Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Monday’s rehearsal had been the worst yet. Mrs. Cole had misplaced her script. Fanshawe had whinged interminably about having to learn new lines. And Graham had known, even before the words were spoken, that the scenes he had labored for the better part of three days to rewrite were swill.
They lacked Julia’s deftness, her lightness of touch. Once he had read her suggestions, nothing in Blackadder’s ordinary style sounded quite right.
For the first hour he had sat in the back of the theater, ready to assist her with the door. He had divided his gaze between his box, lest she had decided to observe from a distance, and the stage, where he imagined her bright eyes and mischievous smile as Perpetua Philpot brought a poor poet to the brink of despair and made the audience half in love with her for it.
When it became clear she had no intention of coming his rescue, he had reminded himself that fascination with the clever critic was to be expected. After all, had he not once been almost seduced by Miss on Scene’s compliments? Then she had delivered the death blow—that snide remark about pity—and now she would be justly punished in the end.
Not long into the second hour, he had stridden to the foot of the stage, told the actors of Blackadder’s disappointment at their efforts in no uncertain terms, and gone back to Half Moon Street to berate Keynes about his lack of progress in discovering the identity of Miss on Scene.
On Tuesday, when no rehearsal had been called, he ordered his curricle and set out in a southerly direction. Over the Thames. In the general vicinity of Clapham, as it happened. Not that he had any intention of stopping. He certainly didn’t wonder which of the stately, modern houses belonged to the Widow Hayes. He was just passing through into the country for a longer drive. The horses wanted the exercise. And he needed fresh air, somewhere away from Mayfair.
Far away from the theater and everything—everyone—associated with it.
Only when Clapham Common was far behind him did he loosen his grip on the reins, allow himself to take in his surroundings. To either side of a narrow lane lay rolling fields, some fallow for the impending winter, others awaiting a final harvest of grain, all of them constrained by brown, scraggly hedgerows.
Except for the sheep dotting a distant pasture, none of it reminded him of the Highlands. Too flat, too cultivated, too . . . English. But something about the countryside made him think with longing of Dunstane. Despite the pains and travails associated with the place, when all was said and done, it was still his home.
He wanted, quite suddenly, to write. Not the painstaking—and, he feared, ultimately pointless—revisions to The Poison Pen, which required too much coffee to begin and too much whisky to continue. Something fresh. Something with a bit more heart and a bit less rancor.
Something that probably wouldn’t sell a single ticket.
He tried to push away the peculiar mood. He could hardly afford such an indulgence. But he hadn’t quite succeeded in dismissing the idea when his gaze fell upon a house—a cottage, really, with stone walls and a slate roof. It sat alone amidst fields whose crops had already been taken in, at the end of a straight drive whose tracks showed little sign of recent wear. No smoke rose from the chimney.
He slowed his horses enough to take a cursory inspection of the place. Too well-kept to have been abandoned, he judged. But clearly uninhabited at present. Though rarely given to romance, his mind began to concoct a story about the owner, some star-eyed but sturdy fellow who had set out on an adventure and left his sensible neighbors shaking their heads.
A mile farther on, he came to a village. Thirsty enough to bear conversation with strangers, he went into the pub to ask for a pint and something to eat. The beamed ceiling of the Spindle and Plow was low enough that he had to stoop. Both his entrance and his question to the barman about the solitary cottage were met with chary looks.
“Belongs to Squire Brereton, like everythin’ else in these parts,” the man said, turning toward a nearby cask.
“He’s away for the winter?”
A foaming mug of ale was his only answer.
The girl who brought his food was more talkative. “You’re Scottish, ain’t ye?” she demanded as she laid before him a trencher of pale-yellow cheese, cold mutton, and crusty bread.
Graham fished for a coin and slid it across the rough-hewn table to her. “Aye.”
“I heard ye ask himself about Brereton Cottage.” At Graham’s encouraging nod, she went on. “The squire had it fixed up for his second son and the girl he was to marry. Then the boy announced he were going off to war—said it were his duty. Guess his girl didn’t agree. She packed up and left in the middle of the night not a week later.”
“Alone?”
The girl’s knowing grin revealed a missing tooth. “You look like a clever fellow. What d’ye think?”
So much for his imagined tale of noble adventure; the tawdry truth was far more suited to Blackadder’s usual fare.
He nodded again, more curtly this time, and picked up his knife, grateful when the girl took those for signs of dismissal.
The Spindle and Plow’s scattering of patrons showed little interest in him, though he overheard a few words exchanged about his curricle that made him smile behind his bread and cheese. Once he’d drained his mug, he steeled himself for the return to Town, the playhouse, and the problems that awaited him there, so far removed from young Mr. Brereton’s bravery and betrayal.
A shadow fell across the table. He dragged his gaze upward to find a man standing there this time, a fellow somewhere between thirty and forty years of age, clad in dark garments.
“Tetley,” he said, thrusting out a hand. “I’m the curate here. But I also handle matters of business for Squire Brereton when he’s away.”
The double duty made some sense, Graham supposed. Tetley was surely the most literate man in the village, and his profession doubtless gave him a reputation for trustworthiness, though whether that reputation was deserved or not was another question.
Reluctantly, Graham shook his offered hand. “McKay.”
His surname no longer rose more naturally to his tongue than his title. But here—in what felt like the middle of nowhere, despite being at most a dozen miles from London—he was determined to cling to something like anonymity.
Uninvited, the curate slipped into the chair opposite. “Kitty tells me you’re interested in Brereton Cottage.”
Regretting his decision to stop at the little pub, Graham made no answer.
But Tetley was undaunted. “I can offer it to you on very reasonable terms.”
Astonished, Graham made a scoffing noise in his throat as he shook his head. He opened his mouth to decline in no uncertain terms. But from somewhere came the words, “How much?”
He didn’t need another house. At such an extravagance, Keynes would peer at him disapprovingly over the tops of his spectacles. He might even dare to mutter something critical beneath his breath.
But the appeal of a place with no connection to Graham’s past or even to the rest of his present life was too strong.
“How much to rent the cottage until next quarter day?” he clarified. Once the play was over, he would return to Dunstane. He might never come this way again.
Tetley couldn’t hide his disappointment; clearly, he had hoped for more than a month. But he named a number that wasn’t unreasonable.
Graham countered nonetheless; what sort of Scotsman wouldn’t try to drive a bargain? “And I will expect to take possession straightaway.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Tetley nodded and signaled to the barman. “Have another pint, sir. I’ll have Mrs. Tetley freshen up the place for you.”
His mother?Graham wondered. Or his wife?
“No need,” he declared, unfolding himself from the chair as he reached into his breast pocket for a pair of banknotes. “That should be enough to trust me with the key.”
“Of course, sir.” Tetley stood. “I’ll just—I won’t be a moment.”
Graham met the curate again in the inn yard a few minutes later, where a lad—the barman’s son, to all appearances—stood holding the reins of his curricle and handed them over with a sigh of envy.
Breathless from having hurried off somewhere and back again, Tetley extended a heavy iron key. “You’re sure you wouldn’t—”
“Nay.” It hardly mattered what the man had been about to suggest. Graham was too eager to examine the cottage, to seize this strange urge to take on something new.
He arrived at Brereton Cottage certain he’d made a mistake. A house, empty for months—years, for all he knew. He imagined the dust, the damp air. No provisions. No kindling. Christ, but he was a fool. Tetley would be sniggering into his tea as he regaled the evening crowd at the Spindle and Plow with the tale of the daft Scotsman who’d paid twice what the place was worth.
Fitting the heavy key to the lock, he pushed the door inward on surprisingly silent hinges. Ghostly shapes greeted him: the furniture, hidden away beneath holland covers. He strode across the sitting room to open a window. A fresh autumn breeze soon cleared the stale air. He dragged the cover off a chair near the fireplace, then another from a low table. The furnishings were old-fashioned but of a respectable quality. Squire Brereton had obviously wanted good things for his second son.
Upstairs he found two bedchambers, almost identical. Both beds were unmade. Impossible to determine which had been intended for the poor couple’s marital bower.
He found sheets in a chest, perfectly clean and dry and scented with sprigs of lavender. With some effort, he managed to cover one of the plump, wool-stuffed mattresses. Then he hung his coat on a peg, rolled up his sleeves, and went downstairs to tend to the horses and draw water from the well.
The labor felt like more honest work than any he had done for some time. Not that he was entirely a stranger to working with his hands. Though improved now, for many years, conditions at Dunstane had been such that he could not afford simply to sit behind a desk. Such physical demands had also provided a much-needed outlet for his frustrations.
But even as he fetched and carried, his head buzzed with ideas, characters who demanded their story be told. Once the horses were settled, he went inside, lit a fire, and cursed himself for not having brought anything to write on.
Even that, however, the little house provided. In the drawer of a table, he found pencils and a few sheets of letter paper. Perhaps the would-be Mrs. Brereton had left a note when she’d flown.
But why should he assume that she had been in the wrong? Perhaps she was to be married to the farmer’s son against her wishes. Perhaps young Brereton would have treated her ill.
A rap at the back door startled him into renewed awareness of his surroundings. He was already several pages deep in notes for . . . something. A new play? He wasn’t quite sure. Not a satire, in any case. A story that still held out some hope.
Sunlight was rapidly fading from the sky, and the air coming through the still-open window had turned cold. He stopped to close it before going to the door.
Outside stood the girl from the pub—he didn’t remember her name—with a shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders and a basket hanging from one arm. “Mrs. Tetley thought you’d be wantin’ dinner,” she explained, gesturing with the basket. “And I offered to bring it. Save her the trip.”
“Most kind of you.” He took the laden basket from the girl with one hand and fished in his waistcoat pocket for a coin with the other.
She shook her head. “No need for that, sir. I, er . . .” She swept a toe across the ground in front of her. “If you’d like me to come in, I’d be lief to light a fire for you and straighten up the place,” she suggested, as if certain that a gentleman would be incapable of either task.
It was not all she intended to offer, he could guess, though she was hardly half his age and no one with whom he wished to dally. He turned to one side just enough that she could see past him into the room, lit by the glowing hearth. “I’ve managed on my own, thank you,” he said, pressing the coins into her work-roughened palm. Sensing defeat, her protests faded, and he closed the door between them.
I’vealways managed on my own.
Well, not always. He’d had help from time to time. Simon Keynes, for one, had done much to help him save Dunstane—both the title and the estate—from ruin. But for the most part, solitude had been his lot since he’d started at school. He’d never minded it. Fewer demands, fewer expectations. His own thoughts were usually good company.
Though there were times, of course, when a man wanted something else. Something more.
He placed the basket on the kitchen table and began to unpack its contents: a piping-hot earthenware crock filled with some sort of stew, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, more of the same cheese he’d had earlier in the day, and a few fresh apples. What would Mrs. Tetley say if he knew she’d sent such simple fare to a peer of the realm? Though, truth be told, he preferred it, even when it ran counter to his London chef’s notions of consequence.
After ladling some of the stew into a bowl and pouring a glass of wine, he broke off a hunk of the bread and carried everything into the sitting room, where he had spent the afternoon scribbling down every wild idea that had popped into his head. At the risk of spoiling his appetite, he should review what he’d written, to see if there was anything of substance there.
Instead, he sat back in his chair, sipped at the wine, and let his thoughts wander to Julia.
He knew better than to be surprised by her absence from Monday’s rehearsal. It was, in one sense, what he’d wanted—to push her away, to keep himself from getting closer. An entanglement was the very last thing he desired.
All the same, if that strange moment in the empty theater had been the end of things, he regretted not giving in to his urge to kiss her.
Perhaps, if he’d kissed her, she would have come back.
Now, in the twilight of the day, with a glass of wine in his belly and his mind drained of the ideas that had harried him all afternoon, he could relax enough to admit she had been the force behind today’s drive into the country, to this empty, isolated house.
He had chased a wild hare, half to tamp down his need for her, to remind himself of the pleasures, the necessity, of being alone.
And half because she, with her bright eyes and mischievous smile and way with a pen, had reignited a joy in wordplay that he had all but lost.
She would laugh to see him here. Not in the malicious fashion of audiences at a Blackadder play. She would be amused by his impulsiveness. Bemused, he corrected himself, remembering her expression the day he’d dropped her at Porter’s Bookshop. She didn’t know what to make of him, of his gruff, taciturn ways.
And she didn’t like wanting him, any more than he liked wanting her.
Draining his glass, he pushed himself more upright in the chair, forced himself to eat the bowl of Mrs. Tetley’s good stew and a few bites of bread, then carried everything back into the kitchen. After storing the food, he shrugged into his greatcoat and grabbed an apple, munching away at its tart crispness as he strode to the outbuilding to check on the horses. Fallon whickered softly; Findlay nosed the apple core out of his palm. A sleek tabby cat wound around his ankles but refused an offer to be petted.
Finding everything secure and settled, he returned to the house, banked the fire, and went upstairs, though it was hours earlier than he usually retired for the night. Nonetheless, he found himself drained by the events of the day.
In a room lit only by the moon, he stripped off his clothes and slipped into bed. When he’d started out as a writer, the best ideas for his plays had come to him in those hazy moments between waking and sleep.
But tonight, what came to him were more thoughts of Julia.
Decidedly improper thoughts.
If his strange fatigue weren’t enough, the chill in the air ought to have put a stop to them. He rolled onto his belly, hoping the rough, cold sheets against his bare skin would have the desired effect.
A few moments later, he caught himself grinding his hips into the mattress as he relived their first kiss in his mind: her hot, soft mouth and eager groan.
You’re no’ a randy lad anymore,he chided himself, flopping onto his back again. Though admittedly, schoolboy Graham would have been impressed by the way his cockstand tented the bed linens.
It would be tawdry and desperate to frig himself. But his body didn’t seem to care. He slid his palm down his belly and cupped his aching bollocks before taking his cock in a firm grip and jerking at his flesh almost frantically.
He would scratch the itch and be done with it.
Stave off this foolish need.
In any case, she would never know about this place. This night.
She would never know—
He would never—
“Ah, God,” he groaned into the darkness as his legs went rigid and his spine bowed against his impending climax. He was worse than a randy lad, spending almost as soon as he’d begun, and ending something less than satisfied.
What if he never saw her again?
When the sun rose Wednesday morning, he contemplated the prospect of another day in Brereton Cottage, surrounded by silence. A few more hours with only his own thoughts for company might yet do him some good—provided he could keep those thoughts in check.
Rehearsals for The Poison Pen would go on without him. Perhaps Fanshawe and the rest would perform better without Blackadder’s patron looming over them, correcting their every breath.
But in the end, he dragged himself out of bed to eat cold stew, hitched up the horses, and returned to Town. Unshaven and unkempt, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, he arrived at Covent Garden at half past two. Hailing the most responsible-looking of the ragged boys who hung about the theater, he handed over the reins of his curricle, squared his shoulders, and went inside.