WELCOME!

Welcome to the home page of A COMEDY OF MARRIAGE! 

This is the third and final installment of the adventures of Tory Lightfoot and Jack Dance, begun in The Witch From the Sea, and continued in Runaways: A Novel of Jonkanoo.

Against a backdrop of theatrical life in Britain in the age of Edmund Kean, a motley collective of strolling players grapple with issues of social, racial, sexual and marital equality within the looking glass of life imitating art imitating life that is the theater, where the ever-relevant words of Shakespeare provide both mirror and compass.

Victoria Lightfoot, a mixed-blood runaway orphan from the wilds of America, will do anything to preserve her freedom—from both the stifling rules of polite society that view women as the property of their husbands and people of color as inferior, and from the dangerous secrets of her past life on the high seas with the man she loves, acrobat and failed actor, Jack Dance. In the cold winter of 1826, she and Jack flee the West Indies to return to his native England with their friend and partner, former slave and abolitionist Alphonse Belair, in hopes of forging a new life for themselves on the stage.

When the three of them are taken into a troupe of strolling provincial players under the pretext that Tory and Jack are siblings, they must deny the passion for each other that would be forbidden to a brother and sister. It takes all of their acting skills to conceal the true nature of their relationship from their new colleagues, in particular inquisitive actress Jenny Kennett, runaway wife from an abusive husband, and handsome, sardonic young actor, Christopher Bell, who makes no apologies for his own dangerously "criminal" sexual preferences.

To his horror, Jack is voted in to manage the company. But evil forces worthy of melodrama are allied against them: a disgruntled fellow player with a grudge against Jack; Jenny's controlling husband, who means to punish her defiance by breaking her spirit and ruining them all; and an unwelcome ghost from Jack and Tory's outlaw past. They are like the comic villains in a pantomime farce—but the last act may be a tragedy when Tory must risk her own freedom, possibly losing Jack forever, in order to save his life.

To begin the adventure, scroll down to the bottom of the Blog Archive, click on Coming Soon, and follow the story upwards through each installment. At the end of each chapter, click on Newer Posts to read the next one.

Meanwhile, check out the menu pages above for more information on Tory's backstory, the genesis of this project, the historical background of the post-Regency, pre-Victorian era, and a glossary of colorful period slang, theatrical and otherwise!

Enjoy the show!

Lisa Jensen, Santa Cruz, California, 2023

Visit the bygone world of A Comedy of Marriage in pictures on my Pinterest page!

 

Above: Isaac Cruikshank, King John’s First Appearance at the New Theatre, Covent Garden, 1809

EPILOGUE

It was the soft popping of a fire in the grate that woke Jack. He was burrowed deep in the bedclothes, his body still warm and sluggish from lovemaking. With an effort, he unstuck his eyes and peered through darkness to the window that gave on to the widow's walk in the upstairs room of the house on Moonfleet Way, and the diamond-studded night sky beyond.

But when he stretched his legs, he realized he was alone in the bed. Turning to blink in the other direction, he saw Tory kneeling before the fireplace in her chemise, the long, dark mane of her hair scorched copper in the soft firelight.

"What are you doing, Rusty?" he murmured from the bed.

"Saying goodbye." Her voice was soft and wistful as she bent forward to stoke up the fire. "My mother used to tell me our people lit sacrificial fires so the smoke would carry their prayers up to the gods. And their thanks."

"The Mohawk gods?"

"All of them. My mother believed the gods of all people live together in the sky. She said the sky was a very big place."

"Your mother was a sensible woman."

"You would have liked her." Tory smiled over at him. "She would have adored you."

Jack threw on his shirt and came to kneel beside her in front of the fire. That's when he saw her logbook spread open on her knees. Her damp eyes sparkled in the firelight.

"Oh, Rusty, not your book," he breathed.

"It's not a true sacrifice if you don't send them something you love." She lifted the corner of the next sewn-in page from the front of the book, gently ripped it away from its stitches, and laid it across a little pile of ashes already smoldering on the grate.

"But it means so much to you."

"There is nothing in this book more important to me than your life, hombre," she told him. "Our life together. Here. Now." She sighed and shook her head, gazing down at the book, gently caressing the corner of another page. "I should have destroyed this long ago, before we ever left the islands, it's so dangerous. Suppose Crowder had got hold of it. Or Harding. But some part of me always felt that if I did that, I'd be breaking faith with our friends, all our old shipmates, everyone we ever cared for. I couldn't bear to betray them all."

She tore another page out of the binding and fed it to the flames.

"But there's more than our old crew in your book," said Jack. "You've put all your life into it, your family, your memories, everything you've ever been. All your dreams."
   
"I'll have new dreams. What's important about the past will always be here." She put her hand to her heart. "We'll never lose that, it will always be a part of who we are. But we've been given such a precious gift, Jack," she went on earnestly. "A future. Something we've never had before. We must trust ourselves to it. And be thankful."

Jack drew a pensive breath, then slipped his hand over hers, still resting on the open book. Tory smiled at him again. Then she tore out a few more of the book's original pages, covered with her own sprawling words, so that all that was left between the leather covers were the notes and playscripts she had written for the company. She set the book aside and placed the last pages of the log of the Blessed Providence on the grate. They smoldered for a long moment, tentative flames licking at them curiously, and Tory tried not to imagine the faces of all those she had loved and put in her book choking and gasping for their last breath of life. But as the hungry flames embraced the pages, and their edges began to blacken and curl, Tory saw a different image, not a death, but a kind of liberation — figures released at last, leaping off the pages, rising up on the dancing flames and curling smoke to freedom.

Jack wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she let herself relax into his embrace.

"To the future," she murmured.

Jack gazed into the fire, its flames now blazing up in triumph.

"Shakespeare said it best —" he began.

"As usual," Tory teased him.

"Aye," Jack agreed. "In The Tempest. 'What's past is prologue.'"

Tory nodded, safe in his arms. All of life lay before them. Their play was just beginning.

THE END 

Top: Tarot, The Star, by bluefooted on DeviantArt. The Star of Hope has always been Tory’s card.

Above right: Attic fireplace, built ca. 1755, like the attic fireplace on Moonfleet Way

AFTER-PIECE

It was not a lavish affair. The parents of both the bride and the groom were deceased, and no other relations were in attendance at eleven o'clock in the morning, for the wedding of Miss Victoria Faith MacKenzie and Mr. Jack Dance at the ancient parish church of St. Nicholas in Heathpoole.
   
Jack would never have believed he could ever persuade Tory to get married in a church; he'd have preferred the playhouse, himself. But Tory warmed up to the idea as soon as she learned that St. Nicholas was the patron of sailors and ships. Besides, it was not the fearsomely modern St. Mary's Chapel at Heathpoole Wells; the church of St. Nicholas might as well have been hewn out of the rugged stone of the cliff on which it was situated, south-west of Prospect Square, overlooking Heathpoole Bay.

No less ancient and craggy was the vicar, Mr. Templesmith, who performed the ceremony, a merry old soul with pink cheeks and hair as white as seafoam. It was true that he had never seen either the bride or groom inside his church before, but both had been well-known about the town for twelve weeks the previous summer, and they had recently purchased a house in the village, so Mr. Templesmith was satisfied as to the legalities. Then, too, during their previous tenure in the town their theatrical company had staged two benefits in support of local charities administered by the church, so the vicar assumed that God was satisfied as well.

The bride and groom were both of legal age, and both had sworn that there were no impediments to their union, in terms of either consanguinity or other living spouses. No groomsman stood up for the groom, nor maid or matron of honor for the bride. Instead, all five witnesses stood in a half-circle behind the couple while the brief ceremony was performed — brief because all commands to obedience and duty had been removed at the groom's request.

In the event, Tory had neither to be dragged to the altar nor coaxed to play her part, seizing the moment fearlessly. She was so radiant, standing beside him in her simple, moss-green frock, it was Jack who almost forgot what he was about. But when they vowed to love, honor, cherish and support each other, a poignant hush settled over the witnesses arrayed behind them, all of whom later signed the register: Mrs. Jane Kennett, Mr. Thomas Ashbrook, Mr. Christopher Bell, Mr. Albert Delaney, and Mr. Alphonse Belair.

No time, money, or energy was expended on a wedding breakfast, much less a honeymoon. Both parties agreed those resources might be put to better use elsewhere, besides which, as Jack had pointed out, it was assumed by everyone outside their little circle that he and Tory were married already. But Delaney stood them all to a noonday glass of fizz at the Half Seas Over to mark the occasion, which was heartily enjoyed by all.

The others then repaired to the playhouse to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the company, over the next few days. Their private celebration, Tory knew, would begin later tonight. And last the rest of their lives. 

Top: St. Govan's Chapel, St. Govan's Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales

CHAPTER 47: A Comedy of Marriage

"Save your money, Mr. Bell."

"I only mean to save your reputation, Mr. Delaney." said Kit, pressing the note back across the table.

"But it's perfectly respectable for a man to let a room to a fellow," Delaney insisted. "It's not as if I were a timorous widow at your mercy."

"Quite the opposite, I would say," Kit agreed. "But 'letting' implies a bit of blunt changing hands now and again."

"Then, as your landlord, it's my right to determine the rate of payment, is it not? And the kind." Delaney folded up the note and stuck it firmly back into Kit's pocketbook, lying open on the table.

"I should be paying twice as much anywhere else in Heathpoole, for far less congenial surroundings," grumbled Kit.

"I don't like to take your money," Delaney said simply. "I feel like a strumpet."

Kit was about to riposte, until he realized his friend was in earnest. He reached across the table and took Delaney's two hands in his. "Oh, my dear, I hope I have never made you feel any such thing! I am in most ways a preening ass, but I do love you."

Delaney squeezed his hands in return, and smiled, that slow-kindling smile that still took Kit by surprise and made him a trifle dizzy. Then Delaney stood up, still grasping Kit's hands, leaned across the table and kissed him, dizzying him even more. When he sat down again, the morning light just coming in the window from over the harbor turned his curly dark hair into a halo of sparkling rust.

"Anyway, consider it a form of charity, since you're unemployed," Delaney went on. "I've always had a soft spot in me heart for strays and orphans."

"Well, I shan't presume on your charity much longer," said Kit, recovering himself. "Our company reconvenes in a fortnight at the Heathpoole Playhouse for our holiday season, and then we must all labor like Hercules."

Delaney frowned. "You have no plans to take other lodgings, I hope?"

"Certainly not! But then I'll have a steady income — damned steady, if reports from the box office can be believed — and then you must have a landlord's fair share."

Their final four performances back in Kelsingham had entirely sold out; there were ot even any half-price tickets to be had after the intermissions. Especially when word got out that King George had invited Jack to give his Prince Hal in Brighton in the new year. And within minutes, or so it seemed, a letter arrived for Jack, forwarded from Drury Lane, from Alderman Norris here in Heathpoole, explaining that the lease on the Heathpoole Playhouse had suddenly become available.

And although Jack had already accepted an offer to give four more performances at Drury in November, he astonished the company by proposing to mount a holiday season in Heathpoole. Any other fellow, at least most other players of Kit's acquaintance, would be idling away their profits on the high life in London, but Jack could not wait to get back here and arrange for the company to stay together. Of course, everyone wanted to come with him; Heathpoole had been a fortunate engagement for them last summer, and in the winter months, the Wells was even busier than usual with fine folk seeking the warmth of the hot springs and other amusements in town. And no sooner had Jack secured the lease on the playhouse than Delaney decided to leave behind the bustle of Bristol and return to the sea air of Heathpoole.

Kit rather missed Delaney's previous lodging here, the poignant simplicity of that single room. That place was already let to someone else, but the landlady liked Delaney and his steady habits, and so had found him these two adjoining rooms off a chandler's shop in the same neighborhood, with a south-eastern view of the quays. Claiming the place was too large for himself alone, Delaney had promptly offered to sub-let half to Kit; he'd said the extra room might do for Kit's wardrobe.

Now Kit sat back from the table with a theatrical sigh. "Speaking of the box office, I must fly to the playhouse to see what Mr. Belair has in mind for us today." He stood up, his shirt still unbuttoned and shoeless beneath his trousers, and began to peer about for his stock. "And you, I'm sure, must attend to whatever it is boatmen do about the docks."

"Oh, aye, the usual riot and carousing," Delaney agreed, also getting to his feet. "When is Jack due back from London?"

"Another week, at least, for Jenny and Ashbrook and I to bear the full brunt of Belair's efficiency." Kit wandered into the other room and began to ransack the bureau. "For a man so sternly committed to the abolitionist cause, he's quite the slave-driver. Ah!" He pounced on the neckcloth he'd been searching for in a drawer, and moved off to the glass to tie it.

"Well, serves you right for getting yourself named stage manager," said Delaney.

"Acting stage manager. And only until the season begins and they can hire a professional. As soon as that worthy person, and a new wardrobe mistress, have signed on, Kennett and I will be all too happy to return to performing. Until then, we must abide by Belair's frugal habits."

Delaney had come to lean in the doorway, watching the last few dips, tucks, and flourishes of Kit's procedure with admiration. He claimed he was mystified by the rituals of stock-tying, although in Delaney's case, thought Kit, elaborate fashion would only be gilding the lily. Satisfied at last, he turned back to his friend.

"Belair really is a marvel, you know. He's already secured rooms for the company in two lodging houses off Prospect Square, by the playhouse, at a discount, even though it will soon be high season in Heathpoole."

"He expects your season to pay, then?"

"Well, Jack has already ploughed all his pay from Old Drury back into our coffers, so we have a bit of a cushion," said Kit. "He says he won't be this notorious forever, so we'd best make the most of it."

Delaney smiled. "And Mrs. Lightfoot is enjoying London?"

Of course, Jack would not travel to London again without taking Tory with him. Nor would she be parted from him, not this time.

"She writes that it is noisy and dirty and crowded and full of civilization," said Kit. "But she is very much enjoying Jack's success, so I believe she is happy."  He'd moved off to search the floor beside the bureau where his shoes were neatly lined up. "Although," he added thoughtfully, "we can't imagine what she finds to do with herself all day while Jack is occupied with the dreary business of the theatre."

 

Jack hoped nearly another fortnight playing in London had not ruined him for the business of managing the company. He loved the playing part, always had, whether on the boards at Old Drury or a barn in some rustic village, but the pomp and frivolity that came with an actor's job in London was hardly worth the effort. He'd made the best of it up to a point, for Tory's sake, accepted a few invitations to dine out, paraded her about on his arm at one or two social events where folk went to be seen. Everyone adored her, of course, she was so fresh and good-humored, without an ounce of artifice. It was all a load of rubbish, but at least she hadn't gone quite out of her mind with boredom during the long hours he was away. He hoped not, anyway.

But now, they were finally back with the company in Heathpoole. And he was once again ensconced in the manager's office at the playhouse — his playhouse, as he liked to think of it, although Alphonse had not allowed him to be imprudent enough to purchase the place outright. They were leasing it from one season to the next, and Jack knew he'd better apply himself to make this season a success if there was going to be a next season.

Gulls were circling and crying outside, riding the chilly wind currents up from the harbor out below Prospect Square. He knew he ought to shut the window and concentrate, but he loved having the sound of the sea so close. He knew Tory was delighted to be back as well, even though she was disappointed that the house she loved on Moonfleet Way was no longer offering its upper rooms to let. They were staying in rooms on the harbor side of the square that Alphonse had procured for the company in advance—most of the rest of whom would be arriving in a few days. Which reminded Jack it was time to return his thoughts to the papers on the desk before him — lists of plays, parts, wardrobe, and props, timetables, dates, rates of pay, and a thousand other details involved in getting a season underway. He had promised Tory a holiday Harlequinade, and the Dream, Prospero and Ariel, and Lure of the Indies had all been popular last summer; still, he wished he had something new to pull out of his hat that the Heathpoole public had not seen before. Of course, the Wells would be full of travelers who had not been here last —

A soft rap at the door drew him out of his papers as Alphonse came in. Kit had already brought in the morning post, but Alphonse was also carrying a parcel.

"This came for you," he said.

"What is it?"

Alphonse set it on the desk, a stack of papers bound with twine. Jack frowned. "Not another play, is it?"

Since the "famous" Mr. Dance was known to be mounting a season in the neighborhood, would-be scribes and players had been materializing out of the very air. Jack was willing to take a look at anyone and anything — after all, he had been an untested nobody once, and not so long ago — but results so far had proved mixed, at best.

"I think you should look at this one," said Alphonse.

Jack glanced at the top page. A Comedy of Marriage. "Is it any good?"   

Alphonse gave a noncommittal shrug. "I don't believe you will be sorry," was all he said.

Jack peered at his friend. Alphonse claimed he was no expert in the artistic side of theatrical matters, but Jack trusted his judgment. He knew Alphonse would not be wasting his time if he didn't think this piece had some merit.

Jack sighed and reached for the playscript. "All right. I'll give it half an hour."

Two hours later, Jack still could not help grinning over the two piles of script before him; he kept paging back and forth to reread the final scenes. He had never enjoyed a thing more, a very funny farce about marriage he was sure would draw a house again and again. What a windfall that it should drop into his lap, instead of being offered up to some London patent house that would snap it up in a heartbeat. James Wallack would pounce on it for Drury Lane, and take a leading role for himself besides. There were so many choice roles, not only a trio of villains, who were always the plum parts, but full-blooded protagonists who were far more witty and interesting than the usual heroes and ingenues, parts actors would be clamoring to play.

Jack re-stacked the pile and plucked up the top page. "V. F. MacKenzie" was listed as the playwright. He had scarcely scraped his chair back before Alphonse popped his head in at the door.

"Who is this MacKenzie fellow?" Jack asked eagerly, getting to his feet.

"The playwright is just outside," said Alphonse.

He disappeared from the doorway. And Tory walked in.
   
"You wrote this?" Jack asked her.

"I'm entirely to blame," she confessed. "Of course, it needs work — "

Jack shook his head. "It's wonderful!"

She peered at him. "You think so?"

"Hellfire, Rusty, Wallack would commit murder to stage this. When did you find the time?"

Tory allowed herself a tentative half-smile. "Well, I got the idea while trapped aboard Hotspur. I couldn't spend all that time just fuming; I'd have exploded! Then I had the chance to write it all out when we were in London."

Jack nodded, paging through the stack of papers again. "I want to produce this for our new season. And pay you a playwright's share."

Tory laughed. "Oh, don't be silly — "

"I've never had a less silly thought," he told her. "You did the work, Rusty, and you shall be paid for it. I don't believe Alphonse will object, not this time. In fact, I'm sure he planned the whole thing, barging in here with a playscript of unknown origin by a mysterious author."

"Not so mysterious, as that is my given name. Victoria Faith MacKenzie." After all their time together, Tory suddenly could not remember if she had ever told Jack her real name before.

Jack smiled. "It's lovely." His gaze dropped down to his desk again, and he made as if to straighten the script pages. "But as your manager, I'm afraid there is one other condition I must impose on you before this goes into production."

"I know there's some rewriting to be done, the middle is a bit saggy — " Tory began, but Jack cut her off with a shocked look.

"Don't change a word!" he exclaimed. "I only ask one thing. Marry me."

"What?"

"Be my wife. Take me for your husband. Join me in lawful matrimony," Jack explained patiently.

Tory felt her head shaking. "But . . . why?"

"I'm entirely besotted with you, Rusty. Have you never noticed?"

"I mean . . . why now?"

Jack sighed, and his expression sobered. "Because it's high time I married you like a man, and stopped dallying with you like a boy. I know I promised you once that I would never ask you. This is the only promise I will ever break."

Tory was so taken by surprise, it didn't even occur to her to try to pull her expression into something more sympathetic. Here she was scarcely done congratulating herself on her narrow escape from Matty.

"Come, is the idea all that hideous?" said Jack. "Everyone thinks we are married already."

"It's just that . . . a woman in my position is expected to make a fortunate match. And you know how I hate to do what's expected of me."

"Well, you would be marrying me," Jack pointed out helpfully. "I'm not entirely respectable, if that's any consolation. Perhaps not so fortunate either, once this wave of infamy has passed."

Tory made herself smile a little, aware of how keenly Jack was watching her beneath his air of nonchalance. "True," she agreed. "Fortunes can change in a blink, as we both know. But marriage is so . . . permanent. I would have been welded to Matty for the rest of my life. And Jenny — "

"I am not asking you to marry Crowder." Jack said quietly. "Or Matty. But I won't force you to the altar," he added, with such a wistful look that Tory was stung to the heart.

"Oh, hombre, it's not you!" she exclaimed. "You know how much I love you! The only place I've ever felt at home in the world is here, by your side."

Jack drew a breath, and placed his hands on the desk as if for support. Neither of them had thought to sit down. "Any enterprise, any union, can be as good or as bad as the partners in it. You and I have had a great deal of experience in being partners. I am incomplete without you, Rusty; you are my other half in every way that matters. Mi vida. Mi alma. Mi companera. I know all too well what you think of matrimony, in general," he added, glancing again at her playscript on his desk. "But don't you think, after all we've been through together, we might make something more of ours?"

Tory gazed across the desk at this man she had loved for so long, dark hair spilling over his collar, his dark eyes so full of the devil. She could scarcely remember her life before Jack, but since then he had been her anchor, her mentor, her best friend. The other half of her soul.

"I suppose we might," she said guardedly. "If only to show the others how it's done."

Jack grinned. "Marry me, Rusty. Let's make it official. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, eh?"

Tory laughed, and her fears of marriage whirled away like the gulls on the wind. This was her Jack. Anything was possible. "We've weathered far worse," she agreed. "If you can bear it, so can I!"

She was still standing, engulfed in Jack's arms, when a discreet tapping at the door recalled them to the present moment. Alphonse poked his head in at the door.

"Alphonse, we're going to get married!" Jack said gleefully, waving him in.

"About time," said Alphonse, peering up from one to the other, as implacable as ever, although Tory thought she detected the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth and his eyes. He shook Jack formally by the hand, and when he grasped her hand in turn, she bent down and threw her arms around him. When Alphonse stepped back, he mustered a folded paper from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to Jack.
   
“What is it?" Tory asked, watching Jack's surprised expression as he read.

"It's a notice about the house on Moonfleet Way," he said, glancing at her. "It's for sale."

"Oh no!" said Tory. "I hope nothing has happened to Mrs. Cross?"

"Moving inland to live with her daughter and escape the damp sea air," said Alphonse. "I have made inquiries."

"So the house is available?" asked Jack.

"It was," said Alphonse. "Until I made an offer."

Jack frowned. "Can we afford it?"

"We are not buying it," Alphonse informed him. "You are." Tory thought they must still look perplexed, the way Alphonse sighed and went on. "The street is narrow, steep, and inconvenient. The garden is a ruin and, by all accounts, ferocious  storms off the sea buffet the place in winter, as you are soon to discover. The family was glad to come to an arrangement."

"But those are all the things I love about it!" Tory cried.

"Exactly so," Alphonse nodded to her. Glancing again at Jack, he added, "So long as you do not wear out your welcome at Drury Lane too soon, you might scare up a payment or two." He paused, and then sighed again. "Victoria deserves a home," he said plainly. "And so do you, mon ami. You have been vagabonds long enough." 

Top: Instructions in folding a neckcloth, 1818

Above right: Harlequin and Columbine, John Crockett, 1948

Above left: This could be the house on Moonfleet Way! 19th Century house from the Craiyon AI-generated images website.

CHAPTER 46: Most Infamous

 

It was scarcely a quarter past noon, and Charles Crowder's day was already ruined. He usually left this sort of mundane paper-shuffling to Budge, who appeared to revel in it. But this most recent batch of solicitations were coming directly to him, couched in personal notes from his bankers in Leeds, and other gentlemen of business with whom he was connected in intricate financial arrangements. His personal attention was required, now that these arrangements appeared to be in jeopardy.

He shifted where he sat at his desk in his well-appointed Bristol office, and tilted a paper toward the light coming in the window overlooking Queen Square. Revenge was proving costly indeed, and while he had been resolved to part with the money — and well worth every penny spent, he'd consoled himself — he was accustomed to realizing a return on his investment. But such had not been the case, not this time.

He had paid dearly for that dark playhouse in Heathpoole, on which he received no return at all. He had paid dearly for repairs, fees, and duties to float Forrester's ship; indeed, the latest bill from the shipyard was glaring up at him from among all the others on his desk. And now it seemed he was financing that fellow's acting career in London, at no little expense. In short, he had paid handsomely for a criminal arrest, and yet no such arrest had been made.

Crowder sighed and took up the morning newspaper again, paging through it idly, hoping for a moment of respite from the more pressing concerns on his desk. But what snagged his attention there was so alarming, he didn't even look up as Budge scuttled into the room.

"Is it true? Hotspur has sailed?" he demanded of his solicitor.
    
Yesterday evening," sighed Budge, sinking into his customary chair on the other side of the desk, the morning post under his arm.

"And her captain was aboard her?"

"One must assume that he was," said Budge, spreading out his letters on the little corner of desk allotted to him.

Crowder's ears all but flattened like a cat's, straining to detect sarcasm in the other man's voice, but his solicitor merely sounded weary. As well he might, since the first missive he plucked out of his pile of letters to read aloud was the most recent report from the foreman on the uprising in Leeds, the damages accrued, and the estimated expense of repairs to the equipment and the purchase of new stock.

"I'm afraid you must take immediate action in this matter, Mr. Crowder, or face ruin," Budge concluded.

Charles Crowder was not accustomed to being so roundly thwarted in all things. It was all the fault of that most infamous wife of his, of course, but she was out of his reach in a way that others were not. Yes, he would take action, all right.

"I am no longer at home to Captain Forrester," Crowder grumbled. "Or his creditors. Henceforth, let him pay for his own damned boat." He plucked up the bill from the shipyard by one corner, as if it were a dead beetle, and tossed it onto Budge's pile. Beneath it, he spied the letter he'd had yesterday from Price, manager of Drury Lane, apologizing for the trick that had been played on them all in the matter of the imposter Mr. Dance.

"And turn off that insect, Harding, should he ever dare to show his face again," Crowder went on. Budge duly scribbled a note in the margin of his ledger book. "And why for God's sake are we still underwriting that damned actor's stage career?”

“We stopped payment days ago," Budge noted, consulting his books. "Dance is on the boards by public demand."



 

"It was all an act, you know," Tory declared. "I couldn't just let you walk out of my life." She had to pause long enough to swallow a sweet morsel with a fat raisin in it. "I had to think of some way to stop you."

"Hmmm," said Jack, reaching for the coffee pot on the little bedside table. "So flinging curses at me was meant to reassure me, somehow?"

"Matty was the one I had to convince," Tory pointed out; she had told him last night, when they were finally alone here in their lodgings in Kelsingham, how Matty had threatened to expose Jack for a pirate to force her into marriage. "I expected you to know better."

"Well, your acting had me convinced, as well," Jack said, selecting another cake off the tray between them on the rumpled bed.

"And who do you think taught me?" She smiled.

Their landlady had come round obscenely early this morning with cakes and coffee, in honor of Mr. Dance's homecoming, she said, although it seemed unusual largesse on her part. Jack had had to dive for the clothes he'd worn back from Bristol yesterday to answer her knock, but after she'd handed over her tray and taken herself off again, Jack confessed to Tory he could not remember the last time he'd eaten. No more could she, and so they'd set to it.

"Anyway, I thought you'd never pick up your cue," Tory said now, licking sticky sweet off her fingertips. "And I was running out of insults."

"All I could think of was how much you must hate me, not hearing from me all that time," said Jack. "It made an awful kind of sense that you might run off to Matty —"

"I did not run off!" she exclaimed. "I was abducted. He came all the way to Kelsingham to feed me a load of rubbish that I was all too gullible to believe."

Jack frowned. "What sort of rubbish?"

Tory sighed. "He said he had news of you. And once he got me on board, I was as much his prisoner as you were in that cell."

Jack sighed too and shook his head. "I had no idea where I was, or why. I could only imagine the worst. And all I could think of was if someone had locked me in a dungeon, what might they not do to you?"

Tory reached for his hand beside the tray and squeezed for a moment, and Jack laced his fingers through hers. "Do you think we can ever be safe from the past?" she whispered.

Jack squeezed back, then let go of her hand with a smile. "Well, it must say something that two prisons could not keep us apart. Or," he added, "you might have married Mateo and been whisked out of harm's way."

"Talk about a prison!" Tory snorted. Plucking up one last bit of cake, she added, "Obviously I chose your fame over his fortune, now that you count the King of England among your patrons."

Jack shrugged. "One performance scarcely counts as patronage."

"Well, he didn't walk out on you, did he?" Tory reasoned. "He stayed to the end? That's the indulgence of a patron."

Jack grinned and shifted on the bed, tucking his knees under him. The striped trousers, somewhat short, and the much-mended shirt he wore had come from the slops chest of one of Mr. Jepson's cargo ships in Bristol Harbor. After restoring the boat to Delaney's friend, the boatman, yesterday, they'd gone to Jepson's office to secure another change of horses for the carriage, and his people had been handsome enough to find dry clothing for Jack for the ride back to Kelsingham. And for Tory as well, for modesty's sake, since her gown had been so badly savaged in her plunge overboard. Although she'd kept the beautiful satin bodice, and what was left of the silken, rosette-studded overskirts, which might prove useful in the company's wardrobe. She was back in her chemise now, but Jack still looked every inch the buccaneer in his castoff sailor's rig, and two day's worth of beard on his jaw.

"Although, had you been dressed then as you are now, you'd have been clapped in irons on general principle, even without Matty's command," she said.

"Oh, aye, and there was nothing at all piratical about the way you went over the side and down the chains, wedding dressed be damned," said Jack.

"I hoped you'd have the sense to follow me. I gambled that there was no profit in it for Matty if he couldn't get me in harness first."

"Well, who wouldn't follow you?" Jack grinned. "Tar on your feet, the wind in your hair, dripping those tattered wedding weeds, with fury in your eyes — "

"Sounds like a Gothic melodrama!" Tory laughed.

"You were a sensation, all right," Jack agreed, beginning to sober. "You were magnificent. B'God, Rusty, I was out of my mind at the thought of losing you. And wanting you so much."
    
"I thought I would never see you again," Tory whispered, her breath catching suddenly in her chest.

She barely had time to fling aside her last crumb before Jack swept the wooden tray off the bed, caught her by the waist and rolled her into his arms.



Some little while later, Tory carried the tray and the basket and linens that had contained the cakes to the bureau in the sitting room, along with the empty coffee pot, to be returned to the landlady. Jack was shaved and dressed again in one of his own suits of clothes, sitting at the little table, poring over the papers Kit had given him last night, regarding the pieces they were prepared to give in the next couple of days. While they had been too exhausted last night to join the company in a celebratory dinner, Jack had gladdened all hearts by announcing that they would perform in two night's time, now that the full company was back together again.

Herself freshly scrubbed and dressed as well, Tory turned to go back into the bedchamber, with the idea of pulling the bedclothes into some sort of order. Still, it was not until she stood with a dangling hem of sheet in her hand, making ready to stuff it under a corner of the mattress, that it occurred to her.

She dropped the sheet, fell to her knees, and thrust her arm up to the elbow under the mattress. She repeated all along the edge of the mattress, feeling urgently about, her movements ever more desperate, but it was no use. 

Her logbook was gone.

She stood as if in a daze, but her mind was racing as she turned slowly about the room. What had she done with it? When had she last seen it, used it? The horrible thought struck her that she might have had it with her on board Hotspur, and left it behind, that even now Matty might be using it to entrap them both, and she had to sit down again on the edge of the bed, grappling with this possibility. But no, she told herself, she never carried it downstairs to see Jenny off. She had come back up for her cloak, that last night, but she would have had no reason to bring along that dangerous book. Besides, she had thought she would be back in an hour or two, so she hadn't bothered to hide it again, she was sure of it.

But then, where was it?

"Hellfire, Rusty, what's the matter?"

Jack was staring at her from the doorway. She could only imagine what she must look like. Within the hour, they had been as joined, as easy and intimate, as two people could possibly be, and now she found she had no words to tell him the simple truth, that she'd let her incriminating logbook fall into unknown hands.

A rap at the door made them both jump, but then Kit's voice cried out,

"Arise! Arise, my sleeping beauties! I bear glad tidings!"

Jack crossed to the outer door to let Kit in while Tory got to her feet and tried to compose herself to follow him.

"My dears, you will never guess," Kit beamed at them both, his deep blue eyes bright with mischief. "Normally, I should have waited until you arrived at the playhouse, but my news will not keep."

Tory could not help smiling in spite of herself, to see how quickly Kit's joviality had been restored now that he'd handed the burden of management back over to Jack.    

"Tomorrow night's performance," Kit concluded. "It's already sold out!"

Jack frowned and glanced at the papers on the table. "But we've yet to choose the pieces — "

"It doesn't matter what we give." Kit grinned. "Sophocles or nursery rhymes, we shall pack the house. It's you they are clamoring to see."

"Me?" Jack echoed, glancing at Tory as if she were any less mystified than he was.

Kit lifted a couple of elegantly gloved fingertips to his mouth. "But, of course, you don't know!" he exclaimed. "You were not in the Blue Fox last night with the rest of us when the travelers came in from London. It's all over Town, they told us, the delicious scandal of the provincial player, unknown less than a week before, who was invited to play before the king at Drury Lane, only to vanish like Cinderella before the clock tolled twelve."

Tory looked at Jack. "Don't tell me you insulted the king."

Jack shook his head. "We got away as soon as we could, Alphonse and I. Nobody knew where you were!" he reminded her. "But I did stay long enough to stand in line to meet the king, after; we all did. 'Capital work, my boy,' he told me, which I'm sure he says to all the players whose names he can't recall."

"But the press and the gossip-mongers recall the name of Mr. Dance from Old Drury rightly enough," said Kit. "With the result that your newfound fame, or perhaps I should say your infamy, has now spread all the way back to Kelsingham. With the further result that we shall sell out the rest of our season here!"

Jack's expression brightened. "We can pay off our people then?"

"And our creditors," Kit agreed. "Although I caution you to have a care about the words 'pay off.' It sounds so distressingly final." Jack looked even more confused, so Kit went on patiently. "It would be a shame to dissolve the company now that we finally have a sensation of our own to exploit, something guaranteed to draw houses. Mr. Belair is already at the playhouse fielding ticket requests from as far off as Bath and Bristol."

Jack frowned. "I'd rather we were known for our acting."

"You may act yourself silly, Jack, and I for one would rejoice to see it," Kit reasoned. "But first you must fill the house."

"If we have a house, after Kelsingham," said Jack.

"But we are solvent again," Kit reminded him. "We'll find something."

Tory knew she ought to be excited by this news, but it only made the shock of losing her logbook that much worse, not knowing when it would resurface in their lives, poisoning all their new plans. She was still preoccupied when Jenny appeared in the passage and was ushered in, with a basket over her arm that Kit gleefully compared to a Covent Garden onion-monger's.

"I suspected I would find you here, darling," Jenny grinned at him. "Couldn't bear to keep the news to yourself, I suppose. I too, have an errand, before we all proceed to the playhouse," she added, turning to Tory.

Jenny peeled away a cloth inside the basket and lifted out what it concealed: Tory's logbook. "Thought you might be missing this." She smiled.

Tory crossed to her in two strides and seized the book, glancing quickly through its pages, the mismatched playscript pages in back, as well as the original, sewn-in pages in front that contained the log of the Blesséd Providence. All seemed in order. "Jenny, thank you!" she breathed. "But . . . where . . ?"    

"I found it lying about the day after you . . . disappeared," Jenny shrugged. "So Tom and I hid it in the paint room. Incredible warren of nooks and hidey-holes in a paint room!"

She looked so pleased with herself, Tory suddenly felt a fissure of alarm, along with her relief. Reminding herself it was only a book of playscripts, she made herself smile. "Why, it was careless of me, I suppose, but you needn't have troubled to hide it —"

"Of course I did," Jenny said easily. Tory must have still looked stricken, so Jenny went on, "Well, I couldn't resist a peep inside, could I?"

"You read it?"

"Well, not all of it," said Jenny. "But enough."

Tory could not stop herself glancing at Kit, who shrugged innocently in his turn. "Kennett has no secrets from me."

"And Tom too, if you must know," Jenny added.

Tory found herself clutching her book closer, as if she might still contain the secrets already leaked out. 

"And, yet . . . " she faltered, exchanging a quick glance with Jack. "You did not . . . " 

"Alert the authorities?" Jenny suggested drily.  "Scream for the watch?" She looked from Tory to Jack. "My dears, you are our family."

"Quite an improvement over our actual relations, if truth be told," Kit chimed in. 

"And far more precious to all of us," Jenny added. "You have stood up for us, for all of us, a thousand times. How can you think we would do any less for you?"

Jack had moved closer to Tory, but neither of them could think of a single thing to say.

"Well, who among us doesn't harbor a guilty secret or two?" Kit stepped into the breach, with an airy wave of his hand. "If you mean to vie for the prize of Most Infamous in this lot, you'd best get in line."

 

Top: Drury Lane playbill, 1821
 

Above right: llustration by the great Jane Ray. I don’t know the subject, but it looks to me like (a highly stylized) Jack and Tory!
https://www.janeray.com
 

CHAPTER 45: The Noose of Matrimony

Tory's stitches were as hopeless as ever. But it didn't matter. There was more at risk than rapped knuckles from a displeased sewing instructress. She would be running for her life.

She turned her back again to the tilting glass Matty had brought her, peering over her shoulder. Her clumsy stitches only defaced the fine creamy satin at a few intervals, unknotted, an attempt to suture back together — but not too closely — the two halves of the underskirt of the gown she'd slit up the back all the way to the waist. She had to be able to seize her skirts at a moment's notice and rip the back slit open again. A moment was all she would have, she was sure of it, and she was not about to let this cream puff of satin and lace trip her up.

She shook down the skirts again and turned about. Well, she'd made a wreck of the symmetry of the hem, but it wasn't so visible through the two layers of gauzy overskirts above. She'd cut those up the back too, but as they were made to float about anyway, she doubted anyone would notice — certainly not the male crew of a merchant vessel. Certainly not Matty.

Tory caught sight of her expression in the glass  — hardly the face an eager bridegroom would wish to see on his wedding day. She'd made no attempt to torture her long, dark hair into any of the popular styles of the day, even supposing she had the vaguest idea how to do so. Let him see her as she was: Fierce. Savage. Piratical. She had spent all last night until her candle gutted sitting up in her chemise, stitching together the two separate legs of her underdrawers, like trousers. If —when — she seized the chance to wrench open her gown, she would need to be able to move, to run, to fight if she must, and her garments had better be up to the challenge. It was her only hope.

The rasp of the key in the lock startled her. Surely, it was not time, not yet. But there stood Matty in a dark blue cutaway jacket, ablaze with brass buttons, tan-colored trousers and black patent pumps. He smiled at the sight of her, barefoot and loose-haired as she was.

"Ah, dressed already. It cheers me to see you so eager, Mistress." There might have been more of an edge to his smile than usual, as he stepped inside and shut the door.

"Eager to escape the prison of this cabin," she replied.

"And my crew are eager to see you. I should like to show you off."

Tory tried to collect her wits. Was this her chance, come so soon? If Matty paraded her around the ship, she might contrive to get overboard now, while Hotspur was still in the upper harbor, and perhaps she could latch on to some passing skiff —

"Most especially to a visitor who has come to see us off," Matty went on.

"Visitor?" Tory's mind raced through what little she knew of their plans. Wasn't the clergyman waiting for them at the church? If Matty had persuaded him to perform the heinous ceremony on board, she would have no opportunity at all to escape.

"Come, don't look like that," said Matty. "It's an old friend of ours. An old shipmate."

Tory stared at him. And somehow, just looking at his expression, she knew.

"Jack?" she whispered.

"Come to say goodbye," said Matty. "I've told him our happy news."

"How premature of you," said Tory, heart pounding, as she moved toward the door. "He won't believe it!"

"Perhaps not at first," Matty agreed, catching her by the elbow. "Which is why you must convince him."

"The hell I will!"

"And yet you must." Matty held her fast. "If you want Jack to live."

Her reaction must have pleased him. He did not relax his grip on her elbow, but he seemed to warm slightly to his tale.

"I'm a merchant captain, as you see. It's not my habit to sail without insurance. I'd hoped it would not come to this, but as a precaution, I was up to London earlier this week, where I left a sealed document with my family's solicitor, to be opened — or not — at my discretion. Depending on how you behave in the next few minutes. You are going to tell Jack you're marrying me of your own free will. You had better be convincing. And he had better believe you, or I'll have him up on a charge of piracy."

Tory stared at him, speechless.

"I've a troop of Marines under my command. My father will no longer sail without 'em. Pirates, you know. I am empowered to have Jack clapped in irons, right here and now, and don't think I won't. My sworn statement has only to be delivered to the magistrate in London and Jack's fate is sealed. And don't bother pretending you don't care," Matty went on. "Look at the speed with which I got you here from Kelsingham when you thought I had news of him. I didn't have to persuade you; hellfire, I couldn't restrain you!"

"It was all a pack of lies!" Tory fumed.
    
"Yes. But I'll not have to lie to the magistrates about Jack. All I'll have to do is tell them the truth. Of course, he might try to accuse me in turn," Matty went on, his voice very low. "But who is the law more likely to believe, a respectable merchant captain with a very old family name, or a ragged actor without name, fortune, or connections, and a dubious past?"

"But —"
    
"I require a bride, and I shall have one, or your precious acrobat will decorate Execution Dock."

"You can't imagine that I would let you do it!" Tory hissed.

"You can't imagine I would give you any opportunity to stop me." Matty glowered at her, even as Tory sensed the pleasure it gave him to exert power over her. "We sail on the tide in two hours. Like it or not, Tory, you will be my bride, or Jack dies." He turned her toward the glass in her ridiculous white satin gown. "Now go and tell him."

The cabin door opened, the two Marines outside obligingly stepped aside, daylight beckoned down the companion ladder, and yet Tory could scarcely step one foot in front of the other. For two weeks, she had thought of nothing else but seeing Jack again; she ought to be racing like the wind into his arms. But not like this, not as Matty Forrester's bride. It was Jack's worst nightmare, that he would somehow lose her to this . . . this . . . duplicitous snake with an angel's face and figure. She had spent years trying to convince Jack that Matty meant nothing to her, and now . . .

Matty herded her up the short ladder, out into the blessed afternoon sunlight and across the broad quarterdeck, to the forward rail, overlooking the main deck. Activity stretched out below them as sailors got the ship in trim to sail, but Tory neither saw nor heard any of it. Her entire attention was fastened on the tall, bareheaded figure in shirtsleeves and waistcoat loitering at the foot of the ladder down to the deck. Well, not loitering, exactly. Jack was staring up at the rail as if he meant to burn a hole in it — especially when Tory appeared, all but mummified in her bridal whites.

She cast a loathing glance at Matty, calmly waiting by her side. Had there ever been a less willing bride in the history of marriage? How could Jack not see the truth of it? But look at how he'd reacted to her improvised tale of Captain Lightfoot. Even after all this time, how could he still believe she could ever betray him like this? But Tory feared that he might. And indeed, he must, she must make him believe it.

But how could she choose between saving Jack's life and breaking his heart?

She could not bear to look into his face. Even from this distance, the hunger and longing and pain and confusion she read there were exactly the things she felt. How could she lie to Jack? But how could she not? Like a sleepwalker, she moved to the end of the rail near the top of the ladder where Jack waited at the foot. She could see his impulse was to spring up the ladder to her, as hers was to flee down to him, but he was waiting for a signal.

"Rusty," was all he said.

"Where have you been?" It was out before she could stop it, and in the instant she saw him wince in response, she knew which tack she must take. "Two weeks without a word, Jack. Not knowing if you were alive or dead."

"I'm so sorry," he began, "it will never —"

But she could not let him speak, could not allow him to persuade her away from her resolve. He would hang himself with every word.

"It's too late," she told him, "far too late for all that. I can't live that gypsy life any more. I tried, for your sake, I really did. But I need a . . . husband with . . . prospects. And a steady income. I need a home, Jack. In America, where I belong."

How could flames not come shooting out of her mouth with each of these lies? And yet she must convince Jack. She could not fail him. She must say whatever she had to to get him off this ship now, while he was still a free man.

Jack peered up at her from the foot of the ladder, as if sifting through the layers of deception floating around her like her gauzy wedding gown. "And Matty will give you these things?"

No, you great lummox! she wanted to scream. But instead, she opened out her arms somewhat as if to display her gown. "We are on our way to the chapel."

Jack only nodded slowly. "I'm very sorry that I have wronged you," he said at last, with such quiet resignation, Tory wanted to rip out her tongue. "It was never, ever my intention to hurt you, Rusty. I hope you know that. Only tell me that this is what you want — " And here, Jack's voice almost broke, for all his quiet resolve " —and I shall leave you in peace."

Matty had come up beside her, the same bland, cocksure smile on his face. The face of her future. But if that was the price she must pay for Jack's life, so be it. The two Marines from below had moved to the other end of the quarterdeck and hustled down the ladder on the opposite side to take up a position on deck. Another four were stationed amidships at the rail where Jack must have climbed aboard; she could just see the prow of a little boat below.

"This is my choice." She dared not even tell him she was sorry, for fear her real feelings would tumble out and betray her, betray them both. What a fickle, heartless little chit he must think her now. But he would live to think it.

Jack had always been so expert at hiding his feelings, but not this time. Tory might as well have stabbed him in the heart from his expression as he retreated one step back from the ladder, then another. The memory of the false words burned inside her mouth like grapeshot, rattled down her parched throat, sickened her insides, until she thought she would die of them. She prayed that she would. By all the gods, she wished she'd died before she ever saw such a look on Jack's face — and knew that she had caused it.

Every atom in her body was shrieking in protest as Jack turned away in utter defeat and started back across the deck and out of her life forever. Clutching the rail as if the sea were pitching beneath them, Tory had to struggle against the urge to fly off after him. But however much it hurt, this was the last thing she would ever be able to do for him, to let him walk away with his life.

Unless — Jack's life was not really at stake.

This renegade thought hit her like a broadside. If Matty were so hell-bent on getting Jack hung for a pirate, why not clap him in irons the minute he'd come aboard? Especially if Matty had already sworn a statement against him in London. And why go to all the bother of sealing that document for future use? If that part were even true; she knew what Matty's word was worth.

The truth was that Matty had as much to fear from the past as they did. And twice as much to lose. His only possible motive for threatening Jack was to snare her into marriage. That's what this was really about, a way to pay off his creditors and wriggle out from under the thumb of his father. Matty needed a wife to gain the rest of his inheritance, and he would pluck the one Fortune had dropped in his lap, the one woman on earth from whom he had no need to hide his murky past, from whom no drunken slip of the tongue would ever evoke suspicion or alarm. Or exposure. Why go to the trouble of wooing when Tory was so available? If he couldn't charm her, he would simply buy her, in the only coin that mattered to her — Jack's safety.

She knew Matty would have no scruples about sacrificing Jack's life if it profited him in some way. But there was nothing in it for Matty if he couldn't use Jack as leverage to force her into marriage. And once she was Matty's wife, he would own her, as Crowder had owned Jenny. If she were yoked to Matty in holy wedlock, there would be nothing at all to prevent him laying an accusation against Jack at any future time that it suited him, and buying witnesses to support it. Jack would always be an inconvenient detail, a potential threat to his glorious future that would be in Matty's best interest to be rid of. And what would stop him? Tory could not even act as a witness in a counter-charge between the two of them, since her opinion, like her body, her income, and legal status, would then be owned by her husband.

Indeed, only marriage to Tory would provide Matty with a solid reason to get rid of Jack. But Matty would never dare accuse Jack of piracy if he didn't first control Tory in marriage. She was the key to everything! Jack's future was in far more danger if she married Matty than otherwise. To say nothing of her own.

She glanced at Matty's face, beaming in his victory. And Jack was just fool enough to believe this charade. She would never, ever see Jack again, and he would spend the rest of his life convinced that she had betrayed him. And she would spend the rest of her life imprisoned by a man who cared nothing for her, for whom she was simply a means to an end. The only way to scuttle Matty's plan, and the danger he posed, was for her to escape the noose of matrimony. Tory had been sold into slavery once in the islands. She had no intention of letting it happen again.

Jack was already halfway down the deck to the boat. Tory knew she could not simply run off with him; that would force Matty to make good on his threat, or at least run that risk. And whether or not there was a sworn, sealed statement up in London somewhere, the Marines on this ship were all too real, and ready to obey Matty's command. No, she must somehow convince Matty — in the few seconds left to her —that she no longer cared for Jack, that Jack's life could not be used as leverage against her. At the same time, she must let Jack know the truth. It would be easier to get them both off this damned ship with Jack's help than without it.

She could not slip into Spanish; Matty was as fluent in that tongue as they were, and it would do none of them any good to start prattling away like a pack of Cuban pirates. She must find another language that Matty didn't know.

The language of the theatre.

 

"How much longer did you think I'd be content to wait around for you?" she called after Jack from the top of the ladder. "You juggler! You canker-blossom!"

That halted Jack's progress. He turned slowly to look back up at her, but his face was still wretched. "I know how hard it was for you, Rusty, but — "

"Toads, beetles, bats, light on you!" she cried in genuine exasperation. "You've always loved the theatre more than me. Admit it!"

Jack was staring at her now, so Tory pressed on, willing him to hear her words for what they were: a performance. She chanced a step down the ladder. "You may seem to repent now, but I know you are an ass head and a coxcomb and a knave, and your words mean nothing!" She said it with enough fury that Matty remained where he was at the rail, watching her with benevolent approval.

Still peering up at her, Jack came one step back in her direction. "Nay, Madam, I know not seems," he said carefully. "It's you who speaks an infinite deal of nothing."

"You hard-hearted adamant!" Tory cried, struggling to keep her voice stern, despite the little tick of hope in her heart, as she descended one more step. "I do repent the tedious minutes I with you have spent!"

"Ah, frailty, thy name is woman!" Jack rounded on her, sidestepping the nearest hatch coaming as he came back toward her, and Tory seized the moment to flounce down the rest of the ladder steps, as if to defend herself from his verbal assault. "I know you for an irksome, brawling scold!"

"You bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog!" she retorted, almost gleefully. Of course, they were mixing up the plays now, but she could depend on no one noticing, unless Matty had hired a crew of Shakespearean scholars. Or actors. A quick glance around showed her that work had pretty much ceased on deck at this unexpected interruption. Hammers had stilled, canvas hung in mid-reef, sailors clung to the rigging like barnacles, watching. Those on deck had even backed away into a ragged circle, even the Marines where Jack had climbed aboard, clearing a space for the "performance" to go on — a space near the rail, above the boat. Jack saw it too, and backed up accordingly.

"Dissembling harlot!" he all but spit at her, although his body language drew her forward. "Thou art false in all!"

"How am I false?" she cried, as they circled each other. "You've known exactly how I felt about Matty ever since the Gallo Rojo!"

It might be a risk to mention the little cantina on the island of Porto Rico where Matty had claimed her maidenhood so many years ago. But she doubted that Matty even remembered the incident — an idle wager on his part, nothing more —and, indeed, nothing appeared to alter in his posture where he still stood on the quarterdeck, watching them. But it meant something to Jack, a kindling in his dark eyes only she would have noticed.

"Away! Thou art poison to my blood!" he shouted, marching forward again, but away from her, with such aggravated preoccupation, even the Marines fell away before him to give him room.

"Devil damn ye black, thou cream-faced loon!" she yelped after him as she came abreast of the mizzen chains, where the lines were fastened to the rail. Chancing the merest peep over the side to gauge where the boat was, she had to stifle another cry at the men at the oars staring up at her — Mr. Delaney, Kit, Tom Ashbrook, and Alphonse.

Jack saw that she saw them, and came about on the instant, circling back toward her with such menace, she was backed up nearly to the rail. "Farewell, fair cruelty!" he cried as he passed her. But he kept on going, several paces aft again, where Matty had now come halfway down the ladder to get a better view. This was their usual trick to enlarge their performance area, and the circle of onlookers obligingly widened again. Even Matty paused mid-ladder. But the sight of Jack marching toward him with such purpose seemed to dissolve some of Matty's complacency; to her horror, Tory saw Matty raise one hand slightly to signal the two Marines at the foot of the other ladder, as Jack roared up at him, "You can keep the hellcat, Forrester, and good riddance!"

"I'll show you good riddance, you damned mountebank!" Tory shouted after him. Catching up both sides of her skirts with a vicious yank to pull out the loose stitches, she ran after him, crying, "Don't you dare turn your back on me! I'll have my satisfaction!"

Jack half-turned back to her, an instant of genuine surprise on his face. Behind him, Tory saw Matty move to the bottom of the ladder as the two Marines began to hurry across the deck toward them. With a last, desperate lunge, she grabbed Jack's arm, and hauled him back toward her, toward the middle of the rail, yelling, "Rat-catcher, will you walk? Turn and draw!"

Matty was frowning now, the Marines closing in. It took all of Tory's will to let go of Jack's arm as she backed up again to the mizzen chains. But he took the cue and came after her, shouting "A dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!"

"Braggart! Rogue! Villain!" Tory taunted him, grabbing a line. Hoisting herself up on the chock at the base of the rail, as if to be better heard, she cried, "A plague on both your houses! I'm quit of the two of you!" Her backside found the rail, she slung her skirts wide, and rolled over the side.

Her hem caught in the balustrades, ripping out a section of skirt, and her knee barked painfully against the hull, but she was quick enough to grab at the chains going over, clinging there long enough to see Jack's head and shoulders appear at the rail above her. Thrusting one hand up to pull him after her, she heard Matty bellowing something above, saw the four Marines in the bows charging down the rail, but in one swift, smooth motion, Jack swung himself over the rail and launched himself out into the water beyond the boat.

Tory braced where she was for gunfire, but despite the cacophony of raised voices up on deck, the shouting and orders, no shots were fired. And she saw Matty's threats for the empty bluster they were. Despite his respectability, and the very old family name he valued so highly, he had no power to order his guard to fire on an unarmed man for stealing his bride.

She dangled for an instant longer, until her bare feet found purchase against the hull, and she scuttled downward toward the boat. Strong hands were guiding her feet, then her legs, and she was grappled inboard by the men in the boat, just as Matty's head appeared over the rail. His expression was livid. But even as the others were closing ranks around Tory, setting her down on a middle thwart, she stood again, one hand on Kit's shoulder and one on Tom's, as Delaney began to heel the boat away from Hotspur.  

"Sorry, Captain," she shouted up to Matty. "I'm afraid my bridal nerves got the best of me!"

She tensed for him to make some veiled threat about the sealed document,  his face told her he was primed to retort, but by now the rail was lined with the faces of curious men, and not all of them were peering at her. Matty made an effort to compose himself, to alter his glare into a wan smirk.

"Fortunate for me I saw you as . . . the hellcat you are!" he cried after her, as if the scene on deck had been his idea from the start, and the trough of water widened between his ship and her boat.

And that was all. Matty wrenched himself away from the rail and was stomping back to his quarterdeck, barking orders to make sail, as Kit and Tom helped her regain her seat. Coming about, she thought she saw a dark head, like a seal, emerge farther out in the water. Tom and Kit moved back to take up their oars and Alphonse scooted to the side. A moment later, the oarsmen paused, Alphonse reached over the side, the boat dipped, and Jack was pulled inboard in a cascade of water. Tory was near enough to get pretty well drenched, but she grabbed at Jack, soggy as he was, and steered him to a perch on the thwart beside her.

"Mountebank?" Jack yelped at her, when he caught his breath.

"Hellcat?" she fired back. "Harlot?"

Jack shook his hair out of his eyes. "Hoyden," he said.

"Idiot," she murmured.

"Bruja," he breathed.

In the next instant, he was kissing her as hungrily, deeply, as they had ever kissed each other in their lives. All Tory knew was Jack's strong embrace cradling her close, his mouth on hers, the familiar curve of his body beneath his wet clothes. Her Jack. Back at last.

She kissed him until she finally had to ease back to draw breath. Then she fetched Jack a resounding clap on his cheek.

"That's on account, in case you are ever again fool enough to believe I could ever willingly choose Matty Forrester over you!"

Jack rubbed his cheek, grinning at her. "Hellfire, I've missed you, Rusty!"

 

 

Top: Hellcat Bride, © Lisa Jensen, 2023

Above right: 19th Century sailing ship, stock image

Above left: Colombina and Harlequin,  Hekman Digital Archive

CHAPTER 44: Old Shipmates

 "Nothing," sighed Kit's friend, Mr. Delaney. "Not a trace of her anywhere. I searched all day."

Jenny could well believe it. Normally, the fellow fairly oozed robust health and good cheer, but this morning he looked as if he hadn't slept all night. No more had Kit, she supposed, nor any of them in the three days since Tory had disappeared.

Delaney took a long, grateful draught from the coffee mug Kit had pushed across the table to him, when he'd found them all here at the Blue Fox; Lord only knew what method of transport he'd found to carry him up from Bristol an hour before noon. Kit was already washing his down with a glass of brandy, to steel himself for whatever else Fate had in store for them today.
    
"I inquired at one or two lodging houses I know in Bristol," Delaney went on. "A few chop houses, lest she come in looking for a meal. Or employment. And, uh —your pardon, Mrs. Kennett — a house of ill repute of my acquaintance — "

"Oh, I can't believe it!" Jenny exclaimed.

"Just in case she was taken off against her will," Delaney apologized. "Such things do happen, I'm afraid. But no one answering her description has been seen."

"Of course, we must try every avenue," Kit agreed. Jenny knew it distressed him to see his friend so tired and drawn, just as Delaney was shocked to see Kit's permanently furrowed and anxious expression. Under better circumstances, they would be comforting each other in private, but there was no comfort for any of them any more.

She'd even given up going to the paint room at night, out of guilt, she supposed, or just in case Tory suddenly returned to their lodgings as she had left them, in the dead of night. Poor Tom was all but camping out on her doorstep overnight, for fear the same fate might befall her. Now he sat across the little table from her, having moved over one chair to make way for Mr. Delaney. Tom's wheatstraw hair was even more disordered than usual; eyes tired behind his spectacles, he was toying idly with his own small tankard. None of them had thought to order food, after a fruitless morning trying to figure out how to stage The Tempest without Prospero and Ariel, and Pizarro without Cora or Rolla.

They had resurrected a moldering old Gothic melodrama for Mr. Foyle, and a couple of society farces whose parts their reduced company could be stretched to fill, but they couldn't expect to draw much of a house. Kit's only hope now was to eke out the final four performances in their contract with funds enough to pay off the company before it inevitably disbanded. There had been no further instructions from Mr. Belair since he'd written to tell Kit that he and Jack were detained in the capitol, and while they were all glad of Jack's success, they could not pay their creditors with it.

"I stopped in at the Theatre Royal as well, gave the name of Mrs. Lightfoot. But no such person has applied to the management for employment." Delaney fortified himself with more coffee. "Reckon I'm off to the Theatre Royal in Bath next — "

"My dear, spare yourself," sighed Kit. "I was there yesterday, and with the same result, I'm afraid."

The fragile possibility that Tory had been unhappy enough to seek employment elsewhere seemed increasingly remote. Had she been despondent enough to seek a more drastic, more permanent release? No, Jenny would never believe it. There were other ways to react to a disappointing husband, as Jenny well knew, and even though Mr. Belair had written that Jack had somehow been prevented from writing all that time, Tory had not known that, poor girl. Jenny had only to remember Tory's careworn face on the last night she saw her, all but chasing Jenny out of their lodgings. What had been going through her mind? What would Jenny herself have done?

Jenny had imagined Jack's homecoming so often, and how eager she would be to give him the benefit of her opinion, that when a familiar tall, dark figure came suddenly striding into the Blue Fox, she might have conjured him up out of the ether. It was only the speed with which Tom and Delaney and Kit all leapt to their feet, upsetting chairs and table linens in all directions, that convinced Jenny it really was Jack rushing over to their table, with Mr. Belair at his side.

"Jack!" "Lord God, man!" "What the devil . . ?" the others were crying. But Jenny sprang up to plow through the confusion and throw her arms around Jack.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

He returned her embrace fiercely for an instant, then held her out again at arm's length, but all he said was, "Has she come back?"

And Jenny could only shake her head.

"Sit!" Kit commanded, hauling over another chair for Jack, while Delaney secured one for Belair.

But Jack was too agitated, hovering above their table as they all recovered their seats. "We've been sitting in that blasted carriage for hours," he told them. "I can't . . . I must . . . " He could not even articulate what he wanted, but it was plain on his face.

"Jack, sit," said Kit, more gently. "We have been searching for three days. Another five minutes won't make any difference."

So Jack sat, wrapped up in his old redingote, holding it to himself as if to ward off any more distress, while Alphonse apologized for their delay in returning to Kelsingham. They should have come the moment they received Kit's letter, he told them, but that Jack had been obliged to perform last night for the King of England.

"Not Prinney himself!" cried Kit.  "Good God, the man is practically a recluse! Did he —"

But Jack waved off any further inquiry after his illustrious patron. "Has there been no word?" he begged them. "When was she last seen?"

All eyes turned to Jenny, but it was Tom, now sitting beside her, who spoke.

"It was the night after Kit's ben," he told Jack. "I went to meet Jenny at the lodging house and escort her back to the playhouse. Tory came downstairs to see us off. As usual."

"Usual?" echoed Belair, who turned to frown at Kit. "Did you know this was going on?"

"Forgive me, Mr. Belair, but yes, I did." Kit sighed. "Well, I couldn't see the harm. Jenny was never unescorted, not one step of the way. And no one had made any threats against Tory, not as far as anybody knew."

"And now?" asked Jack.

"No threats," said Kit distinctly. "No ransom demands, no communication of any kind. When Jenny returned — "

"I can speak for myself," Jenny broke in at last, and the men exchanged sheepish glances around the table. As much as she loved them all, it was clear they didn't even realize how their zeal to protect their women, herself and Tory, to shield them from any kind of unpleasantness, robbed them of the power, much less the wit, to think and act for themselves.

"Yes, I had been spending my nights in the playhouse," she told them, without further elaboration; they all understood why. "Tory came downstairs to see me off every evening and let me in at the door in the morning. I wasn't even going to go out that last night, Tory had been so miserable, but she wouldn't hear of me staying in. When we came back in the morning, the door was unlatched, but Tory wasn't downstairs. Or upstairs, either. Her bed had not been slept in." Jenny shook her head. "There was absolutely no sign of any sort of struggle. She'd taken her cloak. She was simply gone."

Jack was staring at her. "She was miserable?" he whispered.

"We none of us knew where you were," Jenny told him gently. "It had been more than a week."

Now the other men chimed in about the searches they had made through Kelsingham, Bath and Bristol, and bandied about their theories like so many dandelion puffs on the breeze.

"And she never said anything?" Jack asked. "To anyone?"

"Well," said Jenny reluctantly, "only one time when she said she feared you'd gone off to your mistress —"

"What?"

"She meant the theatre!" Jenny explained quickly. "She wasn't serious."

Jack shook his head. "But she said it. She must have believed it. And who could blame her?"

Jenny saw Kit looking at her pointedly now. Jack was sharp enough to see it too. "What else?" he prompted her.

With an inward sigh, Jenny plunged in. "I saw a gentleman speaking to Tory outside the playhouse on the night of Kit's ben. Not someone I recognized, I should have remembered; good-looking young fellow, fair-haired, when he doffed his hat, rather attractive. She didn't come out with us that evening, and she seemed distracted all the next day. And that night . . . " Jenny ended with a shrug.

Jack frowned. "Did no one else see him?"

"I did," Kit spoke up, "or someone similar, when I took Tory out for a glass at the coaching inn the previous evening. Hearty-looking young buck, favored a lot of brass. I shouldn't have thought twice about him, but for the way Tory seemed to turn to stone at the sight of him."    

Something indescribable jolted across Jack's expression. The power of speech appeared to have deserted him entirely until Mr. Belair leaned in beside him at the table and put a steadying hand on Jack's arm.

"You cannot imagine, after all this time that this person was . . . what was his name? Forrester —"

"Not Captain Forrester!" Mr. Delaney piped up. "Of Forrester and Clemmons Shipping?"

"You know him?" Jack stared at Delaney.
    
"I know his ship, Hotspur. She's taking on lading in Bristol Harbor. I've been rowing cargo out to her for days."

Jack was on his feet. "She's there now?"

"Aye, she was this morning," said Delaney. "But she's due to set off on the evening tide. For America."



 

"Boat approaching, sir!"

Matty crossed to the port side of Hotspur's quarterdeck to look in the direction his second officer indicated. He tried to keep the trepidation out of his face as he peered over the side at the low boat threading its way among the large commercial ships rising like a thicket of proud, gaudy trees in the middle of Bristol's Floating Harbor. But Hotspur stood further out than most of the others, toward the center of the channel, away from the quays on either side, and there was little doubt the boat was heading for them.

His plan was going splendidly so far. He would drag Tory Lightfoot to the altar in chains if need be, and there would finally be an end to it. Yes, it had been a damned bother to have to idle here for the seven days required by law to establish his residency, but even Reverend Kirkwell, as indebted as he was to the Forresters, was unwilling to waive all the formalities. Fellow told him seven days was the legal minimum; in most cases, it required two to four weeks to claim residency in the parish, and Matty certainly didn't have that kind of time to spare. Kirkwell had implied that the match might not stand up in a court of law otherwise, so Matty had to agree to a seven-day wait, beginning last week when he'd first sailed Hotspur into port, and a ceremony in the church. But all would come right as soon as the tide shifted this evening and they could finally be away from here.

The only thing that might stand in his way now was Crowder. Matty knew the crusty old lubber kept an office here in Bristol, so he had taken great pains not to be seen about town, nor anywhere in the neighborhood of Queen Square, when he was supposed to be in London, laying an information against Jack. According to his informants, Jack was still in the capitol, playing at Drury Lane, so Crowder should have no reason to suspect his plan was not still brewing.

But if Crowder had got wind somehow that Matty was in fact in Bristol, there would be hell to pay. It was one thing for Hotspur to be seen in the harbor; it was perfectly normal for her to take on lading here while her captain was off about other business. But if it was brought to Crowder's attention that Hotspur was departing tonight, and her captain aboard her . . . well, it might be a sticky situation all around. And here he had only an hour or two left in port, and then he'd never have to do Crowder's bidding again.

Matty had never seen Crowder in any kind of vessel on the water, he doubted the fellow was the nautical type, but he took the spyglass from his second to train on the boat. All he saw at first were the backs of two oarsmen, and perhaps another couple of fellows in the bows, but none had Crowder's solid, imposing bulk, so Matty breathed a little easier. Then the stern-most oarsmen turned his head partway around to see the way before him, and Matty recognized him: that curly-haired mulatto from one of the cargo boats he'd been using this week.

Matty shut the spyglass and gave it back to his second. He wasn't expecting any more lading; the hold was secured and his men were locking down the hatches. But it occurred to him that one of his other merchant suppliers might have sent him a message regarding his cargo, and he thought he'd better find out what it was. So when the boat hailed Hotspur, he told his officer to allow the messenger to board, then he turned away for the ladder.

By the time he'd trotted down to the deck, and spoken to a couple of his men about their preparations to depart, Matty turned to find the messenger, or whatever he was, had already come aboard amidships. He was mariner enough to have climbed the chains on his own and hopped over the rail, although he was dressed in civilian clothes, a plain, dark waistcoat and trousers, shirtsleeves, no jacket or hat. Far too tall and lanky for Crowder, Matty was glad to see, or that insufferable little solicitor who was always hovering at his elbow.

Still, after a moment of peering around the ship to get his bearings, there was something familiar about the way the fellow came striding down the deck toward Matty. The nimble way he sidestepped all obstructions and kept his balance. No, this was not Crowder.

It was Jack.

For someone who'd been hauled off the Blesséd Providence like a corpse the last time they'd met, Jack looked alarmingly substantial to Matty. His clothing looked like it had been slept in, and there was a shadow of beard on his cheek, but the unsettling focus in those dark eyes was exactly as Matty remembered. He decided in a heartbeat it would be useless to pretend not to know why Jack was there. And what could Jack do about it, anyway? This was Matty's own ship and crew, with a small company of Marines at his command. He was captain here.

Even if Jack were foolhardy enough to draw against him — not that he appeared to be armed — Matty knew he was by far the better swordsman. Jack's weapon had always been the agility with which he avoided combat, and the staff with which he disarmed their foes. Danzador, they called him; he didn't fight, he danced. So Matty squared his shoulders and faced his old shipmate.

"Where is she?" said Jack, without preamble.

"Safe," Matty replied.

"Of course, you know about it," Jack muttered. "I suppose she's on this ship."

Matty felt somehow that he had given ground, but he'd soon set things to rights. "I assure you, my crew will allow no misfortune whatsoever to befall my bride."

Matty was keen to see the effect of these words, but Jack gazed coolly back at him, eyes dark and flinty as volcanic rock.

"I want to see her."

"But perhaps she does not want to see you." Matty suggested.

"Why don't we ask her?" said Jack.

"I could have you thrown off this ship," Matty pointed out quietly. He was suddenly very aware that activity had stilled all around them, that he and Jack were suddenly the focus of everyone's attention, no matter how much his crew were trying to pretend otherwise.

"But why would you?" Jack fenced back. "If you are telling the truth."

Damn the fellow! Now it was a question of Matty's honor, not merely his power to run his ship any way he pleased. Attempting to stare down this troublesome acrobat would be fruitless, Matty knew, and yet it occurred to him there might still be a way to turn this intrusion to his advantage. He was running short on time, and this might be the perfect, perhaps the only way to insure that his plans could continue unimpeded. If Tory's appearance was needed to get rid of Jack, once and for all time, he would see to it that she played her part well.

"As you wish." Matty smiled.

 

 

Top: Jack is in no mood for any more delays. Federico eagle vision, by WisesnailArt, Deviant Art, 2013.
https://www.deviantart.com/wisesnailart/art/Federico-eagle-vision-369464625

Above: Bristol Docks . . . Quayside, William Matthew Hale, ca. 1880