Carola Dunn (15 page)

 “You will see to read better with the light behind you,” she said primly.

 “True,” he responded with a grin and a knowing look.

 He held the back of her chair while she seated herself, then took his place. His knees nearly touched hers. She slid back until the edge of the seat pressed into the back of her legs.

 “I understood you claimed to be good at learning by heart,” she accused him as he retrieved his part from his coat pocket, “so why are you now asking for assistance?”

 “When I read through the part, I realized how difficult it is to learn English prose compared to Latin and Greek verse. It wants scansion.”

 “Latin poetry depends upon metre rather than rhyme, does it not? I don’t know about Greek.”

 “How the deuce.... I beg your pardon. How on earth do you know about Latin poetry? And what scansion is, come to that.”

 “Oh, I suppose I must have heard someone mention it,” Prudence said vaguely. She never had any trouble hiding her education from her fellow-actors. With Lord Rusholme she found it impossible to mind her tongue as she had decided she must in her new profession.

 “Not someone among the sort of company actresses keep,” he said.

 Prudence chuckled. “How can you say so, my lord, when I am presently in your company?”

 “‘A hit, a very palpable hit.’ But I cannot allow you, Miss Figg-Savage-Neville, to address me as my lord when Miss Hardcastle calls me Tony. Come, let me hear it, or better, Garth.”

 Shaking her head, she considered. Garth was out of the question and even Tony seemed too familiar for comfort. Lumpkin was too horridly vulgar a name for the elegant, arrogant earl. “In the play,” she said, “I call you Cousin Tony and you call me Cousin Con. That will do quite well. Now, let us get to work. We are to rehearse the first act tomorrow.”

 As they talked, the noise level in the room had returned to normal, not enough to make them raise their voices but a background hum from which odd phrases emerged.

 “Can we not go somewhere more private, Cousin Con?” Rusholme coaxed, glancing round at the breakfasters.

 “No,” Prudence said firmly. She felt their corner of the long room was already more private than she quite cared for.

 “It will be hard to concentrate. Do you learn your lines amid all this chatter?”

 Recalling the chilly water she had washed in that morning cooled her rising blush, a trick Aimée had taught her. She had no intention of telling Rusholme she had studied her part in her bedchamber. He just might suggest they repair thither.

 “I’m sure you will manage. It may be prose, not verse, but at least it’s English. Let us begin with your song, which has both rhythm and rhyme to guide....” She stopped and stared at him in consternation. “Oh dear, can you sing?”

 “I’d have you know I’m in great demand at musical evenings. At least, I used to be whenever one of my sisters needed a partner in a duet. If someone will give me the tune, I warrant I’ll follow it tolerably.”

 “Good enough. Tony Lumpkin is not meant to be an opera singer.”

 “Do you sing? Other than carols with a group?”

 “Tolerably.” She played the pianoforte tolerably, too, but that was an unusual accomplishment for an actress and to admit it could only add to his curiosity. “Now, find the song, if you please. Act I, Scene 2, I believe.”

 “‘An alehouse room,’“ he read. “‘Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco.’ At least I’m at the head of the table, a little above the rest.”

 “You chose the rôle,” Prudence reminded him.

 His conscious look, together with his quickness to learn the tavern song, convinced her she had guessed right: he had taken the undignified part and requested assistance in studying it in order to be near her. She could not help but be flattered. She was also angry and not a little alarmed. All her powers of resistance would have to be mustered against such determined pursuit.

 If only Rusholme were not amiable as well as handsome and charming!

 Partly in revenge, partly to avoid further personal conversation, Prudence made him work very hard. He soon mastered the words of his first brief scene, though she doubted he’d ever attain Tony’s insolent manner towards his mother. It went against his every gentlemanly instinct. She decided to leave it to Mr. Hardcastle to direct him in that.

 The alehouse scene was longer. Again Rusholme readily learned his lines, but he had considerable trouble speaking them at the right moments until Prudence advised him to learn his cues as thoroughly as his own speeches.

 “Is that what you do?” he asked.

 “Yes. In fact, by the time we perform a play, I generally have the whole by heart, even the scenes I don’t appear in, simply from having heard it so many times. Aimée says it’s a monstrous waste of memory cells. She seems to know by instinct when her moment comes.”

 Rusholme laughed, but he said seriously, “You are ruled less by instinct than by intellect, are you not?”

 “I hope so! Come, let us take this bit again, where you and the landlord are misdirecting Marlow and Hastings.”

 The difficulty with the cues overcome, Rusholme was word perfect. His half-concealed glee at Tony’s prank was perfect, too. When he finished, Prudence clapped.

 “You are a born actor, my...Cousin Tony,” she exclaimed.

 “I daresay half of what Society regards as polished manners is acting. I know I’m acting when I bear with complaisance the company of certain of my mother’s guests! Undoubtedly, if regrettably, the ability to act smooths one’s path through life, as you declared of manners.”

 “True,” Prudence murmured. “Well, I believe you quite capable of learning the rest without my help, so—”

 “But the next scene is the one I’ve been waiting for!” he protested as she started to rise. “The one where you pursue me, coquetting—that is,” he hastily amended as she frowned, “where Constance Neville pursues Tony. Coquetting.”

 “Also the one,” she pointed out, “where we stand back to back and you give me a crack on the head.”

 “Unkind, ungentlemanly, and most unromantic,” Rusholme admitted with a mournful sigh. “I’d forgotten that bit. But you will need to practise your coquetting.”

 “When you have learned your lines,” she said inexorably, postponing the inevitable. “Besides, it’s not till Act II.”

 Mr. Hardcastle came over to see how matters were progressing. Prudence left the unruly earl to him. The coquetting was going to be bad enough. What was she to do when they reached that wretched stage direction, “They retire and seem to fondle”?

 She had a feeling Ben Dandridge was very much easier to deter than Lord Rusholme.

Chapter 6

 Sitting up in bed, her old shawl about her shoulders, Prudence watched Aimée refreshing her face paint, the new layer over the old.

 “You’re really going to sneak up to Mr. Ffoliot’s bedchamber?” she asked. “What if you go to the wrong room?”

 “His man’s s’posed to be waiting to show me the way and make sure all’s clear. Don’t look so shocked, Sera. It’s only a bit of fun.”

 “Fun!”

 “I mean it’s not for money. Course he’s promised me a nice present but the servants all say Henry Ffoliot’s in Dun Territory. If he gives me anything it’ll be some cheap trumpery bauble.”

 “Then why...?”

 “Why’m I going?” Aim‚e swung round, hands smoothing the pink satin over her ample hips. “‘Cause he’s young and ever so handsome, that’s why. It’ll be a change from old Sir Enoch, who pays the bills right enough but ain’t got much else to keep a girl happy. He’ll never know, and what he don’t know can’t hurt him.”

 “I suppose not,” said Prudence dubiously.

 “Don’t condemn what you never had.” The actress crossed to the bed, sat down on the edge, and took one of Prudence’s hands in hers. “Look, dearie, you’re simply not up to snuff. You do know what that Lord Rusholme’s after, don’t you?”

 Prudence bit her lip. “Yes.”

 “They all want the same thing, and he’s got his eye on you, sure enough.”

 “I wish you hadn’t told him I was a good teacher!”

 “Won’t make no difference, dear. If he wants it, he’ll get it,” Aimée said fatalistically. “It’s the first one a girl remembers, and if it’s not him it’ll be someone else, prob’ly not so much to your liking. You do like him, don’t you?”

 “Yes,” Prudence whispered.

 “I can always tell. Honest, if I was you I’d grab him. He’s not so good-looking as Mr. Ffoliot but he’s got all the blunt a girl could ask for. With his title, too, I ‘spect he could even buy you into a London company. Well, I got to go. Cheer up, Sera, it’s not the end of the world.”

 But Prudence had been brought up to believe loss of chastity was indeed the end of the world, both this world and the next. Suddenly chilled, she huddled down beneath the bedclothes. A poem flashed through her mind, written by Oliver Goldsmith, the very man whose play was bringing her so much trouble.

When lovely woman stoops to folly

And finds too late that men betray,—

What charm can soothe her melancholy,

What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,

To give repentance to her lover

And wring his bosom, is—to die.

 Men! Prudence thought with loathing. Why should the woman seduced suffer shame and death while mere repentance was expected of the seducer? Aimée’s cheerful debauchery was surely saner than that!

 Yet Prudence could not easily shake off her principles, the deeply inculcated belief in the virtue of chastity. Perhaps she should have been christened Prude, not Prudence.

 Aimée thought Lord Rusholme was bound to attain his ends, and if not he, another, but that only applied as long as Prudence was an actress. She was not suited to the life, she knew it now. She ought to leave at once, to resume the journey interrupted when she had descended from the stagecoach in Cheltenham and read the theatre’s playbill.

 Would he be angry? Would he miss her? Not for long. He himself had told her he meant to marry soon. Even if she did surrender to him, she’d not have him for long.

 The realization strengthened her resolve. She would not surrender! Nor would she run away, as if she were at fault. Though after this engagement she must go back to her old, dull but safe life, for the present the company relied upon her and she’d not let them down. To lose Constance Neville as well as Tony Lumpkin might prove disastrous.

 Suppose Lady Anne volunteered to play the rôle? To judge by what the servants said of her, she’d probably do the coquetting part better than Prudence.

 It would serve Lord Rusholme right. Picturing his aghast face, she fell asleep at last with a faint smile on her lips.

* * * *

 “May I beg a last nightcap before I retire, Garth?” David Denham requested, as the marquis took himself off to bed in the wake of the rest of his guests.

 “What, not speeding to the side of your bride?” Rusholme went over to the tray of bottles and decanters provided for the gentlemen after the ladies retired. “You haven’t stayed up so late since you arrived.”

 “I want a word with you,” Denham said defensively. “I warned Lottie I’d be a bit late.”

 “Has my mother invited you to stay on after Twelfth Night?”

 “No. Is she likely to?”

 “Yes.”

 “Why? And if she does, would you like me to claim urgent business elsewhere?”

 “If you don’t mind, old fellow. I made the mistake of indicating a slight—a very slight preference for Miss Wallace over the other two eligibles. No offence to the lady, nor to you, but I’m not ready to tie the knot yet, with anyone.” It would not be fair to court a bride while in hot pursuit of the enchanting, intriguing Miss Prudence Figg. A morning spent with her had only served to confirm her charms.

 “Don’t worry about offending poor Kitty,” his friend advised, accepting the glass of brandy. “She’s frightened half to death of you. She hasn’t been presented yet, you know, and she needs to acquire a little Town Bronze before she’ll be up to your weight. Talking of females, that’s a pretty little actress you have your eye on. Not in your usual style.”

 Denham’s casual tone failed to deceive. This was what had kept him up late.

 “I have a usual style, do I?” Rusholme enquired, attempting equal casualness. He sat down, lounged back, and stretched out his legs.

 “You tend to fall for elegant, languorous brunettes without much sense in their cocklofts. Some real dashers you’ve had in keeping over the years, I must say. But it’s not quite the thing in your parents’ house, old fellow. None of my business, of course,” he added warily.

 “None at all. However, let me assure you that I am not so smitten I cannot restrain my lusts until both the troupe and I myself have left Easthaven.” Despite his plans for Prudence, Rusholme found himself revolted to be talking of her in such terms. He took a swallow of brandy. “Tell me, is everyone aware I’ve taken a fancy to Miss...Savage?”

 “Lord, I don’t suppose so. No one has said anything in my hearing. I was at the servants’ ball, remember, and I put it together with this crackbrained business of your acting career and a look you gave her after the mummery.” Denham grinned. “To tell the truth, if you’d denied it, I’d have believed you.”

 “Damn your eyes, David!” He frowned, recalling the first meeting in the woods, and the second, with the Yule log. “The servants are as able as you to put two and two together, though, and what they know everyone knows sooner or later.”

 “I daresay, but from what my man says they’re all too agog over Ffoliot and the other actress to notice your comparatively discreet goings-on.”

 “Damn Ffoliot’s eyes! And this time I mean it. If his aunt wasn’t a crony of Mama’s, I’d have him out on his ear.”

 “Oh no you wouldn’t, old chap. Not only is he drawing attention below-stairs from your little intrigue, he’s making some headway above-stairs with the Winkworth menace.”

 “Lady Anne will never have him.”

 “No, she thinks she’s using him to make you jealous. At least he keeps her off your back. Henry Ffoliot is a curst rum touch but I’d be grateful to him, if I were you.”