Heiress Without a Cause (3 page)

As soon as they entered the theatre, a woman hurried over to them, her jet-beaded bodice gleaming in the chandelier-lit foyer. Her nose quivered like she smelled freshly minted coins. She had the air of a former courtesan — all uncompromising determination beneath a soft, inviting façade. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with clear brown eyes and the grace of a dancer. “How can I assist you, my lords?”

“May we speak to Mr. Legrand?” Ferguson asked.

The woman’s eyes turned wary. “Monsieur Legrand is no longer with us,” she said. Her accent was odd, vaguely French but mostly something unidentifiable. “But I am his wife and can assist you as you need.”

Ferguson didn’t know that the theatre operator was a woman, and he suspected his estate manager didn’t either. But the stream of people moving toward the interior doors, an odd mix of servants, merchants, and professionals, indicated that an intermission was ending. So instead of pursuing the matter of her management — and his ownership of the property — he inquired about tickets.

After the second intermission, there should have been many empty seats as theatregoers went off to other amusements. But according to Madame Legrand, the lead actress was such a success that she kept everyone until the end. The best they could do was stools near the stage.

“Madame Guerrier already rivals the best actresses of our time,” she said as she accepted their money. “You are just in time, too. She is about kill Claudius.”

“She is playing Hamlet himself? Not Ophelia?” Ferguson asked.

Madame Legrand nodded, leading them inside. “Strange, I know. But when you see her, you will wonder how the role could ever be played by another. Even the great Mrs. Siddons’s performances as Hamlet are cast into the shade by her.”

That was high praise indeed — Mrs. Siddons was the greatest actress of her generation. His companions snickered. None of them believed that the next star of the stage would be found in Seven Dials.

Madame Legrand ushered them to a door near the foot of the stage. The orchestra, which was not blessed with good instruments or the talent to play them, was mercifully falling silent. As with many other small venues, they played music under most of the play to skirt around the legal monopoly held by the few theatres allowed to stage serious drama. After a whispered order from Madame Legrand, a footman picked up four small stools from a darkened corner and carried them a few feet away from the door, setting them in front of a merchant and his irritated wife.

As they settled into their seats, Ferguson realized he had never heard a theatre so silent. Even Marsham and his cronies stopped their jokes, shamed into it by a sharp rebuke from the harpy behind them. Most theatres were merely an excuse for people to congregate, with the audience ignoring the actors on stage — but here, every head in the house turned in the direction of the “man” who entered from the wings.

The actress wore clothing more suited to the previous century, with a well-powdered wig, an elaborate coat, breeches, and high-heeled shoes. Her face was partially obscured by the wig — the disheveled hair of Hamlet in his maddest hour — and the frothy cravat high up under her chin, but there was a definite feminine tilt to her nose. He guessed that they were in for a tedious hour. Her figure was trim and neat, but she lacked the stature to be convincing as a man.

But then the actress opened her mouth and he understood why the audience was enthralled. The last act was familiar to him; Hamlet’s lines about the skull of “poor Yorick” would turn to melodrama in the hands of a lesser actor. Yet even though she was small, her voice was rich, warm, and imbued with precisely the right amount of tragedy for the moment.

Her French accent was also more convincing than Madame Legrand’s. It was a voice made for whispering naughty desires in the dark, and yet somehow suited to Hamlet’s unraveling sanity.

He stared at her as her voice washed over him — then stared more intently as he realized that he was seeing a woman far more clearly than even the fastest society ladies, in their low-cut bodices and dampened chemises, could ever be viewed.

She wore padded shoulders to pass for a man, but the flare of her hips and the soft curve of her buttocks in the scandalously tight breeches betrayed her. He looked down, to the slender calves outlined in ivory hose, then to the perfectly trim ankles giving way to diminutive feet within the bejeweled heels. Her damned cravat unfortunately concealed her bosom, but the hint of its swell was there. Even in Hamlet’s madness — especially in his madness — she was a vision.

Lord Marsham exhaled. “Isn’t she a sight?”

Ferguson did not say anything — could not say anything. He was too distracted by the sudden, furious rush of blood to his cock. It had been months since his last encounter, years since he had taken a proper mistress. He had sacrificed the physical pleasures of London, knowing that building a life free of his father was worth the cost — but this was the kind of woman who could make a man forget everything but her.

They all sat enraptured, even though they knew what would happen — Ophelia’s funeral, the duel with Laertes, Hamlet killing his traitorous uncle Claudius before succumbing to Laertes’s poisoned sword. As she fell to the stage, her death speech ringing out over the crowd, not a single person spoke. Ferguson heard women sobbing behind him, and even Marsham coughed.

When the curtain fell, the audience erupted into ecstatic applause. Ferguson joined them despite himself. Madame Guerrier truly was a talent to be admired. He did not intend to stay in London long enough to need a mistress, but if he did take one, he wanted one just like her. She was composed but wild — the same qualities that drew him to Lady Madeleine — and it was safer to seduce an actress than a spinster. If she was as beautiful in a dress as she was in a pair of breeches, having her in his bed might make his stay in London bearable.

She returned to take her bows, embracing the applause like parched soil soaking up rain. He willed her to look in his direction, but her gaze flickered over the crowd like she was trying to blink away tears, and she never met his eyes. She finally left before the applause died, with one last, longing glance at the audience. There was something sad about her, something at odds with the attitude one expected from a star performer.

His companions stood, no longer complaining about his choice of venue but still eager to seek out the nearest gaming table. He hung back as they picked up their walking sticks, surprised by the strength of his desire but unwilling to fight it. “Go along without me, friends. I trust you can find a fourth at the club.”

Marsham laughed. “Have an eye for the French chit, eh?”

Ferguson gave the cocky, conquering grin they expected. They clapped him on the back and wished him luck with the chase. He watched them go, glad to be rid of them. Only an evening in their company made him wonder how he could survive the time it would take to marry off the twins.

Unless his sisters deigned to talk to him, he would be relegated to seeking out drinking companions like Marsham — or, he could embrace his new title and watch as people began currying his favor. He remembered when his father had inherited the dukedom years ago; the change was quick and irreversible.

Alternatively, he could take a mistress — a soft, willing woman who excited him without fawning over him. He didn’t just want sex, though. He wanted a companion.

And something about the way Madame Guerrier said farewell to the stage told him she could be what he needed — either on his arm or in his bed.

Madeleine strode to the front of the stage at the end of the play, maintaining Hamlet’s mad, wounded air to the end. As she bowed, she reveled in the thunderous applause and hoots of appreciation from the crowd beyond the lights. The theatre was a glorious cacophony of sound, and she let it pour into her, filling the empty spaces she usually tried so hard to ignore.

Aunt Augusta would be outraged to see her before such an audience — but the bigger outrage was that this was her last performance. She knew she should make her exit, but she lingered in adoration of the crowd. Their roars, the uncouth stamping of feet, even the smell of hundreds of warm bodies undisguised by expensive perfumes — it was all so intoxicating. She finally knew why so many lower class girls gave in to the lure of the stage.

She waved a final time. The stage crew shot her dark glances from the wings; they needed to reset the props for the pantomime following the play. She sauntered offstage, never breaking character — until she found her maid waiting for her behind the curtain.

“Josephine!” Madeleine said as she embraced the woman and twirled her around in a circle. “Have you ever heard such an audience?”

Josephine sniffed and patted Madeleine on the head. She was in her fifties, the same age as Aunt Augusta, but her dark hair was almost entirely grey and her once-slim figure was now round — a travesty she blamed on the Stauntons’ English cook. She and her husband Pierre had spirited Madeleine out of France at the age of nine, delivering her to Augusta while her parents went to Paris to die. While Josephine did not approve of her charge’s first act of rebellion in over twenty years, she did not stop her. “If these two weeks have ended your passion for theatricals, I think it a very good thing.”

Madeleine pulled her out of the way as a man wheeled out a Gypsy cart for the next set. “I promised you only two weeks, and now I will never speak of theatricals again. I will go back to being a dull spinster, and you can burn these breeches as you would like to.”

She said it lightly, but from the sharp look Josephine gave her, Madeleine suspected she did not sound cheerful enough. Two weeks of freedom had whetted her appetite, not sated it.

And now that her life included chaperoning other girls as they made brilliant matches and left her sitting on the shelf, she would like it even less.

But an agreement was an agreement. With the season starting in earnest, it would be harder to maintain the illusion of illness that gave her these precious two weeks. Her career had to end now, whether she was ready to give it up or not.

She walked behind the stage, past the old painted scenes of forests and castles, to the small, closet-sized room where she stored her clothes. “Stay here, mademoiselle,” Josephine said. “I will ask the door guard to find a cab.”

Josephine’s husband was now one of the Stauntons’ coachmen and usually brought them to the theatre. But he was driving Aunt Augusta tonight, leaving Josephine and Madeleine to navigate alone. It felt foolhardy, but it had to be safer than taking another driver into their confidences.

As she waited, she ran a hand over the slightly tarnished mirror leaning drunkenly against the bare wooden wall. With her wig and men’s clothes, she barely recognized herself — or perhaps it was the light of triumph in her eyes that she didn’t recognize.

It didn’t matter, though. While she was hard to recognize and therefore unlikely to be caught, particularly in Seven Dials, Aunt Augusta or Alex would someday catch her if she kept sneaking out. She turned away from the mirror. She was ready to go home, if only so she could mourn privately. But when Josephine returned, Madame Legrand swept into the room behind her.

“Madame Guerrier, darling, you were marvelous!” Madame exclaimed in the contrived French accent that always made Josephine roll her eyes. No one had ever seen Monsieur Legrand, and Madame was definitely not French, but Madeleine admired the woman for starting a theatre alone. Madame opened her arms wide as though to capture Madeleine — and the patrons she brought to the theatre — within her embrace. “All of London is transported!”

Madeleine extended her hand to Madame Legrand. “Many thanks, Madame. What play shall you stage next?”

Madame looked outside the closet, then shut the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Lady Madeleine, please. I know you could only risk staging this play for two weeks. But is there anything I can offer to keep you? My theatre is full for every performance, and with such little time to spread word of your talent. Tonight there was even a party of gentlemen in the audience — think of how well we would do if the gentry came to see you!”

After making their agreement, Madame never used Madeleine’s real name — but it was the news she imparted, not the usage of her name, that made Madeleine’s stomach rebel. “Who were they?”

“They did not introduce themselves, but I could never forget the red-haired gent. He was a fixture in Covent Garden when I was a dancer there. He’s the one what just inherited the dukedom.”

“Ferguson? Or rather, Rothwell?” Madeleine asked, closing her eyes against the blow.

“Aye, Rothwell,” Madame exclaimed, slipping into the Yorkshire accent she worked so hard to hide. “He was enthralled. As soon as he saw you enter, he only had eyes for you.”

“My God,” Madeleine whispered. “I am ruined.”

“Ruined? No, this is excellent news. We will make a fortune!”

Madeleine had trusted Madame Legrand for five years. Despite her misgivings, Augusta let Madeleine stage holiday theatricals at Whitworth, the Stauntons’ country estate in Lancashire. Madame was still a dancer when Madeleine hired her to produce the first performance, since it was customary to let professionals run the show while the amateur houseguests giggled their way through their assigned parts.

The last Yuletide theatrical had been particularly unbearable. Augusta’s friends were too well starched to participate, and Alex and Sebastian would only play along for so long before escaping to the billiards room. Madeleine wanted to act on a real stage, with real actors and a real audience. Madame had somehow saved enough to open her own theatre the previous year, and she was the only one Madeleine could trust with such a mad request.

Madeleine tried to reason with her. “We cannot continue. If I am caught...”

“But your talent! You cannot walk away — I have never seen a debut like this. Besides, I’ve seen you many times as Lady Madeleine. I vow no one would recognize you as Hamlet.”

Madeleine could hear the roar of the crowd in her ears again, the sound filling her to the brim. She
did
have talent, she knew she did — but she also had a reputation, and expectations, and responsibilities.