Wicked Company (51 page)

“Mary Ann can bring over her belongings whenever ’tis convenient,” Sophie replied quietly.

“Excellent,” Darnly smiled. “Now… let me order Charles to deliver you home in my coach.”

“Thank you, but Mr. Garrick has thoughtfully seen to that,” she demurred, and bade him farewell.

Climbing into the hackney, Sophie directed the driver to take her to St. James’s Palace and ordered him to wait while she delivered
Double Devils
to the clerk in the Lord Chamberlain’s office. No sooner had she handed the manuscript to the reedy assistant, than a door to the inner office burst open and Edward Capell stalked out of his chambers.

“Grieves!” he said sharply, clutching a pile of plays in his arms, “I distinctly recall ordering you to remove this pile of manuscripts cluttering my bottom shelves!”

“I have some of them here, sir, and was just about to—” began the clerk, pointing to several works on his cluttered desk. Sophie assumed the hapless fellow had a habit of allowing orphaned manuscripts to molder in some cupboard in the warren-like chambers.

“These works are all vile, disgusting attempts at humor,” Capell declared, dumping the stack he carried onto the clerk’s desk. “The sooner you return them to their misguided authors, the better!”

The Deputy Examiner of Plays interrupted his tirade to stare at Sophie who, in her advanced stage of pregnancy, was apparently unrecognizable. As a result of his outburst, his mottled skin had grown even more blotchy and scarlet than usual.

“Kindly tell me, Grieves,” he said, eyeing Sophie disdainfully, “why you have allowed a female in this revolting condition to lounge willy-nilly in these chambers?” He addressed Sophie directly. “Madam, you belong with a midwife. I cannot
bear
such fecundity to be flaunted in this place of business. Pray, absent yourself from my sight
at once!”

“I am Sophie McGann… I-I mean, Lady Lindsay-Hoyt,” she stammered. “I have just delivered a manuscript from Mr. Garrick for your amiable consideration, sir.” She envisioned her months of hard work evaporating in the hostile atmosphere prevailing in the Lord Chamberlain’s office. “Mr. Garrick sends his kindest regards… and please excuse me, if my appearance causes you offense.” Backing out of the chamber, she bumped into a chair and nearly lost her balance. “I-I beg your leave,” she mumbled and exited as quickly as she could, disgusted at her own obsequiousness.

Sophie was able to work off some of her righteous anger during the hour required for her to print a new batch of playbills due at Drury Lane.

“Sophie… here, let me do that,” Lorna said from the top of the circular stairway that spiraled into the back of the book shop on the floor below. “You shouldn’t be pulling on that lever that way… ’twill bring on your labor prematurely.”

Sophie wiped her brow on the sleeve of her dress and arched her aching back.

“I think I
will
rest for a while,” she agreed wearily. “Shall I brew us a cup of tea?”

“No, I shall,” Lorna said firmly. But Sophie had no sooner eased her tired frame onto her bed than she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs that separated her lodgings from those of Mrs. Phillips across the landing. Her door swung open and there at the threshold stood Mary Ann Skene, her gown resplendent with frothy ruffles. Behind her, a burly young man carried a large trunk. The harlot eyed Sophie with irritation.

“Roderick said I’d be able to sleep here during the
day,”
she whined. “If you wish to sleep here at night, ’tis your affair, but m’lord
guaranteed
I’d
have a place to sleep during the
day
and—”

“And so you shall,” Sophie interrupted tiredly.

She heaved her heavy body upright, and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. “The bed shall be yours… no doubt your labors at the Blue Periwig leave you quite exhausted.”

Mary Ann gazed at her suspiciously while the porter carrying her trunk dumped it noisily on the floor and departed.

“Peculiar chap, that baronet of yours,” Mary Ann proclaimed spitefully, opening the trunk and pushing Sophie’s few belongings to one side of the battered armoire standing against one wall. “There’s some that drinks and gambles… and there’s some that wenches themselves skittle brained. Then there’s rogues like him who do it
all
to a fare-thee-well!” She paused midway from trunk to armoire, cradling a pile of lacy shifts in her arms. “But isn’t that the way of it when the wife’s breeding?” She boldly stared at the enormous bulge protruding under Sophie’s gown.

Sophie merely nodded and retreated to the printing chamber, silently vowing not to lose her temper. Lorna shook her head with sympathetic disgust as she stacked the last of the week’s order of playbills into a pile.

“I’ll brew the tea downstairs and bring you up a cup,” she whispered.

Sophie created a thick, soft pallet on the floor near the printing press out of piles of Harriet Ashby’s abandoned clothes. A few minutes later, Lorna reappeared and handed Sophie her tea.

“That doxy should be lying here, and you on the bed!” she whispered indignantly. But Sophie smiled faintly. In a strange way, she felt rather comforted to be sleeping in the precise spot Hunter had chosen when he shared her lodgings during his first trip to London. After a few minutes, she set her tea cup quietly on the floor, and in a trice, she was napping peacefully.

***

The front facade of Drury Lane was aglow from the light of flambeaux carried by servants escorting their masters up the colonnaded entrance to the theater. Sophie inhaled the smell of snow in the air as she trudged down Russell Street and made her way to the stage entrance, relishing the palpable excitement and anticipation backstage that invariably gripped the players just before the performance was to start.

“Evening, Sophie,” an actress named Mrs. Love called as she hurried in the direction of the women’s tiring-room. “I believe we may have a bit of a blow later tonight.”

But before Sophie could summon a cheerful response, the woman had been swallowed up by the velvet wing curtains backstage.

“Allow me, Lady Lindsay-Hoyt,” insisted Collins, the Drury Lane stage doorkeeper, as he relieved her of the stack of playbills she was carrying. “I’ll see that they get these right away.”

Thanking the man for his assistance, she retraced her steps, and hailed a sedan chair that was just then unloading a theater patron. When the single-passenger vehicle arrived at Cleveland Row, the house was shrouded in darkness. There had been no funds to hire a replacement since Peter’s disagreeable housekeeper had departed. Sophie groped her way through the front door, found a flint, and lit the stub of a candle she located in a sconce hanging on the paneled wall in the foyer. With considerable difficulty, she started a small blaze in the fireplace. Too weary to climb the stairs to her bedchamber, she sank, fully dressed, onto the daybed in the corner of the sitting room.

She hadn’t been dozing more than a few hours when she awoke with a start. Groggily, she stared around the shadowy chamber and heard voices in the front foyer. The fire in the sitting room had burned to embers, and she was momentarily confused by her darkened surroundings. Male laughter suddenly rent the air.

“But my Turkey carpet is
ever
so soft, my lovelies,” she heard Peter say in the slurred voice she knew so well. “You haven’t experienced love’s transports until you’ve put your exquisite backsides on my hearth rug while I play walrus with your tusks—”

Peals of high-pitched hilarity greeted this sally as the door to the sitting room swung open and a shaft of light from Peter’s unsteady candle beamed across the carpet.

Sophie’s husband, his shirt gaping open to his waist, stood in the threshold with his arms around two women. He was busy fondling the pendulous breasts of each.

“All right, my little pigeons…” he chortled, pushing them along, “which of you would like the honor… nay, the
duty…
of removing my vestments?”

He nearly lost his footing as the two harlots left his side and sought to warm their hands in front of the low-burning fire. By this time, Sophie had struggled to her feet.

“By God, you shall not behave so monstrously in our own
home!”
Sophie exclaimed and stalked into the small circle of light provided by the fireplace and Peter’s candlestick.

The two trollops stared at her, their painted mouths agape. Peter appeared startled at first, and then drew himself up.

“’Tis
my
house, you damnable bitch!” he shouted drunkenly, “and I shall do as I please!”

Sophie snatched the iron fire poker from its stand and brandished it over her head.

“Remove these bawds from my sight or you’re a dead man!”

Peter glanced at her weapon and took a step backward.

“Upstairs!” he ordered. Instantly, his two companions exited the chamber and could be heard stumbling up the center stairway, two stairs at a time. Peter gazed at her unsteadily. “Your wish is my command, m’lady,” he said mockingly.

A jumble of mad thoughts collided in Sophie’s brain. How could she have been so blind to the true character of this man? How much worse than
this
could it have been, to have borne her bairn on her own?

Suddenly, a sharp pain cleaved through her abdomen. Sophie gasped and lowered the fire iron from over her head. She clutched the mantelpiece to steady herself and wished she were dead. Peter appeared both sobered by her agonized expression and relieved to see she was no longer in a mood to strike him.

“I did not appreciate hearing from Darnly tonight that you have been hoarding funds from me!” he growled.

The brief stab of pain now diminished, Sophie’s eyes
widened in dismayed surprise.

“Wha—?”

“The blighter said he’d housed his doxy above your book shop,” he said contemptuously. “Paid you plenty, I understand.”

“Just enough to settle the gambling debt
you
owe him and save us both from Newgate!” Sophie snapped.

Peter laughed mirthlessly.

“The man’s rolling in wealth,” he sneered. “He can wait for his blunt.” He stared at her sharply. “I suppose you view him as your savior… well, he’s arranged it so his good deed doesn’t cost him a farthing!”

“At least ’tis better than having nothing to placate his solicitor!”

“I doubt he’d take it to court,” Peter said moodily.

“Peter… please…” she begged, wishing to conclude this ugly scene quickly. “Darnly’s given us a second chance of sorts. We should be grateful. I’ll pay him the money he’s owed and we can clean the slate. If you’d merely drink less and work with me as you did on
The Provoked Player
we could make our way splendidly. You’re not an untalented man and—”

“I need not be lectured by
you
on the subject!” He picked up an empty wine bottle and flung it across the room. Sophie flinched as it shattered against the opposite wall. He stepped toward her menacingly. “You’ll be very sorry before this is through if you think Roderick Darnly is your knight in shining armor… or that he does anything that is not in his own interest.”

“Just like
you,”
she retorted, her temper rising once more.

“I could tell you a few choice morsels about—”

“No doubt you could,” Sophie interrupted wearily, “but all that is beside the point.” She shook her head sadly. “Let us face facts, Peter. Our marriage is as empty as your bogus title. I have no wish to harm you.… I want only to be left in peace.”

“You want to be left with all the fees earned by our plays!” he retorted.

“Our
plays?” she retorted, her voice rising. “I ask only for
half…
the half I
more
than earned!”

“As your husband, I have the legal right to give you
nothing!”
he declared. “I want that money Darnly gave you… I
demand
the money!
All
of it!”

“You do, and I’ll call down the King’s Officer of Arms on you and you’ll find yourself in the Tower of London for posing as an aristocrat!” she shouted.

Another cramping sensation gripped her vitals, although this time the pain appeared milder. Slowly she made her way back to the daybed, feeling as if she were walking underwater. She sank, exhausted, onto the couch. Peter stared at her uncertainly. She closed her eyes
,
her breathing ragged. Silence filled the room.

“Just leave me,” she murmured, and after a moment, she heard him stumble out of the room and tread unsteadily upstairs. She realized she didn’t care in the slightest what he was doing—or with whom.

***

Sophie tiptoed past the open door of Peter’s bedchamber, determined to collect her few belongings in the room next door. Her husband of six months was sprawled naked between the two snoring strumpets he had enticed to his bed. In the gloomy light of the overcast December day, Peter’s face was shadowed by his customary black stubble, giving him the dissolute appearance of a man far older than his twenty-eight years.