Page 34 of The Lady Plays with Fire

Well, that’s what rehearsals were for. To improve matters. To tear things down so that they might be built up better, stronger. They were messy, ugly things, unfit to be seen, and for that very reason, closed to the public. At least no one would be there to witness—

“Damnation!” he muttered beneath his breath.

He’d been so focused on the irritating words of “Miss on Scene,” he’d momentarily forgotten the true source of his present madness.

Julia.

“Problem, my lord?”

“Nay.” Graham bit off the word with an audible snap of his teeth as he strode from the room. A solution, in fact. If he wanted one.

To keep himself from ravishing Miss Addison, he could simply direct his energy toward ravaging Miss on Scene.

And once Julia had seen what he was capable of, she might never step foot in the theater again.

Chapter 11

When Mrs. Hayes announced at the end of luncheon that she intended to rest that afternoon and wished to be left alone, Julia could hardly believe her luck.

Whether it was good luck, or bad, remained to be seen.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” she asked as she helped Mrs. Hayes to her feet.

“Oh, well enough, I suppose. When the weather turns this time of year, these old aches and pains fatigue me so. I hardly slept a wink last night.”

Julia knew that wasn’t quite the case. For one thing, Mrs. Hayes had softly snored her way through the second half of The Iron Chest, to which they had returned, unaccompanied, because too many evenings at home were intolerable to the widow. And while Mrs. Hayes had dozed, Julia had been at liberty to imagine what the next day would bring—if she decided to go to the rehearsal, and if she could find some excuse for going out.

Now, it was Friday at midday, rehearsals for The Poison Pen began in a couple of hours, and Mrs. Hayes was providing the excuse for her.

Julia knew better than to tell herself it was Fate, nudging her toward a decision to sacrifice her virtue to save the Magazine for Misses—Mischief, she had almost thought. Never had the mocking soubriquet seemed more apt. Papa, who had been a good man, was certainly not smiling down on his mischievous daughter and paving the way for her misdeeds.

No, the temptation came from quite another direction, another source.

But really, if she did make up her mind to let a wicked Scotsman have his way with her, would it go any worse for her immortal soul if she let herself enjoy it?

After she helped Mrs. Hayes settle into bed and drew the drapes to shut out what little light the day had provided, she brought a glass of water into which she was instructed to add a drop of the same sleeping tonic that last week had rendered Julia dead to the world for a dozen hours at least. A smaller dose would not last as long, and because Mrs. Hayes turned to it more often, it was not likely to have quite as powerful of an effect on her. But still, Julia knew that for the next few hours, she would never be missed.

Retreating from Mrs. Hayes’s chamber on tiptoe, she closed the door behind her with no more sound than the faint click of the latch. In her own little room, she closed the curtain and arranged the bed so that if anyone chanced to peek, it might look as if she were resting too. Into her reticule, she tucked a tiny notebook with pencil attached, to jot down her observations about the play. And then she slipped downstairs without alerting anyone, even Daniel, to her departure.

Her hooded mantle protected her both from prying eyes of passersby and the chill of early November. With its windows shut tight against a drizzling rain, the interior of the hansom smelled faintly musty, and the long, jostling ride to Covent Garden offered little more to look at than a constellation of raindrops on the glass and the blur of traffic beyond. She made herself relax the fingers that were clenched around the ribbons of her reticule, watching the movement of her gloved hand as if it were a thing quite separate from herself. It would not do to behave as if she was nervous.

To say nothing of excited.

At the theater, the cab driver deposited her in a puddle and hurried away. She was left to knock at three different doors until a man in rough clothes—he either worked behind the scenes or was costumed to play the part of someone who did—let her in.

“Lord Dunstane said I might . . .” Her voice trailed off as the man turned away, indifferent to her explanation.

Uncertain what else to do, she climbed the stairs and slipped past the heavy curtain into the familiar box. Lights had been lit around the stage, but the large chandeliers overhead remained dark, casting all else into shadow. Empty of an audience, the theater felt enormous, the box higher and farther from the stage than it had been just the night before. She sank into the nearest chair, its blue silk upholstery cool to her touch, and watched as the actors milled about the boards, clad in ordinary clothes rather than costumes, tattered scripts still clutched in several hands. They talked and joked with one another in rather ribald fashion—her first glimpse at the coarse behavior that made actors scandalous.

“All right,” called one of the men, gesturing with his own tightly rolled script like a baton. His paunch and balding head made him look older than she thought he probably was. “Places, everyone.”

The actors scattered, some to the wings, two to chairs on opposite sides of the stage. The woman, seated at an elegant French escritoire, picked up a quill, tested its point, gave an exaggerated wince to suggest its sharpness, and began to write, the lavish plume dancing above the paper. She was in her thirties, Julia guessed, still beautiful in a cold, unapproachable way.

On the other side of the stage, the man who had spoken now hunched over a scarred oak table, its surface lit by the stub of a tallow candle, his quill a bedraggled feather. Once silence fell, he mimed several cross outs and corrections and at last began to speak the words he had penned.

“O fairest Muse, return to me!

I can but choose to pine for thee,