The crowd crushing into the Albion made it difficult to chart a course. Anthony stood to the side, letting people flow past. His heart, which had raced since he’d received Miss Coover’s note, now skipped a beat.
His sister sang here.
The building was vast, blue smoke hanging in the gaslights. The pit was already packed with rowdy men and grinning urchins. As he scanned the galleries, the audience surged to its feet, applauding wildly. He was tall enough to see the source of their wonder. Cleopatra’s barge had just appeared on the main stage in a mist of perfume. By what vaporizing mechanism was the perfume dispersed? He couldn’t determine the source. The perfume rolled over the audience like a cloud, its sweetness mingled with the odors of smoke and grease. Cheers, boos, and some bottles rained down from the highest gallery.
With his field glasses, Anthony scrutinized Cleopatra, black-haired, voluptuous, but pert-nosed with a mouth like a bud. An English rose with kohl on her eyes and a wig on her head, doused in jasmine. He swung the glasses. On the other stages, chorus girls kicking, comic ballerinas mincing. No and no. Effie was not among them.
He turned, sweeping the crowd. Magnified, Lucy Coover’s face filled the field of vision. She was looking toward the entrance. Looking for him. Several men in caps and shabby jackets interposed themselves between his lenses and the object of interest. Then he could see her again, the wiry strands in the locks snaking down from her high twist of hair, the red and auburn tints. Detail was revelatory. He picked out the patterns of golden and cinnamon freckles on her cheeks. A darker freckle lay near the left peak of her lip. Dear God, he’d neglected that freckle, a mistake he’d like to remedy. The field glasses were revealing his errors, his oversights. Her lips were parted, the bottom lip plumped out. He studied the faint line where the plush of it divided.
His breathing constricted.
As though she could hear his thoughts, her eyes turned and focused. The warm amber irises reduced to twin slivers.
He lowered the glasses. Miss Coover stood yards away. Detail had made him miss the larger picture. Her ruby gown was a column of pleated silk that stretched around the curves of her breasts and hips. Free of corsetry. Free even—he swallowed—of all but the bare minimum of undergarments.
A fine figure, she’d said.
Had her aunt made that dress? And let her walk out the door in it? He watched as she wove her way toward him. She had to pause again and again to let streams of people flow past, many of the men—and a few of the women—craning their necks to gawk. Even so, she made good progress. Not afraid to use her elbows.
He’d borrowed Humphreys’s clothing for the occasion. No one looked twice at him. In a baggy jacket and corduroy trousers, flat cap low on his brow, he blended. A very good thing. There’d be hell to pay if he were recognized out with such a woman.
Suddenly, she was before him, as close as she’d looked through the glasses.
“By all means, use them,” she said tartly. “Reconnoiter a route to open seats.” She glanced toward the pit, intercepting a male gaze, hot and insolent. She stared back until the man whispered something to his companion and they both turned, laughing. She shook her head, running her fingers along the little red beads sewn up the sides of the gown. He knew what she was thinking. The men who ogled her missed the point. The dress deserved attention. She was the mannequin, displaying it. But the freedom of her movements, the boldness of her gaze, her strong, supple, contemporary body made the dress come alive. In short, she mesmerized. The dress was stunning, yes. But Miss Coover—with that defiant chin and animal confidence—she could start a fad for sackcloth.
Did she always take the opportunity of a night out to advertise her aunt’s most daring designs?
“Give them to me, then,” she said. He handed the field glasses over. They were too plain to pass as opera glasses, made of heavy, dented brass. She swept the gallery and the stage and the ornate walls of the building itself, turning in a slow circle. He glared at the men who hovered to enjoy the view. He’d be lucky if he made it out of here tonight without a riot.
“Wonderful,” she said, sighing. “I’d like a pair myself.”
He took them from her, dropping them in his pocket with a smile. “Your eyes are sharp enough.” Too sharp, some might say.
She shrugged. “For now.”
A blond man, broken-nosed and bull-necked, stopped to stare. Anthony edged close to Miss Coover, leaning over her, dropping his voice to an intimate rumble.
“Do you know the freckles on your left cheek make the Pleiades?”
She glared. “So does the spatter of mud on my left shoe. Turn your binoculars on that.” But her lips twitched. From the corner of his eye, he saw the blond boxer move on.
“I can’t be sure she’s here.” She spoke quickly, a line between her brows. “I hope I didn’t promise too much. Priscilla Millard—she’s a singer—she said she remembered a Nixon, a dark girl, in some of the musical acts, but . . . she might have been mistaken, or this might be an off night.”
He nodded, wanting to put her at ease. She sounded defensive, as though anticipating his bad reaction to a bad outcome.
“Not to worry. Either way I’ve gained an evening in your company.”
Despite himself, he uttered this bit of gallantry in earnest. She heard it, his sudden sincerity. If before she’d sounded defensive, now she looked . . . pained. Her throat worked as she swallowed.
“We should enjoy it,” he said. He’d been disappointed so many times, constructing Effie from glimpses. Masses of rich black hair disappearing into a doorway. A bold profile passing in a hansom cab. The glimpses never materialized into the whole.
Miss Coover was here, in the flesh. He’d be mad not to appreciate every second.
He gave her a slow smile, taking her arm and steering them through the crowd. “What do you most enjoy at the theater?”
“The acrobats,” she said immediately. “When they climb on one another’s shoulders to make pyramids. It’s amazing what they can do. It’s living sculpture. Oh, and the scenery, of course. And the costumes. What about you?”
She didn’t wait for him to answer.
“The horses,” she said at the same time he did. They both burst into laughter. Their rib cages expanded and her arm, her breast, pushed into his side.
“I went to all the battles staged at Astley’s,” he said. “Any hippodrama, anywhere, I was there.”
“Cut the cackle and come to the ’osses,” boomed Miss Coover. “That’s what Aunt Marian says whenever anyone mentions horse drama.”
He grinned. “No one goes for the dialogue, it’s true. Who needs lines? The band strikes up, the hooves pound, the muskets pop.” He shook his head. “It was my idea of paradise.”
She snorted, but the corners of her mouth still twitched with mirth.
How easy it could feel between them. How enjoyable, despite the inauspicious circumstances. A man and a woman flirting at the theater. The air was warm, even sticky. They stopped as a mass of men shoved by, sailors. He took the opportunity to loosen his collar. She traipsed about without a corset. Why mightn’t he undo a button? As he spread the fabric, he saw her eyes slide to his throat and cling for a moment. He grinned so hard he had to bite the inside of his cheek.
But suddenly, she sobered, squaring her shoulders. Her gaze grew penetrating.
“I’ll enjoy myself more fully, I’m sure,” she said, “once I have your assurances that the condemned buildings have been saved. How did Lord Mabeldon receive you?”
Startled, he stepped back. For some reason, he hadn’t expected she’d speak so directly, so briskly, press him so soon. But of course. She faced eviction. Her aunt, too, those little girls and their adventuresome dolls. An evening out at the theater brought her no joy, in the circumstances.
“Lord Mabeldon did not receive me.” He let the words fill the sudden gulf between them. He’d set out to call, via the glasshouse, where a tipple made him maudlin. On the street, he’d spied a cab drawn by a familiar-looking horse, starved but blue-blooded, an old thoroughbred, once a favorite on the racecourse. He and Cecil used to watch him race when they were boys. He forced the cabby to take him to his license owner, from whom he’d bought the decayed creature for the change in his pocket. That’s what he’d done with himself these past two days, played nursemaid to a half-dead stallion in the stable, taking breaks to fortify himself with his own medicine of choice.
But he would talk to Mabeldon. This was simply the preparatory stage. How to explain that to a woman who squeezed what she could from every minute?
He cleared his throat. “I’m biding my time. As I mentioned, Lord Mabeldon and I aren’t on firm footing. I need to approach our meeting strategically.”
The inadequacy—the sheer inanity—of this must have struck her as it struck him. Her face blurred with emotion. He distinguished hurt, disgust, anger, and then, something worse, resignation. When he took her arm again, it felt limp in his own.
Reassurances rose to his lips. He’d call on Mabeldon first thing in the morning. He’d get there even if he had to pass by rainspouts pouring pink gin, even if he had to pass by Lord Lyon, escaped from the stud farm at Shepherd’s Bush. But her head was turned away, her attention elsewhere.
As they settled into their seats and the performance began, he felt her restlessness. Each twitch of her body passed into his. He hadn’t fidgeted as much studying for his trials at Eton. Her elbow bumped him repeatedly as she twisted a strand of hair with her fingers. Finally, he caught the elbow, held it still, cupped it in his hand between their bodies. She froze at his touch. The easiness between them—the natural physical sympathy—not gone, but muffled. He had spoiled the mood. Maybe he could charm her by describing Snap, the old thoroughbred.
Funny story, he’d say. And he’d tell her how he recognized him by the white sock on his pastern. Chased down the cab. He’d present it as a tale of rescue. Leave off the part about turning around en route to Mabeldon’s, neglecting his side of the bargain.
Christ but he was useless.
Cymbals crashed below. A group of home soldiers at the end of the row laughed uproariously, calling out to a pretty barmaid.
She turned to him, said something inaudible.
“What?” He tipped his head. Her lips brushed his ear. Her husky voice whispered as though inside him.
“Do you see her?”
“No.” He shook his head, felt her chin against his jaw, her mouth skimming the outer edge of his ear. Air puffed from her lips, tickling.
The theater manufactured sensation on a large scale. But there was also this other, less spectacular excitement, the excitement to be found in the heated darkness.
Surely, the Albion had its private boxes, its velvet couches. Places where he might lay Miss Coover down, stroke away the nervous motion of her limbs, spend her, make her languid. Win her back with kisses.
He focused on the main stage, where scenes from Antony and Cleopatra continued to unfold. The barge was gone and a Roman festival was underway. Fantastical flowers of every color were strewn over the stage and goddesses in golden togas processed upon them. In her thin dress, Miss Coover wouldn’t have looked out of place among them. She adjusted her head.
“Not the one on the right?”
He didn’t bother with the glasses. The black-haired goddess was too slight. Effie was short, but she inclined to plumpness. Or had these recent months harrowed her, whittled her down? His jaw clenched at the thought. He squinted. No, it wasn’t her. Miss Coover felt the negation in his movement.
When Cleopatra’s maids presented the baskets of figs, and their round, unfamiliar faces, he sighed.
“Time to go,” he said. He wouldn’t keep her out all night on what had proved to be a fool’s errand.
Lucy’s knees complained as she rose. Good. A reminder of Aunt Marian. She needed it, to strengthen her resolve. She’d spent the show sweating, attention divided between the stage and the galleries. Who in the audience had been sent by Yardley to witness Weston’s undoing?
Weston had risen too. She felt him at her elbow. Risked a glance. It was difficult to read his expression. She saw disappointment, certainly. But also solicitude, an unexpected gentleness. He worried that she was disappointed too, that she felt culpable.
She did feel culpable, but not for the reason he assumed.
God help her, she liked this man. She didn’t want to deceive him, even though he hadn’t talked to Mabeldon. Even though he was proving himself blatantly unreliable, the selfish pup Yardley described. But protecting him would leave her vulnerable. He was his own worst enemy. She would not allow him to become hers. Her knees twinged as she turned.
Nor her Aunt Marian’s.
Two men, shabby, mouths hidden by drooping mustaches, stood at the end of the row, staring. Stomach leaping, she stared back. One nodded, almost imperceptibly. Well then. The thing was already set into motion. Weston touched her shoulder.
“Care for a drink?” he asked. She sipped the air, its sweet smokiness. He did this. The fault was not hers, come what may.
“If you do,” she murmured and started edging toward the aisle without looking back at him.
It took some time to maneuver along the promenade to the canteen below the main stage. Weston kept her in the protective circle of his arm, and she held her body rigid, tried not to brush against him as they pushed through the crowd.
Theatergoers packed the canteen, which was lurid in its luxuriance, crystal chandeliers overhead, red silk wall coverings. They sat in red velvet chairs pulled close together, Weston draping an arm casually across his chair’s curved back.
“Champagne?” His eyes glowed. The chandeliers quivered as men stomped and women laughed, scattered lights moving subtly across his face. He flung one leg over the other, boot resting on his knee, a careless pose, but she could sense his agitation.
Now he was distracted, gaze trained on the trays floating past, held high by waiters in black jackets and red waistcoats. Glasses rattled on those trays, contents glinting. Ochre, amber, umber, dragon’s blood, Tyrian purple.
A familiar, lonely little hole opened up inside her.
Weston’s raised finger summoned one of those waiters to his side. Lucy looked away, glanced about the canteen. Couples laughing at round tables. Brassy-haired chorus girls. Young swells in tight suits. Those two shabby men, motionless in the sea of gaiety, still staring. Her stomach leapt again. What an incautious fool Weston was; how weakly he cleaved to his purpose. No wonder he hadn’t found his sister. It was so much easier to find a waiter, potboy, barkeep.
Not her fault.
When the champagne arrived, she emptied her glass before setting it on the table. Weston made a small noise in his throat, surprise or amusement.
“Thirsty?” He handed her his glass and she took it, tipping it this way and that so the foam slid over the lip, dripped down the flute. She licked it off her fingers, and when she looked up, she saw him watching her.
“It’s yours,” he said, waving to the waiter. “I prefer gin.”
Her father had preferred gin too. She leaned back and drank the second glass of champagne. The bubbles filled her throat and she had to work to push them down. A hard swallow, like gravel. She could feel it move into her chest.
“Let’s go.” She spoke without thinking, and Weston offered her a smile, not the boyish grin. A dark smile.
“You’re tired,” he observed, and blood rose into her cheeks. Over his shoulder, she could see those two men, twin lumps, infinitely patient. They’d grow into the furniture sooner than abandon their mission. They didn’t care how long it took.
“I’ll take you home,” said Weston. He reached out as the waiter materialized and lifted the gin from the tray.
“Soon,” he said. “I’m thirsty too.” For a moment, he held the tumbler in two hands, base resting on one palm, long, beautiful fingers wrapped around it. Oddly tender. Loathing lanced through her. She remembered her father sprawled on the staircase, head bowed over a bottle, crooning to it like it was his baby. Lavishing care where it didn’t belong. He’d chosen that bottle over his own wife, his own daughter.
Weston had chosen it over his fellow soldiers. Over his word, his pledge to her. Over his sister. She settled deeper into her chair. A burst of laughter traveled the room.
“How much does it take?” Her voice carried, low and harsh. “How much gin?”
He let one hand drop and held the glass higher, looking into it, as though the gin were a transparent, burning eye, looking back at him. Then he set the glass on the table, looked at her, and shrugged.
“How much gin before I fall over? Attack a Burne-Jones? Wake up naked in an alley? It depends.”
He was striving for lightness, a bantering tone better suited to the merriment around them. But his free hand had flattened on his knee, the knuckles going white, and his face had set in grim lines.
“No,” she said, quieter. “How much is enough? Forever. So you don’t need it anymore. So that . . .”
Her throat felt roughened inside. She stopped, then began again.
“I wanted him to choose us,” she said. “To choose my mother. To choose me. But he wouldn’t.”
Or couldn’t. Did it matter in the end?
“There wasn’t enough gin, ever.” She drew a breath. Why was she saying this? Mortification didn’t make her stop.
“He always wanted more,” she said. “Until . . .”
She knotted her hands, pressed her lips together. At first, she didn’t think he’d heard. Her words had frayed into wisps, scarcely audible, and he hadn’t moved a muscle. He sat perfectly still, his face unreadable. She felt sick. All the red silk, the red velvet, the quaking light. Her chair was sticky. As she shifted, the fabric of her dress resisted, clinging to an invisible stain.
Suddenly, he raked a hand over his face, into his hair. A muscle ticked in his jaw. She realized then, in an instant, that he’d heard; he’d heard clearly. No distraction now. His green gaze was fixed on her, its intensity almost unbearable.
“We’ll go now,” he said. He reached into his pocket for coin, and in that moment, released from his gaze, she glanced over his shoulder. Angling through the throngs, eyes scanning the tables, a tall, pleasant-looking man, who paused now and again to permit some lady’s passage.
No. She exhaled. It was Robert Yardley. He’d come himself to witness Weston’s folly. He hadn’t seen them yet, but he was mere yards away. The glass of gin stood on the table at Weston’s elbow, accusing him. A mad impulse seized her. She would not let him be caught with it. Suddenly, the glass was in her hand and she’d tipped it back. The taste was pure poison. She spluttered, rising, thrusting the glass behind her, wedging it into the cushion. Weston froze. A shilling slipped from his fingers, clattered on the tabletop.
“What are you doing?” His gaze sharpened, slicing her. She closed her fingers on his wrist, felt the warm pulse there, pounding.
“Hurry,” she gasped. He allowed her to tug him forward, but as he did so, he swiveled his head, and she felt the jolt move from his body into hers. He whipped his head around and their gazes locked.
“Why is he here.” It wasn’t a question. His voice was terrible with knowledge. She couldn’t speak, just shook her head, tugged harder. He needed no prompting. Together they plunged into the crowd.