Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Aunt Mildred made excuses for Lord Dunstane’s failure to appear in Clapham on Sunday: the weather was poor; gentlemen had many demands on their time.
Julia, however, understood what his absence meant.
Somehow he had discovered that she was Miss on Scene. Perhaps he had known for some time. Had he orchestrated all of it—the sweet little cottage, the stories of his tragic childhood, the revelation of his secret identity, the proposal—to humiliate her? To ruin her?
Surely he might have been satisfied with mocking the magazine, even revealing her name and exposing her to censure and ridicule.
Did he also have to break her heart?
Well, even if it were true that all her efforts to soften him had been for naught, she still had no intention of letting him have the last word. He had a surprise in store for him at Monday’s rehearsal of The Poison Pen.
She hadn’t told the others at the magazine that Graham was Ransom Blackadder. She had wanted to leave them with a sliver of hope that she still had the power to make things right. Though surprised by Julia’s request, Lady Stalbridge had allowed her to keep the second note that had been sent to her. It crinkled now in her reticule as she prepared to set out.
Aunt Mildred, at least, had continued to improve and had even summoned Mr. Watkins to demonstrate how much. She had managed, with assistance, to descend to the sitting room and was awaiting her caller there now—wrapped up against any possibility of a chill in the air, with her feet propped up on cushions, it was true, but nonetheless, much better than anyone had expected and in half the time the apothecary had predicted.
From below, Julia heard a knock and smiled to think of Mr. Watkins’s astonishment. Then, as she was buttoning her spencer, Nelly appeared at her door. “A gentleman to see you, miss.”
Julia’s hand—body, heart—twitched at the unexpected news. Graham? Threads popped, and a button came away in her hand.
“Oh, dear, miss,” Nelly said. “Best give it to me. I’ll have it fixed in a minute. They’re waiting for you below.”
Torn between flying down the stairs—she did not wish to seem eager, but every moment gave Aunt Mildred more opportunity to say something ridiculous—or appearing in a state of cool and righteous fury, with her chin in the air, she stumbled and nearly fell on the steps.
A dark head appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. “Julia, are you all right?”
“Jeremy!”
She launched herself into her brother’s arms and might have let herself snivel against the shoulder of his coat if his next words had not been, “I understand felicitations are in order?”
“Oh, well—” She drew back enough to peer into the room behind him and saw his wife, Laura; their mother; and Mama’s husband, Mr. Remington, looking at her with expectant faces. “How lovely of you—all of you—to come all this way to deliver them in person.”
The others beamed. Jeremy gave her a fierce squeeze before releasing her. “My little sister—a countess!”
“I shall insist on at least one scraping bow from you, brother dear,” she managed to tease.
Her mother came forward with hands extended. “I’m so happy for you. When shall we meet this Lord Dunstane?”
“I, uh—”
“He’s a busy fellow—”
“—more interested in how Julia met him—”
Beneath the cover of a cacophony of voices, everyone speaking and no one listening, Julia took a chair in front of the window, hoping the light at her back would make her expression more difficult to read. With a wave of her arm, she invited the others to sit down.
“His lordship is patron to some of the most noted playwrights of our day,” Aunt Mildred was explaining to Mr. Remington, a description that made Julia’s belly do an uneasy flip.
One playwright in particular. Andnotorious might be the better word.
“Though he hardly ever leaves Scotland, you said.” Mama’s soft blue eyes looked worried. “I do hope his coming to Town this Season marks a change of sentiment on the matter. I hate to think of my daughter so far away.”
You say that now, Mama, but when I’m disgraced . . .
“We’ll visit the Highlands,” her husband reassured her. “Lovely spot.”
“You know I’m no stickler,” Jeremy interjected, a statement greeted by a wry lift of his wife’s lips, “and I have every confidence in Julia’s decision, but I do think the man might have written to me.”
“I’m sure he told me he would,” said Aunt Mildred, still determined to believe the best of Lord Dunstane’s intentions.
“We’ve discussed this.” Laura soothed both her husband and her aunt with a gently admonishing shake of her head, setting her short, red-gold curls abob. “You were so eager to get here, Jeremy, you wouldn’t wait for the post. His letter and our coach must have crossed on the road.”
“Yes, my dear. I’m sure you’re right.” Jeremy reached for his wife’s hand. “As you say, what matters is that this Dunstane sounds a decent fellow and our Julia is happy.”
At that, Julia popped to her feet. “To call my present feelings happiness hardly does them justice, brother dear.” She pressed her lips together and stretched them into something she hoped would pass for a smile. “Shall I ring for some refreshments?”
“If I know Mrs. Whyte, she’ll be in a flurry with such an unexpected houseful,” Laura said, rising. “Why don’t we go down together and speak with her?” She looped an arm through Julia’s and guided her toward the corridor and the stairs.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the others, she repeated her husband’s question. “Is everything all right?”
Julia made some noncommittal noise.
“You seem . . . forgive me . . . not quite yourself. Watching you, I began to fear that Aunt Mildred might have been confused, or—or exaggerated the nature of this Lord Dunstane’s attentions?”
“Oh, no. He told your aunt in no uncertain terms that I was to make him the happiest of men.”
Just not, as it came to pass, in the ordinary way.
But she had little doubt he was delighted by his triumph over Miss on Scene.
The door of the kitchen swung outward, and Nelly appeared. “La, miss!” she exclaimed, clearly surprised to find them there. “And milady,” she added, dropping into a curtsy. “I never meant you should have to come looking for me. Here you be.” She held out the mended spencer, which Julia did not immediately take from her.
“Were you going out?” Laura asked. Her eyes glittered, sharp and knowing, even in the dimness of the basement corridor. “An assignation with your betrothed, perhaps?”
Julia hesitated for a moment before nodding. “We have an urgent matter to discuss, yes.”
“Oh?” Laura’s voice turned cool. Experience had given her an abiding suspicion of every nobleman who wasn’t her husband.
Julia sent her a pleading look. “There’s something I must settle with Lord Dunstane before my brother hears of it.”
For a moment, Laura appeared to weigh how to proceed; given her history, Julia wouldn’t have been surprised if she had insisted on going in Julia’s stead and putting Graham in his place. “All right,” she conceded at last. “Go—but try not to be away for long. I have some news I believe will keep everyone occupied for a time.” She smoothed her palm over the front of her skirts to reveal the slightest rounding of her figure.
“A baby?” Julia gasped, throwing her arms around her sister-in-law’s neck. Jeremy and Laura had been awaiting the blessing of a child for quite some time.
“Yes, you shall be Aunt Julia at last.”
Scandalous Aunt Julia, more like. She imagined her future nieces and nephews whispering among themselves, stories of the aunt who had once written for a daring ladies’ magazine and then allowed herself to be seduced and ruined by a Scotsman bent on revenge—if she were permitted to be mentioned in the family at all.
“Hurry,” Laura urged. “It’s a juicy tidbit, but it can only sate them for a while. Eventually the others will notice you’ve gone.”
When Julia arrived at the theater, rehearsal was already underway. But to her surprise, Graham was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had anticipated that she would come and was avoiding her.
Immersed in their characters, the actors paid no attention as she slipped into her usual seat. Several rows from the stage, she watched as Mr. Sawyer and Mrs. Cole worked their way through the scene she and Graham had acted out just a few days before. The tension, the physical closeness—audiences could not but see the exchange for what it was, two sworn enemies battling their desire for one another. When Mr. Fanshawe called a halt, Mrs. Cole was pink-cheeked and Mr. Sawyer was breathing as if he’d just run a footrace.
After a brief pause, during which stagehands rearranged some of the furnishings, Mr. Fanshawe directed them to begin Act Three. Julia had read Perpetua’s lines, of course, but seeing them performed was worse than she had imagined. As Reginald Briggs’s power grew, he tamped down his inconvenient attraction to the woman he blamed for his brother’s death. He began to wield the sort of control over the public that he had previously accused Miss Philpot of abusing. The circulation of her reviews declined, driving her to heat her now-miserable room with a paltry fire made by burning unsold copies of the magazine for which she wrote. Julia realized with a start that even the desks had been changed. The scene ended with Briggs now seated at an escritoire with elegant turned legs, while Perpetua slumped over a battered deal table.
“That’ll do,” Mr. Fanshawe called from the wings, before the final scene. “Good work, everyone. I believe even his lordship might’ve been pleased with that.”
“That’ll be the day,” said Mrs. Cole.
The actors chuckled doubtfully, knowingly, as they cleared the stage.
Julia sat for several minutes after everyone was gone, struggling to collect her thoughts. She wasn’t sure whether Ransom Blackadder possessed sufficient influence over audiences to prompt them to punish critics in general.
But it was quite clear how Graham meant to use the knowledge he’d acquired specifically to damage her and the Magazine for Misses.
She pushed to her feet. But rather than leave, she ascended the small staircase to the stage one last time. She stood in the center, sliding the tip of her first finger over the edge of one desk, and then the other. The silence of the empty theater was oppressive. In that cavernous space, she felt very alone, indeed.
“Plotting the next victim of your poison pen?”
When Graham spoke from the wings, opposite where Mr. Fanshawe had stood, she couldn’t contain her shriek of surprise. It echoed as he strolled across the boards as if he owned them.
Julia gathered her courage and met his hard look with a defiant one of her own, gripping the rail of Perpetua’s chair, the better to hide her trembling hands. “I leave such despicable tricks to you, my lord.”
He stopped with the table between them and tossed something onto it. She glanced down to see a copy of the last issue of the magazine, open to her column.
“I told you everything,” he said. His voice was ragged, raw. “You might at least have mentioned this.”
“As if you didn’t already know,” she replied with a glare. “Why couldn’t you be satisfied with taking down the rich and powerful in your plays, those who could stand to be knocked down a peg? But no—you couldn’t bear to be criticized. You said you wanted Perpetua to get close to Briggs, to lure him in. It’s clear to me now, however, just who stabs whom in the end. Well, do your worst.” She spun on one heel, deliberately turning her back to him as she prepared to leave. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Out of the corner of one eye, she saw his hand shoot out—to stay her, she thought. She expected to feel his iron grip on her arm.
But his fingertips settled light as a feather on the pulse point throbbing at the base of her throat. “You’re a liar.”
It wasn’t fear that made her heart race, however. His fingers slipped along the sharp angle of her collarbone, sparking in her a most unwelcome memory of their shared passion only days before and eliciting from him a soft groan.
When he spoke again, his voice was thick with a mixture of regret and longing. “And I’m a fool.”
With gentle but inexorable pressure on her shoulder, he turned her to face him, and she made no effort to resist.
“I didn’t tell you,” she said, “because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” he scoffed, though pain gleamed in his eyes like unshed tears. If anything, the crack in his mask had widened in the days since she had seen him. But he seemed determined to cling to whatever protection the remaining fragments afforded. “All that I’ve been through, all that I’ve suffered, and you thought one review—one anonymous reviewer—could hurt me?”
“Yes,” she insisted in a voice hardly above a whisper. “And I’m sorry.”
He shoved the table aside and pulled her into his arms.
“How did you find out?” she asked against the soft wool of his coat, dragging in a lungful of his intoxicating scent.
“I put my secretary to investigating the identity of Miss on Scene several weeks ago. I intended to invite her to the opening performance of The Poison Pen. I wish . . .”
Chastened, she nodded her understanding. “You wish I had been the one to tell you the truth.”
“Nay,” he corrected, “I wish I’d never made such a ridiculous demand of him. Or that Keynes weren’t such a persistent man.”
Her answering laugh might have been mistaken for a sniffle. “I wanted to tell you at the cottage. But once I finally understood the reason you wrote in such anger—and I realized the state you must have been in when you read my review, so soon after your brother’s death—I feared if I revealed I was Miss on Scene, you would only push me away. And I couldn’t bear that. So I convinced myself that since you’d already had a change of heart about The Poison Pen, it was better for me to say nothing. I decided, rather than giving you my secret”—she paused, chewing on the inside of her lip—“I would give you myself instead.”
“Julia . . .” he half scolded, half sighed against her hair, the warmth of his breath making her scalp tingle.
“Oh, Graham. I understand why you’re upset with me, and I know pain makes people do terrible things.” She lifted her chin just enough to look into his face. “But I also know you’re a better man than this. Please, don’t use the play to ruin Mrs. Goode and the others. Say what you like of me, just spare the magazine.”
A wrinkle of confusion darted across his brow. “Are you referring to the ending?”
She extricated herself from his embrace, opened her reticule, and held out the letter. “I’m referring to this.”
He read it through, and his frown deepened. “What is this?” He turned the paper over, but of course it bore no direction, having been sealed inside the other note. “How did you come by it?”
“On Saturday morning, each of us—the editor of the Magazine for Misses and every young lady who writes for it—received your letter—”
“My letter?” He snapped his wrist, making the paper rattle. “This isn’t my hand.”
“Well, R.B.’s letter, then.” Still, he looked uncomprehending. “Didn’t you—? I, er—I assumed you had disguised your writing to protect your identity.”
“Why would I do such a thing when you already knew the truth?”
A new sense of alarm jolted through her. She’d wanted to deny it could be Graham, but everything had seemed to be against him, everyone had been so certain . . .
If he had not written it, then who?
“Perhaps your secretary?” she suggested, even as she recalled the man’s precise copperplate from the letter he’d sent about the ticket to Lord Dunstane’s box.
Graham’s expression hovered somewhere between amusement and affront. “Keynes issue threats? Certainly not.”
“Then who would?”
“Keynes told me he bribed a former clerk from a bookshop—Porter’s, I assume?” he added as an aside, cocking one brow—“to reveal what he knew. Perhaps my secretary wasn’t the only one the fellow told.”
“Perhaps. But we’re clearly meant to assume the letters came from Ransom Blackadder.”
“Yes.” He had resumed studying the much-folded note from every angle, testing the weight of the paper and examining the ink. “Someone who expects to command an audience at my play.”
“It could be anyone. Someone could pay the boys on the street to hand out leaflets,” she cried, then glanced around at the boxes. “Or someone might stand up in the middle of a scene and shout.”
But Graham, who was looking about the stage, shook his head. “Neither of those things is likely to get the sort of attention this person seems to desire. May I keep this?”
She nodded, and he began to refold it. “Do you think it could be a reference to what happens in the play itself?” she asked. From what she’d seen, things still went badly for Perpetua in the final act.
“If so, this person’s plans can still be thwarted,” he insisted, “because the play can still be changed.”
“But you’ve only a few more rehearsals before opening night!”
He waved a hand to dismiss her concerns. “Why not send Blackadder out with a flourish?”
“You still mean for this to be the end of him?” she asked, thinking back to what he’d told her at the cottage.
“Yes.” He slipped the letter into his breast pocket, but did not immediately withdraw his hand, as if reaching for something else. “I’m more certain than ever that Blackadder must give way to make room for a new beginning.”
“A new beginning . . .” she echoed. “I’ve been thinking. About what else you said at the cottage. Your proposal.” The movement of his hand inside his coat stilled. Unable to meet his eye, she dropped her gaze, focusing instead on the table and the copy of the magazine. “It was made under false pretenses, before you knew the whole truth about me. You might regret—”
“Do you?”
His voice was strange, harsh. Hopeful? He was too much of a gentleman to jilt her. But she might yet call off the engagement. Surely, in spite of what had transpired between them, it would be the right thing to do.
Why, though, if freedom was the thing she had always wanted most, did the prospect of freeing herself from him make her heart ache anew?
She parted her lips, but he spoke before her words came. “Don’t answer that.” He caught her hand, and she watched as he dragged his thumb across the back of her knuckles, unable to lift her eyes to his face. “For the next week, I’m going to be very busy with revisions and rehearsals—and these, I must handle myself. But on opening night, after you’ve seen the play, when all this is behind us, I’ll ask you again. You can give me your answer—your real answer—then.”
She managed a stiff nod, fighting the impulse to launch herself into his arms instead.
He released her hand and picked up the magazine, evidently having followed the direction of her gaze. “In the meantime, it seems I’ll be devoting myself to saving . . . what did Keynes say everyone calls this blessed thing? Ah, yes,” he said, holding it out to her. “Mrs. Goode’s Guide to Misconduct.”
As she reached out to take it from him, she looked up at last to search his face.
The familiar mockery was there, perhaps, in the curve of his lips. But his eyes were clear and warm, his gaze as intense as she had ever seen it.
“Don’t look so surprised, lass.”
They were not the eyes of a man who intended to let her go.
Nor had he released his end of the folded periodical. “I won’t let aught happen to it.” To you, his eyes added as they stood together, not touching one another but linked by what had once divided them, what only moments before she had believed would be the last issue of the magazine. “I’m too eager to read your next review.”