Love’s a Stage Page 22

  “Do you hear, too?” She turned to Landry. “Can you hear it?”

  “Yes,” he returned in a low voice. “And I wonder . . .”

  There was a shrill, bone-chilling scream from Jonathan Green. Frances, who could not stand the suspense, looked over the rock to see Green pointing with a shaking arm at the top of the ridge, while his three companions stood transfixed. She followed his indication to see, on the edge of the cliff above them, a giant black-cowled figure stretching its robed arms wide in the wind, silhouetted eerily by an unearthly green light!

  “The old abbott!” said Johnson hoarsely.

  “The monk!” breathed Willis.

  “It’s Doomsday!” shrieked Green. “We’re all lost!”

  Landry, always an enemy of melodrama, pulled Frances down again, muttering something about a jack-in-the-box as the three men from Beachy Hill took to their heels and began to race screaming toward the boat. In spite of Kennan’s vile curses, the yawl’s bottom was slapped onto the water, and fear pulled the oars so hard that it was on its way in a matter of less than a minute.

  Frighteningly profane in defeat, his cape swirling about his legs, Kennan stood at the water’s edge, cursing his legmen for superstitious yokels as they rowed out of sight. As they disappeared, he tore off his mask and cast it into the waves with violent disgust before he turned, dimmed his lantern, and began to make his way toward the trail with hurried strides.

  “David, he’s getting away!” said Frances, pleadingly urgent.

  “It’s all right, Frances, it’s obvious that someone has . . .” It was too late; Frances had already left the shelter of the rock to make a headlong rush after Kennan. She caught up with Kennan just as he reached the foot of the trail. He turned to face her, lifting his lantern to see her face.

  “It’s you!” he hissed, and without another word pulled a pistol from his cape and lowered it straight for her heart.

  She froze and then felt Landry’s warmth as he came out of the darkness behind her, encircling her in his arms, pulling her to him. He gave Kennan a vaguely sardonic smile and said:

  “And me.”

  Horror and rage transformed Kennan’s face into taut, weasel-like lines. When he spoke, his words whistled though his trembling jaw like steam spewing from an overheating pan. “So, you’re with her, are you, boy genius? What are you doing here?”

  “Not,” said Landry, “sea bathing.”

  Kennan’s teeth were bared by his tightly drawn skin. Even in the sparse light his complexion was ashen. “I hope what she’s given you will be worth dying for.”

  “It’s been the salvation of your career that you haven’t had to write your own lines,” replied Landry in an even tone. “Are you planning, by any chance, to leave the country? After you’ve shot me, you may find you have become . . . deathly unpopular with certain of my kinsmen. I had mentioned Frances’ suspicions to them before we left for Sussex.”

  “Damn you!” cried Kennan, his eyes glittering crazily in the blue lantern light. “I knew as soon as I saw you that you’ve come to ruin me! For that damn parson’s brat whom you’ll forget in a week!” The cove echoed with Kennan’s coarse, desperate laughter. “By God, if I had a shilling for every wench you’d cast eyes over, I’d be as rich as you without ever a day’s work.”

  Frances felt the frantic tattoo of her heartbeat as she stood in icy paralysis, gripped within the steady curve of Landry’s arm. She watched helplessly as Kennan snapped the pistol’s hammer with his thumb and pointed the cocked weapon at Lord Landry’s head.

  Kennan’s voice was harsh as he growled, “By the time they find your decomposing body among the rushes, my fine lord, I shall be far quit of England, so I won’t be around to hear the piteous gnashings of your distraught family. Farewell, monk-maker!”

  “Monk-maker?” Landry repeated. “I didn’t manufacture that apparition on the hill. I . . . my God, Kennan, look!”

  The sudden urgency in Landry’s tone caused Kennan to wheel without thought, gazing frantically toward the cliff top as Landry indicated. Frances had turned as well, and had barely time to realize that the monk had vanished when Landry’s boot nipped her behind the ankles and set her flying to the sand with rough efficiency. Almost before she had hit the ground, Landry made a swift, clean lunge for Kennan and brought the heel of his hand up to deliver a powerful blow to the base of Kennan’s chin. Bathed in flickering blue shadows, Kennan staggered into the writhing folds of his cape and began to topple. The pistol slipped from his hand and discharged harmlessly into the sea foam as Kennan fell backwards. His head made a brutal collision with a rock jutting from the sand and he was knocked quickly and completely into unconsciousness.

  “That’s what you get,” observed Landry tersely, bringing his hands to rest on his flat hips as he stood over the fallen actor, “when you threaten the unoffending citizenry with firearms.” He turned to look at Frances. “Well, here he is, my dear, in all his fatuous glory. What would you have me do with him?”

  It was too soon for her to talk of it in a light way. Frances found her feet and, in a moment, the sanctuary of Landry’s arms. He had just begun to involve her in one of his blissfully satisfying kisses when from the foot of the path came the rattle of dislodged pebbles and the sound of running feet. Two men came racing forward, their lanterns flooding the beach with yellow light.

  The older was of medium height, with soft light hair and direct hazel eyes. He bent briefly to inspect Kennan and, turning his face toward Landry, said, “I don’t know your name, sir, but you have my gratitude, and . . . Good God—Frances!”

  Frances stared at the speaker through tear-clouded eyes.

  “Charles! And Joe!” With sisterly joy, she abandoned Landry to embrace her oldest brother. He seemed leaner and harder than she remembered, and his face was tinted with a Mediterranean tan. Joe was, as ever, slim and graceful, but it seemed a million years since she had seen him. When she hugged him, he said:

  “Oh, aye; have done, darlin’. I’m very glad to see you, but you know how I hate syrup.”

  “Horrid boy,” she said, pushing him away, laughing through her tears. “And I’m more than very glad to see you—I’m in transports! And Charles—you’re back in England! But what are you about here?”

  “Catching Kennan, or so we thought. It seems this gentleman”—he smiled at Landry—“has beaten us to the punch.” Charles laid his hands affectionately on his sister’s shoulders. “Look at you! Two years and you’ve turned into a beauty.”

  “Told you she had,” injected Joe complacently.

  “He’s told me other things, too,” Charles went on, “about what you tried to do in London. Little lion-heart! I got home yesterday morning and there wasn’t time to travel into London and bring you home. Thank God we have you here, and safe! Whatever imbroglio you’ve left in the capital, I’m going to help you with the consequences! I want to hear everything—we’ll have a long talk about it later. Now, you better introduce us to your friend or he’ll think we’re a family of gapeseeds.”

  Frances’ association with Landry had been flamboyant by any standards and, compared with her stable family life, as fire to water. The humble ordinariness of Beachy Hill threw Landry’s spectacular looks and exotic nature into high relief. Frances was glad she had mentioned little about Lord Landry in her letters to Joe, beyond that she had met him at the Drury Lane; she felt awkward enough making the introduction as it was. Her discomfort was covered by the excitement Joe, and even the usually poised Charles, expressed at meeting the nation’s most lauded playwright. Joe had to say at once that Landry’s play The Conqueror was the most rousing piece ever penned, and as Charles shook Landry’s hand, Frances’ older brother declared that since Sheridan had retired his quill, Landry was the only major writer left in the British theater.

  “Did you come with Frances after Kennan?” asked Joe. “What a kick-up! What did you think of our little drama, eh? Did you like the monk?”

  “Very effectiv
e,” said Landry. “Was it cloth over a straw body? How did you throw so much light on it?”

  Charles had dropped a coiled rope from his shoulder and, with some effort, rolled the inert Kennan over and began to tie his wrists together. “Joe had a half-dozen lamps rigged to a pull-chain so he could open them with one yank.” Glancing at Frances, he said, “The Bishop’s here. He’s sitting at the cottage right now with Mother. He is most disapproving of these left-handed Atherton goings-on. We forgive him all of it, though. He brought home Father from prison last evening.”

  Frances was transformed with joy. “Father’s home—Oh, Charles, oh, Joseph . . .” Impulsively she turned to Lord Landry. “Did you hear that? My father’s home!”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Landry amiably, “although I can’t recall ever knowing that he was away.”

  “You mean to say she dragged you to Sussex without an explanation of how Kennan framed our father?” interrupted Joe, aghast. “If that isn’t rich! Why on earth did you come?”

  Innocently, Joe had steered the conversation onto treacherous conversational waters. Before Landry had a chance to open his mouth, Frances altered the subject with chattering inefficiency. “So—so the monk was a trick, to frighten the village men out of smuggling. Pam was in on it, too, wasn’t she? We eavesdropped on Jonathan Green describing her sighting of the monk last night. How clever of her to have made up the story! But I heard the treble bell!”

  Charles tugged tight the last knot on Kennan’s bindings. “That was Dr. Sutter and the Squire passing by in a skiff banging on an old iron pot with a brass ladle.”

  “What a marvelous conspiracy!” exclaimed Frances, her cheeks glowing. She turned to Landry. “And you had it figured out—that’s why you called me back when I was running after Kennan, because you knew they would be waiting to catch him at the top.”

  “It was either that,” said Landry apologetically, “or believe it was really a strolling deceased monk.”

  “Indeed!” Frances raised her hands in a happy gesture. Then, in the golden lamplight, the three men saw the rich color drain from her face. “B-but Chez la Princesse, Drury Lane, the guillotine, and the . . . the promise—I did it all for nothing,” she whispered, and fainted like a dead weight into Landry’s arms.

  * * *

  Frances felt warmth, and softness. As she raised her head, she saw it had become light, a golden light. She was lying next to Landry. He seemed a creation of the light: golden hair, golden skin. Their bodies had formed a hollow in the sand, a safe haven. She looked out toward the sea, and had to shade her eyes from the slanting rays of the newly rising sun, which bounced from the glistening ripples before causing long shadows on the shore. It was a beautiful sight—it seemed as though the sun were bleeding and melting into the sea, which brought its light and warmth to their feet on the tireless wash of the waves.

  Memory returned to her, and happiness that her share of the awesome burden of winning freedom for her father was finished. He was free, thank God, and soon she could see him, and her mother, and all the little ones at home. But her well-being was short-lived, disappointingly replaced by a curious sense of impending tragedy that had been her companion since the first moment she had fallen in love with Landry. The certain knowledge of the separation from him that she knew must come had shadowed her with the tenacity of a starved predator. Anxiety suddenly caused her to sit up and look behind her for the comfortingly familiar figures of her brothers. But they were not there!

  “Where has Charlie gone? And Joe?” demanded Frances.

  Landry opened his eyes and gave her the heavy-lidded look of one who has arrived at the coast with no better purpose than to sun himself on the beach. “After they assured themselves that you were all right, it was decided that they ought to begin dragging Kennan back to Beachy Hill. I told them we’d follow as soon as you were ready to walk again—oh, and you’ll be glad to know that we found Fowleby’s painting in an oilcloth wrapping in an inner pocket of Kennan’s greatcoat.”

  Frances’ interest in the painting was momentarily at a minimum. In disbelief she said, “My brothers left me alone with you?”

  A smile came to the green eyes. “I’m afraid I was guilty of a small deception. I told them we were betrothed.”

  “I would say that was rather more than a small deception,” said Frances. “Especially”—her shoulders slumped—“since they’ll find out soon enough that it isn’t true.”

  He stretched out a hand and gently stroked her hair. “And consider how reprehensible it will seem when the content of your promise to me becomes generally known.”

  “You didn’t tell them, did you?” said Frances with lively alarm.

  “Your brother Charles is no fool. And the dramatic way you blurted it out would have intrigued a corpse. However, I found the liberal width of your brother’s biceps a definite inspiration and muddled through with a plausible explanation. One can’t always depend on having a rock behind everyone one knocks down.”

  “I was hoping,” she ventured in an experimental spirit, “that you would let the matter drop.”

  He took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her close to his chest. “The oceans may dry up, and the deserts grow trees, but rest assured, my sweet life, that is one notion I shall never let drop. It’s no use, Frances. The only way to avoid spending your life enduring my constant unlawful importunities would be to marry me.”

  “M-marry?”

  “I know in some ways you would be getting a very poor bargain. I’m incurably frivolous, probably; occasionally, I drink to excess; and my family has a notion of togetherness that would put an ant colony to shame. They’re likely to encroach terribly. Giles and Richard have had the run of my house since infancy, and I doubt we will find it easy to break them of the habit. There are others, too, that you haven’t met—dozens of them: aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, infants.”

  Frances could hardly hear his words over the thunder of her accelerating heart. “Wh-what of my family, pray? My father will insist on conducting the ceremony himself at our village church. And afterward, they will visit us constantly! There’ll be jammy fingerprints on the globe in your library, and river minnows in your crystal wineglasses. They’ll bring the puppy, of course, and inevitably it will chew up the carpet fringe. Grandma Atherton will examine every door and window in your house for drafts. Privacy for us will be impossible.”

  “We’ll be forced to improvise. Do you know, Frances, that ever since we were together in the balloon, I’ve been longing to . . .” and he whispered the rest of the sentence into her ear.

  She blushed rosily. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have felt safe with you for a minute. Not that I have anyway.”

  “My sweet, darling girl, there have been so many times when . . . Frances! Good Lord, are you crying?”

  Her tears were beginning to dampen his shirtfront. “I c-can’t help it. I’m just so—so amazed. I never thought you’d want to marry me. You told me yourself you didn’t want—that commitment with a woman.”

  He stopped her words with a gentle kiss and smiled tenderly into her tear-brimmed eyes. “That was before I fell in love.”

  “But I can’t understand how you could be in love with me, when you could be with women who are rich, and beautiful, and wellborn. David, you could marry so many people.”

  “No, I couldn’t, they’ll only let me have one.” He produced a handkerchief for her from an inner pocket, and she accepted it, complaining with a broken sniff that he joked about everything. He pulled her closer, settling her comfortably against his chest, and leaned back into the sand. A gull cried overhead, its snowy whiteness transformed into a fiery orange by the sunrise. “Except,” he agreed, “when I tell you that I love you very much—a sentiment which I have yet to hear requited.” He lifted her shyly turned chin with one finger. “Do you love me too, sweetheart?”

  The courageous Frances Atherton could only manage one small, affirmative syllable under her breath.
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  “Then say it,” he whispered.

  “I—don’t feel so bold.”

  “I’m going to teach you much bolder things than that,” he said. Her eyes were still downcast; he bent his head to kiss the bridge of her nose. “Say it, my love.”

  She looked up at him, her expression an arousing mixture of the earnest, vulnerable, and brave; and in a low, sweet voice, she said, “I do love you, David. And I have for a time, even though at first I didn’t realize it.”

  He traced a finger across her brow, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “Neither did I. You know, when I saw you at Chez la Princesse being handled by that damn St. Pips, I was so angry that I wanted to call him out. You’d think I would have been able to recognize it as decent, old-fashioned jealousy.”

  “So you went back and beat him at cards later that night? So he couldn’t stay in London to recognize me?”

  “Did Richard tell you that? What a rattlepate the boy’s become. He’s half in love with you himself—did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. But he’s been very kind.” She nestled her face against him. “Aunt Sophie will be so surprised.”

  He removed the small, elegant hat from her head and began to remove the pins with which she had hastily dressed her hair before leaving on the ride to Sussex. Then with a wry smile he said, “Not as surprised as you think. She came to my house yesterday and told me it was not her way to interfere, but did I or did I not intend to have her niece in lawful wedlock? And I said I did.”

  Frances giggled at the thought of her Aunt Sophie confronting Lord Landry, then suddenly pulled away from him and knelt in the sand, the red dress spreading about her in the crimson sunrise. “Do you mean last night in the library you were intending to marry me? And you let me make that wretchedly horrendous promise to you anyway?”

  He stood and scooped her up with him. “The temptation was irresistible,” he admitted. His lips caressed her cheek. “Frances, after we’re married, will you let me call you Fanny?”