Page 46 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

He was still a lord, though, with a baron’s coronet and a place in the peerage as acknowledged by a line or two in Debrett’s. And that place could never be taken away, no matter how he clouded the name.

“I’ll make you an offer, Dorsey,” Thompson said. “If your Hamlet is a success and her ladyship is pleased by the reception, I’ll stead you twenty thousand pounds, and challenge Baeccon to put up the same.”

Bathsheba paled about the corners of her mouth. “Twenty thousand pounds,” she echoed. It was a staggering fortune.

“Does he not have the pockets for such a sum?” Dante asked. Few men would, and Baeccon was known to frequent the gaming tables.

“He does,” Bathsheba said coolly. “He’s had a run of luck since we’ve come to Cheltenham. And, much as I might tease him, he will not choose to spend it all on me.”

“But an investment in a theater, that’s something that can pay off in the long term,” Andover said. “Steady source of income, in the right hands. Dorsey, if your production is well-received, I’ll put up a stake myself. Ten thousand pounds.”

“As will I,” Dutton said immediately.

“There you have it, Dorsey,” Thompson said. “Nearly half of your capital, in return for a stake in future profits. The rest of the money you need, you raise by subscription. Lifetime tickets to boxes, gallery, or pit. Have proper designs to show, and you’ll have more than enough on board before the cornerstone in laid.”

“There will be proper designs,” Dante said. “But I cannot recall how Lady Baeccon has decided we will determine if the production is a success.” He wouldn’t trust Bathsheba to be the judge. She would do what she could to bring down Cerys, if for no other reason than the girl had captivated Dante’s attention.

No. Not captivated. He was only curious about her, that was all. The girl was a mystery. And no Ophelia would be devastating enough to move the hard heart of Bathsheba Baeccon.

“As we said,” Dutton said. “If it’s well-received, here at her ladyship’s matinee, and it looks likely your company can make a go of it, Dorsey, we’ll stand you the blunt, between us.”

“I will have the final say, of course,” Bathsheba said.

“Of course.” Andover inclined his head. “A lady’s prerogative.”

The small, sour curve of her lips as she turned away, responding to a summons from her husband, made Dante fear that Bathsheba would leave all of their plans and Dorsey’s hopes in ruins. She wouldn’t lift a finger to advance Cerys Evans, if she could stop it; she had set out to humiliate the younger girl.

Dante would be rubble in her wake, once again, for if the prospect of a theater disappeared, he would be out of a commission. And Cerys wanted this theater above all else. She would be devastated if Bathsheba Baeccon brought an end to all their hopes, and it would all be Dante’s fault.

He would lose a commission, a chance to make a mark on Cheltenham by his own name, and he would lose all opportunity to ever be close to Cerys Evans.

He was glad there was no one about to question him as to which loss would hurt more—the building, or the girl—as he did not want to examine the obvious answer. He rolled the map and took the opportunity to avoid the influx of guests by conveying the plans to his room, and confronting the truth as he did.

He wanted to know Cerys Evans. He wanted to walk with her through the streets and growing squares of Cheltenham and see the faces she made as she regarded the various architectural styles—amused, inspired, disgusted. He wanted to show her the hidden beauties of the town she hadn’t yet had a chance to see. He wanted to breathe in jasmine and fresh woman as she leaned over a table full of his sketches, discussing designs with him. And he wanted more opportunities to pull her into dark corners and kiss her until her lips were swollen, her eyes dazed, and she couldn’t say her own name if asked.

He wanted to be close to her the way he had not wanted to be close to another person in a long time—in a way he had never been with Bathsheba. And of course he would only recognize that when the chance was about to vanish before his eyes.

Worse was that he could do nothing to protect her. Her future hinged on this production and whether her company’s play could please a cunning woman who had never in her life considered the concerns of any being beyond herself. Dante took a cane chair among the audience assembling itself, and he feared he might be about to witness more than the destruction of long-ago Denmark.

It was better this way, the wiser, wounded part of him decided as one of the company, the quiet boy they called Meek, came through the room and dimmed the lamps. The fog crawled outside the windows like the breath of some great animal, enshrouding them in a cloud of melancholy and doom, as if manufactured for the stage.

Yes, it was better if plans fell apart now. Bathsheba’s vindictiveness would save him from being a fool again over a woman, from being drawn in by green-glinting eyes and a mischievous smile and clouds of hair he wanted to bury his hands in and hold her close to him.

She was young. She was innocent, and she was an unsuitable object for his infatuation in every way that was possible. She came from a different world, one he couldn’t comprehend, and with her acting company she lived free of the rules of the genteel world, the world he was striving to enter, with all its courtesies and careful restrictions. It was not up to him to shield or protect her, and it would not do to be enchanted by a pair of puckered lips and the sweet grace of a girl who had gotten her own way in everything, always.

He would see the show through to the end, and then he would accept that the enchantment was over. He had never been one to be caught up in dreams.

The boy sat tailor-style to one side of the area that had been marked out as the stage, and a tall curtain had been strung as a backdrop. He pulled a wooden flute from his coat and played a soft, haunting tune, evoking the mist swirling outside the windows, the lonely sorrow of a cold night. The two sentries stepped onto opposite ends of the stage, challenging one another, and Dante settled in to appreciate what he could of the play.

He was not a connoisseur of theater, and his mind drifted if the action became too melodramatic or speeches went on too long. He had seen Hamlet before and thought the action overwrought for the most part. Kemble’s Hamlet he found wooden and forced, and Ophelia a pitiful dupe. Bathsheba had chosen well if she wanted a play that was bound to leave theater goers bored, irritated, confused, and a bit disdainful of a foolish girl who would drown herself because a proud, self-absorbed boy had dismissed her. Cerys had told them all she preferred comic roles. He was about to witness a tragedy in more ways than one.

Horatio stepped onto the stage, and Dante straightened. As was the style, the cast wore modern clothing, Horatio in a bottle-green coat, blooming neckcloth, and nankeen breeches conforming to a set of legs that were not male. Dante studied the white stockings, buckled shoes, and the short, tousled brown wig in the Titus style. The way the actor fell back, like the step of a dance, and a hand half-uplifted as if to ward off the appearance of the ghost gave it away. Their Horatio was a woman.

Dorsey made a splendid ghost, moaning and stomping across the stage, swinging his head mournfully this way and that, his attitude both torment and confusion as he peered into each actor’s face, searching for his son. It was a touching gesture, and it was only when the shaken Horatio quizzed the ghost about the country’s fate that Dante realized they had introduced an element he had not seen in the play before, an external political threat from a ruler called Fortinbras. Garrick’s Hamlet, and all the later productions trying to capitalize on his success, had made the play a study of family politics. Dorsey’s play was situating the tangled thread of Denmark’s succession inside a larger political foment.

The ghost made his last feints, then disappeared at the sound of a cock crow, produced by the boy named Meek. Horatio stalked across the stage, debating what to tell his friend of this strange appearance, and Dante placed her. The one they called Dot, a few years older than Cerys, not as polished of manner or cultured in her speech, but on stage her abrupt manner came across as command.

He was prepared, and yet he wasn’t. The stage cleared. Meek and another boy brought out a heavy armchair and a tall candleholder, creating a throne room. Alone, an actor strolled onto the stage, shoulders hunched as if they carried a weight. The dark gray frock coat was cut for riding, puffed at the shoulders, with the lapel standing up in the fashionable style, but the tall boots and buckskin breeches were carelessly casual. Two waistcoats obscured the feminine bosom, and the wild curls had been pulled back by a black ribbon.