Page 75 of The Lady Plays with Fire

The man did not seem to have been watching the same performance as Graham.

“Why?” he asked in a softer voice, slowly approaching the pair. “Why would you want the play to be ruined?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Blackadder’s lost his touch. His plays used to cut like a steel blade.” He twisted his weapon, making it gleam in the light. “But this one’s got less tooth than an old whore.”

“You pleaded for a part in it,” Graham pointed out, taking another step.

“That’s close enough,” Fanshawe said, turning the knifepoint toward Julia. “I didn’t used to have to go begging for parts, you know. Not until the reviewers got their teeth in me. But what do they know? What gives ’em the right? Muckin’ about with a man’s livelihood, and some of ’em no more than girls.” He spat. “When I heard Blackadder had it in for Miss on Scene, I wanted in. Knew I could count on him to do what had to be done, teach the critics a lesson once and for all. Then this girl showed up, wanted to turn things all soft, like. Didn’t seem to understand that Perpetua Philpot was the villain of the piece. And you—” Here the knife flicked toward Graham. “The high and mighty patron didn’t put a stop to it—you went all dewy-eyed and let her have her way with you, the play, all of us! I decided I’d have to take care of Miss on Scene and her ilk myself.”

Graham didn’t dare risk a glance over his shoulder to see whether Sawyer or anyone else was prepared to back him up if he made a move to rescue Julia. The audience sat, stunned into silence, listening to her panting, rasping breaths, as she struggled ineffectually against Fanshawe’s choke hold. To think, Graham had promised to look after her happiness.

He should have vowed to keep her from harm.

“Stroke of luck,” Fanshawe continued, giving Julia a silencing shake, “that I happened to be in the same pub as the clerk from Porter’s, overheard him crying into his ale about M-M-Mrs. Goode’s m-m-magazine.” He pulled a face and made his jaw wobble in mocking imitation of the man. The story jibed with what Keynes had been able to learn from the clerk, who had tried to drown his sorrows at his loss of employment and couldn’t recall to whom he might have spoken. “Now I know who’s behind it all.” He sent a leering glance toward the theatergoers around him. “And soon you will too. I mean to end it, if you won’t.” Those last words were directly squarely at Graham.

“But the notes you sent were signed ‘R.B.’ ”

“That’s right. For Robert Briggs,” he said, naming his character. “Though I knew those silly girls at the magazine would think it was Blackadder who’d done it. Even you must have wondered—must have feared he’d found out at last that you were destroying his play and with it, his name.”

“Actually, no.”

Graham calculated frantically. Would it work? Could he catch Fanshawe off guard, open him to an attack?

“You see . . .” Graham raised his voice to make certain that every one of the thousands present could hear him. “I’m Blackadder.”

At that, the audience gasped as one, just as he had hoped. The sound of their surprise, or perhaps the revelation itself, startled Fanshawe just enough that he relaxed his hold, and Julia was able to slip free of his grasp.

Fanshawe snarled. “Damn me. I might’ve known it.” He kicked at her, but she had already scrambled out of his reach, behind the writing desk. Deciding to ignore her, Fanshawe instead stepped toward Graham, blade first. “Just another nob, toying with the lives of honest working men like we,” he said, with a sweep of his other arm that took in everyone on the stage and behind the scenes. “Well, no more.”

He started to lunge at Graham, then seemed to catch a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and twisted his body at the last minute. Julia stood behind him, the brass candlestick from the desk in her upraised hands, prepared to bash his skull. The arm holding the blade curved toward her instead, toward the defenseless expanse of her rib cage—and beneath that, her liver, her lungs, and her precious, precious heart.

Graham leaped for the knife, pulling the man’s eyes toward him as she brought the candlestick down on Fanshawe’s head. The actor collapsed to the stage like a dummy filled with sand.

But not before his knife connected with flesh, piercing the center of Graham’s palm, its tip reemerging through the back of his right hand.

Chapter 23

Silence hung in the theater for what felt like an hour, though it was surely no more than half a moment. Transfixed by Graham’s gruesome wound, Julia let the candlestick slip from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The heavy brass ornament struck the boards with a resounding crash, and that seemed to be the general signal for chaos to break loose.

Graham stumbled backward to sit in the chair at Briggs’s writing table, clutching the injured hand in his lap, the better to support the weight of the knife, his features distorted in agony, though he made no sound. A woman in the audience screamed, and then another and another took up the cry. A stampede of footsteps followed as seats and boxes emptied, most to the exits. But a goodly number rushed to the stage. At her feet, Fanshawe groaned, roused by the clamor. Sidestepping him, she hurried to Graham’s side.

“Don’t touch it!” ordered a voice from below. She stopped herself, but not before her fingers were stained with his blood. “Name’s Essex. I’m a physician. And pulling out the knife might make matters worse.” Two other gentlemen helped to hoist the doctor onto the stage, and he dropped onto one knee beside Graham. “If I may, your lordship.”

His jaw set in a firm line and his face paler than usual, Graham allowed the doctor to examine the blade’s entry point as well as its exit.

“Well?” he demanded.

The doctor shook his head. “Difficult to say. The knife may be the only thing preventing a significant loss of blood, and removing it could . . .” The physician’s expression told clearly enough how that would end.

Graham swore beneath his breath. “So, then? I can’t verra well go about like this, can I?”

“No, my lord. But it is not a procedure I wish to undertake here, before an audience.”

Julia glanced around at the theater. Some still stood near their seats, unable or unwilling to leave, while others crowded around the exits. Various groups littered the stage: a pair of men who’d rolled Fanshawe onto his stomach and bound his arms with a length of rope; Mr. Sawyer ministering to Mrs. Cole by chafing the feeling back into her hands and feet; other actors and stagehands looking on in shock. Why should a medical man be reluctant to do his duty in front of any of them?

When she turned back to the doctor, though, she realized from the tilt of his head, silently directing Graham’s notice, that he’d been referring only to her.

“Go to your family,” Graham told her. “I’ll send word when all is well.”