The Captain and the Theatrical

by Catherine Curzon

  “Open the safe, sir!” Tarbottom shouted, apparently so caught in his fury that he wasn’t aware of Ambrose’s arrival. “You owe me an investment!”

  “I owe you nothing—” Mr. Pendleton looked to Ambrose, his expression almost puzzled as he saw his son. “It’s all right, lad, you get on and dance.”

  “No, I’m not leaving, Father. Mr. Tarbottom can address me if he wishes to shout at anyone. Besides, a certain nobleman would like a word.” Ambrose folded his arms. “Do you hear me, Mr. Tarbottom? Do not dare shout at my father again.”

  “Weeks wasted, listening to his boring drone and his idiot wife!” Tarbottom spun on his heel to face Ambrose. “I need that investment and I intend to have it, sir!”

  He reached into the folds of his crimson cloak and pulled out a small pistol. “Open the safe, sir, and make your investment.”

  As the light hit the dull gray metal of the pistol, Ambrose entered a space of calm. He wasn’t afraid. His hand trembled, but he ignored it. “I faced down thousands of soldiers on a battlefield, Mr. Tarbottom. What makes you think I’d be afraid of that piddling weapon? Do lower it, sir. There’s no need for bullets.”

  “Your daughter has been unmasked as a thief,” Viscount Hartington chimed in. At his revelation, Ambrose saw Tarbottom’s face pale still further. “Is that not shame enough on your family, without this outrage? Bankruptcy, sir? Better that than swing for murder!”

  “Open the safe, Pendleton,” Tarbottom repeated, his voice steady now. “Or I shall shoot your timid sop of a son.”

  Ambrose closed his trembling hand into a fist. It stilled at once—it was iron. “I am not armed with my sword, Mr. Tarbottom. You should be glad of that. Once more, I tell you to lower your weapon.”

  “My son is no timid sop,” Mr. Pendleton told Tarbottom, his face red with rage, and Ambrose saw a slight movement, the tightening of the American’s finger on the trigger. “He’s worth more in his little finger than your whole sorry, rotten family!”

  Ambrose, who had been so still, now sprang. His fist met Tarbottom’s jaw, snapping the man’s head backward as he fell. Ambrose grasped Tarbottom’s wrist and took the pistol from him. He stood over the man who had come so close to shooting him, and aimed Tarbottom’s own pistol at him.

  “Anything else to say, Mr. Tarbottom? Timid, am I? Really?”

  “I shall summon the watch and some household fellows to act as jailers!” the viscount decided urgently. On the floor, however, Mr. Tarbottom was certainly no threat but lay in a dead faint. “What a family they are!”

  As the peer departed, Mr. Pendleton gave a firm nod and smoothed down his costume.

  “Well now,” he said. “I think, young sir, that I owe you a thanks. No doubt you inherited that right hook from me! I’m afraid that I have bad news, though.”

  “I’m sure I did, One-Punch Pendleton!” Ambrose joked as he nudged his father. “But bad news? Father, what is it?”

  “The wedding to Miss Tarbottom.” Mr. Pendleton shrugged. “It’s off.”

  “Reprieved—thank heavens!” Ambrose was about to hug his father when he remembered he was still holding the pistol. He made it safe then dropped it into his pocket. His father’s clock ticked away on the desk, and Ambrose made a note of the time. Mrs. Tarbottom would soon be heading to her assignation.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the candlelit bedroom where Mrs. Tarbottom’s inconstancy would soon be revealed to her husband, Amadeo Orsini waited. It was one more role, he reminded himself, to go with the many he had played on stage and that of Cosima, the young lady who was as much the true Orsini as the man he was now. All he need do was spend ten minutes pouring claret and purring sweet words, perhaps reciting a line or two, and his capitano would be there at the door, Mr. Tarbottom at his side, to save the day.

  There came a soft tap at the door, sly and secretive, and he moved to stand before the mirror, occupying a few more seconds. He brushed down his jacket, straightened his stock pin and called, “Come in!”

  The door opened and there stood Mrs. Tarbottom in her Titania costume of gossamer-light fabric. As she came into the room, Orsini realized that she had divested herself of both chemise and stays. None who might have seen her in the corridor on her way to their meeting might have noticed in the dim light, but Mrs. Tarbottom’s abundant charms were all too obvious to Orsini.

  “Good evening,” she said in her honeyed, sultry tones. She climbed onto the bed and reclined against Orsini’s pillows.

  “Madam,” he said, dropping into a low and flamboyant bow. Her perfume was almost overpowering even from here and he felt his eyes prickling at the strength of it. “I believe that the time has come to set the deal on our agreement, do you not agree?”

  “Indeed it has.” Her voice was breathy as she gazed at Orsini through her drooping eyelids. “I have been waiting for this moment…”

  “And you have spoken to your husband?”

  Curling a ringlet around her finger like a coquette, Mrs. Tarbottom grinned at Orsini and shook her head. “Oh, no. Not a word! He shan’t know a thing about my Italian lover.”

  “You are a charming lady indeed and enchanting with it.” He conjured a smile from somewhere. “Can I assume that my sister might yet call herself a Pendleton?”

  “Oh, yes! Well…by tomorrow morning, I assure you, I will give you your answer.” Mrs. Tarbottom caressed herself from her shoulder, over her bosom and down to the soft swell of her stomach. “My dear husband will do whatever I tell him to, and that includes looking elsewhere for a son-in-law of means.”

  The cunning creature. She must think me as stupid as I am beautiful, Orsini decided. And twice as easy to mislead.

  “But, madame, I confess I am a sensitive creature.” He pouted his full lips. “I had thought you would speak to your husband on this matter already, as it is at this very ball that the announcement is to be made. I could not give my finest performance tonight if I were fretful that even now our dancers might be raising a toast to the happy couple. It would not happen, you understand, were I under such a weight.”

  “I have delayed the announcement!” Mrs. Tarbottom giggled as if this was the cleverest ruse ever devised. As if she hadn’t blatantly misled and manipulated in order to get Orsini into bed. “I explained to Theodore that the negotiations must go on a little longer, so the engagement could not be announced tonight. And it has not been, I promise you. I have told the Pendletons that my Harriet will require a traditional wedding gift—something from the family jewels, of course. But the English have such quaint traditions—I believe Mrs. Pendleton had planned to fashion a homemade stocking instead? And if Harriet hears about that…”

  Mrs. Tarbottom raised her eyebrows in mock horror. “But have no fear, Orsini, after tonight, there will be no wedding.”

  “Shall we drink to it?” He gestured to the decanters available. “Claret? A very agreeable brandy, perhaps?”

  Mrs. Tarbottom’s eyes shone as she took in the range of expensive crystal decanters. “Yes, signor, a drink. To us and our…arrangement.”

  Orsini poured two glasses of claret, wishing only that there was some way to get it to her without approaching the bed. As timid as a child nearing a spider in its web, he drew closer, holding out one of the glasses to his would-be paramour.

  Mrs. Tarbottom reached for the drink, stroking her fingertips across the back of Orsini’s hand as she took the glass. “Such soft skin you have,” she purred.

  “We nobles so often do,” he told her, suppressing a shudder. “As an Italian, one is doubly blessed.”

  “You most certainly are.” Mrs. Tarbottom held Orsini’s gaze as she drank. She presumably thought it terribly seductive, but it was rather like watching an octopus cling its suckers to an anchor. “Come along, now Orsini…hop onto the bed with Temperance Tarbottom.”

  “Truffles, madam?”

  Anything to avoid the moment of collision, for Mr. Tarbottom need only see his wife on the bed in her state of u
ndress and the plan would be complete. There was no need for Orsini to shed so much as a shoe.

  “Won’t you pop one into my mouth, dear heart?” Mrs. Tarbottom pouted at him. It was only then that he realized that he didn’t actually have any, and she certainly wouldn’t allow him to escape on such a spurious errand. As Orsini faltered he saw her mouth set and her face hardening. It occurred to him that he may have run out of delaying tactics.

  Temperance Tarbottom took a mouthful of wine before putting her glass aside. Then she sinuously moved onto her hands and knees, crawling across the bed toward Orsini.

  “I could just lick you all over!” She giggled, then she flicked her tongue at him like a snake preparing to strike.

  “Oddio!” Orsini exclaimed. He downed the brandy in one then, as her hand reached out to seize him somewhere, flung himself into the dressing room and turned the key in the lock.

  “Signor Orsini?” Mrs. Tarbottom fell silent, then laughed. “Is this one of your little Italian games? You’re so naughty! I’m waiting…”

  “And a long wait it shall be!”

  And that is what it took, it seemed, for Mrs. Tarbottom to realize that there would be no Italian lover for her. Her fists hammered against the door, in the full flight of her rage and humiliation.

  “Get out of there now, dissembler! You tried to make a fool of me! But you shan’t! And where is your sister, anyway? I have never…my God!—I have never seen the two of you together! Get out of there now and take me to your sister, or I’ll tell the Pendletons you’ve made fools of them too!”

  Orsini’s heart was beating so fast he thought it would burst out of his chest. There was nothing else for it. This would have to be the performance of a lifetime.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ambrose hurried as best he could but he had to go slowly enough for his father to keep up with him. Each step was torture as he pictured the lustful matron pawing at his lover. Mr. Tarbottom was even now in the custody of Pendleton Hall’s most strapping footmen while Harriet, imperious to the last, was blaming her mother, her father, Pagolo and anyone else she could think of for the presence of the stolen pearls around her neck.

  And now the final scene. Ambrose ran ahead the last few steps, panting at Orsini’s door. But not for reasons he had panted by that door in recent days, awaiting a meeting with his love.

  As his father approached, Ambrose whispered, “I told you I knew where Mrs. Tarbottom was—you must not blame Orsini for this. He is the innocent party in a rotten family’s schemes.”

  “What’s all this about, young sir?” Mr. Pendleton asked. “Mrs. Tarbottom isn’t— Lord above!”

  A pirate, complete with parrot, rounded the corner and appeared before them. “Pagolo insisted I come upstairs to Orsini’s room!” Mrs. Pendleton glanced from her husband to Ambrose. “Is he quite all right? He and Cosima have vanished from the ball, and I do hope neither of them has been taken ill.”

  Ambrose rested his hand on his mother’s shoulder. “As far as I know, neither of them is unwell, but…it would be remiss of me as your son if you were to see this.”

  “See what, Amby?” Mrs. Pendleton glared at the door to the bedchamber. “And who’s that banging about and carrying on in there?”

  Ambrose shouldered the door and it sprang back on its hinges as he piled into the room, his parents and the parrot close behind. There by the cupboard was Mrs. Tarbottom—rather more of Mrs. Tarbottom than Ambrose wished to see, and he held his hand up over his eyes as if shielding them from bright sunlight.

  “Avert your eyes, Husband!” Mrs. Pendleton ran at Mrs. Tarbottom with a blanket from the bed and threw it over Mrs. Tarbottom and her diaphanous outfit.

  “Get off me!” Mrs. Tarbottom shouted, her voice muffled underneath the blanket.

  “And where is the young gentleman?” demanded Mr. Pendleton. “And his sister, come to that? I think it’s time we sat the pair of them down and sorted this marriage business out once and for all.”

  From within the dressing room there came the sound of a key turning. Then the door opened slowly and from within came Orsini—no, Cosima—

  Ambrose wasn’t sure who it was, for beneath the elaborate peacock suit was the suggestion of an exquisite female form and peeping out from the mass of loose auburn curls, Cosima’s gentle face. Orsini gave a bashful smile and said in melodic tones of Cosima, “We are both standing before you now, and Cosima and Orsini could not be more sorry for the deception.”

  Ambrose could hardly believe what he was hearing. Was his lover about to confess all, to surrender what they had fought so hard to achieve? In the silence his father began to laugh, booming his mirth into the room.

  “My goodness, that’s what I call talent! You had me fooled, young lady, I confess!” Pagolo joined in, squawking his own approval as he hopped onto Mr. Pendleton’s shoulder. “I thought you a man, Contessina, I really did. A touch effeminate, perhaps, but— You have a rare gift, madam, rare indeed.”

  “Orsini is a woman?” Mrs. Tarbottom shrieked, before she collapsed to the floor.

  “I think she’s fainted…” Mrs. Pendleton dropped to her knees and tugged aside just enough of the blanket to reveal the voluptuary’s face. As she fanned at the insensible woman, Mrs. Pendleton blinked at Cosima. “A lady? But I thought you were—oh, it matters not!”

  Ambrose gawped. Had his mother really just said—? At the suggestion of a disguised wink from his mother, Ambrose stepped across the room to stand beside his intended.

  “Mother, Father, with your blessing, Cosima and I should very much like to be wed.” He slipped his arm around Cosima’s waist and chastely kissed her temple.

  “Provided that her mother raises no concern, then I shall happily give my blessing,” Mr. Pendleton replied. He took his wife’s hand and added with a smile, “So long as I can see mother and daughter in the same room, at the same time!”

  “That shall not be a problem,” Orsini said sweetly. “And on that, I can give you my word.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The church of St. George’s Hanover Square had never before contained such a motley congregation—a melée of industrialists, theatricals, Italians and nobles. And a very well-behaved parrot. A carnival atmosphere reigned among the pews, as if Vauxhall Gardens had temporarily crossed the river.

  One month after the Tarbottoms had been vanquished, their reputations in tatters, even the very earth itself seemed to be celebrating. A bright sun shone over the autumn city, burnishing the red and gold trees with warmth and glittering from the stained-glass windows of St. George’s.

  Ambrose, resplendent in his uniform, stood at the front of the church, his eye on the door from which his bride would appear. He could feel the proud smiles of his mother and he took his gaze from the door for long enough to grin at her. He was about to marry his love, and nothing now stood in their way.

  Not even rehearsals for Fleet Fortune, the premier of which was fast approaching. He might have imagined that nobody was anticipating the opening night more than the excitable Contessa D’Orsini and Mrs. Pendleton, but in that supposition Ambrose had been proved wrong. Indeed, no one could have been more thrilled about the prospect of the ever-approaching premier of Fleet Fortune than Barnaby Pendleton. The obstinate industrialist had not been so stern and immovable after all, it seemed, and Cosima had long since banished his suspicion of theatricals.

  A sudden increase in chatter among the congregation, followed by a hushed silence which the organist soon filled, indicated the arrival of the bride. Advancing toward Ambrose was his lover—his Cosima, his Amadeo.

  Orsini was on the arm of Mr. Pendleton, resplendent in a gown of ivory silk and lace, gold braid and gemstones glittering in his auburn hair and around his waist, Ambrose’s own tasselled sash. His beloved was truly the most magnificent, perfect sight he had ever seen. He had never felt such a rush of love, such an overwhelming dart of adoration, than he did for this man, and Orsini’s sparkling dark gaze was fixed on Ambr
ose, basking in his love.

  Ambrose barely registered his father returning to the pew, and he took Orsini’s arm as he stood beside him.

  I love you, he mouthed to Orsini.

  “Ti adoro,” he whispered in reply.

  The moment Ambrose had longed for had finally arrived. He and his Orsini, his love, were united, and for the hero of Waterloo, this was the start of his greatest adventure yet.

  Want to see more from these authors? Here’s a taster for you to enjoy!

  A Late Summer Night’s Dream

  Catherine Curzon & Eleanor Harkstead

  Excerpt

  Simeon pulled the ticket out of his pocket as he ran up the steps of the theater. Thanks to the bloody traffic in town, he was almost late for curtain up. He checked his seat number again and hurried through a door from the foyer into the busy auditorium. The house lights went down almost as soon as he found his row.

  “Excuse me…sorry.” His seat would have to be right in the middle of the row, wouldn’t it? Best seat to have, but not if you turn up late.

  With only the green glow of the emergency exit lights to guide him, Simeon found his way to the empty seat. He squinted at the ticket and—someone is in my seat!

  A tall someone who Simeon could barely see in the dark.

  Music began to fill the auditorium, an overture before the play began. Through the strings and brass, Simeon hissed, “You’re in my seat!”

  Someone tutted, perhaps the lady who was craning to peer around Simeon at the stage. Why was she so keen anyway? The curtain was still down—she was hardly missing the action.

  At Simeon’s words, the man who occupied his seat peered up at him through the gloom and asked in a cut-glass whisper, “I’m sorry?”

  Simeon wafted his ticket at him—not that he’d be able to see it in the darkness. “You’re in my seat.” Something in the way the man had spoken made Simeon add, without a hint of sarcasm, “…sir.”