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Perhaps that was why, as the curtain fell on the first act, the man beside him jostled his shoulder. Smite turned, and found himself looking up and up into the narrowed eyes of a behemoth of a man. He was burly and dressed in laborer’s clothing.
“That’s the Bard you’re laughing at,” the man rumbled.
Smite considered explaining that he was, in fact, laughing at the woman who sat next to him, but something about the glint in the man’s dark eyes made him hold his tongue.
“I saved my wages for a month to come,” the behemoth continued. He flexed his arms; beneath the dirt of his coat, heavy muscles rippled. “And I’m not going to have my play ruined by some frivolous fleabite of a man. Get out now, or I’ll throw you out. Quick, before the next act comes on.”
There were a great many things that had never happened to Smite in his life. Getting into a brawl in a theater was one of them. If the man had known who he was—if he’d been sitting in a box overlooking the stage—he would never have interfered. But for tonight, Smite had chosen to be as close to anonymous as possible. He wasn’t worried that the man could do him any harm: big men hit hard, but they moved slowly. Still…
“Oh, dear,” Miranda was saying, looking as if she were truly sorry. “I do beg your pardon.” She’d matched her accent to the man’s—broad and ponderous. “My man, he’s a little thick sometimes. Can’t appreciate good Shakespeare. I’ll take him off, and no more trouble to you.”
The man touched his head. “Sorry, little miss,” he said. “I could tell you were enjoying it. Paying close attention, you were. If you want me to send him off, I’ll see you home.”
He’d never found himself in a brawl over a woman, either, but Smite felt his fists clench.
But Miranda’s eyes simply danced as she stood up. “No need to worry yourself. I’ll take him out of your way, then.” She gathered up her things, and Smite trailed after her in bemusement. She whispered to him the entire way, but he couldn’t make out her words until they slipped through the double doors into the vestibule.
“…cardinal sin,” she was saying. “It doesn’t matter how bad it is, I shouldn’t have disrupted the proceedings. If others are enjoying themselves, who am I to cause trouble?” She sighed and looked forlorn.
“Did I hear you right?” Smite echoed. “You think that interfering with someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin?”
“Yes,” she said, with no indication that she exaggerated. “And we deserve to have been tossed out. Although I do wish we could see the rest.”
“You want to see the rest?” he asked. “I had the distinct impression that you thought the players were inept.”
Miranda shrugged. “Even so. I was enjoying myself. It was that kind of awful.” Her face lit. “Oh, I know. There was a box upstairs that was empty,” she said. “We could sneak in.”
Smite simply stared at her. “You think that disrupting someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin, but have no qualms about sneaking into a box that we didn’t pay for?”
She gave him a saucy smile and turned to head up the stairs for the boxes.
He lunged after her, grabbed hold of her hand. “I mean it. No. That would be wrong. I won’t be party to that.”
“Nobody’s using it. Where’s the harm?”
“Maybe someone is using it. Maybe he’s just late to the theater.”
She took another few steps up the stairs, and looked back at him. “Then he can oust us when he arrives. We’ve already been pushed out once; what’s a second time? Besides, whoever he is, he deserves it. What kind of booby is late to the theater?” She spoke the last in scathing tones, as if she could think of no greater failing.
As if to answer her question, a man turned the corner and started up the staircase. “Pardon,” he said, as he brushed past Smite and Miranda.
Just that one word, and Smite knew who he was. He froze, willing the fellow not to stop. Not to turn around.
Too late. The man halted two steps above them, as if registering what he’d seen. He turned around. And then, ever so slowly, Richard Dalrymple’s jaw went slack at the sight of Smite with his arms halfway round a woman.
“I see,” he said slowly. “So when I sent round that note yesterday afternoon, you really weren’t just putting me off. You have been busy.”
Smite had not wanted to think of the man.
Dalrymple gave a wave of his hand. “I know what that stubborn set of your chin means,” he said. “It means you’re planning to tell me to go to the devil. If you want to put me off, put me off. Nevertheless, I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?” He cast a glance at Miranda—a glance that bespoke a certain curiosity. Smite wanted to strike that look off his face. “I have a box tonight, and I’m the only one in it.”
“Ah, so that empty box is occupied, then.” Smite glanced at Miranda beside him.
Miranda met his censorious gaze with doe-eyed innocence. “I repent,” she said. “It would have been utterly unforgivable if we had been caught out in your—” She paused, looking at Dalrymple, and Smite realized he’d not introduced them.
“His brother-in-law,” Dalrymple supplied. His eyes had grown large at this exchange.
“This is my…brother-in-law, Richard Dalrymple,” he said. “Dalrymple, Miss Miranda Darling.”
Dalrymple’s eyes widened further at the Miss, but he said nothing more.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Miranda said. “I’ll be even more pleased to sit in your box, as Mr. Turner here has got us cast out of our own seats.”
Dalrymple glanced again at Smite, an utterly befuddled look on his face. And when Smite did not bother to contradict this particular tale—it was true, after all, if not precisely the way she’d laid it out—Dalrymple shook his head. “Miss Darling,” he said slowly. “I fear that you are not a good influence on our upright friend. I’m not sure what to say.”
Miranda gave Dalrymple a beatific smile. “I know what you should say: ‘Thank you’ comes to mind.”
Dalrymple gave a surprised snort of laughter.
“You see?” Smite said. “That is precisely how we came to be arguing in the hall and not watching the play.”
“Well. Then. Turner, if you please? I can conduct Miss Darling up, if you’re worried about your upright reputation.” Dalrymple smiled slightly. “It would probably be as good for my reputation as it would be for yours, if you’re thinking about being observed.”
Before he could answer—before he could even think of how he should answer—Miranda stepped forward and threaded her arm through Dalrymple’s.
“We would love to,” she said.
Chapter Fourteen
MIRANDA WAS BEGINNING TO understand precisely who Richard Dalrymple was—or, rather, who he wasn’t—by the end of the play. She’d had few enough clues. Smite had maneuvered Miranda to sit between the two of them, effectively forestalling any opportunity for him to converse with the man. That knocked out the possibility that they’d had any pretension to friendliness.
But she didn’t think it was a case of simple indifference, either.
Dalrymple kept casting glances at Smite throughout the play. Smite, in turn, studiously avoided the other man’s gaze. When the curtain fell at the end,
they all stood. Smite reached over and gave the man his fingers in the barest of handshakes. And Dalrymple looked…annoyed.
No, they were definitely not friends. But they weren’t quite enemies, either. Was Dalrymple some sort of hanger-on, then?
“Look, Turner,” she heard him murmur, “at least you could assuage my feelings by pretending to accept my apology.”
“I took notice of your apology on the previous occasion when it was offered,” Smite said. “I’m considering it.”
“I was wrong,” Dalrymple said. “But can’t you consider that maybe you were not entirely in the right, either?”
Smite’s jaw set. She didn’t know what had transpired between these two, but there was murder in his look.
“Ah.” Dalrymple turned away. “I forgot. How foolish of me. You’re never wrong.”
“On the contrary. I am daily reminded of my own fallibility. Having come to a decision, however, I choose not to doubt it.”
She’d heard that tone of finality from him before. He’d spoken so to Billy Croggins in his hearing room all those weeks ago, when he’d had him charged with arson. He’d used it on her not an hour in the past, when she’d suggested that they steal into this box unattended.
“Smite,” she ventured, “don’t you think you could hear him out?”
He cast one glance at her and then looked away. “No.”
“What could it hurt?”
“Nothing,” he said, “but—”
“Then I’ll hear you,” she said to Dalrymple directly. “Would you care to take brandy with us this evening?”
Beside her, Smite drew in breath. But he said nothing to her—at least not with words. His hand came around her wrist in a grip that was not hard, yet still disapproving.
Let him disapprove. She raised her chin.
“Please,” Miranda said.
Richard Dalrymple gave her a soft smile. “I’m too ill-bred to turn you down.”
Turner had nothing to say to that. He gave Miranda his arm as they descended the staircase. But beneath the wool of his coat, his muscles were tense. Dalrymple had his own carriage to contend with, and after tersely communicating the direction to his brother-in-law, Smite handed Miranda into the hired cab that he’d had waiting.
