A Certain Want of Reason (11 page)

Or paper. But as his eyes scanned the lobby, he realized that a source of paper surrounded him in the form of the playbills nailed to the walls, memorializing past productions and advertising new ones.

It seemed unfair to remove the publicity for an upcoming program, so he focused his attention on the older playbills, quickly spotting one that was perfect for his purposes—low enough so that its absence would not be terribly noticeable and from a production that had been so awful he was doing the theater a service by removing the evidence of its existence.

He gently ripped the playbill free from the nail attaching it to the wall and rolled it up. What could he use to write? There was probably some sort of office on the premises, but he had no idea where it might be located. He could, perhaps, try looking backstage. As his thoughts wandered in that direction, he remembered something he had seen in the theater itself. A young man sat very near the stage, off to the far right, making sketches of the performers. Perhaps he might borrow one of the man’s pencils.

The exercise would have been much simpler had he thought of this before intermission. Now, he had to creep down a side aisle, hoping his mother, Mrs. Morris and Jeanne would not notice and that he would not be too disruptive to the rest of the audience.

Several people turned to glare at him as he passed, but he made his way to the front, borrowed a charcoal pencil and returned to the lobby without incident.

“Boy!” He summoned the lad with the broom. “Half a crown for you if you summon my carriage. The name is Rutherford.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “‘essir!” He tossed his broom aside as he dashed toward the door.

Now Edmund had to write. “
I, Edmund Fairfax Rutherford
,” he began, “
am of sound mind and body this day, February 3, 1816. On this page, I set forth my intent to appear as a lunatic for the said purpose of discouraging the attentions of…
”

He could not give his reason. It would leave him liable for a breach of marriage suit. Moreover, it could injure his mother’s sensibilities most keenly. So he scratched out the words purporting to give a purpose and instead listed a duration for his feigned lunacy. Three months should be sufficient time for Jeanne to come to her senses, see that he had lost his and end the engagement. With a little luck, she might even become attached to someone else. After all, she was considered quite a beauty and the social events of the season had barely begun.

“
The resumption of normal behavior in three months time, along with this letter, will constitute proof that I am indeed sane and perfectly able to conduct my own affairs. You are charged not to tell anyone of this intent until three months have expired. Then you are to use your best efforts to see that I am released from whatever confinement I may be in at that time. Your silence will be amply rewarded.
”

He signed his name and added the date again, just to make certain.

He had nothing with which to seal the letter. All he could do was fold the stiff paper into quarters and hope for the best.

After another moment, the boy reappeared. “‘f’you please, sir,” he touched his cap, “your carriage is just outside now.”

“Good. Thank you.” He handed the boy the promised coin, then stepped out to speak to his coachman. “Deliver this paper to Franklin. Instruct him to set out with it tomorrow morning and bring it to a solicitor of good reputation. It should
not
go to Mr. Stansbury, our family solicitor, but to another. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.” The coachman nodded.

Edmund handed him the folded paper. “No matter what happens, he must deliver this letter into the hands of a solicitor tomorrow.”

“Yessir.”

“You’d better hurry.” Edmund waved him on.

“Now, sir?”

“Yes. Deliver the letter to Franklin, then come back for Lady Rutherford and myself.”

“Yessir.” The coachman snapped the reins and the carriage started forward with a jerk.

Edmund watched him until he turned a corner and faded into the fog at the far end of the street.

Then he returned to wait for the professional performance to end so that his amateur one could begin.

Despite his impatience for the opera to be over, he found the voice of the lead soprano so beautiful that he became mesmerized by the music in the final scene and greeted the closing notes of the performance with reluctance.

With a start, he realized that already people were standing and preparing to leave. If he wanted to demonstrate his insanity in front of an audience of sufficient size, he would have to begin soon.

Somehow.

What had been easy at the Adrington soirée now suddenly became difficult. What should he do? He could climb up on stage and leap across, as he had in the ballroom, or he could drop to the floor, barking and snapping at the heels of patrons, but neither option seemed right, somehow. Whereas it had all come rather easily the first time.

He stood, looking about the theater for inspiration.

“What did you think of the performance, Lord Rutherford?” Jeanne had sidled up beside him while he was unaware.

“What?” He turned his focus to her with some reluctance.

“I thought the soprano uncommonly good, though she looked a perfect sow on the stage.”

“Yes, I did enjoy her voice. And for that reason, I paid little attention to her appearance.”

“How could you not notice? Draped as she was with fake jewels and pearls, she was a perfectly ridiculous display.”

“My mind was not on jewelry.”

“Goodness, you are cross this evening…Edmund.” She leaned in to whisper this last intimate address. “But I believe I have a solution. Aunt Morris and your mother have fixed the date for the fifteenth of March.”

“Beware the ides.”

“What?” Jeanne fixed him with a vapid gaze.

“The ides of March. ‘Beware the ides of March.’ We cannot be married on the day they murdered Caesar.”

“Oh, Edmund, I did not realize that one of your friends met with such an awful fate on that day. I shall ask Aunt Morris to select another date. A closer one?” Jeanne glided away, leaving Edmund with his increasingly panicked thoughts.

He could not possibly be expected to marry a woman so stupid she did not recognize one of the most famous lines in the history of literature. Or the history of history, for that matter. She thought Caesar was a personal acquaintance?

And all this, of course, brought him no closer to his objective. Perhaps he should pretend he was Caesar. Go about wearing a bedsheet and a coronet of leaves? He could see no bedsheets in sight here, though, or leaves.

But how about a crown of jewels?

Edmund looked around again, searching for a glimpse of sparkle on someone’s head.

Not far away, an older lady stood chatting with the occupants of her box, apparently oblivious to the fact that others were leaving all around them.

Edmund first walked toward the bejeweled lady, then flung off his sense of decorum and ran toward her at full speed. When he was only a few feet away, he jumped up onto a chair and reached out to snatch the glittering prize off her head. It was a turban rather than a coronet, but still bedecked with large and hopefully imitation jewels, he could set off to begin his reign as Caesar or perhaps the sultan of someplace.

Soon after he made his escape, however, he found his new career as sovereign cut rather short as someone tackled him from behind and pulled him to the floor.

“At last, I’ve caught you,” a male voice announced in triumph.

“Unhand me, you peasant!” Edmund rolled free and scrambled to his feet, glancing back just long enough to see that he had been “captured” by Geoffrey, the long-legged young man he watched outside the theater. Who had been somehow connected to the dark-eyed, patient young lady whose companion had called her “Lucia.” Edmund ran from him, uncertain what his next move should be. Steps leading up to the stage beckoned from beyond the rows of chairs.

Despite the clusters of people who still remained conversing in the theater, it seemed to take no effort to brush past them and fly up the steps onto the stage. “I am the Sultan of Perkestra” he announced, lifting his hands into the air in a gesture meant to convey regal authority. “And this man,” he pointed at Geoffrey, “has offended my person.”

“You keep sad company, then, your majesty,” Geoffrey called out as he approached the stage. “For I have been tracking you and your collection of guttersnipe thieves through the very sewers of London.”

“Geoffrey!” a woman’s voice hailed in anguish.

“How dare you accuse my entourage of thievery!” Edmund looked about the stage, wishing the production had involved a fake sword or some other weapon, but grateful at least that Geoffrey had decided to join the entertaining ruse. This was turning out to be as much fun as the Adrington’s soirée.

“I accuse no entourage.” Geoffrey vaulted onto the stage, stumbling slightly as he scrambled to his feet. “I accuse
you
, known to all of London as ‘Redcloak’. It is you who have been stealing the valuables from the helpless and innocent. And now you shall be brought to justice.”

“Geoffrey!” The woman’s voice drew closer.

It had to be
her
voice. “Nonsense. My cloak is blue.” Edmund pointed at his nonexistent cloak, taking the opportunity to turn and look for the woman whose voice he’d heard.

Though she was still some distance from them, the look of worried anguish in her eyes stopped him cold. He might be enjoying himself, but she obviously was not. He started toward her to reassure her that she had nothing to fear.

But in the next instant, he found himself facing the floor instead of the young lady as Geoffrey hurled into his legs and pulled him down.

Chapter Ten

Lucia squeezed back tears as she rushed up onto the stage. Geoffrey had now apparently decided he was a Bow Street Runner or some such thing, which would have been a difficult but manageable proposition at home. But now he brought his delusion to the attention of London society. He had knocked down another gentleman not once, but twice, and appeared ready to do so a third time. Lord Rutherford had regained his footing and raced off toward the wings with Geoffrey in hot pursuit.

“Come back, Geoffrey. Please!”

She turned at the sound of running footsteps behind her and saw that Lord Rutherford had circled behind the stage and reappeared on the other side with two poles made of bamboo. “I insist you stop this unseemly scuffling,” he demanded. “If you want to fight me, it must be as a gentleman.” He tossed one of the poles to Geoffrey. “
En garde
!” He began to circle Geoffrey as an opponent in a fencing match.

For a moment Geoffrey merely looked at the pole in his hand. Then he tossed it aside with a grin. “You’re a bloody fool, Redcloak.” He drew his dagger.

“No, Geoffrey! No!” Lucia hurled herself forward, but it seemed her feet were weighted with lead. In her mind’s eye, she saw Geoffrey stab the dagger into the slab of meat on the buffet that morning. “Stop, please. This man is not Redcloak. He cannot be.” She struggled to think of something, anything to dissuade her brother from acting the part she had unwittingly created for him. “Redcloak was captured and hanged last month.”

At the sight of Geoffrey’s dagger, Lord Rutherford’s expression changed from bemused superiority to terrified realization to grim determination all within moments. He began to back slowly toward the wings.

Geoffrey stalked after him, his pace matching that of his prey. “A ruse. It was all a ruse, Lu. This is the real Redcloak, and I’ve caught him. Me! And I’m going to do this all without your help this time.” He lunged forward, and though Lord Rutherford parried with his pole, it splintered into bits.

Geoffrey drew the dagger back and stabbed Lord Rutherford in the leg. With a grunt, Lord Rutherford struck Geoffrey on the wrist, knocking the dagger free from his grip. Both men collapsed on the floor just as Lucia caught up with them.

She found it increasingly difficult to breathe. A crowd of other men had gathered at the edge of the stage, but they seemed frozen into inaction, so she pressed forward. She alone would have to stop Geoffrey. In vain, she tried to grasp his arm from among the tangled mass of limbs before her. Instead, she grabbed at his hair. Her fingers first slipped through without gaining purchase, but on the second grab, she anchored her hands near his scalp and heaved with all her strength.

Her efforts actually pulled both men up for a moment, entangled as they were, but Lord Rutherford soon slipped back to the floor.

“What the devil?” Geoffrey twisted around to see her. “Let me go, Lu!”

“No!” The word came out as a choked sob, scarcely audible even to her. Her arms felt like they were being pulled from their sockets and she was liable to tumble forward at any moment. But she knew she had to keep hold of Geoffrey to give Lord Rutherford the chance to get away.

He did not run away, however. In fact, he barely moved at all. She stared in horror, not listening to her brother’s screams, barely noticing when others pulled Geoffrey away from her so that she stood clutching at empty air.

The space around Lord Rutherford immediately filled with men and their shouts as they ordered one another about. She stepped toward him, not trusting herself to say anything, simply hoping against hope that she would see the same animated light in his countenance, that he would live through this and somehow forgive them.