Page 64 of The Lady Plays with Fire

At that, Julia popped to her feet. “To call my present feelings happiness hardly does them justice, brother dear.” She pressed her lips together and stretched them into something she hoped would pass for a smile. “Shall I ring for some refreshments?”

“If I know Mrs. Whyte, she’ll be in a flurry with such an unexpected houseful,” Laura said, rising. “Why don’t we go down together and speak with her?” She looped an arm through Julia’s and guided her toward the corridor and the stairs.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the others, she repeated her husband’s question. “Is everything all right?”

Julia made some noncommittal noise.

“You seem . . . forgive me . . . not quite yourself. Watching you, I began to fear that Aunt Mildred might have been confused, or—or exaggerated the nature of this Lord Dunstane’s attentions?”

“Oh, no. He told your aunt in no uncertain terms that I was to make him the happiest of men.”

Just not, as it came to pass, in the ordinary way.

But she had little doubt he was delighted by his triumph over Miss on Scene.

The door of the kitchen swung outward, and Nelly appeared. “La, miss!” she exclaimed, clearly surprised to find them there. “And milady,” she added, dropping into a curtsy. “I never meant you should have to come looking for me. Here you be.” She held out the mended spencer, which Julia did not immediately take from her.

“Were you going out?” Laura asked. Her eyes glittered, sharp and knowing, even in the dimness of the basement corridor. “An assignation with your betrothed, perhaps?”

Julia hesitated for a moment before nodding. “We have an urgent matter to discuss, yes.”

“Oh?” Laura’s voice turned cool. Experience had given her an abiding suspicion of every nobleman who wasn’t her husband.

Julia sent her a pleading look. “There’s something I must settle with Lord Dunstane before my brother hears of it.”

For a moment, Laura appeared to weigh how to proceed; given her history, Julia wouldn’t have been surprised if she had insisted on going in Julia’s stead and putting Graham in his place. “All right,” she conceded at last. “Go—but try not to be away for long. I have some news I believe will keep everyone occupied for a time.” She smoothed her palm over the front of her skirts to reveal the slightest rounding of her figure.

“A baby?” Julia gasped, throwing her arms around her sister-in-law’s neck. Jeremy and Laura had been awaiting the blessing of a child for quite some time.

“Yes, you shall be Aunt Julia at last.”

Scandalous Aunt Julia, more like. She imagined her future nieces and nephews whispering among themselves, stories of the aunt who had once written for a daring ladies’ magazine and then allowed herself to be seduced and ruined by a Scotsman bent on revenge—if she were permitted to be mentioned in the family at all.

“Hurry,” Laura urged. “It’s a juicy tidbit, but it can only sate them for a while. Eventually the others will notice you’ve gone.”

When Julia arrived at the theater, rehearsal was already underway. But to her surprise, Graham was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had anticipated that she would come and was avoiding her.

Immersed in their characters, the actors paid no attention as she slipped into her usual seat. Several rows from the stage, she watched as Mr. Sawyer and Mrs. Cole worked their way through the scene she and Graham had acted out just a few days before. The tension, the physical closeness—audiences could not but see the exchange for what it was, two sworn enemies battling their desire for one another. When Mr. Fanshawe called a halt, Mrs. Cole was pink-cheeked and Mr. Sawyer was breathing as if he’d just run a footrace.

After a brief pause, during which stagehands rearranged some of the furnishings, Mr. Fanshawe directed them to begin Act Three. Julia had read Perpetua’s lines, of course, but seeing them performed was worse than she had imagined. As Reginald Briggs’s power grew, he tamped down his inconvenient attraction to the woman he blamed for his brother’s death. He began to wield the sort of control over the public that he had previously accused Miss Philpot of abusing. The circulation of her reviews declined, driving her to heat her now-miserable room with a paltry fire made by burning unsold copies of the magazine for which she wrote. Julia realized with a start that even the desks had been changed. The scene ended with Briggs now seated at an escritoire with elegant turned legs, while Perpetua slumped over a battered deal table.

“That’ll do,” Mr. Fanshawe called from the wings, before the final scene. “Good work, everyone. I believe even his lordship might’ve been pleased with that.”

“That’ll be the day,” said Mrs. Cole.

The actors chuckled doubtfully, knowingly, as they cleared the stage.

Julia sat for several minutes after everyone was gone, struggling to collect her thoughts. She wasn’t sure whether Ransom Blackadder possessed sufficient influence over audiences to prompt them to punish critics in general.

But it was quite clear how Graham meant to use the knowledge he’d acquired specifically to damage her and the Magazine for Misses.

She pushed to her feet. But rather than leave, she ascended the small staircase to the stage one last time. She stood in the center, sliding the tip of her first finger over the edge of one desk, and then the other. The silence of the empty theater was oppressive. In that cavernous space, she felt very alone, indeed.

“Plotting the next victim of your poison pen?”

When Graham spoke from the wings, opposite where Mr. Fanshawe had stood, she couldn’t contain her shriek of surprise. It echoed as he strolled across the boards as if he owned them.

Julia gathered her courage and met his hard look with a defiant one of her own, gripping the rail of Perpetua’s chair, the better to hide her trembling hands. “I leave such despicable tricks to you, my lord.”