Page 40 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

She gave him a curious smile, one end of her mouth curving. “Oh, very well. No claws or catfights. But I do intend to tweak her nose a bit.”

“How?”

Her quirk of a smile turned to a full grin. “Ophelia.”

He meant to ask more, but that smile did something to his brain box. Knocked his wits loose and sent them bobbing like little rafts on a river. The full wattage of Cerys Evans’s smile was like standing in full sunlight. He blinked, dazzled.

Mame called behind them, and Cerys turned, tugging his elbow to steer them back toward the group. He followed like a lamb on a lead rope, fully captivated.

She was right about one thing, and wrong about another. He’d had few defenses against Bathsheba, not at the time. He had a full suit of armor against her now. Against Bathsheba and the rest of the world that would mock him, treat him as inferior, or dismiss his abilities before he had been given a chance to prove himself.

But Cerys Evans. He was loath to admit it to himself. It wounded a man’s pride to have his years and not yet be wise. But he very much feared he would have no defense against her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cerys had wondered how long her friends would let her go on before they demanded an explanation, and she had her answer the next morning, when the female contingent of Dorsey’s Players set out to visit the spas and take the waters, then turn themselves loose on the High Street.

Tryphenie had hoped to visit the Royal Spa, discovered, it was said, when builders were adding to the Earl of Fauconberg’s house in advance of the visit from King George in 1788, the original house not offering enough rooms to host their Majesties and their entourage. But the Royal Spa had closed a year or so prior as the waters were said to have run out, and everyone was going to Alstone, or Cambray, or Lord Sherborne’s, or Thompson’s Spa, which he was calling Montpelier.

But the Old Well was still drawing water, having been enlarged a few years prior, and it was in that direction the women set out from Suffolk House, walking along the avenue of lime trees that had been laid out for that purpose.

“So what would ye be about, then, me lovely?” Mame asked lightly, falling into step beside Cerys as the other girls lagged behind, gossiping.

“Me?” Cerys avoided a small puddle in the packed clay lane, left by an overnight shower. The breeze played with the skirts of her corded muslin walking dress, and she wished for a moment that she’d brought her redingote rather than her shawl. The sun around Suffolk House seemed warmer somehow, promising the temperate mildness of Mediterranean climes, while the shade of the lime trees delivered a cooler touch, British sobriety in contrast to Iberian indolence.

“What do you suppose I’m about?” Cerys asked, trying to tuck in the ribbon tying her capote bonnet so it stopped slapping against her neck.

“With the Viscount Andover?” Mame raised her brows in a question. “You tell me.”

“He offered us shelter on Dorsey’s behalf. He didn’t want to see our entire troupe unhoused.”

“I doubt me Dorsey was his consideration,” Mame replied. “And what of the Hon. Mr. Dutton?”

“What of him?”

“Awfully attentive, I notice. He was insisting on escorting you this morning, shaking off the excesses of his evening, until he saw he’d have to contend with the whole lot of us.”

“He is a contented family man, devoted to his wife and his increasing family.” Cerys yanked her bonnet ribbons loose so she might retie the recalcitrant things.

“Hmm. Domestic contentment, in my observation, never stopped a man from approaching a mistress. Here, pet.”

Cerys held still, chin up, while Mame retied her ribbons in a deft bow. Mame was their chief hand at costumes, and while Cerys had learned to sew when she was five, she couldn’t turn the Queen’s medieval court robes from Richard II into Lady Wishfort’s gown in She Stoops to Conquer and the next night into Cleopatra’s tunic the way Mame could.

“Now,” Mame said, cinching the knot, “tell me what you are about with the other one.”

Cerys hoped Mame did not note her small, quick intake of breath, and most certainly could not detect the way Cerys’s pulse kicked up speed at the mere thought of Dante Manelli. This would not do, for any of them.

“Which one?” she asked, resuming their stroll toward the temple-like building that housed the venerable Old Well, founder of Cheltenham’s fortunes.

“You know very well which one,” Mame drawled. “The one whose neck you are hanging about.”

“Oh, dear. Have I been that obvious?”

“Worse.” Mame pursed her lips.

Cerys shrugged and lifted her skirts so they didn’t drag on the steps as she climbed into the temple. Pigeons decorated the top of the roof, above the cornice, and it was thanks to Dante she knew that concept. The birds paid homage to the means by which the well had been discovered a century before. The older, earlier pump room stood across the way, now warehouse for sundry items and the bottling industry that shipped medicinal Cheltenham waters to all points of the compass.

The song of the musicians performing in the gallery above floated through the air, and for the briefest moment, Cerys was captivated by the graciousness of the illusion: of stepping into a world devoted to leisure, and health, and contentment, and not the endless drudgery of keeping a roof over one’s head and clothes on one’s back. But that was an illusion only. She didn’t know a single woman in her life whose daylight hours weren’t consumed with some manner of work or care.