Chapter 16 #3
“You’re to marry?” Miss Wade exclaimed. “Why, that means congratulations in order, Miss Evans! And who would be the fortunate man?”
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Cerys said.
“But of course she’ll have him,” Dot drawled. “Who among us wouldn’t?”
It was snapping bait before a chained and hungry dog, and Dot knew it.
“Miss Evans, would you permit me to take you home in my carriage? There are one or two things I would like to discuss with you.” Bathsheba’s eyes glittered.
“I am perfectly happy returning in Andover’s equipage, thank you,” Cerys said.
“There’d be more room if you went with her ladyship,” said Rhoda, who was not the type to catch the undercurrents of a conversation, and particularly not when her comfort was involved.
“I am not prepared to leave at this time,” Winston exclaimed. “I have more samples to gather. Miss Tryphenie has agreed to help me.”
Tryphenie, looking guilty, opened her mouth to protest, but Bathsheba pounced.
“You would not wish to inconvenience your friends, Miss Evans, or to disappoint me. I will deposit you, then return for Mr. and Miss Wade. This will give us an opportunity to discuss the matter of Lord Baeccon’s investment in your theater.”
Cerys gritted her teeth. That was bait of her own, and Bathsheba knew it. For all that Cerys had taken command in the matter of the new theater, she could not decline to pursue conversations about procuring funds. Even if she suspected the bait was a ruse.
“I should welcome his lordship fulfilling the pledge he made to us,” Cerys said. “But I hope the journey will not be long? It has been a fatiguing day.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt. Collecting offers of marriage.” Bathsheba’s lip curled. “You must be delirious with joy.”
“Were you, when he made his addresses?” Curious eyes watched them as they left together, the actress and the baron’s wife who had once been a courtesan, a skilled actress of her own.
“Dante never made me an offer of marriage.”
Only two horses were harnessed to the Baeccon town coach, unicorn style. The interior smelled of stale leather and male body odor when she climbed in, the scents masked with a heavy and not appealing perfume.
Cerys sat tense in the rear-facing seat as the coachman helped Lady Baeccon board, then closed the door. The sound of it filled her with alarm. She had not been alone with her ladyship before.
“I thought you said he had once thought of nothing but you. I thought you said you destroyed him.”
“I doubt you could understand what we shared. You haven’t the…imagination.” Bathsheba raked her with a scornful expression.
Of course she had the imagination. Cerys was an actress.
She possessed imagination in spades. “You know, if I had married a baron, I would be as high as you,” Cerys flared in return.
“You needn’t behave as if you’ve achieved something wonderful.
Women take high lovers all the time. Dorothea Jordan won herself a prince. ”
“And much good it did her.” The coach rocked as the horses moved forward. “Are you planning to marry a prince?”
“No,” Cerys said. “I am going to marry Dante.”
She said it mostly to rile Bathsheba, and yet the words felt right on her lips.
She hadn’t decided, she told herself. She had yet to fully consider all her options.
True, she was fascinated with the man. From the moment he took insult at her remarks on the Colonnade, she’d wanted to win this man over.
Now she had him, and she must decide if she could keep him always, and do her best to make him happy in his choice.
Bathsheba narrowed her eyes and clutched her fur tippet as if trying to warm herself. “He can’t really want you. You’ve done something to lure him.”
“Best clap on the shackle while he is infatuated, then. I’m sure you know something about that.”
The leather shades concealed the vista outside the windows, but Cerys could sense by the turn of the carriage that they were not headed back to High Street. “Where are you taking me, my lady?”
Bathsheba waved a hand in the air. Her kid gloves were dyed to match her pelisse.
So were her boots. Truly, she was a beautiful woman, stylish and as studied in her effect as someone who had worked for decades on the stage.
Cerys wondered how long it had taken Dante to realize she was a hollow shell, focused on nothing but her own self-preservation.
“I directed the coachman to drive around for a time,” she said. “Give us an opportunity to talk without the intrusion of your tedious friends.”
“My friends are not—” Cerys bit back the words, aware of her ladyship’s smile of amusement. Little wonder Bathsheba thought her na?ve.
Her ladyship leaned forward. “If Baeccon fulfills that silly promise and pays for a theater, will you go away?”
Cerys caught her breath at the woman’s confidence. Some would call it audacity.
“Of course not. My entire aim is to build premises for Dorsey’s Players, and I am a part of Dorsey’s Players.” The carriage moved at a slow pace, but the path felt rough. Cerys wondered if she could simply tumble herself out of the coach and be free.
“You cannot think to continue with the stage once you are married. Dante will not like it.”
“He has said he will not mind,” Cerys said, tugging at the tassels on her coat in frustration. Here she was, still biting like a starved trout at the woman’s bait. And why that thread of doubt in her tone? Did she think Dante had not been honest with her?
But Dante didn’t understand. He’d seen her out of their usual practice, guests in a grand home and playing the part of such.
He’d only seen them rehearsing one play in their repertoire when they typically put on several a week, along with a farce or a harlequinade.
Customarily, she spent the entire day rehearsing and preparing for the night’s performances.
How would she be a wife and an actress both?
And what happened if there were children? They would need a mother.
She would have to make a decision. At best she would have to strike a balance between her time spent acting and her time spent with her family.
At worst, it must be one or the other.
Bathsheba turned her head, her chin a hard line. “If I were to give you money—a great deal of money—would you leave town with it?”
“Why?” Cerys asked, curiosity getting the better of her judgment.
The other woman turned back, and her eyes were steely. “Because,” she said, “you are in my way.”
This conversation was taking a turn Cerys could not like. “You had your chance with Dante,” she said. “You chose another. He remembers that. He has moved on, madam. It is time to accept defeat.”
Bathsheba smiled, but it was not a kind smile. “I never accept defeat. Very well. In truth, I did not think you would be wise enough to leave on your own. You do seem an infernally stubborn sort.”
“That would be my mother’s bloodline, I imagine. Where are we? This is not the Old Well.” Cerys lifted a shade to peer outside.
“No, it is the Royal Spa, once much admired but I’m told not much trafficked these days. I thought we might investigate for ourselves.”
“I do not think there is anything here.”
Bathsheba smoothed a hand over the fur lining her cap. “My lord is inside, waiting for us. He is ready to sign investment papers, and then I shall tell you what I wish you to do for me in return.”
“Why here?” Cerys gripped her small reticule. “Dorsey could have met him anywhere. The Great House, where you are staying, would be more comfortable.”
“But I won’t be happy until I have tried the waters that once pleased a King.” The door opened, and Bathsheba stepped down.
“This is Bayshill, miss,” the coachman said as Cerys descended the step.
He was weathered from work and wear, with a black tooth prominent in his smile.
“King George and the Queen stayed yonder, at Bayshill Lodge, that what was owned by the Earl of Fauconberg. The King had his own well dug, and the Queen and Prince George and the little princesses all drank here. His visit made our town, don’t you know. ”
A local man, then. The Baeccons must have hired him when they came to town, rather than bringing their own coachman. “I thought the Royal Spa had closed,” Cerys said.
Indeed, there were no other people about on the gravel drive, no women promenading their daily costume, no men grouped around the pump room exchanging news.
Many of the drinking places stood empty later in the day as the gentlefolk of Cheltenham prepared for their evening entertainments, but this had an air of abandonment.
The buildings, once grand neoclassical designs, now looked as if they had not been used since the King departed.
A large rectangular area was laid out in promenades lined with trees that had not seen care or tending in some time.
“Aye, miss, the well ran dry of water years ago, and everyone goes to the Orchard Well now, or to Alstone. Used to be cold baths, up by the river, but no one goes there anymore, neither.” The coachman pointed north.
If the River Chelt lay in that direction, then the town lay beyond. She could walk that far if she must.
“Is the Earl not in residence?”
“Nay, the Earl died some years ago and the title went to cousins as live abroad. There’s a daughter living in London, and another as was divorced by the Duke of Norfolk, quite a scandal, so I suppose she was cut off from all.
It’s not much kept up of late, and that’s why the waters have dried up, so they say. ”
Odd that his lordship would want to meet at a place no longer frequented. Bathsheba must be planning to make the negotiations difficult.
“I don’t understand why Lady Baeccon would come here,” Cerys said to the coachman. He tugged the brim of his hat and sent a nervous look at Bathsheba.
“Well, I don’t know as to that neither, but her la’yship is the one as hired me, so I drive where she says.”
Bathsheba opened a door to the small brick pump room and stood waiting for Cerys. It was dark within.