John shifted on the hard bench. The Burns Theatre was a far cry from Covent Garden. A splinter dug into his arse, and he frowned. The patrons here should demand recompense for the torture of sitting on these damned benches instead of paying for the benefit. He tossed one leg over the other, rolling onto his hip, away from the bit of wood poking into him. Christ, if—
The threadbare curtains parted, and John forgot his discomfort. Because there, standing on stage left, was Netta.
Even with the carbuncles covering her face and the obscenely large false nose, he knew it was her. The saucy uptilt to her pointed chin. The way she stood with her shoulders thrust just so.
A slow smile stretched across his face. All the nights she’d disappeared from his house. When she’d slipped from his bed last night. She had come here.
He heaved a deep breath. He needn’t worry about her after she left. She had a career to go back to, sad and tawdry as this theatre might be. He would introduce her to the manager of the Drury. Ensure that she had secure work, if she wanted it. With four thousand pounds, she might decide to retire, though he didn’t think it likely. She liked playacting too much. After all, how many roles had she performed for him?
Had she lived on the streets and worked her way up to the stage? Or was she the daughter of a tidy little merchant somewhere and everything had been an act?
He settled back. He would learn the truth after the performance.
Wilberforce slid into a seat at the end of the row, resting his elbows on his knees. He didn’t seem surprised when Netta came center stage to deliver her lines. Only smiled faintly at the poor joke, then tipped his head to John.
John grumbled. The bloody, sneaking bastard. He’d known all along what Netta was, where she was going. Mother hen that he was, he would have followed after Netta the first time she’d left his house. “You couldn’t have told me?” he muttered at Wil down the empty row.
“Shhh!” a patron hissed behind him.
John blew out his cheeks. The Merry Wives of Windsor was one of the Bard’s worst plays. It surely did not deserve a shushing. But he settled in to watch. Quietly. And became more entranced with every line Netta delivered as Bardolph.
She was spectacular. Her talent was wasted on such a minor character. When she was on the stage, he scarce noticed anyone else.
His concerns over her acting ability melted away. She had more than enough talent to wrap anyone, including Sudworth, around her little finger. Talent and enough moral flexibility to be the perfect woman for the job.
She was perfect. So why did a soupçon of unease whisper down his spine to settle in his gut? He tapped his thumb against his thigh. He had a plan. He had capable players to fill each role of said plan. He should have felt the confidence he did every time before a mission.
Yet the unease wouldn’t go away.
What was he missing?
The curtains fell. John rose and rubbed at the ache in his arse.
Wilberforce wove down the aisle to join him. “A good performance, wouldn’t you say?”
“A surprising one.” John sniffed. “I would have liked to have known where Netta was disappearing to. If only I had a loyal servant to inform me of her whereabouts.”
Wil circled his hat in his hands, his lips twitching. “You never asked me to verify her whereabouts. Sir.”
John closed his eyes. He would not snap at his friend. His shoulders rounded. Especially when said friend had shown more care for Netta than John had.
He should have learned where she went each night before this. He’d thought to give Netta her privacy. Respect her boundaries. But he should have determined that she was safe.
John rubbed a knuckle into his chest. While she lived under his roof, he was responsible for the woman, after all. It could only be a sense of duty that made him feel such. “Well, let’s go see what she has to say for herself. Another amusing deceit, I’m sure.”
“You mean to go backstage to confront her?” Wil’s gaze darted to the now-deserted stage, his eyes flickering with interest. “I believe she shares a dressing room with…with another woman.”
John turned and strode to the aisle. “I’ll knock. I don’t suppose you drove the carriage here?”
Wil shook his head.
No, when following one’s employer, a noisy carriage wouldn’t do. “Well, we’ll have to see if, among her many other talents, Miss Netta Pickle can sit atop a horse for her ride back home.”
***
Netta peeled off the wax nose and warts and tossed them onto her dressing table.
“Is something the matter?” Cerise asked. She belted her silk wrapper about her trim waist and sat next to Netta at a matching dressing table.
Netta slathered face cream over her skin and wiped her face paint off with a small cloth. “No. Why do you ask?” Brown streaks remained on her cheek and she scrubbed at them.
“Because you throw your costume at the floor like it is on fire.” Cerise bobbed her chin at Netta’s dressing table. “You toss your wax bits at the mirror in disgust. You”—Cerise jabbed her index finger at Netta—“are in a fine temper.”
Netta stared at her reflection. She’d removed the jacket and padding from her costume and sat slumped in her chair in her breeches and chemisette. Her bare shoulders were tense blocks, her lips a twisted scowl.
Her friend had a point.
She flipped the chair sideways to face Cerise and straddled it, hooking her elbows over the back. “Do you ever feel discontent, even when life has finally dealt you a good hand?”
Cerise leaned towards the mirror and wiped the kohl from her eyes. “That is not enough information for me to respond to. Tell me what zis ‘good hand’ is and then I will tell you whether you should feel happy or not.”
Netta sighed. There her friend went, always wanting a full accounting of facts before making any decisions. Her logic could be quite annoying at times.
“There’s a man I’ve agreed to help recover some of his property.” She pondered how much she should reveal. She trusted Cerise, but had learned to keep information closely guarded. “I’m to act as a lure, attracting another man to place that property up as a stake for a game.”
Cerise pursed her full lips. “With you as the other stake?”
Netta nodded. “Somehow I am supposed to intrigue this man enough to gamble away thousands of pounds.” She’d never played the seductress before. She enjoyed teasing John, but turning her wiles on another man could prove challenging. She dropped her chin to her crossed arms and sighed.
“And if you lose? Will you let zis man claim you as his prize?”
“Of course not. And my employer has the annoying habit of never losing. But…”
“But what?”
Netta scratched the toe of her boot along the seam of a floorboard. “The man I’m working for. I’m growing rather fond of him. I wonder if I should tell him who I truly am. Stop with the lies.” Well, some of them. Others would have to remain.
Cerise stood and leaned against her dressing table. “Do you intend to have a relationship with zis man where honesty would be important?”
The backs of Netta’s eyes burned. “No. We have no future.”
“Then why tell him?” A wrinkle creased Cerise’s forehead. “We are trained in deception here. And façades provide protection to us women. Do not go making trouble for yourself where none is needed.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Netta chewed on her bottom lip. She gave her friend a half-hearted smile and repeated back one of Cerise’s favorite sayings. “Men are but useful instruments; they are never our friends.”
“Truly, that wounds me.”
Netta whipped her head around, her heart clogging her throat at the sight of John filling the doorway.
He pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “Such a bloodless sentiment about men is enough to give me the wrong impression of the fairer sex.”
Cerise unfolded from her chair. “And you are?” She stood so half of her body blocked Netta from John.
Netta grabbed the belt of her friend’s wrapper and tugged her back. “It’s all right. He’s…a friend.”
John slowly arched an eyebrow, and every dirty thing they’d done together flashed through her mind.
She flushed. Truly, she was an experienced woman. She should be past such embarrassments. She cleared her throat. “Cerise, this is John, Earl of Summerset. Summerset, this is Miss Cerise DuBois.” She cocked her head. “Did Wilberforce finally betray me?”
There was a sharp inhale of air from the hall.
John pushed the door wider, revealing a flinty-eyed Wilberforce.
He sniffed. “I am not in the habit of revealing confidences, miss.”
“I followed you on my own initiative,” John said. He shrugged. “I was curious about your nightly liaisons.” He strolled about the small room, picking up a discarded costume here, poking at her jars of face paint there. He cocked a hip against the edge of her dressing table, his very closeness making the fine hairs on her body stand on end. “And my curiosity was well rewarded. You are quite the surprise, poppet.”
She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “You’re not angry?”
“What? That you’re not only not Ned Pickle, but now you aren’t even Netta Pickle, the downtrodden woman I plucked from the streets?” He tutted. “Not hardly. Please tell me your name isn’t truly Pickle.”
She bit back her smile. “You’re in luck. My name is Antoinette LeBlanc.” The false name slipped easily from between her lips. She’d been that person for so many years it felt like the truth. “Netta still to my friends.”
He ran his finger down the ridge of her nose then rubbed his fingers together, swirling a patch of face paint between them. “A much more suitable name, although not, I think, the one you were born with.”
Netta’s lungs stalled. She hadn’t even told Cerise her true name. It remained better left unsaid. “It’s the only one I answer to now. Well,” she conceded, “except Pickle.”
“And Mrs. Hardcourt and Colonel Burnwick and Miss Austin.” Cerise retreated to her chair, keeping a wary eye on the man in the doorway as she spoke. “Netta does love to immerse herself in new characters to prepare for a role. It is one of the things we love about her. She has many friends here, monsieur. Many friends who won’t let her come to any harm.”
John ignored the implied warning. “A Colonel Burnwick?”
Netta shrugged. “I played a soldier last summer.”
He examined her bare arms, dropped his gaze to her breeches. “Were you wearing a uniform?”
“Of course.”
He grinned. “I do wish I could have seen that.”
Netta stood and rested one knee on the seat of the chair. “Now that you’ve discovered me, has anything changed? Do I still have the job?” Her heart thumped in her chest. He didn’t appear upset, but no man liked to be deceived. To acknowledge he’d been played for a fool.
But John was no ordinary man. “The only thing that has changed is my increased regard for your skill level and my confidence in your abilities.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I know now I needn’t worry about your security. You can handle yourself.”
Wilberforce huffed. Loudly.
John shot him a narrow-eyed glare.
Netta gripped the back of the chair, her muscles going weak. He wasn’t taking the four thousand pounds away from her. She could still rescue her sister.
“Now, poppet, perhaps we might discuss— gah!” John kicked his foot, and a small furry animal flew across the room and hit the wall. He flicked his wrist, and a blade slid from his sleeve into his palm. He bent his arm back to take aim.
Netta stilled his hand. “Cerise and I would prefer not to have blood in our dressing rooms.”
His nostrils flared, his gaze remaining sharp on the intruder. “Better a bit of blood than that disgusting creature.”
She snorted. “Is the mighty Earl of Summerset afraid of a little mouse?”
Wilberforce stepped to the creature and nudged it out the door with his boot.
“The Burns Theatre doesn’t have the funds to keep the rats out.” Cerise ran the end of her belt through her fingers. When Wilberforce limped back into the room, she took a corresponding step away from him. “Netta and I have learned how to manage all kinds of vermin.”
Wilberforce clenched and relaxed his hands, a gesture so quick it was easily missed. “If I’m near, that is a job you’ll no longer have to perform yourself.”
Cerise crossed her arms.
Wilberforce mirrored her stance.
Netta frowned at her friend. “Um, perhaps whatever it was you wanted to discuss is best done in private,” she said to John. Cerise wasn’t overly fond of strange men, but her reaction to Wilberforce was still perplexing. Usually she buttered her words to strangers as heavily as Netta did her morning roll. “Cerise, would you mind waiting next door?”
Wilberforce frowned. “She’s in naught but a wrapper. Whatever talking needs to be done can wait until you’re both properly dressed.”
“I’m an actress, cherie.” The endearment came out as sharp as John’s blade. “I’ve walked around backstage in much less than zis.”
Wilberforce’s face turned a dull red.
“It can wait until we reach home.” John tucked the dagger back up his sleeve. “Or better yet, since I now know that you’re ready, perhaps we can start upon the job tonight. I’d like to show you around some gaming hells. Rouse interest in my suggestive yet shy and retiring new companion. My quarry should be in one of them. Men who gamble to the extent he does can’t stay away.”
“You want me to go into gaming hells?” Her stomach sank to her boots.
“Yes.” John ran a hand up the back of his head, rumpling his hair. “That is where one typically finds games, and gamblers.”
“Yes. Right.” She concentrated on keeping her breathing steady, her hands still by her sides. When he’d spoken of the game, she’d envisioned it at John’s home. Somewhere private. Safe. How many of her father’s contemporaries went to these hells? And more importantly, would they recognize the woman she was now?
She searched about for an excuse and came up with a plum one. “I have nothing to wear. I came to the theatre in my trousers.”
John frowned. “We’ll stop at home, of course. Mags will have you dressed in your new costume in no time at all. And bring your face paint. I want you to look as young as possible.”
“I don’t have face paint. I’ll have to purchase some tomorrow.”
He looked pointedly at the small jars on her table.
“I don’t have the right face paint.” She worried the hem of her chemisette. “If you want me to shed a couple of years, I will need to go shopping.”
A divot appeared in Cerise’s forehead, and she opened her mouth.
Netta gave a brief shake to her head, and her friend took the hint and remained quiet.
John took a step towards her. “Is there some reason you don’t wish to accompany me?”
Her mind went blank. If she told him there were men she must avoid, her use to him would become nonexistent. There would go her four thousand pounds. If she were to do a thorough job of disguising herself, she would need more time to prepare.
More time to steel her nerve.
“I…” Her mouth went dry.
John looked at Wilberforce and jerked his chin at the door.
His man held out his arm. “Miss?” he said to Cerise. “I’ll escort you to the neighboring room. If you’ll come with me?”
Cerise looked from John to Wilberforce to Netta.
Netta nodded, and Cerise swept from the room, the ends of her wrapper swirling about her legs.
Wilberforce jerked his gaze up and blew out a breath as he followed, closing the door softly behind him.
“Now,” John said, planting his hands on his lean hips, “what is the problem?”
She couldn’t think of a believable excuse. One that would keep her in his employ yet avoid threat of detection. She, devious, scheming Netta, was drawing a blank.
“I’ve started my monthly courses,” she blurted out. “I feel unwell.”
His face blanched, and she sent a prayer heavenward. The magical words to end all inquiries. She should have thought of it sooner.
“Yes.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Certainly you must stay home. When we arrive, I’ll ask Margaret to draw you a warm bath, shall I?”
Her throat went thick. He truly was a dear man. So much more considerate and sweeter than he liked to admit.
And she’d lied to him. Again. A small one to be sure, but they were adding up. How many lies would he allow before his forgiveness ran dry?
“Thank you.” She turned her back and crossed to the small wardrobe. “I’ll dress and be right out.”
“Of course.”
It hardly mattered. If all went as planned, he would never know of her guilt. She would remain a fond memory of his, the actress he once knew who helped him in his time of need.
And she would be across the ocean clinging to the memory of the surprising earl who’d made her laugh long after she’d thought such fancy was lost to her.
He paused behind her and pressed his lips to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. “There is an Italian opera at Drury Lane four nights hence. I’d very much like it if you’d accompany me there.”
She tilted her head, giving him better access. “To rouse the interest of the men of your acquaintance?”
“Yes. In part.” He ran the tip of his tongue up her neck to behind her ear.
She shuddered.
“I also intend to enjoy your company to the fullest extent while I have you,” he murmured. He scraped his teeth over her earlobe. “Now hurry up and dress.” He patted her bottom before moving to the hallway, taking his warmth and intoxicating scent with him. “I’ll be waiting.”
He closed the door behind him, and she shut her eyes. They’d both be waiting. Her excuse to avoid the hells didn’t seem so clever anymore. Her deception had just removed her from his bed for the next few days.
She dropped her head to her chest.
Hoisted by her own lying petard. It was going to be a long couple of nights.