Without a word more, she fled upstairs. Confounded and unspeakably aroused, he began the long walk home.
…
Evie woke at dawn after a restless night. Pale light filtered through the threadbare cotton curtains. Soon the knocker-upper would be round, tapping on downstairs windows and shooting dried peas at the upper stories to wake those who had paid her sixpence for the alarm. Mags was already awake, staring at the ceiling.
Twelfth Night opened at the Dovecote in two days’ time and she was nervous.
“Are you all right?” Evie asked.
Mags sighed and pushed a flaxen curl away from her face. “I’ve never played such a large role before.”
“You’ll be wonderful.”
Together they’d practiced Mags’s lines countless times. She made a beautifully coy Olivia as she catalogued her beauty for Viola: “Item, two lips, indifferent red. Item, two gray eyes with lids to them.” The audience were going to fall in love with her right along with Count Orsino. Evie had butchered all the responses. Her attempt at the famous willow cabin speech must have had Shakespeare spinning in his grave like a mouse stuck in the mangle.
“It’s not only about speaking the lines,” Mags said. “It’s about charisma. A great actress possesses a certain something that captures an audience. I won’t know if I have it until after the performance.” She turned over and shuffled closer. “Let’s not talk about me anymore. How was last night?”
Evie pulled a face. “Not good.”
“Did Stein heckle you again?”
“I wish that were all. Turns out he has wandering hands. His wife was sitting a few feet away.”
“Dirty old git.”
“I put him in his place.” Evie smiled at the memory. “With the help of his dead mother.” Her work might be disreputable and dishonest, but it also allowed her to rob Stein of a little power. How often could a girl of her class say that about an aristocrat?
Mags crowed with laughter. “I’d give anything to have seen that. I never get to see you work anymore.”
“You can tonight if you like. Captain’s having one of his get-togethers. I know you don’t like him but you’ll come, won’t you?”
Mags nodded. “With Chase.”
The wealthy Mr. Chase had first noticed Mags when she appeared in the chorus of Medea. All it had taken was a quick word from him to the Dovecote’s owner Mr. Hall and Mags had been told the part of Olivia was hers if she entertained Mr. Chase in her spare time. She’d fulfilled her part of the bargain but she rarely talked about how doing so made her feel.
Chase was young and handsome, which Evie imagined must make it easier to bed him than if he were eighty with bad breath and hair sticking out of his ears, but the decision had been imposed upon Mags. If she wanted to progress in her chosen career, she had no choice at all. An actress was always racing against time.
Evie thought about the photograph hidden in the bottom of her dresser drawer. Until the day she’d posed, no man had seen her naked breasts. Captain had guarded her virtue like a miser hoarding gold, then he’d put that picture in Harcastle’s way. Wild and impulsive as her actions in the carriage had been, she now wondered if she’d been manipulated and not by Harcastle.
“Is the duke attending?” Mags knew about the wager.
“Of course. It’s his big chance to expose me in front of an audience.”
“You are being careful, aren’t you?”
How to respond when the simple answer was no? No, I’m not being careful. I’m deliberately walking into danger and I don’t know why.
“As careful as ever,” she replied, but she’d hesitated too long and her words rang false.
Mags drew her into the crook of her arm. They’d only known each other a year but since they’d moved into this little room, they’d grown close. Evie worried what would happen if she had to run. She’d warned Mags more than once that she might need to disappear without a word one day if one of her scams went wrong.
“I worry about you,” Mags said. “When I first met you I thought what a perfect little prude you were, but I know better now. There’s a recklessness in you. Don’t let that duke hurt you just because you’ve got some silly idea you deserve it.”
Evie murmured a response, feigning a return of sleepiness. She couldn’t promise to be careful. In her mind, she was on the edge of a cliff as waves crashed against jagged rocks beneath. Spellbound by the sea’s beauty, she couldn’t make herself take the necessary step back to safety.
All she wanted was to leap forward and revel in the exhilaration of her fall.
Chapter Eight
This couldn’t be the right address.
From the comfort of his carriage, Alex eyed the crumbling old theater in one of the rougher parts of Soho. An informal party, Evangeline had said. But the theater looked like it had been abandoned for years, its walls smog-blackened and the windows boarded up.
An ancient poster, faded and barely legible, depicted a ballerina en pointe with what appeared to be two clowns flanking her. Clearly, this had never been a first-rate theatrical establishment.
A young couple approached the main entrance. The man, well-dressed and tall with fair hair, looked familiar. The woman on his arm wore a serviceable yet plain coat which contrasted with the luxurious fur draped stylishly about her neck. A gift from the gentleman who was almost certainly not her husband.
Once the couple had disappeared inside, Alex rapped on the ceiling. A footman opened the door and lowered the steps. Alex descended and dismissed the coachman. He had no idea how long this would take.
By the time he pushed through the dilapidated double doors and entered the dimly-lit lobby, the young couple had vanished. All was quiet, except somewhere in the distance a fiddle played. A faint odor of damp assailed him as he followed the sound through another set of doors. Beyond was a narrow hallway lit by a single candle set in a dish on the floor. The air reeked of blended dust, mildew, and old smoke. Now he could discern not only fiddles but an accordion and, if he was not mistaken, a tin whistle, all mingled with the hum of voices.
Yet another set of double doors waited at the end of the passage, their glass windows so thick with grime that no light penetrated. He stepped through and found himself in what had once been the stalls. The sight that greeted him was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
The cavernous space blazed with the light of hundreds of candles covering every surface from the ledges of the balconies on the levels above to each and every wall-sconce. The old boxes, where the most expensive seats had once been, were empty. Indeed, they hardly appeared safe with their obviously rotting wood and faded gilding. The once-ornate molding was crumbling so that plaster dust caused motes in the flickering candlelight.