Since he’d determined that he would ask her to marry, his thoughts had spun out and around in every way possible. Pictures of her, waking by his side. Pictures of her during the night that preceded waking.
Thinking of her upturned face, her laugh, her perfect delicate features.
Imagining her directing his household, and the delightful mishaps that were bound to be a result of it. Seeing himself not at all concerned with it and buying her a necklace when it seemed she’d somehow massacred the accounts and caring no more about it.
After all, how else could it be? Certainly, Miss Mayton would not have prepared her for anything at all practical. He did not care.
He would move the pianoforte out of every house he owned and claim the instrument gave him a headache. Not her travels through the world of music of course, which were charming, but the instrument itself.
Balthazar could not help but think of the absurd lengths she’d gone to. A pickpocket. A rash baron, indeed.
He did not plan to tell her he suspected anything untoward about those ruses. She would not like it and he was determined that she would like everything round her.
He’d thought of calling to the house, but their at-home day had passed.
Where would she be?
Henri, his clever valet, had made contact with a grocer who served the house, who had struck up a conversation with the Cook, who had apprised him that there was to be no family dinner this evening, but for the youngest ladies.
The earl was off to cards with Lord Cannerly. Lord Darden was, the cook presumed, going to his club. Miss Mayton and Lady Rosalind were to attend Lady Rawley’s theatrical evening.
Balthazar had inwardly groaned at hearing it. He had, of course, received an invitation to the evening. It occurred each season and he’d even gone once, some years past.
It was a ludicrous display of Lady Rawley and her friends acting out some scene or other to great acclaim. False acclaim, in his opinion. In fact, he was certain some of the people who attended every year went for the sheer mirth of it.
The one time he had gone, the scene they’d played out had been the end of Romeo and Juliet. Lady Rawley had been, quite naturally, Juliet. Her friend, Mrs. Robinson, had done the duty as Romeo.
As if the general idea were not absurd enough, they had added to Shakespeare’s words and changed the ending. The apothecary, played by the ludicrous Lady Agatha, did not sell Romeo poison in this version, but only a sleeping draught. So then, both the couple were only sleeping in the tomb.
The sleeping went on for some time and the audience began to wonder if it were the end and ought they to applaud.
Quite suddenly, Lady Rawley’s Juliet shot up out of her doze. Seeing Romeo looking dead but only asleep beside her, she railed against his stupidity at being dead, took his dagger, and knocked him on the head with the hilt, waking him up too.
It all ended happily and Romeo and Juliet lived. Of course, Mrs. Robinson’s Romeo had been knocked on the head rather hard and had required medical attention after the theatrical was over.
At the time, Balthazar had silently vowed that he’d never subject himself to another of Lady Rawley’s theatricals in his lifetime.
Now, however, he dug out the invitation for it.
It was to beCymbeline, of all things?
Certainly, Lady Rosalind must comprehend the depth of his devotion if he were willing to subject himself to Lady Rawley starring inCymbeline.
He scanned the description of the evening.
In this exciting new idea of Cymbeline, as Imogen pretends to be the boy Fidele, Fidele then pretends to be the lady Astra, who finds herself forced to play the boy Romero. (A lady who plays a boy who plays a lady who plays a boy—heads are spinning!) Romero is friends with the God Jupiter, that God being all along fond of Imogen who is of course Romero-Astra-Fidele. Jupiter will reveal all to King Cymbeline in the most dramatic terms in a final revealing moment.
Cast: The God Jupiter played by the incomparable Lady Margaret Rawley
Imogen-Fidele-Astra-Romero played by the indomitable Mrs. Jemima Robinson
King Cymbeline played by the indubitable Lady Agatha Montfried
Balthazar laid the card down. It was preposterous.
He wrote a note to Lady Rawley, saying he would come.
*
