“What bargain?”
His eyes crinkled a bit at the edges. A smile wasn’t visible, but it was there. “You smile with your eyes, did you know that?” Joan asked.
“What bargain?” he repeated.
He was a stubborn man, she could see that. It was absurd to fall in love with someone so unyielding and pedantic and—and ducal.
Too late, too late.
They had to leave. Even holding his hand made her feel slightly dazed.
“You have your mother; your half siblings have your father,” she said. “The duchess is wonderful, and he is selfish, peevish, and now, demented.”
Thaddeus smiled wryly.
“We should return to the castle,” Joan said.
Thaddeus helped her collect the food that the squirrel had rejected, and they walked back down the path to the boat waiting in the reeds, across the water . . .
Back to the castle.
Back to reality, Joan told herself.
Chapter Fourteen
The Lindow Castle ballroom didn’t have a curtain to fall before the stage, nor trumpets to signal the entrance of the king, nor the cannons called for in the script of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
But as Act Five drew to a close, Joan was certain that Lindow Castle had hosted an excellent Hamlet. Certainly, the audience had loved it. Everyone attended: the family and guests, all the household staff who could be spared.
Mind you, there were hiccups.
Otis uttered his lines perfectly until the scene in which Ophelia enters in a mad state and tosses around flowers. At that point, the giggles of the younger Wildes and kitchen maids infected him, and he tossed not only the flowers mentioned in the script, but a few from his hat as well.
Joan fancied she did Hamlet a disservice in the famous To be or not to be speech. She wasn’t a suicidal person—and as the play progressed, she began to suspect that she wasn’t an actress either. In fact, after spending her entire life longing to be part of a theater company . . . she wasn’t sure any longer.
To play a role, you have to be that person.
Be Hamlet. Love Hamlet.
She didn’t love Hamlet. In fact, the last two weeks had taught her that he was pretty unlovable, and he should have counted his blessings when Ophelia wrote him adoring letters and climbed in his bedchamber window.
Her favorite part of the performance came when she was drumming her fingers on Hamlet’s sword, and she glanced at the audience (seated all of two feet away) and saw Thaddeus’s eyes narrow. Everything in her wanted to give him an impudent smile, but she didn’t.
She was professional, if only for that night.
The mood after the performance was celebratory, with champagne circulating around the ballroom.
“Bravo, Hamlet!” Mr. Wooty cried, coming up behind Joan. “You did the prince proud, Lady Joan, you truly did.”
She smiled at him. “I am so grateful that you allowed me to perform with your troupe, Mr. Wooty. And that you took on Otis as well.”
“Mr. Murgatroyd has a rare hand for the comic,” the director said. “He could make his fortune on the stage. He knows the mood of an audience. Even if he forgets his lines, it wouldn’t matter. Mind you, no more lady’s roles. I’d give him the part of a Fool.”
“Yet after tonight, I believe that I could not make my fortune,” Joan said, coming out with it. “Could I, Mr. Wooty?”
There was a brief silence, and then he said, “A woman as beautiful as yourself would always be welcome in a theater company. It’s a difficult life, Lady Joan.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Joan replied.
“You are very much yourself,” Mr. Wooty said apologetically. “A great lady, the daughter of a duke. That lady shone through Hamlet’s complaints, I’m afraid.”
“Good evening, Mr. Wooty,” Thaddeus said, strolling up. “May I offer my congratulations on a stellar Shakespeare performance?”
Mr. Wooty turned to him with a distinct air of relief. “You may!” he boomed. “This young lady had a great deal to do with it, of course.”
“Lady Joan was a brilliant Prince of Denmark,” Thaddeus stated.
Joan saw complete sincerity in his eyes. She sighed. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Of course you were,” Thaddeus declared, a ferocious scowl uniting his eyebrows.
Aunt Knowe joined them. “I was eavesdropping,” she said without a drop of remorse. “Am I to understand that you didn’t care for your own performance, Joan?”
“I was fine,” Joan said, a curious sense of freedom blooming in her chest.
Aunt Knowe wrapped an arm around her waist. “Dear one.”
Joan rubbed her ear against her aunt’s shoulder. “Mr. Wooty, you are so kind to have given me this opportunity.”
“It was my pleasure, my lady, and I would disagree with your assessment.”
“What’s your Hamlet usually like?” she asked. “I mean, as performed by the actor in your company?”
“Every Hamlet is different, my lady. My current Hamlet plays the role with bravado. The actor has a past, which helps.”
“Surely most actors have led interesting lives,” Aunt Knowe said. “What sort of a past?”
“On the high seas,” Mr. Wooty said, looking disapproving. “Grew up a lad on the ships, and I’ve chosen not to inquire too closely into the circumstances of his father’s naval career.”
“Black sails?” Joan cried. “The skull and crossbones, together with Walk the plank, lad?”
“Could be,” Mr. Wooty said. “Could be.”
“Or he could be a tailor’s son who dreamed of running away to sea, but joined a theater instead,” Thaddeus said dryly. “The life of many a pirate is cut short by violence.”
“Or drowning,” Aunt Knowe put in.
“My Hamlet’s not dead,” Mr. Wooty said. “My point is that he plays a different Hamlet, Lady Joan. Yours is thoughtful, dignified, and regretful. His is bursting with life and infuriated that the kingdom was snatched from his hands by his uncle. He plays the outraged heir; you played the grieving son.”
Joan elbowed Thaddeus, and then said in a low voice, “I told you that you should have played Hamlet, rather than me!”
Thaddeus flinched. “Never.”
Mr. Wooty glanced over his shoulder and realized that Otis was talking to his niece in a low voice at the side of the room. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, bustling away.
“I enjoy watching those two,” Aunt Knowe said, nodding toward Otis and Madeline. “She was in the corner acting as the prompter, and he played his part mostly for her.”
“Except for the mad scene,” Thaddeus said dryly. “I fancy Otis came into his own when inspired by the nursery.”
“Did you act at Eton?” Aunt Knowe asked.
Thaddeus shook his head. “Not unless forced to do so.”
“You preferred mathematics?” Joan asked.
“Astronomy,” he said. “Which is close to mathematics.”
Thaddeus had no particular expression, but as he began to explain the theory of galaxies to Aunt Knowe, Joan saw his eyes brighten. If he hadn’t been born to be a duke, he’d be a scientist. He would be writing about the stars, a member of the Royal Society, spending his evenings peering at the sky.