Warm water lapped at her toes, then caressed the arch of her foot. It came higher, a warm, damp trail along her leg, sweet and urgent as a mouth, making wet, lazy patterns up the inner curve of her thigh, teasing, exploring. She shuddered as strong hands cupped her and her hips rose, straining against that hungry mouth, cradling that dark head in her lap.
Jack.
His kisses were moving up over her belly. She glimpsed his dark, merry eyes and his crooked grin before he lowered his face again and his mouth was on her, again, murmuring over her, nibbling, sucking. She was as taut as kindling, ready to ignite, the warm, heavy weight of his body rocking up and back and up, and her own body arched upwards and she locked her legs around him and groaned.
And the sun and the heat and the sand and Jack all melted into shadows and Tory was lying alone in the dark. All that was left was a hard, hot, aching knot between her legs, a deep, gaping tumor of longing. The little wooden day-bed was creaking under her, the linens soaked in sweat. She stared hard into the blackness at the grey square of window above her, trying to get her bearings. Above the roar of her own blood in her ears, she heard voices, living voices nearby, soft, sharp whispers in the dark.
"Dreaming of her poor, dead husband, I suppose," came an eager voice she recognized as Violet Owen's.
Hellfire, were they still awake, Violet and Mrs. Kennett? Had she cried out in her sleep? Had she spoken Jack’s name? It was difficult enough to dissemble every waking minute of the day, must she tell lies in her sleep, as well? Tory was not actress enough to bear it much longer. How was she to sleep, now, slow her racing heartbeat, quell the longing inside? It was a physical pain, now, like a punch in the belly, she’d need a dose of physick to get rid of it. But she made herself lie still, straining to hear what the others were saying.
"Did you hear her groan?" Violet tittered.
"I expect they heard it in Bristol."
"It must be awful to lose a husband so young."
"Oh, it might have been worse," Mrs. Kennett murmured. "He might have lingered on another thirty years until she grew thoroughly sick of him."
"Sssh, Jenny, what if she heard you?"
"She won’t. See, she’s dropped off, again."
"Fancy her coming all the way back from America, after. To be with her brother."
"Who else would have her, a widow with no income?" Mrs. Kennett reasoned. "Although, I confess, I’d cross an ocean or two for such a brother."
"Would you? Our Mr. Dance?"
"Quite a tasty specimen. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed, Owen."
"Why . . . it’s not as if he were truly handsome, like Kit . . ."
"No mortal is. Still, there’s a life lived in that face. To say nothing of the rest."
"He does have rather romantic eyes," giggled the younger woman. "And such a voice! When he cries, ‘I would my tears let fall upon your cheek,’ I get a fever, I really do!"
"Eyes, voice, tears," scoffed Mrs. Kennett. "That’s for poets. I like the cut of his legs. I pine to see him in tights."
"Jenny!"
It irritated Tory to hear Jack discussed in pieces, like a slave on the auction block. He was more than parts to her, her other half, her compañero, the partner of her soul. She didn’t like to hear him verbally dismembered, like something on display in a butcher shop.
"He’s been all round the mulberry bush a time or two, depend upon it," Jenny Kennett went on. "I like a man who knows what he’s about. D’you suppose he has any interesting birthmarks?"
Tory swallowed a desperate sigh as the women giggled again. What if she told them of the little mole on Jack’s chest, over his heart? What would they make of the grid of pale flogging scars that disfigured his back, how romantic would they find those? And yet, she would have forfeit her wages for a year just to feel the seamed flesh of Jack’s back under her fingertips right this moment. Was he still having his old nightmares? What would he do when she wasn’t beside him to chase the bad dreams away?
And what would she do now, if that predatory Mrs. Kennett set her sights on Jack? Or one of the other ladies; that Miss Bishop, the dancer, was a fair, pretty little thing. Jack was perfectly capable of defending himself, but would he want to? He must be lonely, too. Tory bit down on her tongue to smother another groan and turned over in the comfortless little bed, far too miserable now to sleep.
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Jack was glad enough to relinquish the English Harlequin and his simpering dance steps to Henry Harding as the holiday season grew near and they performed the pantomime more frequently. The great Kean had begun as Harlequin, of course, but Jack still felt a fool playing Harlequin in dance slippers, especially with Tory watching from the wings with that appalled look on her face. But Harding had his fans, and the pantos were popular. Then too, Harlequin's half-mask disguised the worst of Harding's face as his bruises healed and he began to resume his usual roles.
Tonight, as happened too often of late when he thought of Tory, Jack loitered downstairs at the Blue Fox until he saw Alphonse go up to their room so his friend wouldn't see him wasting coin on a pint in the tavern. He was heading toward the shadowy end of the bar for his nightly wallow in self-pity when two of the other gentlemen players strolled into the room. Young Mr. Bell nodded to him, but the more effusive Mr. Plumleigh waved him over, so Jack swallowed a sigh, took up his glass and joined them at the bar.
"Mr. Dance, we require a third opinion!" Plumleigh hailed him, before signaling to the barman.
"Yes, which of Harding's fictions do you find most plausible?" purred Bell.
"I . . . scarcely know the man," Jack said diplomatically. Nor had he spared much thought, let alone concern, over what may have befallen him.
"Cherish your good fortune for as long as it lasts," said Mr. Bell.
"Oh, come, lad, Hen isn't as bad as all that," Plumleigh chuckled. "Perhaps a bit over fond of the card rooms. I've known him to hire a gig and drive to Bath in the middle of the night for a game." He turned again to Bell. "So, you see, he might well have been robbed of his winnings."
"If he had any," countered Bell.
"He's not fortunate at cards?" Jack asked, just to be saying something. He didn't know what interested him less, Henry Harding or backstage gossip in general.
"Hen? Swears his debts will be the ruin of him!" Plumleigh laughed, with a genial wave of his tankard.
"I believe they very nearly were," said Bell, with an elegant sip from his glass. "The blows of a jealousy-maddened husband should have been far less precise."
Jack wondered idly what young Mr. Bell could possibly know of either blows or jealous husbands. "But it makes for a better story," he suggested, "casting himself as the reckless seducer?"
"Oh, that part is perfectly true," said Plumleigh. "No member of the fair sex is safe around Henry Harding."
If possible, Jack felt even more miserable.
"As a victim of sheer chance, I throw myself upon your mercy, Mr. Fairweather." Henry Harding shifted forward in his chair opposite the manager’s desk in the tiny cupboard off the prop room Fairweather called his office. "Of course, I should hate for any hint of shabbiness to reflect poorly on this company."
"Your concern is commendable, sir," said Fairweather. "But a theatrical company operates on a kind of speculation, every cost accounted against probable returns at the box office. It is a very delicate balance. A larger salary for you now the season has begun would have to be siphoned off from some other legitimate expense that might ill afford the loss."
"You found a surplus when you hired Dance and his crew."
"That was a calculated risk against the catastrophic loss we would certainly incur should we fail to perform Twelfth Night at the request of our patron. In any event, they are satisfied with very little. You request a great deal."
"But have I not cause?" Harding urged.
Fairweather refrained from pointing out that arriving late for the season in deplorable condition, scarcely fit to go onstage, was more likely cause for a fine than a raise in salary. Instead, he said, "You have been ill-used, Mr. Harding. But even if we were to sell out the playhouse every night for the next four weeks, I could not spare what you ask. We should all be turned out of doors. But I am willing to offer you a benefit night, and as soon as you like."
Harding cast down his eyes, mulling it over, as Fairweather waited. An industrious player might make much of his ben, the night all profits were turned over to him, after house expenses. In general, the earliest bens in the season were reserved for the brightest stars in the company’s firmament, a Richard Gabriel or a George Plumleigh, before the company’s presence grew stale in the town. The manager hoped Harding understood the generosity of his offer. He knew he risked discord among the other gentlemen players to make it.
"I . . . I will take it," Harding murmured, at last.
"Splendid! Let us decide upon your parts. A comedy for the main, I would imagine, with perhaps a harlequinade to follow, to display your dancing — "
"I . . . have something different in mind," Harding interrupted. "With your permission, sir."
"Why, a player chooses his own parts for his ben, of course."
"Then I desire to play Mercutio for my main piece."
Fairweather struggled not to respond with outright dismay. "Romeo And Juliet, eh? Not quite what the public expects from a fellow in the light comedy line, is it?"
"But that is the very thing. I wish to broaden my line. Mercutio is a comic sort of fellow, after all. A great deal of dancing may be got out of his swordfights."
Fairweather bit back his protest. Harding was accustomed to playing Tybalt, another athletic role whose text was not terribly demanding. Mercutio was something else, again. "Perhaps," the manager spoke at last. "But successful bens present the player to advantage in his best-known parts. You risk much, Mr. Harding."
"All of life is a gamble, Mr. Fairweather."
"Very well, then. But we shall have to re-cast. As you know, Mr. Bell is our usual Mercutio." Fairweather frowned down at his desk another moment before the idea occurred to him. "But, of course! I shall put Mr. Bell in for Romeo!"
Harding’s face clouded on the instant. "But that is your part."
"Only when Mrs. F is fit for Juliet, which she most certainly is not, at present. Indeed, it’s high time we stepped aside to try Mr. Bell and Miss Owen in those roles. Oh, yes, that will do very well!"
"But you own Romeo! I could not think of depriving you!"
"Come, sir, Mr. Bell shall draw a much larger house than myself in the role."
"But a house full of what?" Harding leaned forward in a confidential manner. "Miscreants and other debauchees? Not to speak ill, but you know what he is."
"Pish, Mr. Bell is wildly popular with the ladies, as well as with gentlemen of a certain, er, character. The more the merrier, eh, Mr. Harding? It is your ben, after all."
"Exactly so. I don’t want a house full of Bell’s admirers."
Fairweather looked at him with stark incredulity.
"Any house that pays is a house you want, sir."
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