Wicked Company (77 page)

“Certainly, certainly,” Rosoman agreed, beckoning the viscount to follow him into the building. “Robertson, explain, if you will, the type of songs and dances you envision for the piece.” Sophie gazed fixedly at the departing pair, too ill at ease to look in Hunter’s direction.

“Have you your copy of the manuscript?” he asked, tight-jawed.

“Yes,” she replied, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I left it in the coach.”

“That’s as good a place as any to have done with this,” he answered, yanking open the door and climbing inside without extending a hand to assist her.

During the following fifteen minutes, Hunter proceeded to detail every single fault he found with Sophie’s script. Attempting to keep her temper in check, she merely nodded as he made his points.

“In fact,” he concluded, “there are so many changes required to make this piece work with music and dance, I suggest you ask Rosoman if you can remain here a few days to revise the play completely… that is, if m’lord Darnly will grant his lady permission to leave his side to pursue her profession.”

Sophie stared at him bitterly.

“Lord Darnly in no way dictates to me where I reside or what I do.”

“Oh, really?” Hunter retorted sarcastically. “From what Rosoman told me, he has recently assumed the role of fawning patron as well as personal protector.”

“Viscount Glyn is not fawning over me, I can assure you!” Sophie fumed. “Why is it, if a woman makes her way in the world, that men imagine she could have accomplished such a feat only by becoming someone’s mistress!”

“Because that is often how it happens,” Hunter retorted.

Sophie glared at him, her face flushed with irritation.

“Roderick Darnly has merely submitted my work to Rosoman and will invest in the production, I expect. However, may I inform you that he and I are not… and have not
ever
been what you so rudely imply! Believe me, I long ago learned my lesson about the futility of combining business with pleasure! The viscount merely submitted the piece to your manager, and Mr. Rosoman liked it well enough to take it on.”

“’Twas I who recommended that he take it on,” Hunter snapped.

“You?
” Sophie scoffed. “You hate every other sentence! Why in the world would you recommend it?”

“I don’t hate it,” Hunter said in a calmer tone of voice. “I rather like it…’tis so like you… the women triumphing over the men and all of that. With music and dancing to soften its sting, I conceive it as a harmless piece of fluff that will amuse and delight an audience on a summer’s night.”

“How kind of you,” Sophie retorted caustically, trying to sort his insults from his compliments.

“It needs a lot of reworking, as I can see you stitched it together, slap-dash and in a hurry,” Hunter continued, “and the music and dance will certainly bolster the thin fable itself.” He peered across the coach at her. “How quickly
did
you compose this piece? Your little debacle with our beloved censor occurred hardly three weeks ago, did it not?”

“If the plot seems a bit thin, it is,” she admitted glumly. “I wrote the blasted thing in two weeks’ time.”

“Well, how soon can you start revising? If this is to be mounted before September, we’d best get cracking.”

“If Rosoman will provide lodgings at his expense, I can begin work immediately,” she answered crisply. “I shall return to the city with Lord Darnly, gather up some belongings, and arrive back here tomorrow.”

“Alone?” Hunter asked bluntly.

“I fear you haven’t been listening! Of course, alone!”

“Good,” Hunter shot back. “Rosoman will guarantee you lodgings—or I will.”

Sophie didn’t know whether to feel indignant or dismayed. She grasped the coach handle, pausing to stare at him across the vehicle’s shadowy interior.

“I presume you know,” she said in a low voice, “that you behaved like a complete crackbrain when Colman sacked you from Covent Garden.”

“’Twas humiliating to be discharged like that in the middle of a season… surely, after your encounter with Edward Capell the other day, you can understand my ill-humor.”

“Certainly I can,” Sophie replied acidly, “but the difference is, Hunter, that I didn’t blame
you
for the censor’s idiocy.”

“Ah, but there is another difference… Edward Capell feels little jealousy when it comes to women—and I do.”

“Jealousy?” Sophie echoed in a puzzled tone. “I
told
you, Roderick and I—”

“Not Darnly!” he interrupted defensively. “Garrick! You were so bloody loyal to your darling mentor and his version of the
Jubilee.
Heaped upon Colman’s dismissal, it stuck in my craw.”

“My allegiance to David Garrick in no way diminished my concern for what had happened to you,” she replied angrily. “Surely you should have realized by now that my feelings for you fall—fell—into quite a different category than my admiration for Garrick. And besides, I made it no secret that night at the Nag’s Head that I thought Colman’s behavior toward you disgraceful!”

“And mine toward
you—
disgraceful as well, I imagine?”

Sophie shrugged, saying, “I assumed that you would at some point acknowledge that I was not the enemy and didn’t deserve to be treated like some… some tale-telling harridan… but you never—”

“Well, I acknowledge it
now,”
Hunter interrupted.

Sophie stared at him, completely taken off guard by his candor after previously feeling he still couldn’t stand the sight of her.

“Hunter, you will be the death of me!”

Hunter scowled as he apparently was turning something over in his mind.

“You were not the enemy with Colman. But when Mavis gleefully volunteered—and others confirmed it—that you’d spent four months in Wales under the protection of Darnly and you’d never even mentioned it to me—and that you
continued
to associate with him, I think I went a bit mad.”

“I will say this only once more,” Sophie declared between clenched teeth. “Yes, I went to Wales to lick my wounds after Danielle’s death. Yes, I lived for four months in a cottage on the Darnly estates. And, yes, Roderick’s offer of safe haven at a time you’d cast me as a murderess had certain appeal,” she declared brutally. “But I have not had, nor do I intend to have an intimate association with him.”

She pushed against his broad chest and reached for the carriage door to escape from this frustrating tête-à-tête. She was nearly shouting due to the aggravation she was feeling.

“I am not Darnly’s mistress, you great oaf!”

“Of course you aren’t,” Hunter shot back.

“Then why do you persist—”

“And I just this minute see
why
I was utterly mistaken in thinking you were.”

He grinned rather sheepishly at Sophie’s look of astonishment. Hunter took her gently by the arm and indicated she should resume her seat in the confines of Darnly’s luxuriously upholstered conveyance.

“Apparently, Edward Capell is so taken with the beauty of my person that he inquired the other day if I would consent to join a small group of people interested in the arts who… ah… meet in the exclusive company of men. He cited Roderick Darnly as one of the sterling members of this elite society who greatly admire the ancients—especially the Celts and the Greeks—even to the extent of practicing some of their rituals. Need I elaborate?”

“No,” Sophie replied, “you need
not. In fact, I venture to say I could add a dimension or two on that subject from my excursion to Wales that even
you
could not imagine. However,” she continued, ignoring his questioning glance, “that’s neither here nor there. Even
before
Mavis poisoned your mind regarding Roderick Darnly and me, you blamed me for Colman’s sacking you. Why did you persist with such
nonsense?”

“You were enjoying so much success with
The Bogus Baronet,”
Hunter admitted, ‘“I feared you’d spurn apologetic overtures from a lowly spear carrier at the King’s Opera—”

“If you’ll recall,” she cut in, her voice raw, “’twas not in my character to tattle to anyone—including David Garrick—about something that could do you harm. And after what we shared during the
Jubilee,
how could you think I’d ever play the harlot with the likes of Roderick Darnly? Yet,
once again,
just as with Danielle, you thought the worst of me! It seems, despite our long, intimate acquaintance, you know me very little, Hunter.”

She flung open the coach door, poised for flight.

“Sophie,” he said gravely, again halting her progress, “there are many aspects of your character—and my own—that I am slowly, painfully, beginning to learn… even after all these years.”

“And what is
that
supposed to mean?” she demanded, one foot on the coach’s running board.

“’Tis a compliment as far as you are concerned, I assure you,” he replied with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Now, then,” he continued, “let us see about securing you your lodgings. We have much work to do.”

“Jesu,” she groaned. “What am I getting myself into
now?”

Thirty

That last speech in act one remains a bit shrill,” Hunter declared sotto voce as he and Sophie watched a final rehearsal of their joint effort. “Can you amend it with something more amusing?”

“What?” she demanded, feeling a familiar flood of irritation. “Amend it with what? I’ve changed the bloody thing five times!”

“Well, of course! You’re the
bloody
playwright!” he shot back.
“
I’m sure with that clever little brain of yours, you’ll come up with something witty before tonight…”

And she did.

Much to Sophie’s relief,
The Vanquishers Vanquished
proved a great success with Sadler’s Wells summer patrons. By the third night, swarms of Londoners were making their way from the city to the famed pleasure garden to enjoy the fine summer weather and the “delightful diversion”—as one London critic had dubbed the two-act fable—served up with rope dancing and fireworks.

“Will you look at all the toffs!” Lorna Blount crowed as she and Sophie peered through the peephole at the milling audience. It appeared to be a lively crowd, elegantly dressed and decidedly in the mood for enjoyment. Sophie and Lorna hugged each other like excited five-year-olds.

Following another series of performances in early September that were packed to the rafters with enthusiastic ticket holders, Sophie stood at the door of Thomas Rosoman’s Treasure Room late in the evening, her hand poised to announce her presence with a knock.

“Sophie!” whispered a voice, interrupting her attempt to summon Rosoman from his counting chamber. “I called at your lodgings after the performance and you weren’t there.” Hunter walked swiftly toward her along the gloomy corridor. “I was afraid you had returned to London without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

“No, that’s what
you
have a habit of doing,” she replied. “I’m not leaving before I discover from our employer how close to an heiress I’ve become,” she added with an ironic smile she hoped would soften her earlier riposte.

She was determined to keep matters between Hunter and her pleasant—but distant. During rehearsals, they had fought battles over content and form, but in the end, Sophie congratulated herself for having kept their association strictly professional during the ten days she had lodged at the nearby Myddleton’s Head Inn.

“Old Rosoman’ll be counting his shillings for hours,” Hunter declared, reaching for her hand. “Come. I wish to speak with you. Your silver will still be in the strongbox tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, Sophie allowed herself to be led outside into the warm summer night. Several coaches belonging to theater patrons were departing through the iron gates, while an army of snuffers fanned throughout the grounds extinguishing the glowing lanterns hanging in the willow trees and along the paths leading to the grotto.

Hunter bid Sophie follow him down the sloping lawn in the direction of the river, now awash in moonlight. Moist air drifted off the water, along with a hint of some sweet-smelling flowering vine. The resident swans clustered together in the reeds near the bank, settling in for the night.

For a few minutes, Sophie and Hunter spoke casually of both the high points and near disasters that affected the string of performances of
The Vanquishers Vanquished.
Their meandering stroll led them beside the “Magic Waterfall.” Its artificial cascades—generated by a lad hidden behind a rock, turning a water wheel—were silent now that the crowds had gone home. Sophie turned to glance up at Hunter. Illuminated by the moon’s silvery beams, his tall frame cast a gigantic shadow across the lawn.