Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Insipid.
She had been trying for half an hour to finish her review of Othello for the Magazine for Misses. Every word had been a struggle. Too frequently, the words that suggested themselves to her mind had belonged first to Lord Dunstane.
Not that two people mightn’t choose to describe a play in similar terms. Particularly not a shared experience of a performance. Or part of one, anyway.
Oh, but she was glad he had left at intermission. His presence in the box had been a weight on the evening, a looming shadow. The mere memory of him sitting beside her sent a prickle down her spine, forcing her to sit up a little straighter.
She dragged her pen through the word, pressing the tip so firmly into the paper that it tore.
“Oh, drat!”
Mrs. Hayes, who was seated by the parlor’s large window overlooking Clapham Common, glanced up from the letter she had been reading. “What’s that you’re working on, my dear?”
“A letter to Daphne,” Julia fibbed.
Daphne, Lady Deveraux, was also Miss Busy B., the Magazine for Misses’ advice columnist—a role she continued to fulfill even after marrying the very rake she’d infamously advised a reader against. She was quick spoken, bordering on impetuous, and Julia had liked her instantly.
Julia did write to Daphne often. But this morning’s missive was, in fact, intended for Lady Stalbridge, an elegant older woman with whom Julia could have no plausible reason for corresponding. Hence the lie. The countess was the editor of the magazine, about which Mrs. Hayes—thank God—knew nothing at all.
“A frustrating letter, it would seem,” Mrs. Hayes acknowledged, before returning to her reading.
“Yes, ma’am,” Julia agreed, sliding a fresh sheet of foolscap from the shallow drawer of the escritoire. Fortunately, Mrs. Hayes never stinted with the supply of paper and ink. “I have been attempting to describe the play last night, but I cannot seem to find the words this morning.”
“Dull,” Mrs. Hayes suggested without looking up. “Spiritless. Wooden. I have rarely been so disappointed by an opening night. I almost regret insisting that we stay.” She paused to murmur over something she read, shaking her head as she refolded the letter and laid it aside before turning to the next. “At least the farce was tolerably amusing. A pity Lord Dunstane missed it, don’t you agree?”
She could picture the scorn with which Lord Scottish would have viewed such silliness, the disdain with which he would have listened to her laughter.
Oh, his hauteur was unsufferable. Unforgiveable.
Or ought to be.
“Really, ma’am, I hadn’t given him a moment’s thought.”
Julia didn’t like to lie to Mrs. Hayes. Not least because it was so easy to do that it was impossible not to feel guilty afterward. She was such a trusting, oblivious soul. Why, her niece Laura—now Julia’s sister-in-law—had got up to no end of antics while living under this very roof, and Mrs. Hayes had never been the wiser.
Though occasionally, there was a moment, like last night in the carriage, or when the older woman would lift her lorgnette halfway to her eyes and fix Julia with a look, that made her wonder whether she knew more than she let on.
Thankfully, this morning was not one of those times.
Mrs. Hayes was fully absorbed in her letters. Later, Julia would be expected to go through that same stack of correspondence, answering the invitations as directed. But for now, for another half hour at most, she was at leisure to finish writing her own.
She could not afford to be frittering that time away, mulling over the contrast between icy eyes and fiery hair, between cool words and the peat-smoke-and-whisky warmth of the voice in which those words had been spoken.
Dipping her pen, she began again.
When one is tasked with reviewing a performance ofOthello, one is not permitted to fault the playwright. When the stage is graced by such luminaries as Mrs. Siddons, one is not expected to fault the acting. How, then, to explain a staging of the Moor of Venice so dull as to have made Miss on Scene wish she might find some way of hurrying the action along to its inevitable ending—its tragic ending, I had almost written.
But is it a tragedy to put a thing out of its misery?
With all due respect to both Mr. Shakespeare and Mrs. Siddons, Desdemona ought to beangry. Emilia too. How are such vapid playthings as I saw last night, women who can respond only by whispering and whimpering at their betrayal, meant to have attracted men of such vigor and supposed valor?
Julia paused to reread what she had written so far and gave a self-satisfied smile. Lord Dunstane could have his insipid. She had done him one better.
Perhaps Mr. Shakespeare’s genius was hampered by the knowledge that the impassioned words of his great tragic heroines would be—could only be, in those dark days—mouthed by mere boys. Perhaps Mrs. Shakespeare was the forgiving, accommodating sort, willing to overlook her husband’s misdeeds, and so he had no true notion of how a woman in Desdemona’s situation might feel.
If my readers attend the theater to have their passions stirred, I fear they will leave this performance unmoved.
If a young lady attends with other motives, she may feel secure in regarding the scenes passing before her as a harmless backdrop to the various amusements which an evening at Covent Garden may afford.
The farce—perennial favorite “A Scandalous Marriage”—was at least tolerably amusing,
“Something’s got into you,” Mrs. Hayes remarked, with a pointed glance.
“Ma’am?”
She nodded toward the half-filled sheet. “You seem to have found some words.”
A laugh eased from Julia. “Oh, yes. I did. I was trying to be delicate at first, you see. Rather than honest.”
“I thought perhaps you had moved on to pleasanter subjects than the play.” The hand holding her letter dropped into her lap, and a sharp sigh burst from her. “I’m still quite vexed about the box. How could Mr. Pope—? And Lord Dunstane . . . such a lonely-looking gentleman, didn’t you think? I felt certain he would offer—”
“Now, Mrs. Hayes,” Julia soothed. She wanted nothing from haughty Lord Scottish.
After transforming her last comma into a point, she waved the sheet back and forth a few times before folding it. Lady Stalbridge abhorred smudged ink. Julia had had every intention of writing more, but the clock on the mantel warned her that she was already past her time.
Rising, she stepped toward Mrs. Hayes. “If I may, ma’am, I’ll post my letter and then go to the bookshop and find something interesting to help us pass the next few evenings.”
Surely, once the rush of opening night was over and the excitement at seeing Mrs. Siddons had abated, there would be seats to be had. They had managed well enough last year without a reserved box.
“A new novel, dear?” Mrs. Hayes sounded intrigued. “But rest assured, I haven’t given up on the theater. When you return, I intend to write to Mr. Pope and give him a piece of my mind.”
Which meant, of course, that Julia was to write and find the words to convey Mrs. Hayes’s displeasure.
She donned her pelisse, tucked her review into her reticule, and was tying the ribbons on her bonnet when Mrs. Hayes added, “And then a note of thanks to Lord Dunstane, of course.”
Julia’s fingers fumbled. It was one thing to chastise Mr. Pope. Or even Shakespeare.
Words of gratitude would be far more difficult to come by.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Lord Scottish clutching two glasses of wine. For your aunt, he had said, and then kept the other for himself.
Of course, a man like him had not thought of getting a glass for her.
Mere companions, or poor relations, or whatever part he imagined she played, evidently did not require—or perhaps deserve—refreshments.
“Perhaps he will yet do the polite thing,” Mrs. Hayes went on, “and agree to share the box with us.”
Julia dipped her head to hide the incredulous laugh that rose to her lips. Polite? She doubted the man even knew the meaning of the word.
Besides, having to spend an hour or two in company last night had likely confirmed Lord Dunstane in his reclusive ways.
With any luck, he was already on his way back to Scotland.
Then at least they might be left to enjoy his—their—box in peace.
* * *
Porter’s Antiquarian Bookshop was not the sort of place that stocked titles to amuse Mrs. Hayes on a dull autumn evening. It was, however, the location of the makeshift editorial office for Mrs. Goode’s Magazine for Misses. Once each month, any of the writers who happened to be in Town met in the room at the back of the shop to discuss matters of business and plan future issues. The rest of the time, the space was used for storage, which explained its perpetually disheveled state.
Behind the counter near the front of the shop were three things of interest to Julia: a pigeonhole in which messages could be left for “Mrs. Goode,” a key to the back room, and a clerk who knew enough to look the other way when Julia slipped a folded note from her reticule and reached across into the cubby.
With the tip of her finger, she could feel that the little box was half full of paper. Lady Stalbridge’s servant had not yet come to collect her messages, then. Miss on Scene’s column might be the last one in, but once it was shuffled in between Miss N.’s News and Miss R.’s Arts and Accomplishments, no one need be the wiser.
It was something of a stretch to reach the pigeonhole, and its rounded opening required her to refold her column to make it fit. On her second attempt, she turned her head, the better to extend her arm, and made two discoveries.
The first was that the hook from which the key to the back room ordinarily hung was empty.
That, in and of itself, was not surprising, though today was not a meeting day. Miss Cooper, the artist behind the magazine’s regular cartoon, “What Miss C. Saw”—a satirical look at people and places about Town, which readers had instantly dubbed the “Unfashionable Plates”—often worked in the back room, though in Julia’s estimation, the light was rather poor for drawing.
Constantia Cooper had not taken any of the staff members into her confidence, so no one, with the possible exception of Lady Stalbridge, knew where she lived or anything about her family. It required no great stretch of imagination to guess that someone at home disapproved of her sketching hobby. But that begged the question of how she then got away to spend hours at Porter’s, evidently unchaperoned.
Neck twisted, shoulder strained, Julia was weighing whether to investigate after—or rather, if—she managed to get her blasted letter into the blasted box, when she made the second discovery.
Lord Dunstane was headed her way, a curious—well, it might be more accurate to describe it as disapproving —expression on his face.
“Miss Addison?”
Yes, definitely a note of disapproval, though she could not seem to help liking the way her name sounded on his lips, the way his slight brogue made the vowels curve in unexpected ways.
“My lord,” she answered, sliding slowly down the counter on which she had been half-propped as if it were the most natural posture in the world. Should I drop the note? Or—? Her hand brushed against the binding of a book, and without a second thought, she snatched it up. In the half a moment it took for him to close the gap between them, she managed to slip her column between the book’s pages and now dipped into a curtsy.
When she looked up again, he was watching her expectantly, obviously awaiting an explanation for her odd behavior. Were his eyes gray? Or possibly green? Even the midday light streaming through Porter’s front window was not bright enough for her to determine. And she was certainly not going to stare.
“I, er—” she began, then giggled, then despised herself for giggling. “I came in to fetch a book they were holding for Mrs. Hayes, but I couldn’t get the clerk to help me, so I had to reach it myself.”
At that, the clerk—who had been standing a few feet away, leafing through a stack of orders and steadfastly not looking in her direction as he had no doubt been instructed—glanced down at her over the top rim of his spectacles, gave a little harumph of irritation, and strode off toward another customer.
With a triumphant smile, Julia held up the small, battered volume, bound in dull brown leather. “I’ve managed it, you see,” she said, belatedly tugging on the sleeve of her spencer to straighten it.
Surely this little display would send the man scurrying through the shop door behind her.
“May I?” he asked instead, and held out his hand, palm upward, for the book.
“May you . . . Oh. You wanted to see . . . oh, yes, of course.” As she rambled, she surreptitiously tucked the folded letter more securely between the book’s pages before surrendering it.
Lord Dunstane was, objectively speaking, a handsome man. More handsome than any man with red hair had a right to be, as far as Julia was concerned. If it had been the pale red shade, tending toward blond, that Constantia Cooper sported, Julia could have dismissed him more easily. But his hair was darker, not quite auburn. And he wore it unfashionably long, the better to frame a collection of sculpted features, the sort of face that made her curious what it would take to soften his expression, why he never smiled.
Not, she supposed, that their two encounters had been especially pleasant from his perspective either. Though her appearance today might at least be worth another sardonic curl of the lips, as she had glimpsed last night.
But a real smile? Coaxing one of those would be a challenge, indeed.
And absolutely not a challenge to which she intended to rise.
He turned the book over in his hands, ran a fingertip down its spine, opened to the title page, and gave a hum of surprise. “Mr. Hume, eh? I had thought Mrs. Hayes—and you—more likely to prefer novels.”
Julia bristled. “And why shouldn’t we read history? Or philosophy,” she hastily added. She hadn’t looked at the book before giving it to him, and Mr. Hume had been too prolific for her to assume the nature of the volume Lord Dunstane now held.
“No reason,” he replied, the thread of amusement in his voice undoing whatever attempt at mollification he had intended to make with his words. “But very few young ladies do, or so I’m given to understand.”
As he spoke, he continued to examine the book, and her mind raced.
Please don’t let him thumb through it. Please don’t let him—
Beneath his fingertips, the pages, slightly yellowed with age, fanned open, leaving Julia’s now-mangled sheet of paler foolscap standing up in the center.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed. “Looks like whoever sold the book to Porter’s left a letter behind—”
“Merely a receipt, I’m sure.” She snatched it from between the pages before he could investigate further. “And of course young ladies read history,” she insisted, though in truth, she rarely did. All the battles and masculine posturing, hardly any women. “All the drama, those invented speeches—it’s very little different from a night at the theater.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I could argue—”
Of course he could. He was exactly the sort of person who would take pleasure in picking apart anything and everything others said.
He held out the book, returning it to her. “But I won’t.”
Why did his refusal deflate her? She had neither the time nor inclination to spar with Lord Dunstane. She had come to Porter’s for one purpose, and she certainly did not intend to let a handsome, insufferable, insufferably handsome Scotsman interfere with—
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the purposeful stride of someone approaching: Lady Stalbridge, with the key to the back room dangling from her left hand.
Lord Dunstane did not appear to notice her. Or, if he did, he had no interest in an introduction. “I’ll wish you a good day, Miss Addison,” he said, with a dip of his head, and before she could reply, the bell above the shop door jangled to signal his departure.
“And who was that?” asked Lady Stalbridge, following him with her gaze—which, when his retreating form had disappeared, she then turned on Julia. No mistaking, in any light, that the countess’s eyes were blue, and sharp enough to see right through a fib.
“Lord Dunstane,” Julia said and paused to draw breath before launching into an explanation of how they had come to be acquainted.
But Lady Stalbridge did not require an explanation. “The Earl of Dunstane?” she echoed, glancing once more toward the window, though he was no longer visible. “The theater patron?”
“P-patron?” Was that Lady Stalbridge’s discreet way of describing a gentleman who flirted with actresses?
“Yes. His name is well known among those seeking support for various productions and playwrights, though the man himself almost never comes to London to see the results. I suppose he has other ways of knowing whether his investment paid off,” she added, with the sort of sly smile that made Julia think her surmise about the actresses wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Which playwrights?” Difficult to imagine whose work would please surly Lord Scottish.
“Most famously—or infamously—a fellow Scot, Ransom Blackadder.”
Julia could not entirely contain her reaction, though she knew Lady Stalbridge was watching her and no doubt thinking of the same thing: Julia’s pointed review of Blackadder’s latest in the Magazine for Misses last spring.
“Speaking of,” she said, though neither of them had expressed their thoughts aloud. Into Lady Stalbridge’s hand, she pressed her review of Othello, the state of which had not been improved by being clutched in Julia’s too-warm palm. “I have to go. Mrs. Hayes will be wondering what became of me.”
Turning, she laid the dull little volume she had no intention of purchasing on the counter. With her fingertips, she pushed it a few inches in the direction of the harried clerk. She would send Daniel, Mrs. Hayes’s errand boy, out later to fetch some horrid novel the whole household would enjoy. Lord Dunstane had left Porter’s empty-handed, and she did not intend to risk being confronted by him in yet another bookshop, particularly not in the midst of making such a frivolous purchase.
Really, it ought not to have come as such a surprise to her, the connection between the ton’s favorite misanthrope and the supposed gentleman so ready to dismiss the intellectual capability of young women, the feelings of a lady’s companion, and the respect due an elderly widow.
Unfortunately, the notion of Lord Dunstane as a patron of the theater did not make him any less intriguing to her.
Or any less attractive.