Had Grasby been less inebriated and less mesmerized, he might have noticed the partially obscured female’s walking stick, an anomaly amongst a group of dancers. And having noticed the walking stick, he would have wanted to see the face of the owner of what was quintessentially a male accoutrement, only used by females who were elderly or infirm, and by his sister Rory since he could remember.
It was fortuitous for Dair that his friend remained oblivious to the walking stick, and that the assistant continued to obstruct their view of its owner’s face. Recognizing his sister, Grasby would not have jumped through the window and run towards the stage with arms raised, howling like an escaped Bedlam inmate. He would have turned his skinny behind away from the window and fled back down the garden path and into the blackness of night, leaving his friend stranded and bemused by such a cowardly act.
“That’s a stroke of luck. Romney’s not in the room. The canvas is unattended. It’s now or never, Grasby!”
“By God they have lovely legs,” Grasby blurted out, unable to hold back his admiration. “They go up to their ears!”
Dair chuckled and nudged his friend. “All the way to paradise, my friend. Now get up and over that ledge.”
“What? Me? First?”
“Yes. I’ll be one foot behind you. You head left towards the stage and those lovely long legs, hollering as loud as you can to get their attention. I’ll take the right flank, but stay silent, so I can creep up on those fellows and take them by surprise, should they prove to have a brave bone in their body. I suspect they’ll flee on sight of us. But you never can tell, particularly with females present. One may want to play the hero.”
Grasby liked the idea of Dair dealing with any ensuing violence, but he remained reluctant.
“We could seriously upset such delicious creatures with our carryings-on, and I don’t think I can—upset them. They may only be dancing girls, but one must remain a gentleman, to all females, high and lowborn. It doesn’t feel right to frighten them.”
Dair understood. He had no wish to terrorize females, defenseless or otherwise.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, something Cedric doesn’t know because he is determined to be the hero of the hour. Consulata is well aware of what’s about to happen; I had her tell the girls. They are expecting us. I presume that’s why there’s so much giggling and jiggling going on. Have another look and you’ll see they can’t keep still.” When Grasby popped his eyes above the sill, he grinned. “Lovely, aren’t they?”
“Heavenly… I could watch them wiggle like that all day…”
“Me too.”
Grasby dropped back down below the sill. “I like this plan much better.” He pretended to button his lips. “Not a word to Cedric.”
Dair stuck out his hand. “Good luck.”
Their handshake was firm. Both grinned with the anticipation of running after semi-clothed dancers squealing with delight.
Dair slowly pushed up the sill, and when it was high enough to allow human trespass, he nodded. Grasby straightened from a crouch. Dair briefly gripped his shoulder to give him courage, then Grasby pushed himself up onto the ledge, scrabbled over the sill and dropped into the room.
Thirty seconds was all it took.
The studio walls reverberated with the piercing squeals of half a dozen overly-excited dancing girls jumping for joy. Two of their number ran with open arms across the studio to greet the intruder playing at being an American Indian.
Lord Grasby was in seventh heaven.
RECOGNIZING HER BROTHER, Rory was up off the chaise longue and leaning on her stick, as if she feared collapse should she not have the benefit of its assistance. When a hand caught at her gloved wrist, she tore her gaze from Lord Grasby cavorting with two giggling dancers and stared unseeing at Consulata Baccelli.
“Do not be alarmed,” the ballerina reassured her. “There is no danger. The Major and his friend, they are merely playing a game—”
“I must get down from here at once!”
Consulata’s grip tightened but her smile remained.
“That is not possible, not until the performance it is over. Please sit and maintain calm.”
“You do not understand. I cannot be seen here. I must go, without delay!”
“It is natural we females become anxious by the games men play, because always they are unpredictable,” Consulata replied, misunderstanding Rory’s determination for feminine anxiety. She tried to make her see reason. “But their games they are harmless. And these two, they are like two little boys who pretend to be savages. And my dancers, they are greatly amused to be so entertained. So, signorina, you will sit and not spoil our enjoyment of their performance, sí?”
“I assure you, if I do not leave here at once, the consequences for those men will be far worse than spoiling your enjoyment. Now, please, let go of my hand.”
“Why are you such a wet goose about a trifle of a thing?” Consulata demanded indignantly, voice rising as she tried to be heard over all the excitement.
A quick glance across Rory’s shoulder and she saw the reason for the increase in the dancers’ vocal admiration. A second male intruder had now dropped into the studio via the sash window. It was Major Lord Fitzstuart. Her gaze reluctantly returned to Rory. She was now furious with this young woman to whom she had given a front row seat to the handsome Major’s outrageous display. To reject her offer and be so ungracious as to want to leave just as the male entertainment was beginning decided Consulata she had misjudged Rory entirely. The young woman was indeed one of those indignant moralizing spinsters the English were capable of producing in monotonous abundance.
“You are tiresome in the extreme!” she declared, up off the chaise to stand beside Rory. “And me, I do not apologize to one who goes frigid with fright at the sight of a man uncovered! Eh? The male body ’tis beautiful, powerful, stupendo. If one is to faint, it is in appreciation! You want to run away over a thing that is most natural, but Consulata, she will not allow you to do this! The perfect opportunity it has arrived for your eyes to be opened and for you to see.”
The principal ballerina grabbed Rory’s shoulders, swiveled her to face into the studio, and gave a snort of satisfaction.
“Now take a good look at what is before your eyes, because me, I have a vast experience of men, and none is more impressive in its handsome masculinity than the figure possessed by Major Fitzstuart. Ecco!”
Rory did not struggle to be free of Consulata’s hold, neither did she do as requested and search out the Major. She kept her gaze on the middle distance, where strewn across the floor were the paints, artist’s brushes and paraphernalia that had been tossed into the air and left scattered and spilled by a retreating assistant. In so doing, Rory hoped to avoid catching sight of her brother, so that if he chanced to take his focus from the two dancers in his arms and recognized her, he would not be instantly acutely embarrassed. For surely finding her amongst a troupe of scantily-clad dancers of questionable morality, while shocking in itself, was as nothing when compared to the fact his little sister had discovered him cavorting with these very same females.
Her second thought, and the one that consumed her the most, was how could she possibly forestall her sister-in-law and Mr. Watkins from entering the studio? They were just one floor above, and the disturbance was so deafening and constant that had they been three floors higher, they could not fail to hear the high-pitched squeals and laughing protests of the dancers as they were being chased. It was only a matter of time before every person within the Romney household came rushing to find out what all the commotion was about. And if Lady Grasby discovered one of the intruders was in fact her husband of three years, Rory was certain her brother’s married life would not be worth living thereafter.
To save her brother’s marriage from ruin, the family from scandal, and for the sake of domestic harmony, Rory knew it was her duty to make every effort to cross the studio and lock the door on the outside world. Her sister-in-law and Mr. Watk
ins must be prevented from entering at all costs. If she were able to lock the door, then she was confident Grasby and the Major had every chance of escaping from the house the way they had entered it, without further detection and with no one of their acquaintance the wiser as to their outrageous behavior.
And then the little voice within her, the voice that came to her when she was alone with her thoughts in her bedchamber, or out in her hothouse nurturing her precious pineapples, uttered the two tiny words she knew so well.
What if?
When she was much younger, and thus more impetuous and less level-headed, these two words had caused her heartache and strife more times than she cared to count. They had allowed her to entertain alternatives and possibilities for a future that had been ordained the day of her birth.
Her mother had died in childbed, and she was born lame. The man midwife who delivered her postulated that there was a likelihood she was also brain-damaged. He deemed she would never walk, never develop in body, and would have impaired brain function. It was best if she were left to go hungry and let nature take its course. Her grandfather saved her. No one, however, could save her father. The death of his beloved wife sent him into a deep depression, and two months after her birth he did the unthinkable. He was found drowned in the Thames. A boating accident, so the world was told.
What if she had been born without a deformity? What if she had been able to walk without the aid of a stick, upright and confident, and with the grace shown by all young ladies wishing to present themselves to best advantage? She would have found a suitor. She would have married. She would have born babies by now.
What if her grandfather had not saved her? And that was the most profound what if of all.
And as she stood on the stage in indecision, held against her will by Consulata Baccelli, those two little words came to her, and she dared to consider the consequences of what if?
What if she remained on the stage and did as Consulata Baccelli demanded and looked upon Major Fitzstuart dressed as a savage? The ballerina insisted and would be offended if she did not. And after all, as the main actor, surely he wished every member of his audience to be attentive to his performance. It would be the height of bad manners not to show him some consideration…
Rory smiled to herself, smoothed out her petticoats and resumed her seat on the chaise longue. With back straight, one gloved hand resting lightly in the lavender silk folds of her lap and the other about the carved ivory handle of her walking stick, she slowly lifted her gaze and allowed her light blue eyes to calmly survey its principal performer, one Major Lord Fitzstuart.
Oh my…
In all her daydreams, he had never looked like that.
Stripped to his breeches and white shirt was as undressed as her imagination could take her. And at the recent Roxton Easter Regatta, Major Lord Fitzstuart had unwittingly obliged her by fulfilling this daydream when he strode into her marquee, an entourage at his back, in search of refreshment after his exertions in winning the boat race. He had walked straight past her without a second look, which was to be expected. He did not know her. She was six years younger than her brother, and the Major was in the army, abroad before she even put in an appearance downstairs. And as always at such functions, she was seated with the elderly, the infirm, and those guests unwilling to make the trek to cheer on the rowers from the lakeshore. Ignored, Rory was at her leisure to admire his lordship in damp breeches and even damper white shirt clinging to his manly physique.
But never, in her all her conjured fantasies, would she have believed that just a month after the Easter Regatta, she would see the Major again, and this time wearing nothing but a cloth between his taut thighs. When he stopped and threw back his head with laughter to find her brother gleefully writhing about the floorboards with two dancers collapsed on top of him, she was given further opportunity to appraise him. And just as the dancers appeared to her fashioned from an ethereal marble, so, too, did the Major. His broad back and shoulders were smoothly polished, the muscle contours to his arms and legs as chiseled as a classical statue of Apollo. But when he turned and ran across the room towards the stage, she was so taken aback she gasped, breath short and quick, as if needing air to stave off light headedness. It was not his dark eyes or painted face, or the two braids either side of his handsome face, that caught her completely off guard. It was the shock of the unexpected.
Gentlemen of her social circle were always close shaven; some wore a blue cast to their cheeks and chins between shaves. She knew that if left unshaven, men grew facial hair, and if left to grow, this hair turned into a beard. Major Lord Fitzstuart had this blue cast to his strong jaw and heavy chin, and while his throat was smooth-skinned and hairless, the rest of him was not. The covering of dark hair to his expansive chest was a complete surprise. This dark hair not only covered his chest, but continued south of his navel, over the hard contour of his torso in a neat dark line, to disappear under the belt hanging low on his waist, to which was attached a modesty cloth. A quick glance to the floor and she saw that his bare feet were large and hairless, but his solid calves and muscled thighs were not. It was a revelation. Rory’s throat burned dry. The Major’s masculinity far exceeded the girlish expectations of her daydreams. Small wonder then that the dancers were applauding and jumping up and down in admiration! Mentally, she was engaged in doing the same.
Recovered from the shock of revelation, she allowed herself to be caught up in his display of male bravado and athletic prowess.
One of Romney’s assistants, who was brave enough—or was he stupid?—to stand his ground, put up his fists. The Major laughed and welcomed the challenge. Yet he did not put up his fists. With hands to his hips he confronted the assistant, challenging him to make the first strike. When the assistant did just that, the Major nonchalantly ducked this way and that, avoiding contact with the run of jabs punched into the air in front of him. Seemingly tired of the game, he finally went in for the attack. His fist caught the assistant’s jaw first punch and the man reeled back, shocked.
Rory half rose from the chaise.
The dancers at her back cheered.
The Major followed up with a series of strategically placed short sharp blows to the man’s body. The assistant collapsed, crumpled onto the floor, winded.
Rory applauded.
The dancers cheered louder than ever.
The Major turned to the stage in recognition of the acclaim, but the dancers, Rory included, gasped, smiles replaced by agitation as they pointed at something or someone over his shoulder.
A second assistant was foolish enough to make a run at the Major from behind, a chair raised above his head, ready to bring it down upon the Major’s head. Instantly, the Major swiveled on the balls of his feet, saw the chair in the air, dropped to a crouch and put his shoulder forward. The assistant ran straight into the Major’s shoulder whereupon he was lifted off his feet, lost his balance and his hold on the chair, and was flipped into the air. As the Major straightened, the chair and the assistant crashed to the ground. The chair bounced and splintered. The assistant landed on his back, winded, self-esteem shattered. When he could breathe, the assistant scurried from the room on all fours to the accompaniment of the Major’s hearty laugh and the taunts of the dancers.
All resistance at an end, Major Lord Fitzstuart turned to the stage and bowed with a flourish, quick to revert to character as an American Indian.
Spellbound, Rory watched, fascinated, as he play-acted for his appreciative audience: Crouching at intervals, as if taking cover behind a thicket; peering around the side of the canvas balanced on an easel, as if it were a rock, his face split into a grin. Then he became serious, lost the grin, and with a hand to his brow, pretended to scout for the enemy. The dancers jumped up and down more than ever, applauding his charades, some even dared to shout out, demanding he notice them specifically. But he remained in character, and skillfully traversed the battlefield of strewn artifacts to be found in a painter’s studio, h
urled up into the air and left scattered in panic by one or Mr. Romney’s assistants: Paint brushes strewn like broken sticks, a palette dropped like a soldier’s shield, and paints of all colors spilled out of their mixing pots and splashed across the floorboards like the blood of the wounded vanquished.
Cheers and squeals of delight from the stage accompanied this successful crossing of such a perilous battlefield, and in celebration, the Major howled at the moon, fists raised in victory. The dancers continued to applaud, and all hoped they would be the one the Major captured when he invaded the stage.
Consulata Baccelli leaned forward on the chaise longue, the diaphanous silk slipping off her shoulder invitingly as she called for him to join her. And when the Major looked her way, she beckoned him to her with a sultry smile and one crooked finger. It was all the encouragement he needed to take a flying leap for the chaise longue.
What Major Lord Fitzstuart could not see and thus did not know, and what the dancers saw but promptly ignored, was the sudden activity at his back. A raiding party had invaded the studio, the door was flung wide and banged against the wood paneling. The smack of wood hitting hard up against wood was lost in the din of the dancers screaming for the Major’s attention.
Rory not only saw the door burst open but also was witness to Mr. Cedric Pleasant striding purposefully into the center of the floor space before dramatically drawing his sword and holding it aloft, like a valiant knight of old on a quest to smite the enemy. He followed his theatrical entrance with the bellowed pronouncement that he, Cedric Pleasant esquire, had come to save the day. Disappointingly for Mr. Pleasant, no one but those at his back heard this brave declaration.
Mr. George Romney, Mr. William Watkins, and Lady Grasby, with a gentleman unknown to Rory following on their heels, all pushed through the doorway, almost at one and the same time, and once inside, fanned out across the room in search of the source of the wild commotion, which was directly before their eyes.
Dair Devil Page 4
