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Teresa was not surprised when Lord Macklin appeared at the theater workshop the following day. She might have stayed home to avoid him, but she’d promised to complete the scenery she was painting that day. It was needed for the next night’s performance and had to dry and then be installed onstage. More than that, this was her place. She wouldn’t be driven out, even by her own foolishness. The earl might be a powerful man, but she was valued here; she belonged with these craftsmen who took pride in their skills.
He arrived at the time when the workers generally stopped for their nuncheon. Teresa turned her back and concentrated on a branch of autumn foliage she was tinting. Though the perfect shadings of yellow and crimson didn’t matter for the action of the play, she prided herself on the details of her landscapes. They added to the audience’s experience even if people didn’t realize how.
She heard Macklin’s voice as he greeted Tom. Moments later, she felt it when the two of them came over to stand behind her. “Got a notion,” Tom said. “Good one, I think.”
“I must finish this,” Teresa replied without turning. After yesterday, she didn’t want to meet Lord Macklin’s gaze.
“Looks first rate as it is to me,” said Tom.
“Lovely,” said the earl.
The word, his voice, set something vibrating inside her, like a plucked harp string.
“Good day, Señora Alvarez,” he added.
She had never been more conscious of another person, even though she was still not looking at him. She had to turn around. And there he was—tall but not looming, elegant but not supercilious, gazing but not ogling. What was he thinking after her blurted claim? Without quite noticing, she’d worn a gown rather too fine for painting today, and earrings that sparkled with tiny sapphires. Had that been for him? Or to bolster her own confidence? “My lord,” she murmured.
“Come outside for a few minutes,” Tom said. He gave her one of his engaging grins.
There was no escape. Consequences must be faced. She put down her brush and followed them out to a table in the courtyard.
“Here’s the thing,” said Tom when they were seated. “I reckon his lordship could be a deal of help looking for Odile and Sonia and Maria.” As usual, he recited all the missing dancers’ names like a kind of incantation.
Teresa glanced at Macklin. He looked as surprised as she.
“He knows the base barnacles who hang about the theater to leer at the girls,” the lad went on.
“I wouldn’t sayknow,” the earl put in.
“Their sort,” amended Tom. “And you can go to the clubs and other places where we can’t.” He nodded at Teresa as if she’d been a party to this scheme. Would Macklin think so?
“Señora Alvarez can talk to all the girls in their own tongues,” Tom continued blithely. “She knows ’em best, and they might tell her things they wouldn’t say with a feller around. And me, I can sneak about with the best of them. Follow people around town and see where they go. I got friends who can do the same.” He gestured around the table like a magician completing a clever trick. “I reckon we’d make a champion team to find out what happened.”
“Team,” said Teresa. Part of her vehemently rejected this idea. She’d vowed never to be dependent on the aid of an aristocratic patron again. The idea filled her with repugnance. But shedidwant to find Odile and Sonia and Maria, or at the least make certain they were all right. She very much feared they were not. And the earl, like all his kind, had power in the world.
“Of course I will help,” said the earl. “Anything I can do.”
Teresa blinked, amazed that he agreed so easily. What would he demand in exchange? In her experience, there was always payment. He mentioned nothing, however, and she couldn’t spot the sly deception she expected on his face. How would it be to have the resources of the nobility on her side without making any promises? Revolutionary, if true. “Very well,” she said, keeping her tone cool.
Tom rubbed his hands together, looking altogether pleased with himself. “Right, then. So first of all, I went back around to the lodgings of all three dancers and talked to the landladies and everybody else in the houses. Nobody knows noth…anything. Those girls walked out their doors just like usual one day and never come back. They didn’t take anything with them. Not a scrap.”
This made no sense. As Teresa knew from bitter experience, the less one owned the harder one clung to it. More than anything else, this convinced her that Odile and Sonia and Maria hadnotmeant to leave.
“And then I heard from Nancy that Maria boasted about driving out to Richmond Park,” Tom went on. “In the company of a fine gentleman. I’m thinking we should ask some questions along that road, see if anybody remembers them.”
“And so you are needing a carriage,” replied the earl with a smile.
“If you please, my lord.”
“Tom is not fond of horses,” Macklin told Teresa. “He sees riding as a form of torture.” The earl offered his smile to her. “Too bad. It is a pleasant ride to Richmond, which you might have enjoyed.”
Did he understand that such remarks were a bid for more information about her? As if she was a partial picture he was determined to fill in? Or was it simply the way he spoke to everyone? Well, she wasn’t going to tell him that she’d loved riding as a girl nor that she’d had a spirited Arab mare she loved dearly. Her current situation must make it obvious that she could not afford to keep a horse. So she said nothing.
“Is tomorrow suitable for you?”
Her scenery would be finished by then. She had no other engagements, pressing or otherwise. Teresa nodded.
“That’s settled then. We should go in the morning to allow plenty of time.”
