, could not aspire to the Duke’s ball. So Frances discovered at Saturday tea, politely interrupting Miss Isles’ fervent condemnation of her friend Mrs. Lairlarge’s cook, who had possessed the temerity to have served Miss Isles red mullet boiled.

  “Baked, broiled, or roasted!” exclaimed Miss Isles with an emphatic rattle of her teacup. “But on no occasion boiled! Of course I’m not invited to the Duke’s. I don’t know the man. And If I did, he probably wouldn’t invite me anyway. That’s the castle and ten-thousand-acre crowd.”

  “You’re a bishop’s aunt,” suggested Frances hopefully.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference if I was the Pope’s aunt. Religion’s been out of fashion since George I. Mark my words, child, nothing below an earl will nose through those gates Sunday night. And if you think to sneak in masked, it won’t serve. You’ll have to show an invitation at the door. You’d think you had learned your lesson the last time—Chez la Princesse indeed.”

  Frances eyed her aunt with mild reproach. “You promised if I told you, you wouldn’t lecture me.”

  “You made me promise, then you told me. Is that your notion of summum jus? Your mother would have fits.”

  “My mother,” said Frances seriously, “never has fits, though of course it wouldn’t do to tell her. I shall tell my brother Joe, and Charles, too, as soon as he returns to England. But my mother—never.”

  Miss Isles treated herself to a chocolate drop from the Wedgwood comfit dish before her. “And what if Lord Landry starts talking? You’ve no idea how many people you’ve never met in your life would be fascinated to hear the whole story.”

  Frances stared at her aunt with puckered brows. “Lord Landry wouldn’t gossip about it.”

  “Ho. Wouldn’t he? I thought he was Herod, Caligula, and Machiavelli rolled into one! So you’ve led me to believe. And now I hear he won’t gossip.”

  “What I said,” replied Frances carefully, “was that Lord Landry was a dissolute, obnoxious, cunning, and thoroughly selfish man; I didn’t say he was a blather-mouth.”

  “I had wondered,” Aunt Sophie said dryly as she dabbed a smear of melting chocolate from her forefinger with an embroidered handkerchief, “when you would begin to notice his redeeming qualities.”

  Frances looked self-conscious. “I hope, Aunt Sophie, that I am not so judging as to blind myself to the full value of a fellow being. There are reasons, though, that compel me to . . . in short, dear ma’am, I find it more comfortable to dwell on his shortcomings.”

  “That’s why I don’t worry so much about you.” Aunt Sophie’s lips twitched into a conspirator’s smile. “You’ve got half an iota of common sense—which is more than I can say for most girls at nineteen! I’ll warrant, though, that when your mama finds out that you’ve trod the boards at a public theater, she won’t like it a bit better than your scuttley-tup at a bawdy house. Or do you intend swearing the audience to silence?”

  “They’ll know me only as Frances Brightcastle,” she reminded her aunt.

  “All you need is one, just one, soul to recognize you and . . .”

  “Oh, I know, Aunt Sophie, and I worry, but what’s to be done? If only I could gain entrance to Fowleby Place tomorrow night; and then, while everyone was occupied at the ball, I could search Kennan’s apartment. If I could bring him to book before Tuesday’s opening, then I need never appear in public!” The mahogany long case clock in the corner gave a mechanical sigh and ponderously chimed the hour while Frances mulled over the possibilities. “I wonder . . . Aunt, do you think I might be able to induce Mr. Rivington to help me enter Fowleby Place?”

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sp; Aunt Sophie threw up her hands. “I shouldn’t be surprised at anything you could induce some poor harried male to accomplish. Just don’t tell me your plot. I find it harrowing enough to hear about them after! Come into my bedroom instead and give me your opinion on my new redingote. Canterbury blue, they call the color! Unless I miss my guess, it’s just the thing to wear tomorrow morning when I ride out to Westminster with Pris Bolton. Don’t have rehearsals, do you? Why not join us?”

  “Thank you. But I’ve already promised Captain Zephyr that I would assist him tomorrow with his balloon.”

  “Bless my soul, child, you haven’t agreed to ascend in it, have you?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that! Captain Zephyr is preparing a paper for the Academy of Science pertaining to altitude and animal temperament. Next month he will ascend in Surrey with a pair of sheep. Tomorrow he will only inflate the balloon to test its airworthiness and try the sheep in the gondola. And I’m sure Mr. Rivington will be there, so I shall be able to talk with him about Fowleby Place without resorting to anything as improper as knocking on his door to ask him. Aunt! Why are you laughing?”

  Rising with the assistance of the chair arm, Miss Isles gave her newly discovered favorite niece a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Because, my dear, you have the oddest scruples of any female to pass through my acquaintance!”

  * * *

  Frances rode beside Captain Zephyr to a field outside the city in a bright-red Essex wagon filled with hydrogen casks and the gondola, which overlapped the end of the cart by a foot and threatened to abandon them after a particularly hard bump. Mr. Bilge had joined the expedition at Captain Zephyr’s invitation. Frances had agreed to bring him, deciding that a day in the country would do the parrot good, as well as provide a respite from his presence to the long-suffering Henrietta. So Mr. Bilge sat, an exotic accent on the wagon shaft, where he was attached by a long leather thong, and enlivened their ride by whistling, waving his wings, and startling the docile carriage horses with an occasional shout of “Avast abast a beam!”

  The Sunday afternoon air was light and soft, with dry clouds that soaked in the sunlight and sent it to the warm earth in pale yellow streams. Leaves were delicate with new green and the roads damp from the spring rains. It was too early in the year for the dust to rise in the choking white mists that would later coat a drab layer on the thick growth in the laneside hedgerows. Blue violets were in bloom, and the flowering peach. Daisies cut a dash under the hazel’s spreading branches. Brooks gurgled, orange-brown butterflies skimmed over the tender grass; the thrush sang from her nest in a young, ivy-laced elm. It was a pleasure to breathe in the fresh spring, a pleasure to sit upon the cozily bumping wagon bench listening to Captain Zephyr rattle away about the beauty of ballooning. Frances was glad Henrietta had talked her into the Prussian-blue Witchoura mantle with fur trim at the hem and high-standing collar. It wasn’t too warm, as Frances had earlier feared, and her matching satin bonnet with its curving fur brim was no more and no less than was needed to fend off the slow, clean breeze.

  They arrived at the daffodil-dotted meadow shortly after Richard Rivington and a company of four companions began to spread the balloon. It’s bold red, blue, and gold silk was a vivid streak of color against the sweet-smelling green clover carpet where two thick, woolly sheep were munching contentedly.

  As they drew closer, Frances saw with a start Lord Landry among the men working on the balloon. He was dressed casually in buckskins, and was hatless like the others, his golden hair lightly disheveled by the wind. He looked up, saw Frances, and smiled. She hadn’t expected to see him and felt a tightening in her throat. How odd it was that in the first snap of recognition, the surprise should seem a happy one.

  Captain Zephyr, who had followed the line of her gaze, surprised her by saying:

  “Does that worry you still, my dear? I will say something to him, if you like. Not that I can guarantee that he’ll listen to me.”

  “No, no. No, thank you. In fact, I’m used to him now. Almost. I shall just go on in a natural way.”

  Captain Zephyr gave her an enigmatic smile.

  “You’ll do,” he said as he drew in the rein and locked in the gilt-oak brake handle.

  The wagon’s jerky halt disturbed Mr. Bilge, who screamed a protest and flew to the handbar beside Frances, stretching his leash to its farthest extension. As Captain Zephyr clambered down his side of the wagon, Frances saw Lord Landry rise with negligent grace from his position beside Rivington and come toward her. As Landry reached the wagon, Mr. Bilge cocked his powder-white head and cased the man with an inquisitive stare.

  “Pretty boy,” observed Mr. Bilge, in a particularly accurate copy of Frances’ voice.

  Lord Landry laughed and stroked the parrot’s chest feathers with the back of one finger. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’re a flatterer.” Eyes green as a fairy’s coat smiled at Frances. “Lord, what a pleasant surprise to see you! Has Uncle Zeph kidnapped you for the day?”

  Unaccountably, and rather bewilderingly, Frances felt shy. “I’ve never seen the balloon inflated. I’d not considered, of course . . . that is, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I don’t spend all my time at Chez la Princesse.” Landry’s eyes sparkled wickedly as he put his hands on her waist and lifted her to the ground.

  Captain Zephyr walked around the carriage, in front of the horses, and clapped Landry on the shoulder. “Ah, David, you made it. Good boy! Yes, take Frances over to the balloon. And Frances, don’t worry about Mr. Bilge—he’ll be quite comfortable here! I’m going to unhitch the team and hobble them so they can graze. But mind, David—give Frances a hand. There might be rabbit holes.”

  Frances’ lips curved reluctantly into a smile. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I’m not so fragile. Have a care what you say or Mr. Bilge will lose all respect for me. He takes pleasure already in telling me that I am paltry.”

  “He doesn’t know you the way I do,” said Landry, taking her elbow with easy gallantry.

  Lifting the skirts of her mantle with tan leather gloves, Frances set off toward the balloon beside Lord Landry. She could feel the softness of the ground through the soles of her kid half-boots—it was earth beginning to feel the touch of spring but not yet sobbing from it; the clover greens were crisp and sweet. One of the sheep regarded them curiously and then returned to its munching. Rivington, who had been kneeling beside the balloon straightening the inevitably tangled lines, rose to his feet to greet her.

  “Frances, how lovely you look!” he said. He took her hand. “Were you glad to wave good-bye to the city for a day?”

  “Immensely! As we cleared the last house of the last outlying district, I turned back and saw the veil of chimney smoke that huddles over London like a shroud. I don’t know how we breathe there.”

  Rivington smiled. “Don’t raise the issue to my father or he’ll invent a fearsome face mask and expect us to wear it in defense of our lungs. I’m going to unload the gas. David, why don’t you introduce Frances?”

  A fair-haired man had been stretching the netted guide ropes over the far end of the balloon bag. He looped a rope through a final knot, tested its strength, then stood and came toward Frances and Lord Landry, bending to test an occasional binding on his way. There was a painful snap in Frances’ chest as she recognized the tall, slim man as Sir Giles, the cousin of Lord Landry’s that she had encountered at Chez la Princesse. In vain had been her prayers that she might never see anyone who could recognize her from that dreadful place! The hope that he might not remember her died instantly; as he looked at her, she saw recognition and a rather incredulous curiosity.

  Frances was unable to raise her gaze from the ground as Lord Landry introduced Sir Giles to her with what she felt was the most heartlessly cheerful nonchalance.

  Sir Giles’ first words were not, as she had feared, to question the advocacy of bringing a doxy to a balloon ascension. Instead, he said merely: “Hello, Miss Atherton.”


  Since Frances was worried that any voice she might produce to return his greeting would be high and squeaky with embarrassment, she didn’t answer him immediately. Sir Giles gave her a moment and then bent his knees, bringing his face level with hers. Tapping up her chin with an index finger, he repeated:

  “Miss Atherton. Hello.”

  Sir Giles gave her that particular burning smile that Frances was beginning to recognize as a family trademark, the smile that reached such a seductive brilliance in Lord Landry’s wanton green eyes.

  “Hello,” said Frances, in what she felt was perilously close to a croak.

  “My God, I must be intimidating today!” Sir Giles laughed gently. “Please look at me, Miss Atherton. I won’t eat you.”

  “That,” said Lord Landry, a good deal amused, “is patent. She’s more likely to eat you. Miss Atherton’s timid demeanor is no more than a temporary aberration. Mostly, she spends her time threatening to haul hell-born knaves before the magistrates.”

  Recovering a little, a becoming color high in her cheeks, Frances said, “Yes, but this is my day off.”

  Sir Giles let go her chin. She couldn’t imagine why, but somehow she seemed to have pleased him. “Are you such a fire-eater, Miss Atherton? Just David’s style! Have you met Jean-Pierre Annonay?”

  “The second person to make a balloon ascension in Denmark,” said Landry, “the second man to cross the English Channel by balloon, the second man to ascend carrying a rooster and two molting hens. You don’t want to miss Jean-Pierre. Think nothing of it if he gets in a blistering quarrel with Captain Zephyr—there’s a heated scientific rivalry between them.”

  Frances allowed Lord Landry to escort her around the outside perimeter of the unfurled balloon, at the same time trying to fortify herself with the largely fallacious notion that though Sir Giles might have formed a very poor notion of her character from the locale of their first acquaintance, she cared not a whit what anyone in this rather overpowering family thought of her.