Chapter 4 #2
“What a beauty you are,” Mrs. Lyttleton said, standing back to view the costume with pride. “‘Tis a pity Miss Barry doesn’t have your lovely figure. You give the costume an ethereal quality that she doesn’t.”
“I think Miss Barry has a fine figure,” Madeline said quickly.
“She would if she stopped eating sugar biscuits with her tea every afternoon,” Mrs. Lyttleton said darkly, swinging her mountainous girth around as she turned to a rack of costumes to be worn that day.
As she joined the players in the greenroom, Madeline went to the nearest corner, trying to remain inconspicuous. Unfortunately, the revealing costume left her open to a predictable amount of teasing. Charles Haversley was the first to notice her, greeting her with admiring whistles.
“My Lord, what a transformation!” he cried, rushing to her and seizing her hands. His avid gaze moved over her body, lingering at her half-exposed breasts. “Dear Miss Ridley, I had no idea what you were hiding beneath your usual attire. I’ll admit, during my private moments I did wonder—”
“Charles,” interrupted the older actor, Mr. Burgess, who played the part of the bereaved father, “none of us, least of all Miss Ridley, wants to hear about your private moments.”
Madeline pulled her hands from Charles’ enthusiastic grip. “Mr. Haversley…” she began in a chiding tone. Before she could continue, Stephen Maitland had joined them, his gaze locked on her bosom.
“Miss Ridley, I’ll escort you to the stage. It’s dark, and you might trip on the way—”
Their antics were interrupted by a quiet voice from across the room. “That’s enough, gentlemen.”
Madeline looked toward the source of the voice and saw Mr. Scott standing across the room, a few pages of notes in his hand.
He swept a glance across the assembled players, seeming not to notice Madeline.
“Let’s get started,” he said. “I have a few notes concerning yesterday morning’s rehearsal, and then I want everyone to take their places for the first scene. ”
Mr. Scott ran through the list of comments and changes, while the actors listened attentively.
Near the end of his brief talk, he looked directly at Madeline for the first time.
“Miss Ridley, I believe everyone is aware that you have agreed to take part in the rehearsal because Miss Barry and her stand-in are both indisposed. Our thanks for your assistance.”
Madeline felt her color rise, and she managed a small nod in response. He switched his gaze from her at once, his face unaccountably grim.
Quickly the players filed from the greenroom, Madeline along with them. She—or rather the character of the deceased wife’s ghost—appeared in the first scene. As she passed Mr. Scott, who had stayed by the doorway, she stopped and looked up at him.
“Mr. Scott,” she said softly, careful not to let anyone overhear, “I know you told me to stay away from you, but the duchess asked—”
“I know,” he interrupted.
“You’re not angry with me?”
His face was a mask of indifference. “Your presence won’t affect me in the least.”
“All right,” she said, giving him an uncertain smile as she continued toward the stage area.
As she passed him, she wondered why his hand was clenched hard around the door frame, the pressure making his fingers white.
Dismayed, she thought that Mr. Scott hadn’t been telling the truth.
He was angry with her. She went to the wings with a heavy sigh, jerking up the drooping bodice of her gown.
Why had she picked a man who was so difficult to seduce?
She may as well settle for Charles Haversley and be done with it.
But Haversley didn’t inspire any of the feelings she had for Mr. Scott…
the giddy nervousness, the fear and delight that tangled inside her whenever he was near.
She wanted to be in his arms and no one else’s…
to know the forbidden pleasure of being with him—
“Maddy,” came the Duchess of Leeds’s voice as she entered the wings. Madeline ventured from behind the curtain.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
Julia sat in the first row of seats. A smile appeared on her face as she saw Madeline. “You look very nice in costume, Maddy. Before we begin, I want to assure you that no one expects you to do everything perfectly. Just follow along as best you can, and try to enjoy yourself.”
Madeline listened to Julia’s directions.
They were going to rehearse the opening of the play, in which the ghost of a young woman visited the loved ones she had left behind: her brother, played by Charles Aversley; her “parents,” Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Burgess…
and of course, her husband, played by Mr. Scott.
“None of them are supposed to see or hear you,” Julia told Madeline, “but they all have an awareness that someone…or something…is there.”
“I understand,” Madeline said, retreating to the wings from which Arlyss was to make her first entrance.
The rehearsal went smoothly, with few interruptions. After a while Madeline lost her self-consciousness and imitated Arlyss Barry’s previous performances as closely as possible, even matching some of her gestures and inflections.
“Very good, Maddy,” Julia said occasionally, as Madeline moved in and out of the scene, speaking to her unhearing companions and witnessing what had become of them since her death.
There was only one break in the action, when Charles Haversley happened to glance at Madeline and stopped in midsentence. Suddenly he erupted in helpless laughter. Puzzled, Madeline stared at him, while Julia asked crisply what was wrong.
Haversley shook his head and looked apologetic, even as he continued to snort with amusement. “I can’t help it, Your Grace,” he said, gasping. “Miss Ridley stares at me as if she believes everything I’m saying, and she looks so earnest…it’s too adorable.”
Julia gave him a reproving stare. “You’re not supposed to look at her, Charles. She’s a ghost.”
“I can’t help it,” he said again, smiling raffishly at Julia. “If you were a man, you would understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” Julia replied dryly. “You would do us all a service, Charles, if you could manage to act like a brother instead of a town-bull.”
“Town-bull?” Madeline asked, perplexed, having never encountered such a term at Mrs. Allbright’s academy.
For some reason her question set off another spurt of laughter in Charles.
She looked to the wings, where Mr. Scott waited to make his entrance.
He was a striking figure as he stood amidst the velvet curtains, dressed in elegant clothes, his posture relaxed yet controlled.
It struck Madeline that a hundred years from now, people would read about him in history books and wonder what it must have been like to see him act.
No words would ever accurately describe his voice, with its deep, vibrant quality, or the remarkable range of his talent.
It seemed as if Mr. Scott were two different people: the disciplined man offstage, and the actor whose emotions simmered and exploded during a performance.
Mrs. Florence had been right—this was the place to approach him.
Logan watched the rehearsal from the wings, resentment uncoiling in his chest. Damn Julia for suggesting that Madeline assume Arlyss’s place…
damn Arlyss and her understudy for being ill…
damn himself for being so riveted by Madeline that he could barely remember his lines.
Who could blame Charles Haversley for his lack of concentration?
Logan doubted he would fare any better, with Madeline dressed in a flimsy costume that made him want to sink to his knees before her and bury his face between her breasts.
She looked so young and fresh, her skin like cream silk.
It wasn’t her sheer prettiness that proved such a potent allure; it was the troubling desire to cover her up and carry her away from the others’ admiring gazes… to keep her all to himself.
Somehow Madeline had insinuated herself into his life and forced him to take notice of her, and now there was no retreat.
Now that he had rejected the idea of taking her into his bed, she had become the thing he most wanted.
Every other woman he had considered seemed to lack something, and it maddened him to realize that he was subconsciously looking for her likeness.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to lose himself inside her youthful energy.
She made him want to play, to experience a little of the boyhood he’d never had…
and that was something no other lover had ever been able to do.
He felt hot and annoyed, and ready to chew the scenery into splinters. Hearing his cue, he took a bottle from the propman, holding it loosely between his fingers as he walked onstage. The other actors had made their exits, the boards cleared except for him and Madeline.
As the grieving widower, he was supposed to be drunk.
It wasn’t easy to portray intoxication well.
Most actors tended to overplay it or, worse, underplay it.
It was one of the few pieces of stagecraft that required a great deal of technique in order to seem natural.
Forcing himself to concentrate, Logan captured the slur, the expansive gestures, and the off-balance walk of a man who had been drinking for a long time.
He sat in a large oak chair, before a box set resembling a library. Clearing his mind of all else, he began a lengthy monologue, revealing the biting irony and quiet despair of his character.
Somewhere in the midst of the monologue, Logan felt rather than saw Madeline come up behind him, her small hands resting on the back of his chair. As the play dictated, she leaned over him and spoke during the pauses of his monologue, her sweet voice falling against his ears.