Chapter Five
Julian Harcourt, Esquire, was the most punctual man Libba had ever encountered in her life.
She found it rather annoying.
Despite knowing he’d agreed to arrive at half eleven on the chime, she’d allowed herself to get pulled in half a dozen different directions this morning, several of which were wherever Jasper Townsend fell on the damned compass rose.
She knew that there were several practical matters to work out if she were going to help him in this nonsense endeavor. And she had to help him.
Discouraging Jasper from one of his schemes was the only way to guarantee he’d succeed in it.
Humoring them was the only gambit that had ever diffused one, in Libba’s experience, and this one, God in heaven, needed to be diffused.
So first, she would have to deal with the largest obstacle. While one might think that the largest obstacle was the practicality of the thing, it was not. The largest obstacle was Malcolm.
He was going to notice. That was a given.
So what in the Devil were they going to tell him?
She sighed, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
When they’d been younger, Malcolm would have been instrumental in entertaining one of these schemes just enough to watch it blow up.
This time, however, her brother would take it personally, as his best mate was scheming in the opposite direction of Malcolm’s own interests and benevolent offers.
Still, it was amusing to remember Malcolm’s stock of failed sundry throughout their teen years, amassing in his closet after so many failed plans.
She wondered if he still had that bushel of dried lavender. Probably not. Ruby would’ve made use of that in quick order and Malcolm was nothing if not a capable and unfailingly practical distribution service.
“Miss Lennox?” Mr. Harcourt said again, frowning at her over his folio. “Is it a poor time to have this meeting? I can always come back another day.”
“No,” she said, fanning her face with her hands and giving it a shake. “No. I am sorry. Let me go see what’s keeping him.”
She frowned, pushing herself to her feet and pacing out of the parlor in search of Lem, who was not usually tardy, especially in matters in which he had a personal stake.
“Is that Mr. Harcourt?” Hattie asked, passing her with a suspiciously green liquid sloshing in the glass she held. “I was going to write him today. Might I interrupt to ask him a few questions about registering a newborn?”
“Be my guest,” Libba said, gesturing to the side. “Have you seen Lem?”
Hattie nodded, sipping her concoction. “Rhys is shouting at him in the hall.”
Libba sighed and rolled her eyes. “Of course he is. Oh! Hattie!”
“Hm?” she said, turning, hand over the still-flat plane of her stomach.
Libba looked at it, a faint, fond smile working its way over her mouth. “What does ‘uxorious’ mean?”
Hattie blinked. “‘Devoted to one’s wife.’ Excessively so. To the point of submission, usually. The connotation is often mocking.”
“Ah,” said Libba, blinking right back. “Carry on.”
She turned and strode toward the entry of the house, muttering “uxorious” to herself several times under her breath.
What a perfectly ridiculous word.
How had Jasper come across it? Had he been getting his nose into books while she’d been gone? Had he been developing interests behind her back?
She’d have to ask Malcolm.
“I do not know what you are so fussed about, strange, little man,” Lem’s voice said, calm and rich from the hall. “But I must go.”
“Oh, must you? Murderer?” Rhys snapped back.
“I have killed no one,” Lem said firmly. “Yet.”
“Oh, no?” Rhys replied. “Ask me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”
Libba sighed, turning the corner just as a smile of realization was blossoming on Lem’s face, brilliant and white. “Aha!” he declared, turning to see Libba with a sparkle in his dark eyes. “So the banker convinced you, did he? And I am to play Tybalt?”
“Of course you are,” she replied impatiently.
“And this one …?” he said, turning thoughtfully back to Rhys. “Ah, but that is perfect, Liberty. He has the soul of Mercutio.”
“I know,” she said. “We are late. Come along.”
“This conversation isn’t over!” Rhys called after them, still gripping his leather-bound anthology of Shakespeare works. “It’s an unjust slaying and we’re going to depict it that way!”
“He is acting like he has never heard the story before,” Lem said, shaking his head. “Even I knew it, back in the orphanage.”
Libba didn’t reply.
But only because she was not entirely certain Rhys had ever listened during a single literature lesson in their childhood.
Not once.
So it was entirely possible that this was all extremely new to him and he was about to experience an internal collapse when he got to the end of the play.
Lem couldn’t understand that because he did nothing but listen. And besides, watching his progressing incredulity throughout this endeavor was bound to be entertaining.
“Ah, Miss Lennox,” said Mr. Harcourt, who hadn’t moved an inch in Libba’s absence, though Hattie was now seated opposite him on her favorite chaise. “I was just chatting with Lady Selwyn while we waited.”
“It is no matter,” Libba said. “Hattie can stay. She came up with the name, after all.”
“Oh, I didn’t come up with it,” she demurred with a frown. “I only assumed.”
“She gave me the name,” Lem said, nodding respectfully at Hattie. “Please stay, Baroness. You should be present to my becoming.”
Harcourt looked from one of them to the next and back again without commenting, though his pale eyes spoke multitudes. He cleared his throat, tapping his folio, and nodded at Lem as they took their seats.
“This is a bit of a strange case, I must confess,” he said. “It is not like Miss Lennox’s legal name change some years ago in London, which I have reviewed. The problem, Mr. Lemuel, is that you haven’t a legal name to begin with.”
“Lemon boy,” said Lem. “That is what the orphanage called me.”
“Yes, I was told,” Harcourt said with a frown. “Hardly a Christian name, and evidently not legally registered anywhere in the parishes around Canary Wharf. Did they give you a surname?”
Lem shook his head. “No. We were all just Foundling.”
“He can have mine,” Libba said. “Lennox.”
Harcourt grimaced. “Not that simple, I’m afraid. Your father would have to consent.”
Libba’s lip curled. “Oh, indeed? Just him or our grandsire too? Shall we take a trip up to Scotland and dig up the Lennox clan founder? He might have an opinion as well.”
“Miss Lennox,” Harcourt said with a little frown.
“But she is right. Why?” Hattie asked, blinking at him like an owl.
“When the foundling home here in Brighton names us, they do not consult every family that also carries one of the names they choose. Ruby and I were given names that are quite common throughout England, weren’t we? How was that done?”
Harcourt turned to her, still frowning. “It is different for children,” he said.
“Especially in the custody of an orphanage. I am not saying this cannot be done, or that Mr. Lemuel cannot and will not have the name he chooses, just that it will be a longer and more complex process than it was to change Elizabeth Lennox to Liberty Lennox.”
“Very well,” said Lem, inclining his head. “I can wait.”
Harcourt’s shoulders eased some. He craned his neck from side to side, patting down the swoop of silver hair that fell over his brow and giving a little smile.
“That is good to hear,” he said. “This will be less of a change than an establishment, I think. We will need to sort out your papers and records as though you were just as new to the world as Lady Selwyn’s unborn child.
I think we ought to start at the Brighton parish.
Once you are registered as a congregant there, we have a starting point.
You will also require witnesses to your identity, which it seems you already have in spades. ”
“Of course he does,” Libba said, frowning. “He is who he says he is.”
“I will speak for him, Mr. Harcourt,” Hattie said softly. “As will Elias, if our station will smooth the process.”
Harcourt nodded in approval. “It will. Wonderful. Well, then, with your consent, I’ll go get started.”
Libba stayed seated until he’d left, twisting a ringlet around her finger as she stared out the parlor window at the churchyard below, her mind turning in spirals that matched the set of her hair.
“You’ll come to church with me this week,” she said to Lem once he’d moved to leave. “The vicar is fond of me. He’ll be fond of you too.”
“All right,” said Lem. “You do love your sermons.”
“It’s theater, darling,” she said, blinking up at him. “I might need you for something else too. Something discreet.”
“Hm,” he said, smirking. “Smuggling again?”
“Lem!” she gasped, shushing him immediately.
“It’s all right,” Hattie put in, so mildly that she appeared aware that they’d both forgotten she was there. “I was present when we had to get you out of jail for that, remember? I never told anyone.”
Libba frowned at her. “No, I suppose you didn’t.”
“It was for a good cause,” Lem assured her, which got him shushed again.
“Get out,” she said, pointing at the archway. “Go find Rhys and practice killing him.”
Lem gave a somber nod, clearly battling the urge to grin, and spun on his heel to go off and presumably do just that.
Libba waited until he was gone to sigh.
“I don’t mind the smuggling,” Hattie said, clearly still stuck in the pocket of time when that had been relevant. “Even if the only cause was getting better wine and silk.”
“What? Oh,” said Libba, glancing at her. “It was wartime trade. I was facilitating some unofficial prisoner exchanges by selling not-quite-legal wine and so on at my shows. Doesn’t matter now. War’s over.”
Hattie nodded, toying with the rim of her glass. “All right.”
Libba frowned. “You don’t mind, do you? When I scheme? Princess Xandine doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh, no, we all think it’s good fun,” Hattie said earnestly. “Except Malcolm, but I think he just worries for you.”
Libba sighed, shaking her head. She opened her mouth, right on the cusp of telling Hattie everything, about Jasper, about Templeton-Rath, about the flat.
Instead, she said, “You’ve been to Africa, haven’t you? Where Xandine is allegedly nobility?”
Hattie nodded. “The northern part. Tunis and Egypt and Morocco. I went a little farther south to look at the Kushite ruins, but it was rather treacherous. Even the Bedouins were worried about the sandstorms and the unseasonable heat, so we did not stay for long. I would go back, I think, farther into the continent, beyond the desert and into the jungles. Did you know there are peoples there whose languages include clicks of the tongue?”
She demonstrated, making sounds like a broken clock and giggled, sighing in awe. “I should love to learn that.”
“Right,” said Libba, staring at her with no small amount of bemusement.
“I was only thinking, Renaissance Verona is so trite. I’ve got Monica two doors down from me, a world-renowned modiste; why not do something creative with the costuming for Romeo and Juliet, hm?
And then that talk of Xandine made me wonder how her people might dress in a similar setting. ”
“Oh, what a question!” Hattie said, setting her glass aside and clasping her hands under her chin. “I suppose we ought to decide first on exactly where in Africa she originates. Oh! It will determine everything, of course. Shall we call Monica in?”
“Not yet,” said Libba. “We could also use the geography, culture, and language to add some details to the Montagues and Capulets, couldn’t we? Perhaps they are rival merchant families in whatever goods would be appropriate for the region we choose. What do you think of that?”
“Oh, I think it’s splendid,” Hattie said eagerly. “Shall I get a quill and some paper? Do you really want my help? Mine?”
Libba nodded and watched her skitter away, batting down the guilt in her chest.
This was a necessary part of getting Jasper out of trouble of his own devising.
If they were going to do this, they needed to be convincing.
They needed real, quality costuming, not slapdash illusions that could only pass in the low light of a pub.
They needed to understand the cultural and mercantile landscape of the region they were claiming Xandine had come from.
And perhaps most of all, they needed a few words of a real foreign language.
This would accomplish all of that.
And it wasn’t entirely a loss, Libba thought, that it would make her production of Shakespeare a little more interesting as well.