“The Reaper still swings and lifts,” he said immediately, frowning. “She just needs a polish.”
“She needs a great deal, actually,” she retorted. “As for the running of the office, we have decided to manage it ourselves for now. Pippa wishes to learn the business and her health has seenmuch improvement in this climate, so she and my brother-in-law will be staying while the rest of us return to Bridgetown. It shall serve as a kind of apprenticeship, I think, until she is ready to run the thing herself.”
He blinked several times. “Oh.”
It made Mrs. Templeton-Rath smile, a knowing glint in her incisors. “Yes,” she said. “Oh.”
“It’s in her blood, I suppose,” Jasper managed. “I’m pleased to hear she is feeling improved. Brighton is known to be tonic in that way, you know.”
“Yes, you said before,” she answered. She turned to consider him, her head tilted to the side. “And you, Mr. Townsend? Have you found peace with East India?”
“Peaceis a strong word,” he replied, scratching nervously at the spot behind his ear. “I’d like to set up my own post someday. I’ve been doing some odd jobs for this theater, in service to my… well, my soon-to-be wife. I think I could make a go at setting up a secondary office that specializes in bridging multiple businesses for large projects. A sort of hub agency to accommodate liaison between local businesses. It is something she and I are discussing.”
She paused, tilting her head to the side to consider it, and gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “Yes, I could see you being quite good at that,” she decided. “You could also provide staffing services, like you did for us with the laborers. All twelve have remained with us, you know, in this past month. All twelve will likely stay on with Templeton-Rath after we return to Ceylon.”
“I suspected they might,” Jasper said, his smile this time rising without nausea. “I am pleased to hear it.”
“Indeed, indeed,” she said, flapping her hand. “Now, where is that balcony you mentioned?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Libba did notrealize that Romeo had died. Not right away.
She was seated in her director’s chair, just short of the stage entry, where she could see the show from the side. Rhys, for some reason, was on the floor with his back against her knees.
If he hadn’t started sniffling as loudly as he had, she might have missed the entire end of the show as a whole. That was how distracted she had become by the glint of her new chandelier, swaying gently and glimmering in the low light of the production.
From here, she could see the dark stones dangling between the crystals. The balls and diamonds of jasper in a rainbow of colors. They were embedded in the wheel too, of course, but she couldn’t see that from here.
Not with the thing unlit.
She frowned down at Rhys, who was mopping his eyes with the hem of her dress and kicked him firmly. “What’s the matter with you?”
He turned to look at her, red eyed and indignant, and gestured firmly at the stage. “That’s not right,” he whispered very loudly. “I didn’t know this was the ending.”
“How could you not know?” she hissed. “You have been to every rehearsal!”
“I sleep,” he muttered. “After I die.”
“Well,” she said reasonably as Juliet took up her dagger. “Youdidcurse both their houses.”
“That wasbeforehe avenged me. Anyway, he was my best mate!”
“Rhys—”
“Shh!”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, watching helplessly as he continued to dab at his eyes with her skirt hem as Juliet plunged her dagger into her own heart. He gave another shuddering sob and she reasoned that at least the production was moving.
To Rhys, anyway.
Friar Lawrence padded past to move onto the stage, his bare feet now just as dirty as if they’d been caked with coal dust and rice powder to simulate the filth of a poor holy man.
She made a mental note to hire someone to sweep and mop in here on a regular basis. Perhaps a team.
And then the lights dimmed.
The applause exploded.
