Mistress Firebrand

by Donna Thorland

  There came a groan and then a catcall from the gallery. Severin reached for the sword at his hip and glanced quickly over at Courtney Fairchild, who was also readying his weapon. If this was the prelude to a plot, a planned incitement intended to start a riot, then Severin was lucky to have encountered this stalwart friend of his youth. Say what you like about Courtney—he’d always had a cool head.

  An apple core landed on the stage at Frances Leighton’s feet, and beside him Fairchild made a noise that sounded awfully like a snarl. An empty bottle struck one of the flats beside the Divine Fanny’s head and clattered to the ground. Nothing broke in upon her perfect composure.

  The mood of the crowd was balanced on a knife’s edge. Their attention was focused on Frances Leighton, but it would be easy—all too easy—to turn it elsewhere, to focus it on the royal box and the representatives of the Crown within. Severin readied for an attack.

  It didn’t come.

  Instead, a girl entered stage right. She was barefoot and her slender curves were outlined in buff breeches and silk stays. Her copper hair tumbled free over her back. Severin judged her to be in her middle twenties. Her body was so graceful that she appeared to glide to Frances Leighton.

  With a start Severin realized that she was the same actress who had played the mousy maid and the younger son and the trilling neighbor, transformed—or, more accurately, revealed.

  “Forgive me, fair Calista,” she said, dropping to one knee, “if I presume, on privilege of friendship, to join my grief to yours, and mourn the evils that hurt your peace, and quench those eyes in tears.”

  She went on in her low, mellow voice, entreating Frances Leighton to share her burdens. The rabble in the gallery quieted, and listened, rapt, to this girl.

  Severin watched her coax the Divine Fanny off the stage. A lump rose in his throat. His world had been sharp edges and hard corners for too long. He wished he had been in Frances Leighton’s place, wished that the girl had been addressing him. Stripped bare by catharsis, Severin could not deny what he felt. He craved that kind of understanding and solicitude.

  Especially since Boston.

  The play resumed, without the Divine Fanny. Another actress of similar height appeared in her striped gown, or one very like it, and assumed the role.

  As for the fascinating girl: she returned to the stage three more times. Before, she had been unremarkable, almost invisible. Now Severin couldn’t help but notice her.

  And want to meet her.

  He was not the sort of man to court actresses. He knew fantasy from reality. It didn’t matter. He was tired of sparring verbally with Burgoyne and his ribs still ached from sparring physically with the Widow in Boston and he wanted, just once, something for himself, even if it was an illusion.

  The players lined up for their curtain call, and the object of his desire stepped forward, hand in hand with the leading man, to curtsy, her long copper hair almost kissing the boards. He wanted to feel it against his bare skin. Severin had come on an errand for Burgoyne, of course, but there was no reason he shouldn’t find some entertainment for himself.

  “Who is she?” asked Severin.

  “Jenny? She’s the Divine Fanny’s niece and dresser. Bit of a scribbler. Writes the comedies. Never made much of an impression before. I’d no idea she was so pretty.”

  The Divine Fanny’s niece. Jenny. Bit of a scribbler.

  Jennifer Leighton, Burgoyne’s harlot.

  Severin felt an intense flare of resentment, of the kind he had not experienced in years, not since his parents had brought him to England as a boy and he had discovered that the circumstances of his childhood had created an invisible but nearly tangible barrier between himself and the other youths at school—except for the rare Fairchilds of the world, who embraced both the letter and the spirit of their status as gentlemen.

  “Van Dam was willing to take her in lieu of her aunt, although on more modest terms, but she turned him down,” added Courtney. “I could make an introduction, if you would like.”

  “Yes,” said Devere, though the word tasted bitter on his lips, because he had made a gentleman’s agreement, ungentlemanly though it was, and Miss Jennifer Leighton was not for him.

  Three

  Jenny slipped inside her aunt’s tiny dressing room. The Divine Fanny was seated at a little table, surrounded by heaps of costumes, writing furiously, her pen scratching briskly over the paper.

  Frances Leighton put her quill down and looked up from her pages. “I wandered off book again tonight, didn’t I?” she said.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I am sorry. And on tonight of all nights. Was Burgoyne in the box?”

  “I don’t know. Aunt Frances, you must see a doctor.” She wished her words didn’t sound so curt in her own ears.

  “Nonsense. Ancients like myself are known to wander now and then.”

  “You’re barely forty.”

  “That is venerable for an actress. We age in dog years.”

  Jenny knew that some New Yorkers speculated that Aunt Frances drank. Jenny was fairly sure she did not. She never found bottles in their dressing room or hidden about the theater, nor did Aunt Frances smell of spirits. She dabbled occasionally in drafts from her personal medicine chest to combat megrims, but never before a performance.

  Jenny did not want to put into words the other explanation she had heard whispered in the wings: madness. She had never known a madwoman, so had no example by which to judge her aunt, save poor Ophelia from Shakespeare’s play, and Frances Leighton had long since weathered more loss than the affections of a melancholy Dane.

  “Perhaps a holiday in the country, some rest,” Jenny suggested. They had no shortage of invitations, though Frances never accepted them.

  “Holidays are for the rich, and we players must labor for our bread,” Fanny replied brightly, dropping her closely written manuscript—her memoirs—into the iron-bound chest that held her fine London-made paints and glamorous tinted wigs, as though nothing unusual had happened. “Let us go next door and find out if Burgoyne accepted your invitation. If he was in attendance tonight, he’ll surely be there. Johnny never could resist the pleasures of the greenroom. Major general or not, he has changed little over the years, I’ll warrant.”

  She closed the lid on her chest and with it further talk of doctors and holidays.

  “I should put on a better gown,” said Jenny, swallowing the lump in her throat that rose every time she failed to get Aunt Frances to see a doctor.

  “Best not,” said Frances Leighton. “You want Burgoyne’s patronage, not his protection. If you dress the part of the actress, you’ll be cast firmly in the role.”

  The John Street’s greenroom was on the ground floor of the little house next door, where Jenny and Aunt Frances had their apartments, and, quite unusually, the double parlor where the city’s elite gathered after the performance to eat, drink, and speak with the players was actually green—verdigris, to be exact, with that slight coppery iridescence that shimmered in candlelight and lent a special glamour to powdered skin and silk damask.

  The greenroom was thronged, the theater’s patrons spilling out onto the granite steps in front, fortified against the chill December air by strong punch and Madeira wine. The scents of beeswax tapers, expensive perfume, rum punch, and ginger cakes mingled in the humid air.

  From her vantage point beside the hearth, Jenny surveyed the crowd. All the usual patrons were present tonight, along with a contingent from the Asia, the officers in civilian dress so they could move about the town unmolested, including the irrepressible Major Fairchild—who had taken Aunt Fanny’s rebuff last March with such good grace, and continued to visit and make regular appearances in her salon.

  Beside him stood a tall stranger in fine dove gray wool. The color was subdued, but the cut was remarkably stylish. London made, most likely, or by an American
tailor with access to the latest English designs. The sleeves were so tightly fitted and ended in such narrow cuffs that Jenny would not have been surprised to learn that the wearer had been sewn into them. The body of the coat was trim, the breeches equally neat. The gentleman himself was lean but compactly muscular, well-formed calves on display in white silk stockings, biceps outlined by meticulously sculpted sleeves.

  His face was long and lean, with high, wide-set cheekbones that would have shaded toward the pretty if the man’s jawline had not been so masculine. His complexion was unfashionably dark, and he wore no powder. His eyes were so deep a brown as to appear almost black, and his hair was like unrelieved jet braided neatly at the back of his neck. She did not think him handsome exactly, but he was quite the most striking man she had ever seen. Extraordinary.

  And he moved like an actor. Not like the elder generation of Hallams. He took care to move in such a way that did not attract notice.

  He was very good at it. Despite the fine figure he cut, absolutely no one was looking at him except Jenny.

  But he was looking straight at her.

  And she was staring.

  She blushed, which was ludicrous, because for the past two years she had been privy to the secrets of one of the most notorious women of the age, and though she was personally inexperienced with men, she had received a thorough practical education on the subject of congress between the sexes.

  It made no difference. When she looked at the man in dove gray wool, she flushed like a naive virgin fresh off the hay wain from the country. Upon consideration, she realized he was indeed handsome.

  “Is that him?” she asked Aunt Frances, trying to regain her composure and willing herself to look away.

  Aunt Frances’ smile faded, and she lowered the glass of Madeira that had only just touched her lips.

  “No, dear. That is not Burgoyne. The playwright is a fair bit older. That is a man with a very different calling. And one best avoided, if possible.”

  Aunt Fanny placed a slender hand, sleeves dripping with lace engageants, upon Jenny’s arm and started to rise, but Major Fairchild and the man in gray were already crossing the room. Jenny found herself transfixed by his eyes, which looked nearly black in the candlelight. Glistening, almost like pools of molten pitch.

  “Madam Leighton.” Fairchild bowed and reached for Aunt Fanny’s hand.

  They were caught. There was no escaping without insulting a well-liked British officer in full sight of all of New York society, and without the support of loyalists, the John Street would not survive.

  Aunt Frances regained her aplomb and acknowledged the major with a regal nod of her head.

  “It is lovely to see you and your niece again,” Fairchild said.

  The man in gray had still not spoken. He was studying Jenny, his face a mask of polite interest, but his eyes more intent than good manners allowed.

  “We are honored to have the garrison’s patronage,” said Aunt Frances smoothly.

  “May I present my old friend Severin Devere?”

  The man in gray bowed.

  This elicited another regal nod from Aunt Fanny, a touch colder and more formal.

  Devere bowed to Aunt Fanny, but it was Jenny this striking creature in gray addressed when he rose. “I have come to apologize on a certain officer’s behalf. He was immensely flattered by your invitation, but pressing matters prevented him from attending. He has hopes you will consent to dine with him tonight aboard his ship so that he might express his admiration for your work in person.”

  He meant Burgoyne. Jenny was so surprised that all she fixed on was “dine” and “admiration.”

  “Really?” asked Aunt Frances, in her best Lady Highstep voice. It was one of the reasons actors could mingle so freely with their “betters,” because they could mimic their accents and ape their manners, and when it came to pure nerve, they often surpassed them.

  “I fail to see how ‘the officer’ can so admire Jenny’s play when he has not even seen it,” said Bobby Hallam, who appeared at her side with two frosted glasses of sangaree.

  Her employer had changed from the showy blue silk and silver lace of his stage costume to understated coffee velvet that set off his chestnut hair. He’d brushed the powder out and tied his shiny locks loosely back with a ribbon. He handed a glass to Jenny with a studied casualness. It was meant to suggest an intimacy, a long and close acquaintance, and he was trying to protect her.

  Devere noted Hallam’s gesture with his night dark eyes, and she decided that this was a man who missed very little. A dangerous man, Aunt Frances had intimated, and Jenny did not want Bobby Hallam putting himself in harm’s way for her.

  “Mr. Hallam has a point,” said Jenny, reining in her excitement. She did not need a dinner invitation from a rake. She needed Burgoyne to come here. “The officer”—and here she bowed to Devere’s obvious preference not to name Burgoyne—“has not seen the play. Bobby’s voice has been known to echo off the Battery on occasion, but I doubt it could carry all the way to the Boyne.”

  * * *

  Severin was supposed to bring her back to Burgoyne, but he did not know how to do that. He did not even know what to make of Jennifer Leighton. She was staring up at him now, a study in contradictions and a woman entirely outside his experience.

  Burgoyne had charged him with fetching a harlot. But Jennifer Leighton was no light skirt. He’d watched her progress just now through the greenroom. She didn’t flirt with the theater’s patrons, and despite what Robert Hallam was trying to intimate with his body language, she was not his mistress.

  She was a decided wit. But she was no wellborn bluestocking.

  And then there was the gown. To wear it onstage was one thing. Some roles required frumpery. To wear it outside the theater, to a center of fashion like a greenroom, was a statement. It said, I advertise nothing. I am not for sale.

  Jennifer Leighton was making no effort to seduce anyone.

  Except that there was the letter. An intelligent woman could not write such a letter to a known rake like Burgoyne without realizing the implications. Beautiful, ambitious women traded their bodies for wealth, fame, and position all the time. There was nothing wrong with such a transaction as long as the woman was willing and under no coercion. Severin’s conscience in acting in such a matter should, by the standards of English society, be entirely clear.

  And yet something about it rubbed him the wrong way. It was more than the undeniable fact that he desired her himself. It was the matter of coercion, or rather, of genuine choice that—quite unexpectedly—struck him as problematic. Jennifer Leighton was an original. She possessed genuine talent as a playwright, but she just as obviously lived in a country without scope for it.

  If the girl had been born into wealth and had no need to sell her work to support herself, she might have been able to write—assuming she had indulgent parents or husband—from a position of relative safety, but men habitually assumed that a woman who sold the products of her mind sold other parts of her person as well. And there were always those waiting to take advantage of that market.

  For a woman without fortune, Miss Leighton’s options were extraordinarily limited, and no route to production for her plays was more direct than through the public patronage of a wealthy man. There were few such who would expect nothing in return.

  And suddenly the prospect of delivering this creature up to John Burgoyne, even if she was willing, did not seem so harmless.

  “You are right,” Devere conceded. “The officer of whom we speak has not seen the play acted, and while its wit was plain on the printed page, paper has only two dimensions, and cannot fully engage the senses.”

  Severin observed Robert Hallam smile in triumph. Of course he would. Any savvy theater manager would want to keep Jenny to himself. If nothing else, her limited prospects meant he could have her excellent original plays on
the cheap. And if Severin read the man right, he wanted her body into the bargain. That she was not already taking advantage of Hallam’s obvious fixation—the man was handsome, charming, and influential—to improve her lot made Jennifer Leighton a very unusual woman indeed.

  “But did it engage his mind?” asked Miss Leighton, the tentative hope in her voice genuine and affecting.

  Severin hesitated. His business was lies, but he did not want to lie to her. And he did not want to act as a procurer. Yet if he failed to bring Miss Jennifer Leighton to John Burgoyne, the general would likely blunder ashore in search of entertainment, and that, with the Liberty Boys roaming the streets, Severin could not risk. It was the sort of calculus he was required to make all the time, and in his calling the virtue of one provincial actress did not weigh as much as the safety of Britain’s best hope for holding on to her colonies.

  That did not mean he liked it. Not one bit.

  “I can reassure you that the officer in question read your words and that they moved him to immediate action. Only the demands of duty prevented his attendance tonight.”

  That was not exactly a lie. After all, Burgoyne had read Jennifer Leighton’s letter and on the instant decided to seek the young woman out for a gallop. And Severin, the government’s representative on the spot, had prevented him from coming to collect his prize in person.

  “Which passages, specifically, moved him?” she asked. Jennifer Leighton wanted to believe him. That much was plain on her face. But she wasn’t stupid, or gullible.

  “Yes, do tell us,” Robert Hallam said, hardly bothering now to cloak his challenge in politeness. “We provincials are always flattered to hear that our rustic entertainments have the power to charm our English masters, at least with their simplicity.”

  Hallam, Severin decided, was shrewd but hot-tempered, and probably in love with Jennifer Leighton. “For that,” Severin replied, addressing Jenny and not her enamored manager, “you would have to come to the Boyne.”