The Captain and the Theatrical

by Catherine Curzon

  Chapter Eighteen

  As the day of the ball approached and guests began to arrive in the house, life settled down for Amadeo Orsini somewhat. Two days had passed since Mrs. Tarbottom had crept into his room and for those two days, thanks to the arrival of various men far more titled and impressive than he, the social climbing Americans were suitably occupied with filling up their already bulging address books. To be Cosima and Orsini was easier too, for with the new arrivals came opportunities for Orsini to supposedly play cards or drink port or go out riding with the gents, while Cosima was strolling with the ladies or entertaining with gentle songs and readings.

  Nobody watched the men as they did the ladies, and when the women retired to bed, Orsini could indulge himself with real games or cards and real glasses of port but better than that, with the company of Captain Ambrose Pendleton. After all, two men, once old friends now torn asunder, might stroll together by moonlight as they renewed that friendship, and nobody would suspect that anything was out of the ordinary whatsoever. And if, as they strolled, they kissed or found a hidden spot in the trees and did more than that, then it was nobody’s concern but their own.

  The ladies had broken into parties this particular afternoon, some to walk, some to ride, some to read and Cosima, sensitive soul that she was, had taken the opportunity to retire for an hour or so. That freed Orsini to receive an item of particular note, packaged with care amid much ribbon and paper. He excitedly unwrapped the costumes that he would wear to the masked ball, a matching set for brother and sister that were intended to take away the breath of all who saw them. Audacious, he knew, but one way or another, both would have to be seen, for there could be no room for doubt. Both Orsinis must attend. How he longed for something more simple though, yet still the reply from the viscount did not come.

  Say you will be at the ball, he begged the Fates. Say yes.

  He wrapped up the costumes again and carried them with great care across the room. There he opened the door to the small anteroom that had served as an admirable closet for Orsini’s many garments and jewels and laid them out side by side, ready for the ball. Then he returned to the bedroom, sure that a little trip to Ambrose might be in order, simply because twelve hours had passed since they had shared an embrace.

  What a glorious thing it is to be loved by Ambrose Pendleton.

  And God help whoever now commanded Mrs. Tarbottom’s amorous attention!

  He hadn’t got very far before a figure stepped out from a doorway and blocked his path. The proud bosom and pouting lips of Mrs. Tarbottom.

  “Orsini, why, there you are! I’ve been searching high and low for you.” Her honeyed, insinuating voice made Orsini’s skin itch. He was an actor, though, and swallowed his distaste into a smile.

  “Madame,” Orsini purred, dropping into a bow. “I have been unforgivably preoccupied. My sister, you understand.”

  “Such a pity for the girl—and you so devoted to her.” Mrs. Tarbottom touched the cuff of Orsini’s sleeve. “I wager you’d do anything to make her unhappy situation better if you could.”

  She can’t be suggesting—

  “It matters not what I would do.” He sighed. “The decision has been taken by the fathers, has it not? Your daughter’s engagement is to be announced at the ball, I believe.”

  “I can be a very persuasive woman if I must.” Mrs. Tarbottom smiled proudly. “My husband needs my family’s money and connections to maintain his business interests—he must keep me happy. So if I were to tell him I’m very unhappy at the impending nuptials between my Harriet and Captain Pendleton, he would call it off.”

  Where this was going, Orsini wasn’t sure, but he was certain of one thing and that was the simple fact that, if she was about to propose some dreadful quid pro quo, then she wouldn’t do it in a corridor.

  For that fact alone, Orsini told himself, be grateful.

  “Come, Orsini, let us converse in private.” Mrs. Pendleton returned her hand to his sleeve. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

  Orsini’s confidence evaporated not only at her words and touch, but at the glimmer in her pale eyes. It was like a vulture spying carrion and preparing to strip the unfortunate carcass to its bones. Yet Orsini could only nod, and allow her to lead the way to the scaffold.

  Mrs. Tarbottom led him along the corridor to her sitting room. Her bed, looming like a sacrificial altar, was just visible through the connecting door. “Do sit, Mr. Orsini. It’s so kind of you to help me with my Italian lessons.” She spoke loudly, as if hoping that anyone overhearing would think their meeting entirely innocent. Orsini settled on the sofa, a fly in the spider’s web. Yet perhaps he would be proved wrong. Perhaps she was as kind as she seemed brittle. Perhaps the gold cross she always wore was not simply for clutching, but meant something to the lady after all.

  Prove me wrong about you.

  Mrs. Tarbottom sat down on the sofa and half-draped herself over its arm. She twirled one of her abundant ringlets around her finger and smiled. “Well, Orsini, here we are… I wonder, how you would like to go on a little trip?”

  “Alas, Madame, I can go nowhere today,” he replied, not quite following. “I have an appointment on horseback in ten minutes with a gent who I believe owns most of Devon. So many interesting people are gathering for the ball, do you not think?”

  “Indeed they are.” Mrs. Tarbottom arched her eyebrow. “I shall be quick and to the point. I think it will be best for everyone if I do. Before we Tarbottoms return to America, we intend to make a trip around England, and I would very much like it if you should accompany us. If you agree, then, simply put—I will intervene in my husband’s plans and the captain won’t be marrying my daughter. He will be able to stay here in England, rigid and uncomfortable in his neckcloth, and perhaps marrying your sister. I can guess that a marriage would be expedient—I know what can cause a woman to faint, Orsini. I am not a fool.”

  For a moment, he was speechless. A tour of England in return for a future with Ambrose? That was far too easy though, as well he knew.

  Act pretty but dim, Orsini decided.

  “You would truly do my sister such a kindness?” he asked. “I warn you, I would be a dreadful tour guide. I hardly know England at all!”

  Mrs. Tarbottom laughed, shaking her head. “Tour guide? Oh, no, Orsini, it is not as a guide that I need you. I rather need instead your company.”

  She shifted toward him a little along the sofa, one elbow resting on its back as she played with her hair. “Traveling with Theodore gets so very dull. I would do anything to have some entertainment—of my own. Private entertainment, Orsini. Do you understand? For your particular company while my husband goes to visit collieries and cotton mills and shipyards, I would free Captain Pendleton to marry your compromised sister.”

  His heart lurched at the very thought of it, yet what if the plan failed? What if he was somehow wrong about the pearls or the dowager didn’t identify them? What if the unthinkable happened and Mr. Pendleton resisted their efforts?

  He could hardly bring himself to imagine it.

  “What of the investment Mr. Pendleton is making, though?” Orsini kept his voice steady. “What will your husband say?”

  “It is an investment, Orsini. A business arrangement.” Mrs. Tarbottom ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, her voice still husky as if she weren’t talking about cold finance. “Even without the marriage, Mr. Pendleton is keen to expand his interests into North America.”

  “A man’s pride might be wounded if his son is rejected though,” Orsini reasoned. “And wounded pride might see an investment withdrawn. Then there is your daughter. Will she not be heartbroken?”

  “Investments might come from other quarters if it came to that.” Mrs. Tarbottom nodded. Yes, Orsini had noticed the charming smiles and amused laughter she had turned to the new guests. “Besides, Harriet is young and passably pretty. There are plenty of gentlemen who would happily accept her hand. She will not cry for long over th
e captain.”

  Indeed, she will not.

  “The proposition is certainly a tempting one,” he lied. “But at present I have engagements from now until Advent. However, if you will give me just a week or so in which to see if they might be rearranged, I will give you your answer.”

  And a week carries us safely past the ball and all will be well.

  “Until then,” he added, “do you think we might refrain from announcing any engagements?”

  “If you wish.” Mrs. Tarbottom moved closer still and ran the tip of her finger down Orsini’s cheek, pouting. “For your sister, remember.”

  “For my sister,” Orsini agreed. “And for us, of course.”

  He took her hand lifted it to his lips, placing a soft kiss on her cold skin. It took all of Orsini’s mastery of himself to suppress the shudder that passed through him at everything that had just transpired.

  Such people in the world.

  Then he stood and bowed. “You will excuse me, dear lady. Believe me when I say that I will be thinking of you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  For the next hour or so, Orsini felt like a man awaiting his death sentence. Ambrose was nowhere to be found, escorting some of the house party’s visiting dignitaries on a tour of the gardens, and Orsini knew that it wouldn’t do to interrupt, nor could anything be achieved by doing so. Instead he haunted the porters, hoping for a letter from Viscount Hartington that did not arrive. So desperate did he become to escape the clutches of Mrs. Tarbottom that he found his way to the kitchen and, as the panic of the domestics turned to indulgence, allowed them to ply him with cups of tea and the sweetest jam tarts.

  It went little way to mending his troubled heart, but at least no American vulture could sink her clutches into him here. Here in the kitchen, his silken figure surrounded by bustle and business, Orsini was safe. Safe and trusted it seemed, for he was even allowed to stir the gravy for dinner under the cook’s indulgent smile.

  I shall stir gravy more often, Orsini decided as he departed the kitchen for the grounds and, he hoped, the company of Ambrose. Stirring gravy is a balm for the soul.

  Standing on the terrace, Orsini watched the man he loved entertain the little gaggle of industrialists and peers, showing off his father’s greatest achievement. At his side Mr. Pendleton puffed out his chest and beamed across his broad face, a proud little parrot admiring his own nest. Yet as the group fell into discussion, Orsini saw that Ambrose’s attention had wandered. He approached and chanced a gentle wave, hoping that the tour might finally be reaching its conclusion.

  “Orsini…” Ambrose gave him one of his shallow, stiff bows. No one seeing such a bow would suspect the passion that Ambrose was capable of, although the smile Ambrose shone on Orsini hinted at it. “I trust you have enjoyed your afternoon? We are going in for tea now—would you join us?”

  “Might I inconvenience you for a minute or so? I have been strolling and would like to ask a little about the sinking of the lake.” Orsini smiled. “Can you spare me a moment?”

  “I’d be more than happy to, Orsini.” Ambrose’s smile increased in brightness. “Do come this way.”

  Ambrose strolled along the terrace, gesturing for Orsini to follow him toward the secluded path that had become a favorite haunt of theirs. He hurried to do so, his spirits heavy despite the presence of the captain who had stolen his heart. Only when they were safely out of earshot did Orsini admit, “There has been no word from Viscount Hartington, Pen, and still the jewels are locked away, still the fathers are conspiring, still Harriet Tarbottom struts and preens!”

  Ambrose slammed his fist against his palm, his jaw clenched. “Damn it all, Orsini, but there must be a way out of this accursed shambles.”

  “Mrs. Tarbottom has offered me one.” He looked at his feet, unable to meet Ambrose’s gaze and see the disgust there. Perhaps what they said about theatricals was true, for he would sacrifice anything to save his love from a lifetime lost to Harriet. “She has offered to have the wedding quietly set aside if I will agree to— They are touring the industrial lands of England, you know and Mrs. Tarbottom seeks—”

  Yet Orsini found he could hardly force out the words, though he must.

  “If I will be her concubine during her stay, you will be freed from the betrothal,” Orsini told Ambrose plainly, then pressed his hand to his mouth as though it might silence the words. “And if we cannot find those pearls or the viscount does not come or God forbid I was wrong about their origin— I cannot see you married to her, Pen, nor estranged from your own father! If we have no other choice, forgive me, my love, but I must say yes.”

  They were at the top of the path, the dark, shiny leaves of the hedges sapping the daylight of all its brightness. Ambrose stared at Orsini, slowly shaking his head, a coldness in his demeanor that hadn’t been there before.

  “What can you mean, Orsini? Mrs. Tarbottom has asked you to lie with her? How—how can you even countenance such a plan? How dare she suggest it, the dreadful wretch!”

  “And if I do not and the pearls are not stolen, what then?” Orsini asked desperately. “Do you marry her? Do you stand against your father and lose his love? What, Pen, can we do?”

  “I cannot ask you to do that! To be a plaything to satisfy a strumpet’s lusts! I will not have you do such an odious, dishonorable thing, Orsini!” Ambrose dragged his hand across his face. All the color had run out from it, as if he was staring down the barrel of a pistol. “Better I am banished across the seas than force you to lower yourself in such a debased and vile manner. No—no, I would never ask that of you.”

  “I could not stand to live knowing that you had been sold to her.” Orsini swallowed hard, his eyes filling with tears. “I would give anything for you, tato, anything.”

  “No, no! I won’t hear of it!” Desperation was writ in every feature of Ambrose’s grayed face. “You must not do this, for I will not make a harlot of you!”

  “You would not want me then,” Orsini said quietly, the word ringing in his ears. He’d lived enough hours as an actress to have had that word flung at him before, but never had it felt like a stinging slap until now. What a thing it was to be loved, and to see the very moment that love died, for surely it had. “Would you?”

  “But of course I do!” Ambrose took a step toward Orsini, then froze, not coming any closer. His arms, which had perhaps been raised to embrace him, fell to his side. “I have wanted you for so long, and to think of you in the arms of that—that—harpy! I cannot bear it!”

  “But if the pearls— If all else fails—” He held out his hand but Ambrose remained as still as marble, the distance suddenly unbreachable. “I love you, tato, with everything I am, but I am an actor and if that is my next role then—”

  Orsini raked his hand through his hair, his next words desperate. “You are a writer, Pen! For God’s sake, if this was a play, what would the next scene be? Help me fight, please!”

  “If it was my play, it would most certainly not feature a romp between my lover and my future mother-in-law!” Ambrose’s voice was steel. Hiding his face in his hands, he turned his back on Orsini.

  “You should not call me a harlot,” Orsini whispered, his heart breaking. “You should call me a martyr.”

  As he turned and began to walk away Orsini heard footsteps, and Ambrose placed his hand on Orsini’s shoulder.

  “Stop, please. I am not angry with you, Orsini. I love you, and I am furious—disgusted—with Mrs. Tarbottom for forcing you into such a bind. She has no respect for either of us—to use you to slake her lusts, to be so determined to drag me to the other side of the world then casually throw the arrangement aside. None for her daughter, whom she would tie to a man who does not love her, none for her husband whom she cuckolds. We are mere pawns as she heads about the chessboard collecting wealth and pleasures. And yet, if this was a play… An idea is forming in my mind. Will you but hear it?”

  “I will hear anything but the thought of saving you by succumbing to
her,” he admitted, relief and love flooding through his blood. Then he turned back to his lover, seeking proof of his words with the softest of kisses.

  Ambrose embraced him and claimed his mouth in a kiss that seemed as if it would never end.

  Until Ambrose stopped and said, “Ah, yes…the plan. It will require you to play a role, but only for an hour at the most. She must be caught—not in the act, for my plays would not contain such a scene, but as close to it as the Lord Chamberlain could bear. Imagine if she were to be discovered in your bedchamber by her husband! His saintly wife would seem anything but, for what married woman goes alone to another gentleman’s rooms?”

  “It is genius.” Orsini’s eyes grew wide as he envisioned it on the Haymarket stage, already hearing the gasps and laughter from the delighted audience. He could see it, the harpy in her silks, the hero in her arms, saved by his love. Yet might there be something he could add, if the playwright allowed? He knew from experience that these creative sorts didn’t always take too well to an actor’s input. “Might I make a suggestion, my love?”

  “Oh—does it not please you?” Ambrose pouted in dismay. “But—go on.”

  “It pleases me immensely!” Orsini rewarded him with another lingering, gentle kiss. “But would it not be more pleasing still to carry out our scheme at the very ball where the engagement was once to have been announced? It shall not spoil the party for your darling mamma, for she need not know, but we will know that the night of their triumph has become the night of their banishment.”

  “Ah, now that would draw the threads together nicely—even Aristotle might be impressed by that!” Ambrose laughed as he covered Orsini’s face in kisses. “My beautiful, clever, adoring Orsini!”