“Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
’Tis hard to reconcile.”
MACDUFF, MACBETH ACT IV, SCENE III
“But when the Scottish play gives his grand soliloquy about the brief candle, he should be—”
“It’s the play that’s referred to as ‘the Scottish play,’” Persephone pointed out, lifting her gaze from her well-marked folio. “Not the character, dear.”
Gordon Humphreys scowled at her as the rest of the assembled cast chuckled behind their pages. “Say what you will, but when I last performed the Scottish play, three actors came down with the ague, and our Lady the Scottish play broke her arm when a coach nearly ran her down.”
“The name is said in the play by Macbeth himself, Gordon,” Charlie Huddle pointed out. “You can’t go about onstage saying ‘I am the Scottish play.’”
“At least I’m attempting to avoid ill fortune,” their Macbeth retorted. “I heard you last night, Huddle, telling that big Highlander we were about to begin rehearsals for the Scottish play, only you didn’t call it that. Informing a Scotsman will likely mean even more peril for the rest of us daring to pretend to be Scottish.”
Everyone had noticed the Highlander, apparently. She’d barely stopped thinking about him for long enough to fall asleep herself. Fighting the grin pulling at her lips, Persephone sat forward. “What did Charlie call it, Gordon?”
“He called it by its name, Persie. You can’t trick me.”
She lifted her folio again. “It’s early yet. Give me some time.”
“If Gordon won’t say ‘Macbeth,’ I’m happy to take that role,” Thomas Baywich announced, as he arrived backstage. “Though I still think my idea to set the play in the Pacific Islands would gain us the raves you’ve been after this Season, Charlie.”
“I am not performing Lady Macbeth bare-breasted, which is all you’re after anyway, Baywich,” Persephone retorted.
“The play refers to its own setting in Scotland countless times. We cannot ignore that for the sake of seeing Persie’s tits,” Gordon agreed. “No matter how spectacular they likely are. And I am playing the title character. You make for a fine, stout Duncan, Baywich, and I will so enjoy stabbing you every night.”
“Offstage,” Thomas Baywich countered. “Macbeth stabs Duncan offstage.” Taking the seat beside Persephone, he paged through his own folio. “Clive, trade with me. You play Duncan the king, and I’ll play Macduff. Macduff gets to cross swords with Macbeth on stage.”
Persephone glanced at the tall, red-headed man seated to her right. Clive Montrose had only joined their company this morning, lured to the Saint Genesius by, from what she’d heard from him, a rather generous purse and a promise of the lead role in the next play performed after the Scottish play.
Considering that he generally played at the Covent Garden Theatre and had done so for the past five or six years, she had to surmise that he’d either been asked to move on, or Charlie Huddle had offered a great deal of money to bring him over. The former made more sense, though it was true that acting troupes thrived on fresh blood. It helped them avoid falling into the trap of making every performance the same, no matter the play.
Regardless of Clive Montrose’s motives for arriving at the Saint Genesius, she still couldn’t quite figure it—him—out. He might have contested for the lead in the Scottish play if he’d wished, but he’d opted for the more heroic Macduff, despite that character having many fewer lines, and the doctor, who had even fewer.
At least as interesting was the fact that he and she had never performed in the same play together before. A few weeks ago, she’d gone over to Drury Lane Theatre to play Juliet while the Saint Genesius had been offering A Mad World, My Masters, and she’d played Juliet the year before that at Covent Garden. In her five years of performing in London, she’d appeared with nearly every other actor in Town at one point or another. Clive Montrose had been the exception—until now.
“I’m content with Macduff,” Montrose drawled. “Macbeth is pleasant enough to act, but I’ve found it refreshing to embody a character who’s still alive at the end of a play.”
“We’ve been over all this, anyway,” Charlie Huddle stated. “I decide who plays which part. That was our agreement, to stop you mad people from coming to blows over it. Now, might we begin?”
“I don’t know what you lot are fighting about, anyway,” Jenny Rogers put in. “All the gents will be coming to see Persie. A rooster could play Macbeth, and they’d still come.”
“So says Witch Number One,” Gordon Humphreys retorted.
“And Lady Macduff, you old flapdoodle.”
“I’ll have you know my doodle does not flap, ma’am. It stands proud as a flagpole.”
That was the thing about actors, Persephone had found. Each wanted to be the center of attention, and every comment was likely to be followed by a cleverer or funnier one until a given scenario became outrageously silly. She adored it.
Charlie Huddle likely adored it less, but at least he was accustomed to it, and simply sat back, sipping a cup of cooling tea until the laughter died down again. “Opening scene,” he said, once they subsided. “We’ll need lots of thunder and lightning for this one, Harry.”
The head stagehand nodded, jotting down notes in the margins of his folio. “I’ll pull out the heavy metal sheets and the miner’s lights.”
“Enter three witches,” Charlie Huddle went on, and Jenny, Rose, and Sally stood to recite their lines.
As they did so, a large shadow to one corner of the rehearsal room shifted. For a handful of seconds, Persephone imagined the curse of the Scottish play had come to life after all, because the figure forming as it neared the light both wore a kilt and loomed several inches above six feet. In the next heartbeat, its face emerged from the shadows, and her heart stilled before it resumed again. Perhaps he wasn’t Macbeth, but Coll MacTaggert might have been some perfect, pagan god of the old Highlands, lit by yellow lamplight and chiseled to stunning perfection by some unknown hand. Trouble, her heart beat in a fast tattoo. Trouble.
“Good Lord,” Gordon gasped, crossing himself. “We’ve summoned the Scottish play himself.”
“You’re the one who set Claremont on his arse last night, aren’t you?” someone else asked.
“Aye,” Coll returned, his gaze settling on Persephone’s face and remaining there.
Trouble, her mind shouted at her, as if her heart hadn’t sounded the alarm loudly enough. “Good morning, MacTaggert. You’ve found us rehearsing.”
“I didnae come to see a rehearsal,” he returned in that deep, resonating brogue. “I came to see ye, lass.”
“Oh, someone fetch me my salts,” Jenny breathed. “I’m going to faint all over him.”
“I say, my good man,” Gordon put in, “what would you charge to assist me with an authentic Scots accent? That could be just the thing to wow the critics with my Scottish play.”
“With yer what?”
“He won’t say the name of the play or the character,” Persephone offered.
“Are ye soft-headed, then?”
Thomas Baywich snorted. “That is up for debate.”
“Is it true the Scots eat the babes of their rival clans?” Lawrence Valense, chimed in with the faux Scottish accent he’d assumed from the moment they’d arrived this morning.
“The lot of you heathens leave MacTaggert be,” Persephone said, before a brawl could erupt. The Highlander would lay waste to her entire troupe without breaking a sweat, she imagined, and then none of them would be fit to appear onstage for weeks.
“I can hold my own, I reckon,” the viscount—who didn’t realize she knew him to be a viscount—returned. “I’m nae here to deliver lessons to Sassenachs on how to sound like a Highlander, and I’ve nae snacked on any bairns, but if ye go back far enough, I’ve some blood I share with Banquo. Which of ye plays him?”
“That would be me,” Lawrence Valense said through his thick beard, grown, he claimed, especially for the part. Personally, Persephone thought it pure laziness, since Valense typically went after whichever bearded part happened to be available.
“Och,” the Highlander exclaimed, blinking. “Ye look more like the father of Christmas than the father of kings.”
A laugh burst from Persephone’s lips before she could stifle it. Valense’s face—the part they could see above the beard—turned beet red as the rest of the troupe joined in the laughter. “I’ll have you know, sir, that according to my research, Banquo wore a beard.”
“Aye, a wee one, it’s said. Ye’ll nae find a fighting man with a great beard like that. Ye’d make it too easy for yer opponent to grab onto yer head and lop it off. Yer head, I mean—nae the beard.”
“That’s a fine enough explanation for me,” Charlie put in. “Valense, a wee beard only. No one cares about your weak chin but you.”
“It’s not—”
“Perhaps I could show MacTaggert about the theater,” Persephone suggested, rising. “And perhaps I can convince him to give us all a few pointers in sounding Scottish.”
“Yes, do that, Persie. You don’t have any lines until scene five, anyway,” Charlie Huddle said. “I owe you for disposing of Claremont, Highlander, but please make this brief. You’re disrupting rehearsal.”
“Oh, let him stay,” Jenny protested, shrugging her shoulder to lower the already sagging sleeve of her bohemian-style gown. “I could convince him to teach us all his accent.”
Persephone put a hand on the giant’s arm. “Come, MacTaggert, before the three witches begin ripping off your clothes.”
He nodded amid the general laughter and followed her toward the front of the stage. She loved the day the preparations for a new play began, with the arrival of additional workmen and new actors, the smell of sawdust and paint, the hammering and sawing and costume fittings, and the snippets of dialogue as the actors tried on their characters for the first time.
“It wasnae my intention to walk into the middle of all that,” the giant rumbled from behind her. “I’d rather have had a word or two with ye and be gone, but I was waylaid by the carpenters trying to stand a forest upright, and ye’d nae arrived yet.”
She faced him once they’d moved far enough away from the rehearsal to chat without being overheard. “You’ve been helping assemble a forest?”
“Aye. Birnham Wood, I reckon. I helped ’em put it up on some wee wheels so they wouldnae have to carry it about.”
Wheels on the forest. A rather brilliant idea, really—and one that might stop the stagehands from tripping all over each other during what was meant to be a thrilling scene. “The wheels were your idea, then?”
“Aye. That set of trees last night nearly killed me backstage, so I reckoned to—”
“You’re very charming.”
“Nae.” He shook his shaggy head. Wild, he looked. Untamed. It was quite enticing. And arousing. “My youngest brother, Niall, is the charming one. I’m the MacTaggert who generally speaks my mind. For example, I’m meant to be in Hyde Park this morning, but my mount carried me here instead. I reckon I’ve nae complaints about that. Do ye?”
Was he just another one, then? Another powerful man who would do her a favor or purchase her a bauble, and expect something in return? Was he only negotiating her price right now? If he’d been just Coll MacTaggert, she would know better where she stood. A title, though, complicated everything, and he had one. “Is that who you’re playing, then?” she asked a little sharply.
He tilted his head, a lock of his unruly, umber-colored hair straying over one of his green eyes. “I beg yer pardon?”
“Your act,” Persephone clarified. “You’re the affable, slightly dim lad from yonder Highlands, blundering about with what seems to be simple good luck and yet arriving exactly where and when you mean to be without making a point of it, putting everyone at ease because it suits you to do so, though with a hint that you could be much more formidable if you wished.”
Both pretty emerald-colored eyes narrowed just a touch. “Have I done someaught to offend ye, Mrs. Jones?”
“You lied to me. You’re not just Coll MacTaggert. Viscount Glendarril, is it not?”
He sighed. “I’m Glendarril. But I chose nae to throw that about. I dunnae need it hanging about my neck to make a lass notice me. So, I didnae lie. I just didnae add any decorations.” The viscount studied her for a brief moment. “And what color is yer hair, Mrs. Persephone Jones? I reckon I’m nae the only one playing a role.”
Well, that shot went very close by her heart. But he was only striking out because she’d hit first, she reminded herself. “I value my privacy,” she said aloud, shrugging. “I dislike being hounded as I go about my day. And I prefer lodgings where I’m not likely to be propositioned while I’m pruning my roses.”
“I could keep ye from being hounded.” Leaning back against the wall, he folded his arms across his chest.
In response to his coiled, predator’s ease, slow lightning coursed across her scalp, down her spine, and between her thighs. “And who will keep you from hounding me?” she managed to say levelly.
“Do ye want me gone, then? Say the word, lass. I’m nae about to force myself on an unwilling woman.”
Oh no, she didn’t want him gone. “Then I suppose there is a difference between you and certain other titled gentlemen of my acquaintance. But I’ve heard that you’re here in London to find yourself a wife, my lord. Are you certain you wish to waste your time pursuing me?” Even if she felt tempted. Even if being in his embrace would feel … safe. And very arousing.
He gave a quick grin. “Truth be told, it’s my mother, Lady Aldriss, who wants me wed. She and my da signed an agreement back before she fled the Highlands. If my brothers and I dunnae wed before my sister, there’ll be consequences we cannae afford. And Eloise is to wed in a wee bit less than four weeks.”
“Then why the devil are you here bantering with me?”
“I told ye I was in Hyde Park. But then I offended a lass without meaning to, and I rode off to wait for a different set of lasses to come by. Then I ended up here. I’ll go back eventually, because I’ve a duty to do so. This morning, though, I’m here.”
“I understand your objections to being forced to marry, but consequences are consequences.”
“That they are. My mother, Lady Aldriss, flung two lasses at me last night. That’s how I ended up backstage to meet ye. She willnae stop meddling, so I told her before I rode off this morning that I mean to wed ye. That should send her into a twirl for a bit and give me time to find my own woman.”
The floor dropped out from beneath Persephone’s feet, a yawning, endless blackness opening below. Stretching out, she grabbed for the steadiest thing within her reach—the viscount’s arm.
“Whoa there, lass,” he muttered, putting his other arm around her and guiding her to one of the half dozen thrones sitting about backstage.
She sat heavily, lowering her head until her vision cleared again. “Gentlemen do not marry actresses,” she stated, unable to hold back the tremor at the end of the sentence. “Lady Aldriss must have been mortified.”
“She did look like she’d swallowed a bug when I told her. I have to marry; I know that. While she’s fretting over ye and me, and doing whatever she can to put a ball through my plans, I’ll have a damned minute to find my own woman. But I’m nae wed yet, Mrs. Jones. And neither are ye.”
As she listened, the blood began to return to Persephone’s fingers and toes and to heat other, more private areas. He’d only been stirring up a distraction for himself by saying he meant to marry her, then. He hadn’t actually meant what he’d told the countess. Thank goodness. Firstly, that meant he wasn’t a madman, and secondly, it wouldn’t bring her the trouble and disruption she tried very hard to avoid. Living on the fringes of respectability was no easy thing under the best of circumstances. Going about as the betrothed of a viscount headed for an earldom, or even having that rumor hanging about her, would have been … horrible.
“And here I was debating whether it was Rosalind or Juliet or Beatrice you were expecting to find behind the stage, and which one it was you were lusting after. Instead, you just needed my name to shock your mother. And for a bit of bedchamber fun, of course.”
“More than a bit, I hope. Ye ken that standing in the wings last night was the first time I’ve seen ye perform. It’s nae one of those other lasses I’m after. I’ll admit, though, that ye prancing about in those trousers definitely caught my attention.”
She stifled a grin. “If it’s Ganymede you found attractive, my lord, I think you may be looking for something I cannot provide.”
Glendarril’s eyebrows joined together as he scowled. “It wasnae Ganymede, woman. Christ almighty.”
“Even so, you—”
“Claremont said he was yer protector. Last night I reckoned that meant he kept the other lads away from ye and saw ye away from here safely. Since then, I’ve heard the word flung about a few times, and now I’m thinking it doesnae mean what I thought it meant. Or that it means more than I reckoned.”
Her cheeks warmed. “He called himself my protector, yes. That doesn’t mean he ever saw the inside of my bedchamber. That is the general … assumption that accompanies the word, though. It was certainly what he wanted, whether I agreed to it or not.”
“He was disagreeing with ye over the bedchamber bits when I set him on his arse.” Keener eyes than she expected studied her face for a long moment. “I’ll be yer protector. Lord knows ye need one, if ye have men panting after ye like I saw last night. As for the rest, I’ve told ye what I want. Ye answer me however ye choose. I need ye to put a fright into my mother. I want ye because ye’ve gone and caught my interest.”
She returned his gaze. He wasn’t the only one whose interest had been caught. “You are a conundrum, my lord. If it is a lady like Rosalind you wanted, though, you will be disappointed. I am Lady Macbeth now.”
The viscount shook his head. “Ye’re both, and ye’re neither. I’m nae as thick-headed as ye think I’m pretending to be.” He glanced over her throne at the gathered actors rehearsing just out of their hearing. “Now tell me where ye live, and I’ll nae trouble ye here.”
“No.”
One straight eyebrow lifted. “Ye’re a conundrum yerself, Persephone Jones.” He leaned over her, putting a hand on either arm of the throne. “At least tell me the truth about Mr. Jones.”
He was quite possibly the first man to ask her that. What it meant, though, she didn’t suppose she cared. She didn’t need anyone else’s money, and while having someone keeping all the other men away from her was pleasant, she could fend for herself. This was fast becoming a question of what she wanted, and that was becoming more complicated by the moment. It did occur to her that complications were the last thing she needed. They never led anywhere the least bit pleasant.
“I am in a scandalous profession, Lord Glendarril,” she said aloud. “Being a wife—or a widow—gives me a semblance of respectability. It doesn’t keep proper women from turning their backs on me in a milliner’s, but it allows them to come to the theater to see my plays. It allows me to find respectable lodgings. No, there is no Mr. Jones. He does serve me well in absentia, though.”
“Ye dunnae need to defend having a made-up spouse, Persephone Jones. I’d invent one myself, if it would satisfy the solicitors.”
She could sink into that lush green gaze. Persephone shook herself. Evidently, she still carried more than a hint of lovestruck young Rosalind about with her. “One of your brothers recently married, did he not?”
“Aye. Niall. And my other brother, Aden, is to wed a week from Saturday.” His expression folded into one of attractive annoyance. “Damn all Sassenach women and their underhanded ways, anyway.” Coll MacTaggert sat on the throne perched beside hers. King John’s, as she recalled. “I’d thought to ask ye to come to Aden’s wedding with me to keep my màthair off-balance for a wee bit longer, but since when I mentioned marrying ye just now ye nearly fell to the floor, that might be a poor idea.”
Despite his words, he continued to eye her. Persephone considered whether he actually understood the enormity of what he’d asked her. She knew Lady Aldriss solely by reputation and rather liked the idea of putting a shock into the aristocracy, but the fact that the countess had kept a prime box at the Saint Genesius for at least the past six years made her loathe to offend the woman. Lady Aldriss had a powerful voice among the haut ton. “Yes, I think it would be a poor idea,” she said aloud.
“I’m beginning to think ye dunnae like me.” The giant stood again and held out a hand to help her up with surprising gentleness. “Let me take ye to luncheon, at least.”
Inwardly, she sighed. Not at the gross overconfidence from which most men suffered, the belief that they were irresistible to any and every woman, but at the idea of simply going out and sitting down for luncheon with a very handsome and rather interesting man because he’d asked, and not demanded. Because he hadn’t begun this expecting her to comply because he’d done her one good turn. “I don’t—”
He held up one hand. “Wait. Let’s try one thing, and then ye answer me.”
When she nodded, curious, he grimaced, tilting his head again as he gazed at her. Then, before she could ask which one thing he thought might convince her, he took a long step forward, lowered his head, and kissed her.
His lips met hers, warm and self-assured as he placed his hands on either side of her face and tilted her chin up. Hints, promises, and things unspoken but deeply felt all rattled through her at once, leaving her heart pounding, her lungs aching for air, and her eyes shut as she tried to take everything in.
Slowly, he lifted his head again. “Will ye join me for luncheon, Persephone Jones?”
Good heavens. Summoning an answer took far more effort than it should have, likely because the answer she needed to give wasn’t the one she wanted to give. “You kiss well,” she managed, blinking and trying to call her wits back into her mind. “‘By the book,’ as Juliet would say.”
“And what do ye say, then?”
“I say no. I don’t need a protector, and you need to find a bride. So, thank you, but you are more trouble than I need, Lord Glendarril.”
He straightened. “I reckon ye’d be more trouble than I need as well, lass. If ye change yer mind, though, I might be willing to see my way past that.” With a slight, brief grin that didn’t quite touch his eyes, he inclined his head, then turned and walked away.
Persephone sighed. A bit of fun, indeed. Coll MacTaggert was the sort of man to turn a woman’s head. It was a shame she didn’t wish her head turned. Or rather, she did, but she didn’t want—need—the trouble that would come with him.
“Persie, Huddle is reading your lines,” Gordon Humphreys bellowed from the rear corner of the theater. “For God’s sake, come and save us!”
She stood up from her borrowed throne. Yes, Coll MacTaggert was a distraction, and one she didn’t need. As she stepped forward, a quartet of sandbags crashed down onto the throne she’d just vacated, smashing it into bits of wood. Something flew against her cheek as she spun around, and she lifted her hand to her face. Her finger came away with a bit of blood on it. Good heavens.
More noise erupted around her, queries over what the noise had been, and queries over her safety from those who’d been close enough to see. “Persie! Are you injured?” Charlie Huddle barked as he reached her side. “Good God.”
“It’s the Scottish play,” Gordon said, his complexion ashen as he took in the sight of the smashed throne. “I’ve sat in that throne!” He half collapsed against a convenient upright beam.
“Harry!” Charlie called, turning around to look for the head stagehand. “For God’s sake, do not be hanging sandbags while the actors are wandering about! If we lost Persephone, we might as well close our doors.”
“No one was up on the catwalks, as far as I know,” the brawny man in rolled-up shirtsleeves returned, crouching to lift up the end of the rope. “It’s dusty and frayed, but that seems to me like a clean cut there.”
“Nonsense,” Charlie said. “You’ve been shaking the foundations all morning with that hammering.”
Beth Frost, Flora’s daughter and the company’s current head seamstress, dabbed at Persephone’s cheek, making her jump. “It looks like a splinter caught you,” she said, peering more closely. “I think Charlotte can cover it with powder so no one will ever know.”
“I’m fine,” Persephone said to the crowd in general. “It’s not the first time I’ve nearly been knocked down by a sandbag.”
“I don’t suppose anyone has seen Claremont since last night?” Charlie muttered under his breath, leaning in to examine her cheek.
Ice abruptly tipped her fingers. “He wouldn’t do such a thing. It was an accident.”
“Hmm. I hope so. All the same, you might want to keep that Scotsman about for a few days.”
The Scotsman she’d just sent away. The one who had four weeks to find a bride and had teased his mother with her name. The one who’d set Claremont on his arse, quite possibly making the earl angry enough to … attempt to kill her? No, that made no sense. Even so, Coll had offered to be her protector with no expectation of her granting him any kind of personal favor. “I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said, turning on her heel, hiking up her skirts, and running for the rear door of the theater.
“Now Persie’s gone mad,” Lawrence Valense lamented. “And it’s only the first day of rehearsals. We’re doomed.”
She barely noted that bit as she stepped outside, blinking in the sunlight. Someone whistled at her, but she ignored it as she spied the Highlander half a street away and mounted on a great black devil of a horse.
“MacTaggert!” she called, hurrying after him and ignoring the stares and commentary of the passersby around her.
He reined in the horse and turned the beast around, dismounting as she reached him. “Did I forget someaught?” he rumbled.
“We’ll be finishing here at one o’clock today,” she said a bit breathlessly. “I’ll meet you by the rear door then.”
“I thought ye didnae need the trouble I bring with … What the devil happened to ye, lass?” Without asking, he reached out and gently brushed his fingers along her injured cheek.
“An accident. I have a business proposition to discuss with you, if you would care to take me to luncheon after all. Perhaps we could help each other.”
His green gaze lifted to meet hers. “It wasnae business I had in mind with ye, Persephone Jones, but as I said, ye’ve gone and made me interested. I’ll meet ye here at one o’clock.”
Relief—and something else she couldn’t quite name—ran down her spine. “Thank you, my lord.”
That infectious grin of his appeared again, curving his very capable mouth and reminding her that he knew how to kiss. “I told ye to call me Coll.”
“Coll, then.”
“That’s better. Now ye go be Lady Macbeth, and I’ll see if I can find a phaeton or barouche or one of those other fancy carriages ye lasses favor.”
With that, he mounted his great stallion again and trotted away. Persephone leaned back against the side of a wagon stopped to unload timber for the Saint Genesius. If she’d just been spooked and Lord Claremont wasn’t out to injure her, then this would be a one-sided agreement. On the other hand, MacTaggert—Coll—had been extremely useful in keeping her other admirers at bay. Trouble, trouble. Boil and bubble.