Love’s a Stage Read online

  As if by magic, the lout stopped fast in his tracks, scratching awkwardly at the shaggy hair above his ear. He grinned shyly back at Miss Atherton’s champion.

  “I was jest funnin’ loike. Didn’t mean’er any’arm,” said the lout in sheepish apology.

  “No,” said the man with the golden hair, subjecting Frances to a swift, intimate appraisal. “And I don’t think you did her any, either, because she doesn’t appear to have understood half of what you’ve been saying to her.” He flipped a coin of generous denomination to the hack driver, and said good-naturedly, “The lady’s case, please.”

  The size of the coin rendered the hack driver’s lugubrious aspect into something approaching happiness.

  “As ya say, guv.” Twisting behind him, he unstrapped the heavy traveling case, handing it to the black-haired giant, who set it before Miss Atherton, saying, “There you are, missie, all’s right now.”

  Miss Atherton, however, did not share his opinion. She nerved herself to look the blond man directly in the eye.

  “That was wrong,” she said severely. “Very wrong.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry; did you want Johnny Ready to hug you?”

  She regarded him with a searing eye. The gentleman, it seemed, meant trouble. She hadn’t liked the effect his more than pleasant aspect had on her heart rhythm; she hadn’t liked the obligation that his unsolicited gallantry placed on her; she hadn’t liked the casual manner in which he discussed the level of her understanding with her black-haired pest; and she hadn’t liked the way he’d taken the situation with the hack driver into his own hands. “I am referring, sir, to the monies you have dispensed on my behalf and without consultation with me. I had already paid the driver the agreed-upon fare, and to concede to his extortionate demands encourages him to expect more than the justly agreed-upon rate.”

  “A well-done speech,” smiled her rescuer, “considering that you couldn’t possibly have rehearsed it. There is the merest hint of a staccato, though, which it probably wouldn’t hurt to watch. Still, overall as an impromptu recitation, I would rate it decidedly above the average.”

  Only the strong conviction that she had already bandied too many words about on a street corner kept Miss Atherton from advising the blond gentleman to mind his own staccatos. She would give him no further opportunity to make game of her and turned her attention to the wayward hackney driver, who was gathering his reins preparing to depart.

  “Sir,” Frances addressed the driver, “you know you ought to return that coin to this gentleman.” From the expression on the hack driver’s face, not the most dyed-in-the-wool optimist could have held the hope that this was his intention. Miss Atherton decided not to pursue this almost certainly fruitless line of conversation, instead continuing: “You must let your conscience guide you. I hope that when you’ve thought more on the matter you will change your attitude and remit that money to charity.”

  “Ain’t likely,” said the driver with a raspy chuckle. He gave the blond gentleman a knowing grin, nodded, and drove away.

  Frances shook her head in resignation, and being careful not to look in the direction of the golden-haired man, she bent to pick up her case, giving a firm refusal to the giant’s offer to carry it for her. The giant shrugged, winked at the gentleman and, grabbing his bundle of beets, was off down the street. Seeing that the show was finally over, the gathered crowd melted into the bustle as easily as it had appeared.

  Frances began to thread her way down Charles Street, perusing the numbers over each door for Number 59. It took both hands wrapped around the handle of her heavy dressing case to drag it beside her. The handle bit through her wool traveling gloves to sting her palms, and the case banged mercilessly against her knees. How in the world had the case become so heavy? She had originally intended to bring a few necessities in a small jute bag, but that was before the members of a large and dear family had each added their own article to her packing. Eight younger brothers and sisters had contributed such indispensable objects as a ponderous stone paperweight lovingly hand-painted with flowers, a large notebook of press-dried wild herbs, a driftwood carving of a fishing bark.

  Mother had touchingly presented Frances with the old Bible Papa had used at Seminary (it was what Papa would wish, after all), and the jute bag had grown to a round valise. Frances was congratulating herself on being able to fit everything in when Grandma Atherton had arrived with a warming pan and a bed brick. Nothing could convince Grandma that her London daughter-in-law would be sure to keep a fire burning in Frances’ bedchamber. The valise had been returned to the attic and the unwieldy dressing case chosen. When Frances’ brother Joe had handed it to the stagecoach driver that morning he had said:

  “God forbid you should have to carry this thing, Fran. It weighs like a cheese wheel.”

  Frances looked at the doorway above her. Number 62. She set down her bag on the pavement, clapping her palms to rekindle the circulation. Suddenly, she realized that she was not alone, and turned to look into the eyes of her blond rescuer. With some indignation, she said:

  “You’ve been following me.”

  He smiled. “Actually, I’ve been walking beside you, but you’ve been so busy scowling at the doorways that I’m afraid you haven’t noticed.”

  Miss Atherton fought the urge to deny that she’d been scowling.

  “If you have been walking beside me, then please don’t do so anymore. I don’t walk with gentlemen to whom I haven’t been introduced.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, “because you strike one as being a little untutored.”

  “Untutored! What, pray, do you mean by that?”

  “Do you realize that your eyes lighten almost to amber when you’re angry? It’s very unusual. Was your father by any chance a Moor?”

  “Certainly not! I wish you will go away.” Frances grabbed her case, hoping fervently that he would ask if he could carry it so that she would have the pleasure of refusing. Unfortunately, the gentleman was either too perceptive or too lazy to offer his assistance, and Frances was forced to endure him strolling beside her while she tugged at the heavy baggage.

  “Do you know, Prudence . . .” he began.

  “My name is not Prudence!”

  “No? What is it?”

  Not so easily tricked, Frances remained silent. He gave her a sidelong glance and smiled inwardly.

  “As I’d begun to say, and believe me, I wouldn’t mention the matter if it were not that you might encounter this problem again . . . You see, in London we have a quaint custom called the gratuity. Believe me, it’s very pervasive.”

  Frances would have liked to discard this verbal tidbit, but the import of his words began to penetrate her tired mind. She set down her case, rubbing arms that felt as though they had been pulled from their sockets, and allowed herself the luxury of one more glance at her companion.

  “Do you mean,” she asked slowly, “that the hack driver was angry because I didn’t give him a tip?”

  “Something like that.”

  She got a new grip on her case and dragged it a few more feet. “Very well, you’ve told me, so you can go away. If you’re waiting for me to admit I was in the wrong, you’re wasting your time, because I won’t. I hate admitting it when I’m wrong.”

  “An admirable quality.”

  “You know it’s not,” she said with a gulp of exertion. “Everyone knows that it’s a terrible weakness, besides being a sin of pride.”

  She heard his soft laughter as he stepped in front of her, bringing her painful trek to a rest. He placed one caressing hand on her shoulder and, with the other hand, lifted the tip of her chin between the thumb and forefinger.

  “I find your pride enchanting, Prudence, and I would never consider it a sin. Will you let me carry your case, or are you going to drop first?”

  Frances had already more than noticed his attractiveness, and felt the tug of its magnetism. But nothing in her previous experience with men had prepared her for a swift
transition from magnetism to this captivating force. The shock of his touch on her face caused for her a suspension of rational thought, as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on her. His expression radiated a charm so supple that it flowed about her like a golden net. It was lethal, that combination of sympathy and humor, and it had led to the undoing of far more canny women than she. And Frances was exhausted and vulnerable. But years of being the practical eldest daughter of a vicar were not compatible with the frivolous heady emotion she was experiencing. Miss Atherton came to earth with a bang. What in the world had gotten into her? Grimly, she instructed the too-helpful gentleman to remove his hands. She readjusted her grip on the case and began to lug it forward, free again. He stepped out of the way.

  “Don’t you like my tactics, Prudence?” he asked conversationally. “I had a suspicion that it might not work.”

  Frances swallowed, a hard task considering the dryness of her throat. Rather abruptly, she said, “Why do you keep following me?”

  “Two reasons,” he said easily. “The first is that you don’t look like a person who would arrive safely at her destination.”

  Miss Atherton was inclined to take umbrage. “I have arrived safely,” she informed him, “at every destination in my life for which I have ever embarked.”

  “I know a very good drama teacher who could get rid of that staccato within two weeks.”

  Miss Atherton was not sorry to see that the tile above the next doorway bore Number 59.

  “Here I am, arrived safely at my destination. Good evening!”

  She prided herself on having just the right note of finality in the good evening, and without a backward glance she set her case against the brick balustrade leading to the door and ran up six marble steps. Frances gave the tarnished brass door knocker a lusty whack. Nothing. She tried again, feeling a miserable trepidation grip her heart. Homesickness, a fat bulldog, and a muddy walk had not been the only trials of her ride to London. Uppermost in her mind had been the ever present fear that her great-aunt might not be home, but instead on one of her jaunts to the continent. What would come of Frances’ plans then?

  The sound of a slow shuffle came from behind the door. There was a loud clank and the door opened a crack, letting a bar of light into the darkening street. A shiny, gray-fringed head poked quickly around the door, preceded by a squat hooked nose and a bristling mustache. A ratty pair of eyes darted back and forth.

  “What is it? What do you want?” asked the mustache.

  Frances stared back nonplussed. What could this man have to do with her great aunt? Could Aunt Sophie have possibly married in the three years since she had last corresponded with Miss Atherton’s mother?

  “I would like to see Miss Sophie Isles, if you please,” she said.

  “If you’d like to see her, why’d you come here?” he said unpleasantly, and blew his nose on a big white handkerchief.

  “This is Number fifty-nine Charles Street, is it not? And the residence of Miss Isles?”

  “H’mph.” He twitched the hooked nose. “It’s fifty-nine Charles Street all right, but there’s no Isles woman here.”

  “But that can only mean she’s moved! Perhaps you know . . .?”

  “Don’t know and I don’t want to know. Don’t know who she is, where she is, and don’t care to. And what’s more, don’t like the way you inconsiderate young folk come pesterin’ an old man with a bunch of foolish questions. In my day a decent woman would know who she was lookin’ for and know where to find’em.” He snapped the door shut in her face.

  Frances stared quietly at the unresponsive door knocker before turning to walk down the steps. She sat wearily on her case. The sun had vanished behind the block of townhouses, rendering the severe Palladian façades of Charles Street colder and more austere than they had been in the kindly afternoon light. The pavement was still crowded, though less than it had been earlier, and faces carried the impatient preoccupation of those returning home from their labors. Across the street, a woman in a large crowned cap was pulling the chock pegs from under a cart piled high with baskets and covering her merchandise with a red wool blanket. A postman hurried by thrusting his brass bell through the leather straps of an empty canvas letter bag. One by one, a row of bright dots appeared, following the slow progress of the lamplighter.

  The man with the golden hair was leaning against the balustrade, his elbows resting comfortably on the stone newel.

  “Prudence,” he said musingly, “. . . Sweetsteeple.”

  Frances roused from her self-counsel to say, “That is not my name!”

  “Prudence Sweetsteeple,” he continued, ignoring her indignant outburst, “leaves the remote hamlet where she was reared and travels to the Great and Terrible Capital only to find herself stranded friendless and hungry without so much as the price of a return ticket or a night’s lodging.”

  “How,” she said suspiciously, “do you know that?”

  Age had softened the fabric of her cape, permitting the top button to slip, at times, from its hole. It was loose now and he reached down, refastening it. “If you could afford a room, you would have rented one to shake off your dried mud before arriving at the home of a lady you don’t know well enough to be sure of her address.”

  Frances smiled reluctantly. “Very clever. You must have been a source of continual amazement to your tutor.”

  The man leaned back against the newel post, crossing his finely muscled legs at the ankles. The searching hand of the soft evening breeze stroked through his hair. He smiled at Frances in his odd, affectionate way.

  “I never had a tutor. My parents held that public school was superior for the development of character.”

  “Did they? How do you know I come from a remote village?”

  “Your clothes are twenty years out of fashion.”

  Frances frowned at the serviceable gray cape that her own mother had worn at Frances’ age. Then she looked at the stranger in his beautifully cut blue jacket, tight buckskins, and shiny Hessians. “It’s wasteful to throw out perfectly good clothing simply because the style is no longer the current thing. I don’t care a fig about being fashionable.”

  “Very proper,” he said affably. “Frills and furbelows won’t get you into heaven.”

  She stood, emphatically brushing at the mud on her cape. “Going to heaven is nothing to joke about,” she said primly.

  The gentleman did not appear in the least chastened. “And I knew you were hungry,” he said, “because you’re so cross. Let me take you somewhere and feed you.”

  Miss Atherton ignored the wheedling of her stomach. “Absolutely not! I don’t know you. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll have to think of a plan.”

  “I believe you could.” Smiling, he came to stand close to her. “But you won’t have to, I know where Sophie Isles lives.”

  “You . . . how could you know that?”

  “She lives in an apartment above a young male relative of mine, on Long Acre, about ten blocks from here. How would you prefer to travel?” Green devils danced in his eyes. “Shall I call a hack for you?”

  “For ten blocks? I should say not. Although I can see you are funning. If you would be so kind as to give me directions,” she said formally, “I shall do very well on foot.”

  “You will, if Miss Sophie doesn’t go to bed before two A.M. I’m afraid that’s how long it will take you to drag your case there.”

  She looked at her boot tops and kicked at the caked mud on the hem of her cape, so that a tiny piece fell off and crumbled on the sidewalk. Pride had carried her case down Charles Street. She wondered if a miracle might give her the strength to carry it another ten blocks. Her arms and legs ached miserably. Mayhap the Lord had provided this stranger to carry her traveling case, although any virtuous young lady would have wished that the Lord had provided someone a little less spectacular.

  “I’m not weak,” she said. “It’s just that this case is very heavy.”

  He reached for he
r bag and lifted it with irritating ease. “A Herculean weight,” he agreed. “What’s in here?” He started walking toward Russell Street, carrying the case, and she went beside him.

  “Lots of things. But mostly, a brass bed warmer.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you would need that to keep you warm in bed.”

  “I didn’t think so either, but then Grandma said she wouldn’t sleep nights if she wasn’t sure I had it with me.”

  “Grandma Sweetsteeple?”

  This time she laughed, a musical rippling sound that caused a boy pushing a cart heaped with broccoli to stare after the girl who was lighting the evening with laughter. “No, Atherton. That’s my name as well. What’s yours?”

  “David,” he said easily. “So you were named after your grandmother. My felicitations. Atherton is an unusual name for a girl.” He was pleased to hear her laugh again.

  “How can you be so absurd? Atherton is my surname. And you were very bad to joke me by not saying immediately that you know where Miss Isles lives.”

  Privately, the man with the golden hair marveled at the relative ease with which he had won her trust. It spoke volumes for the depth of her naïveté that she so readily accepted his word that he was taking her to the residence of Miss Sophia Isles.

  “I admit to being very bad.” They were walking through a circle of lamplight that glimmered on his shiny hair. “I ought to warn you that your reluctance to tell me your first name leads me to believe that you are too embarrassed to tell me. What could it be . . . Bathsheba? Armilla?”

  “It’s nothing like that.” They were separated briefly by a man carrying a giant stick of bread who shouldered his way hurriedly between them.

  “Jarita?” he asked after they were reunited by the man’s passing.

  “That is not a name!”

  “Ah, but it is. I can see you haven’t studied Hindi.”

  A certain twinkle danced in Frances’ eyes. She peeped sideways at her companion. “I confess I haven’t. Does that sink me utterly beneath reproach?”