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
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