“All right,” Joan said. She’d never been so exhausted in her life. Hamlet was a long play, including the sword fighting. Even a dignified death was tiring.
“I hate these skirts more every moment,” Otis grumbled.
Joan followed him out the door.
She only had to endure one day and evening with Thaddeus. She’d put on her breeches for the last time, and then return to the castle and don her skirts. She could tell him tomorrow that the bargain was off. It had been an absurd idea, anyway. She was no matchmaker, able to conjure up a future duchess.
She could find her own husband, a kindly fellow with no ambitions to a dukedom.
Someone who would adore her unconditionally and always agree with her.
Chapter Fifteen
As the next day wore on, Thaddeus felt himself growing more and more angry, an emotion he abhorred at the best of times. It seemed impossible to maintain his usual equanimity.
He was trying to decide if he should inform his mother about his father’s threat. The quandary nagged at him in the middle of the night until he gave up the idea of sleeping. What if the duke had already died, and the bloody letter appeared in the morning paper?
The worst of it was that Joan had . . . left. She was in the castle, but it was as if she had walked out of the room, as if the intimacies they’d shared had never existed.
Oh, she smiled at him, laughed at the right moments, carried on conversations over breakfast . . .
But it wasn’t Joan.
His Joan.
He had always known that she was a brilliant actress. But he didn’t understand just how much self-control she had until she started playing the part of a perfect young lady: docile, cheerful, kind.
After a morning of relentless cheer, he caught his mother gazing at Joan with a pleat between her brows.
People tended to ignore his mother because she was shy, eccentric, and always wore pink. Yet she was one of the most perceptive people he’d ever known.
She’d known for the last two years that something was wrong with him, for example, though he’d managed not to confess.
“Otis traveled to Wilmslow with the Wooty family, in their wagon,” Joan said as luncheon drew to a close. “I’ve never been invited inside one of the wagons.” Her voice had a distinctly wistful tone.
Sir Reginald nodded. “My son is now a member of that family. I apologized to Miss Wooty for not coming to the theater to see her Ophelia tonight. Seeing Hamlet two nights in a row is too much Bard for me.”
As Thaddeus watched, Joan gave him a charming smile. “I understand,” she confided. “The play is long and rather tedious.”
“Playing the title role didn’t infect you with love of the play?” Sir Reginald asked.
Joan shook her head. “No. Instead of being infected with a love of performance, I believe my reaction to performing the part was the opposite.”
“Done with breeches parts?” Sir Reginald asked.
“I’m not as mad for performance as I thought I was. I pictured myself as an actress. What I was not picturing was myself playing Hamlet, or Ophelia, or another role, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” Thaddeus’s mother put in. “I know exactly what you mean. I frequently remind myself that I’m a duchess when in public. It’s a role I assume when needed.”
Thaddeus would never have made a distinction between himself and the dukedom—until his father began to insist that his younger son ought to be the duke.
“In fact, I think I shall put theatricals to the side for the time being,” Joan said. “After my sister’s baby is born, my stepmother and I have promised to attend a country house party given by Lady Ailesbury.”
Sir Reginald smiled at her roguishly. “The bachelors will be very happy to see you.”
Thaddeus’s heart sank.
“I gather that Otis will travel from Wilmslow to London with the Wootys,” Joan said. “Will you join them, Sir Reginald?”
“I scarcely arrived, so I plan to stay at the castle for another fortnight,” Sir Reginald said, his eyes sliding to Thaddeus’s mother’s face.
The meal concluded, and the ladies rose to their feet. “Lady Joan, what time would you like to travel to Wilmslow?” Thaddeus asked, coming around the table to meet her. “As I understand it, the building is on the opposite side of the town.”
She looked up at him with utmost friendliness—and not an ounce of intimacy. “That would be very kind of you, Lord Greywick. Are you certain that you can bear to see the performance twice?”
“I could accompany you, my dear,” the Duchess of Eversley said. “To tell the truth, I always fall asleep in Shakespeare plays, so I don’t mind seeing Hamlet twice.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Thaddeus saw Sir Reginald’s face fall.
Interesting.
For the first time, it occurred to him that perhaps his mother wouldn’t wish to remain a duchess after her husband died. Perhaps she would remarry.
“If you are tired in the evening, Mother, you would do better to have a quiet supper with Sir Reginald by the fireside,” he suggested.
“Your mother will do precisely as she wishes!” Joan flashed. “You would do better indeed!”
He watched with amusement as Joan remembered the reason she didn’t want his mother in the theater. As dismay flashed through her eyes, he turned to his mother. “I apologize for my presumption,” he said, bowing.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” his mother replied. “I would enjoy staying in the inn. Perhaps my old friend will match me in a game of chess.”
“You always wallop me,” Sir Reginald said, his face wreathed with smiles.
“True,” the duchess said. “But I enjoy doing it.”
“Why don’t we travel to Wilmslow immediately? We could visit St. Bartholomew’s, which is justly famous, as parts of it date back to the 1240s,” Sir Reginald suggested.
To the best of Thaddeus’s knowledge, his mother had never shown the slightest interest in antiquities, religious or otherwise, but now she agreed with enthusiasm.
“We can travel in my carriage,” Sir Reginald said, offering his arm.
There was a pause—and she agreed.
As far as Thaddeus was concerned, that settled it. The only question was whether his mother would observe a mourning period after her husband’s death. Why should she?
The older couple strolled from the room. Joan followed, her skirts the width of the door frame, so Thaddeus walked in the rear.
Seen from behind, Joan was so entirely a woman that it was impossible to believe that anyone would think her a man. And yet—they would. He would bet the estate that he didn’t yet have that no one in the audience would imagine that a woman was playing Hamlet.
A few hours later, when his carriage door closed behind Joan, she threw off her cloak and hissed, “Undress me!”
Thaddeus found himself laughing. “I can think of no command that I’d prefer, but is this the time? The place?”
“Bloody hell, Thaddeus,” she snapped, looking over her shoulder at him. “I have barely an hour to get out of this dress and into my breeches. I can’t arrive as Lady Joan and reappear as Hamlet. My maid did everything she could; I am dressed in a simple gown. But I need your help.”