by Lucy Ashford
She would have her theatre, she told herself desperately, climbing the stairs again. She would have her memories, and she still had a few days—a few nights—of him in her arms...
Up in Deb’s parlour, Laura was impatiently waiting for her. ‘You’ve been simply ages, Paulette. I thought you’d forgotten me. Have you got the book?’
‘I have.’ Deb forced a calm smile, but her thoughts were still clearly awry, because once seated she turned without thinking straight to the very speech Laura had spoken of, and was already murmuring to herself,
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
‘Or close the wall up with our English dead—’
She broke off abruptly when she realised that Laura was gazing at her in a mixture of awe and bewilderment.
‘You know all the words, Paulette!’ Laura breathed. ‘You weren’t even looking at the book when you began that speech! I thought you found plays boring. But—you know it all by heart!’
She would have to be more careful, Deb realised. Fortunately Laura was already enthusing again about the actor who’d played Henry V in Brighton; how handsome he was, and how the crowd had cheered. Deb tried hard to concentrate on her chatter. But...
The memorial service, she kept thinking. She had promised Beau she would stay for the memorial service. But after that, she had to go. Before she was truly, badly hurt.
* * *
That night Beau took Laura to the ballet, and Deb, restless, went out into the garden, where the roses perfumed the warm evening air. She could see this garden from her bedroom window, and she’d been astonished when she first stepped into it. Who would have guessed that such a leafy retreat lay here in the heart of London? There were small but elegant trees, there were lavender beds, there was even a tiny fountain trickling merrily from a lion’s head set in the high stone wall that gave the place such privacy.
But now she was oblivious to its beauty. Now, for the first time ever, she felt as if she didn’t care whether she got her theatre or not.
Scarcely a breath of wind stirred the air, and moths danced in the light cast by the windows of Beau’s mansion. She walked slowly along one of the lavender-edged paths, away from the vast house into the darkness of the shrubbery.
This is where I belong, she thought. Out in the shadows. Far, far away from the dazzling, aristocratic circles in which Beau moves. She had been incredibly, recklessly stupid to have let all this happen. To have fallen in love.
And then—she was aware of a wooden door, slowly opening at the far end of the high wall, and someone was there, dressed in a familiar, shabby old red coat. It was Francis, and he was whispering, ‘Deborah? Deborah? Is it safe for me to come in and talk? You see—we need you.’
Chapter Seventeen
Deb led Francis swiftly to the rose-clad arbour, where they couldn’t be seen from the house, and he told her how Luke had caught sight of her driving in the park with a young lady—Laura. He told her that Luke had followed her back here. ‘We had no idea you were in London,’ Francis exclaimed. ‘And as for this fine house...’ He looked around in fresh astonishment. ‘You told us you were visiting relatives, Deborah.’
Francis must have seen the look of consternation on her face, because he went on hurriedly, ‘Well. We know, of course, that your poor mother came from a wealthy home. And it’s no business of ours who you stay with, or who you visit. But we worry about you. You are all right, aren’t you?
‘I am, Francis,’ she told him earnestly. ‘Really I am. But—there was something I needed to do for someone, you see. How are you? How are the Players?’
And it all poured out. Francis told her that they’d been delighted to be offered—at short notice—a two-week booking at the Dragon Theatre in Southwark. ‘We’re staying in lodgings by the river,’ he explained, ‘and we’re preparing our usual bill of fare—songs, dancing, a bit of tragedy, a bit of comedy. But some of the younger Players didn’t want to come to London, so they went their own way.’
‘You mean they just left you?’
Francis nodded. ‘They did. It wouldn’t have happened in Gerald’s time. I don’t think it would have happened if you’d been with us, Deborah.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, I know it can’t be helped. I know you had to do your duty. We’ve just about got enough actors left, but everyone’s arguing about who’s to play which part, and we badly need to get some new actors. The truth is, we need you, Deborah. The others will listen to you. Please can you visit us? It doesn’t matter how briefly.’
I should have been there for them, she thought. I should not have left them so suddenly.
‘I’ll come now, Francis,’ she told him without hesitation.
* * *
Ten minutes later Deb, wrapped in a cape and bonnet, had joined Francis at the back of the house to find that he’d already hailed a hackney carriage, and during the journey to Southwark he told her what had been happening, and who was causing the problems. ‘We’re hoping to perform some acts from Twelfth Night, you see, Deb. But Joseph is really getting too old to play Duke Orsino, and he keeps forgetting his lines. Peggy’s playing Viola, and she’s for ever complaining about him.’
‘Can’t you play Orsino, Francis?’
‘I’m Malvolio,’ he said. ‘I’m always Malvolio.’
That was true. Swiftly they discussed all the parts and all the actors, and by the time they’d crossed the river and reached the Dragon Theatre, she knew that she had a difficult task ahead. All the same, she was overwhelmed by the welcome the Players gave her.
It was difficult, yes, but not impossible to smooth ruffled feelings and to make dextrous changes to the casting by use of flattery—just as Gerald would have done. Joseph would have to be Orsino—she could see no way around it—and Peggy sulked, but Deb promised her she would look out for someone new to take on the leading male roles, just as soon as she returned to them.
‘So you are returning, then, Deb?’ Peggy gave her a quizzical look. ‘Some of us wondered, you see.’
‘Of course I’ll be back.’
She was aware of little sighs of relief, from all those gathered round, and Francis was full of gratitude afterwards. ‘Your visit’s been just what we needed,’ he said, ‘and now I’ll get another hackney carriage and take you back to where you’re staying. But—Mayfair! My, Deborah, that’s a grand place. And—you are all right, aren’t you? You look—different.’
‘I miss you all,’ she answered quietly. And I’ve been stupid enough to fall in love. Hopelessly in love.
* * *
Once the carriage reached Albemarle Street, Francis came with her along the lane to the little door that led into the garden, then he said a brief farewell and hurried off. She really did miss her old life, she thought with a sudden rush of emotion as she slowly climbed the stairs. With the Lambeth Players, she’d been so sure of everything, and acting had been all she cared about...
She pulled to an abrupt halt as she approached her room, because the door was open, a candle was burning in there—and Laura was sitting on Deb’s bed.
Deb froze in the doorway. The window looked out on the garden. If Laura had seen her stealing back in there... ‘Laura. I thought you would still be at the ballet!’ she tried to say lightly as she walked into the room and took off her cape.
‘No. No... Oh, I’m so unhappy, Paulette!’
Deb saw that the girl’s pretty face was blotched with tears. Quickly she sat at her side. ‘Why, my dear? Whatever’s the matter?’
‘It’s Beau!’ Laura was sobbing again. ‘At the ballet I asked him if he would take me to Vauxhall Gardens one evening, but he said no. He wouldn’t even discuss it. So I sulked, and he was so cross that he brought me home in the interval. And then he went off again—to his club, I think—and, oh, Pa
ulette, he can be unbearable! He orders me about, he lays down stuffy rules...’
‘Dear Laura.’ Deb took the girl’s hand. ‘It’s only because he cares for you, so much.’ She also guessed that Laura would be heiress to a considerable fortune when she was older, and needed the firm protection of her brother.
‘But Beau’s always stopping me from having fun! A few days ago I ordered a dress in sheer muslin, like my friend Georgina wears, but when Beau saw me in it, he said—he said that if I tried to go out in it, he would follow me and bring me home. Carry me home, if necessary, he said. Paulette, I’m so tired of being treated like a child!’
Deb put her arm around her shoulder. ‘Oh, Laura. You’re very lucky, to have someone who cares for you so much. And you should remember, perhaps, that like you, Beau will still be feeling great grief for your brother. To lose him so tragically must have been very hard for him, especially when they were so devoted—’
‘But they weren’t devoted!’ Laura’s eyes had widened in surprise. Slowly she pulled herself away from Deb’s embrace. ‘And you must have known that better than anyone, since you were Simon’s wife!’
Deb’s pulse was racing. Be careful. Be careful. ‘Of course,’ she said lightly, ‘all brothers fall out from time to time. So do sisters and brothers too, I believe...’
Laura was frowning at her. ‘You surely realise that Simon was always terribly jealous of Beau? And I’m afraid I didn’t help. You see, I worshipped Beau, because he was wise, and funny, and brave. I never knew my mother, of course, and I remember very little of my father—he was always so remote somehow. But Beau was a lovely brother. I loved Simon too, of course I did, but he wasn’t the same. I think Simon was so envious of Beau that he grew almost to hate him... You must know that, though. Anyone who knew anything at all about Simon knew that. Poor, poor, Simon...’
Deb touched her hand again. ‘You’re very tired, Laura,’ she said gently. ‘Time for bed. And remember how lucky you are to have a brother like Beau on your side, always.’
Once she’d seen Laura to her bedroom, Deb returned to her own room and put her palm to her forehead. Simon hated his brother?
Beau had told her not to expect him that night, since he would most likely be late; but she heard him come into the house and head for his own rooms soon after midnight, and she was awake for long after that. When she did at last get to sleep, she dreamed vividly of a shipwreck, and in her dream she was floundering in a wild, storm-tossed sea. Then suddenly Beau was there, and she was safe in his strong grasp; he held her tightly and struck out for the shore, but at the last minute he let her go, and though she cried out his name he was swimming away from her. She sank down and down into the icy depths, and when she awoke she was filled with a kind of raw and aching dread.
* * *
When Bethany brought in her tea tray the next morning and began as usual to lay out her clothes, Deborah felt as though she’d scarcely slept. Beau had told her he wanted her to stay, and with the morning light, she was beginning to hope. He would find some way for them to be together, surely? And she would make a new start also, by telling him that those dreadful books—yes, she still had them with her, pushed out of sight in her old valise—were not hers, but Palfreyman’s. She would tell him that she’d stolen them to save her friends, and that the longer she was with him, the harder it had been to reveal her lie...
Suddenly she realised that Bethany had asked her at least twice which gown she wished to wear.
‘I’ll wear anything,’ Deb said swiftly. ‘You decide.’ Anything as long as it’s black. Bethany helped her into a satin gown, and when Deb examined herself afterwards in the looking glass, she realised she wasn’t as pale as she’d feared.
But the colour fled from her cheeks swiftly enough when Bethany selected a shawl for her and said, ‘His Grace has had an early visitor, my lady. A man who seems really cross. He just stormed in past the footman, and was ever so rude to Mr Delaney.’
Deb turned slowly from the looking glass to face her. ‘Do you know who this visitor is?’
‘I thought I heard the footmen say his name when I was coming up the stairs with your tea tray, my lady. It was something like—Palfreyman. That was it, Palfreyman.’
Without saying a word, Deb pulled on the shawl and made for the door.
‘But your tea, my lady!’ called Bethany anxiously. ‘And the toast—’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m really not hungry.’
She hurried down the stairs. Her uncle had a house in London, she knew, but Beau had assured her that Palfreyman would stay well away while she was here...
Already she could hear his voice coming from Beau’s study and she quickly made her way there, almost pushing past a startled footman—only to freeze outside the door, because she could hear her uncle’s hateful voice, raised in anger.
‘I know,’ Palfreyman was saying in staccato bursts of fury. ‘I know now, why your brother died. It was because my daughter was madly in love with you. Simon was riding north to Brandon Abbey to challenge you—to punish you—when he fell from his horse, and he died that very night, his neck broken!’
Beau’s voice next. ‘How do you know this?’
Deb stepped backwards at that, her hand to her throat. No denial from Beau. No angry rebuttal. Just—How do you know?
‘Your brother,’ Palfreyman was stating, ‘called on my wife in early April, a few days before he died. Simon informed Vera of his suspicions, and told her that he intended to fight a duel with you. Vera didn’t tell me at the time, the foolish, foolish woman—I got the story from her only last night, when I found her crying over some old letters from Paulette. She confessed that she didn’t dare say anything of it, because she was so afraid of you. Of course, by then Paulette had already left your brother, and run off abroad for good, with her new lover. But that was because you’d rejected her—you’d broken her heart, and she could not bear the sight of Simon, because he reminded her too much of you...’
* * *
Deborah found herself somehow back in her room. Bethany had gone. She sat on the edge of the bed, feeling quite sick. Those words in Paulette’s diary kept going round and round in her head. I live for the moments when I see him. I love him so much that it hurts...
Paulette had been writing, not about Simon, but about Beau. Paulette had loved Beau. And had Beau, however briefly, loved her back?
She got up and walked to and fro, clasping her arms tightly across her chest and wondering how to stop her own heart from hurting so much. And then another horrifying thought struck her. Had Beau perhaps been pretending, every time he made love to her, that she was Paulette, whom he’d cursed himself for loving? Was he purging himself of Paulette?
No. No. He would not do that to her, would he? She couldn’t think he would do that...
* * *
Somehow the time must have passed, because it was gone eleven when Laura called at her room, to see if she wanted to come shopping with her to Bond Street. Deb declined, saying she had a slight headache, and Laura gave her a swift, sympathetic hug. ‘Of course. Poor you. I’m sorry to have complained so bitterly about darling Beau last night. And you won’t leave us, will you—please?’
After Laura had gone Deb sat down suddenly by the window, remembering the first time she’d met Beau in the Ashendale Forest, and recalling the way his eyes had widened with astonishment when he’d taken his blindfold off, and seen her. He must have laid his plans straight away. And how bitter he had been, she recalled, whenever he mentioned Paulette’s name—had he fallen for her, however briefly, as Paulette implied?
* * *
A little after noon, Bethany came to ask hesitantly if she was going downstairs for lunch, and Deb declined. It had started to rain outside, and she was sitting in the shadows when Beau knocked and entered.
He said, ‘Do you mind if I c
ome in and talk?’
She jumped up. ‘Of course not. Please sit.’
Beau remained standing. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that there is going to be a little trouble over the next few days. Your uncle has unwisely taken up residence in his house in Curzon Street, and he’s just paid me a visit.’
She looked very tense, he realised, and her cheeks were pale. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I came downstairs to find you, and—I heard.’
And he knew straight away what she’d heard, without her telling him. He said evenly, ‘You didn’t believe a word of what Palfreyman said, did you? You didn’t think that your uncle’s vile accusations were true?’
‘But—you didn’t deny it straight away...’
‘That’s because Palfreyman was right,’ Beau said sharply, ‘to say that Simon was riding north to challenge me to a duel when he died. He was right to say that Paulette considered herself in love with me. But I never touched Paulette. Never.’
He thought he saw her tremble a little, and the colour rushed to her cheeks once more. Beau had to fight hard the instinct to catch her in his arms, now, and hold her and kiss her. He’d always thought of himself as a supremely rational man, ruled by his head rather than his heart—but this girl, who used her pride to mask her vulnerability, made him lose all reason.
He remembered how he’d thought her brash and tough in the forest, when she’d defied him with her hands on her hips and a jaunty smile on her face. Now, he realised she’d been terrified out of her wits, most likely, but still she was possessed of endless resourcefulness, endless courage.
Ironic that now he was the one who was terrified.
Terrified at the thought of losing her. Terrified at the thought of not possessing her sweet lips again, or seeing the wonder in her eyes, or the joy in them as he made love to her.
Now she said, in her quiet, calm way, ‘Please, will you tell me the truth? About Paulette?’
And he did so. At last.
Chapter Eighteen
