Chapter 9 #3
Standing inside the door, Madeline breathed in the musty vanilla scent of the house, the aroma familiar and comforting.
The panicked rhythm of her heart eased as soon as she saw Mrs. Florence approach, her silvery-peach hair arranged in a twist, her hazel eyes soft in her lined face.
One of her hands was wrapped around an engraved silver and mahogany cane.
It thumped gently on the carpet as she walked toward Madeline.
“Maddy,” she said in a kindly way.
“Have you been injured, Mrs. Florence?” Madeline asked in concern.
“No, my dear. It’s only that the cold weather sinks into my bones sometimes.” She reached Madeline and took her hand, enclosing Madeline’s cold fingers in her warm ones. “Have you run away again, child?”
Madeline felt a rush of gratitude. It seemed that Mrs. Florence’s face was the only friendly one she had seen in two months. “I had to see you. I need someone to confide in. I felt that you wouldn’t turn me away…or condemn me for what I wish to talk to you about.”
“Have you no grandmother of your own to turn to?”
“Only one, on my mother’s side.” Madeline thought of her stern, religious grandmother, and winced. “She wouldn’t be of any help, I’m afraid.”
“Will your family be alarmed to find you missing, Maddy?”
Madeline shook her head. “I told my parents that I was going to visit my sister Justine. I think they were happy to have me out of the house for a while. I’ve caused them quite a bit of trouble, and no end of embarrassment.” She paused and added in a strained tone, “With more to come, I’m afraid.”
Mrs. Florence held her gaze, her alert eyes missing nothing.
She reached out to pat Madeline’s tense shoulder.
“I believe I understand why you’re here, my dear.
You were right to come to me—more right than you know.
Go to the parlor, child, while I tell the footman to bring in your bags. You may stay as long as you wish.”
“I have a maid and driver—”
“Yes, we’ll put them up as well.” She turned to the maid who waited nearby. “Cathy, fetch a supper tray for our guest and bring it to the parlor.”
“I’m not hungry,” Madeline protested.
“You’ve lost weight, Maddy…and that isn’t healthy for a girl in your predicament.”
They shared a gaze of mutual understanding. “How did you know?” Madeline asked.
“How could I not know?” Mrs. Florence rejoined with a touch of wry sadness. “Nothing else could put that look in your eyes. I gather your family isn’t yet aware?”
“No,” Madeline said, her voice strained. “And I don’t think I’m strong enough to tell them. I feel…very much alone, Mrs. Florence.”
“Come inside, my dear, and we’ll talk.”
Enthusiastic cries and applause followed Logan as he strode offstage. It had been a successful performance, though he hadn’t played the part to his satisfaction. He had tried to summon the depths of feeling required for the part, but all he had been able to dredge up was a halfhearted effort.
Scowling, Logan ignored the cast and crew members who tried to gain his attention.
He entered his dressing room and pulled off his damp open-necked shirt, dropping it to the floor.
As he headed to the washstand, a flicker in the mirrored dressing table caught his attention.
He turned quickly, startled to see an old woman seated in the corner.
She regarded him calmly, as if she had every right to be there.
Although she was a small woman, she had an outsized presence and wore her age with regal pride.
One veined hand, laden with jeweled rings, was clasped around an elaborate silver cane.
Although her hair was a soft shade of peach, it was clear that at one time it had been a flamboyant red.
Her hazel eyes gleamed with keen interest as she stared at him.
“They told me I could wait for you in here,” she said.
“I don’t receive visitors in my dressing room.”
“An adequate performance,” she commented, ignoring his brusque statement. “Polished and fairly well-paced.”
Logan smiled ruefully, wondering who the hell she was. “This isn’t the first time of late that I’ve been damned with faint praise.”
“Oh, you were quite satisfactory as Othello,” she assured him.
“Any other actor would have called it the performance of his career. It’s just that several years ago I was privileged to see you in the same play, in the role of Iago.
I must say I preferred your interpretation of that part…
magnificent. You have a singular talent, when you wish to use it.
I’ve often thought it a pity that you and I couldn’t have acted together, but my time was long past when your career was just beginning. ”
Logan stared at her intently. Her red hair, her vaguely familiar face, her reference to the theater…
“Mrs. Florence,” he said questioningly. She nodded, and his brow cleared.
This wasn’t the first time that a colleague had desired to meet him, although no one had ever been quite as forward as this particular lady.
Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips.
“It is a great honor to make your acquaintance, madam.”
“You are aware, of course, that we have a mutual friend in the Duchess of Leeds. A delightful woman, is she not? When she started in the theater, she was a protégée of mine.”
“Yes, I know,” Logan said, pulling a striped brocade robe over his bare chest. He reached for a jar of salve and a towel, and began to wash off the sheen of bronze paint that had given him the necessary swarthiness for Othello.
“Mrs. Florence, I’m accustomed to a few minutes of privacy after a performance.
If you wouldn’t mind waiting for me in the greenroom—”
“I will stay here,” she said firmly. “I’ve come to speak to you about an urgent personal matter. There’s no need to be modest on my account. After all, I’ve been in many men’s dressing rooms before.”
Logan suppressed an admiring laugh. She was a brassy old woman, to barge into his dressing room and demand his attention.
He half-sat, half-leaned against the heavy mirrored table.
“Very well, madam,” he said dryly, continuing to wipe his face and throat.
“Speak your piece. I’ll try to overcome any fits of modesty. ”
She ignored his sarcasm and spoke incisively. “Mr. Scott, you may not be aware that during her brief tenure as a Capital Theatre employee, Miss Madeline Matthews leased a room at my home.”
The name, spoken so unexpectedly, sent a shaft of pain through Logan’s chest. He felt his face harden. “If that’s all you’ve come to discuss, I suggest that you leave.”
“Miss Matthews came to me this evening from her family’s estate in Gloucestershire,” Mrs. Florence continued. “She is sleeping at my house as we speak. I might add that she is quite unaware of my decision to visit you—”
“Enough!” Logan dropped the face towel and headed to the door. “When I return, I want to find my dressing room empty.”
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s been hurt?” she asked crisply. “You’re an arrogant young cur!”
“And you’re a meddling old bitch,” he responded evenly. “Good evening, madam.”
Mrs. Florence seemed amused rather than outraged by the insult. “I have information that is of great significance to you, Scott. Refuse to hear me out, and you’ll regret it someday.”
Logan stopped at the door with a sneer. “I’ll take my chances.”
Mrs. Florence folded both hands over the head of her cane and regarded him with blinking eyes. “Madeline is expecting your child. Does that mean anything to you?” She watched him keenly in the ensuing silence, seeming to relish the upheaval she had caused.
Logan fixed his gaze on the wall. The beating of his heart became unnaturally loud. It must be a lie, something Madeline had concocted to manipulate him further.
He shook his head blindly. “No. It means nothing.”
“I see.” The elderly woman regarded him with piercing eyes.
“You know what will happen to Maddy. In a family such as hers, the only recourse is for her to have the baby in secret, and give it away to strangers. Either that, or she’ll have to leave her parents and make her own way in the world, providing for herself and the child as best she can.
I can’t think you would be pleased by either option. ”
He forced himself to shrug. “Let her do as she wishes.”
Mrs. Florence clucked softly. “You would deny all responsibility to Maddy and her baby?”
“Yes.”
Her expression took on an edge of contempt. “It seems you’re no different from your father.”
Logan’s shock gave way to a spurt of baffled rage. “How the hell do you know Paul Jennings?”
One of her hands lifted from the cane, and she gestured to him. “Come here, Scott. I wish to show you something.”
“Go to hell!”
Shaking her head over his stubbornness, she opened her reticule and unearthed a small green-lacquered box. “It’s a gift…a piece of your past. I assure you, I have no reason to deceive you. Come take a look. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“You have nothing to do with my bloody past.”
“I have everything to do with it,” she replied. “The Jennings weren’t your real parents, you see. You were given to them because your mother died in childbirth, and your father disclaimed responsibility for you.”
He stared at her as if she were mad.
“There’s no need to look at me that way,” Mrs. Florence said with a slight smile. “I’m in full possession of my senses.”
Slowly he walked toward her, while uneasiness spread inside him. “Show me your damned trinket.”
Carefully she extracted a pair of gold-framed miniatures and placed one in his palm.
The subject was a little girl not much older than Julia’s daughter Victoria.
She was a pretty child with a pink bonnet tied over her long red curls.
Logan stared stonily at the tiny painting and gave it back without comment.
“You don’t see it?” the elderly woman asked, and gave him the next one. “Perhaps this will prove more illuminating.”