Raven took Millicent’s hand for a quick squeeze. “The earl is proud of our efforts and wishes to make it known. Take heart, Lady Morley.”
“I am not exaggerating. I cannot remember my own name!” Mrs. Carlton lamented.
“Dear Mrs. Carlton,” Raven said before kissing the woman’s cheek. “Mr. Carlton has already proclaimed that he will applaud your Marc Antony if you were to recite the entire monologue in reverse. What is there to fear?”
“Well, when you put it like that…I cannot really disappoint, can I?”
“There! Besides if you forget a line, remember that Mr. Walters is standing by with the pages to gently prompt you.” Raven peeked out to where the butler stood at the ready. “I swear, he was so thrilled to be asked, I fear he might jump in to prompt you whether you need it or not.”
“I have no need for a prompter,” Lady Baybrook said. “Miss Wells, is the gold trim on my cloak showing to its advantage? I asked that maid to make sure that it was a regal amount of cording but now that I see it again, I am unsure.”
“It is an intimate setting, your ladyship, and I have to say, the cloak is stunning in the candlelight. You are—breathtaking.” Raven turned to make another check of the costumes. “Very well, we are nearly ready to start. Lady Baybrook will do us the honor of leading off, then Lady Morley’s Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Carlton’s piece from Julius Ceasar, my performance and then we shall all regroup for our piece from “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”. Remember to change into your costumes for that final piece as you finish your own. We will all aid each other in that.”
“What if they laugh?” Mrs. Carlton asked, her grip on her gold painted staff tightening.
“Then we will be very pleased with ourselves for providing for their merriment,” Raven replied. “Ladies, enough. Latch your courage to the sticking place and let’s enjoy ourselves.”
She signaled the start of their performance and Lady Baybrook strolled out to begin, to the happy applause of the small audience. Raven took the narrow opportunity to turn to Lady Morley and drew her aside while Mrs. Carlton watched Lady Baybrook in rapt attention.
“Are you ready?”
“I am.” Millicent tried to smile but failed. “Is everything…set?”
“Everything.”
Lady Morley embraced her, a spontaneous hold that steadied them both. “I will never be able to thank you enough for—“
“There is no need. Come, let’s give them a show that they will never forget.”
The library had been converted into a makeshift theatre, thanks to the carved arches the center columns provided. A curtain of red cloth was strung on a cord across the span dividing the room into two partitions for performers and their audience. Chairs had been added to accommodate an eager if small crowd. Mr. Walters was stationed to the left of the curtains with a small podium, a proud and visible prompter at the ready.
Expectations were truly for nothing more than an amateur pass at so lofty a goal and the earl was quick to tell his neighbors that the ladies had barely had a few days to prepare as if to buffer criticism. Phillip marveled at how anxious the man seemed, as if the opinions of the local gentry was all encompassing when he had only the night before made some comment about not giving a fig for anyone’s view but his own.
Male guests of Oakwell Manor enjoyed a place of honor in their front row chairs, with the earl front and center, like a king about to take in a performance at his command. Phillip settled in next to Mr. Carlton and waited patiently for things to begin.
Mr. Carlton leaned over to whisper, “If my wife doesn’t faint, I shall dub it a Complete Triumph.”
“I say it is a Complete Triumph if she even walks out, sir, considering how shy she is. How proud you must be for her to even make this attempt!” Phillip replied softly. “I see it as a demonstration of her love for you, Mr. Carlton, and nothing less.”
“I need no demonstration, Mr. Warrick.” Mr. Carlton sighed in contentment. “Love never need prove itself to be felt. When you find it, sir, it becomes the very star you navigate your entire life by even when you forget to look up at it.”
The butler stepped forward and interrupted them. “Ladies and Gentlemen, if you would please settle down. I believe the ladies are ready to commence.”
Phillip swallowed hard at the lump in this throat. Mr. Carlton’s eloquence was humbling but his heart clamored to agree that his love for Raven had become the star that he knew would effectively guide every step he took.
Lady Baybrook strolled out like a barge down the Thames and began a rather over-pronounced interpretation of one of Cordelia’s speeches from King Lear. “Alack,, ‘tis he: why, he was met even now as mad as vext sea…”
Gratefully, Phillip acknowledged that his current blissful state numbed him to the worst of it. He stole a glance at Lord Trent and had to look away just as quickly to keep from laughing as the earl twitched and writhed like a man being pressed against a glowing hot grate.
Lady Baybrook finished with a braying crescendo and the audience applauded with the enthusiasm of prisoners tasting fresh air and freedom after years in a dungeon. Needless to say, it was clear the lady accepted it as an affirmation of her talents and not relief that she’d finished. She bowed and with a flourish of her gilt robe, sailed off behind the veil of the curtains.
After a few seconds, Lady Morley stepped out wearing a starkly simple gown of black with a swath of black silk covering her hair. The color flattered her full figure and something in the solemn way she moved, forced the room to an instant silence.
“Yet here is a spot.”
He recognized the text instantly, surprised at the melancholy selection.
She went on in a sweet relentless singsong that conveyed only loss. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—one, two; why, then ‘tis time to do it. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?”
Tears poured down her cheeks, and no one doubted the madness of grief and torment that had seized this Scottish queen. “Here’s the smell of the blood still, all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
Her recitation continued, the strength of her performance never wavering even as the queen began to face her death. “To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s done cannot be undone; to bed, to bed, to bed.”
Several women in the room gasped, the men pressed fingers to their lips in rapt admiration and horror. Here, an unlikely actress had transported them from the room, and when she finished, they were lost. She stared out, and it was long seconds before they recovered their senses remembering themselves enough to clap. Then the applause took on a life of its own as the earl rose to his feet to evoke a standing ovation. Only Lord Morley kept his seat in a stubborn act of rebellion as if he alone could deny what he’d seen.
“Millicent the Magnificent!” the earl crowed. “Brava!”
“Brava, indeed!” Phillip echoed heartily.
Millicent’s blush was very sweet and she wiped away her tears. Her expression of surprise only spurred on their appreciation. She bowed again and fled behind the curtain even as they continued to cheer.
Poor Mrs. Carlton came out as meekly as a mole into sunlight wearing a makeshift toga over her gown and Phillip’s heart lurched to see her. Hard enough to take the stage but after Lady Morley, it’s quite a steep step.
To her credit, with her hands shaking so hard he was convinced she was about to drop her painted torch, Mrs. Carlton didn’t forget a single word of her speech. What she did forget was to raise her voice to reach more than a row or two but with her eyes locked onto her husband, she slowly fought her way through it, gaining a small bit of strength toward its finish. Phillip watched Mr. Carlton lean forward in his chair, enraptured from the first to the last.
“Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin
there with Ceasar, and I must pause till it come back to me.”
Mr. Carlton was on his feet as soon as she stopped, not even waiting for her to bow, moving so quickly to show his appreciation that he overturned his chair.
Everyone around him was charmed and all applauded, not only for the lady, but her husband’s blind devotion to cheer for what was likely to be the quietest Marcus Antonius in the history of the Roman Empire.
“Brava!” Phillip joined in the accolades. “Bravely done, Mrs. Carlton!”
Mr. Carlton was a man bereft of speech, but he blew her a kiss and his bride colored, suddenly all smiles as she returned to her company behind the curtain.
Phillip shook his head and grinned at his seat mate. “A Complete Triumph, Mr. Carlton!”
“God, she was so—fantastic, I can scarce catch my breath!”
“You are a lucky man, sir,” Phillip said.
“I know,” Mr. Carlton sighed. “Ah, here is Miss Wells!” he redirected Phillip’s attention to the curtains and it was Phillip’s turn to fight for air. For Raven Wells was wearing a diaphanous empire gown evocative of a dream with a garland of ivy and roses atop her head. Gossamer wings of painted organza confirmed that she was not a creature of their world. Her black hair was loose to fall down her back and over her shoulders and Phillip realized with a surge of desire and admiration that even her bare toes peeping out from her gown conveyed a certain wildness and lack of shame.
A few in the crowd gasped at her daring but Phillip knew that every man in the room was under her spell. He smiled with a possessive pride that celebrated that he alone could claim her for his own.
“These are the forgeries of jealousy…”
Sweet and sure, she managed to be both timelessly wise as a Queen Titania would be but also eternally innocent. The speech was a sensual chiding to her beloved Oberon for his misbehavior and the consequences of the rift between them. She pleaded with her love for peace and Phillip’s mouth fell open at the power of her pleas.
“No night is now with hymn or carol blest, therefore the moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger, washes all the air….the spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter, change their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, by their increase, now knows not which is which…”
She cast a spell on the room but Phillip was at the heart of it. Here was his fey fairy woman, wild and untamed! Raven was a creature in her element before them and he marveled at how fate had brought him a woman without comparison.
Then the curtains pull back and all the women have changed their costumes, either as fairies or apparently, Lady Morley, wearing a large paper-machier donkey’s head as the cursed love of the Queen. Lady Baybrook was the wall between the lovers wearing a large grey cloak sewn with vines and small woodland creatures. Comedy reigned as it became the famous play within the play from Midsummer Night’s Dream. The women all took multiple parts, with poor Lady Morley with her giant donkey ears dipping into the other actresses’ faces demonstrating that her talents for broad humor matched her touch for tragedy. Her voice was muffled by the cage of paper and fur to make every nonsensical line more ridiculous. But it was only when the wall refused to hold her arms up any longer that the audience gave in to a roar of laughter.
Lady Baybrook put her hands on her hips. “A lady of quality is barrier enough to any romantic tangle!”
“Oh, cruel wall,” Raven improvised. “Pray do not crumble until your cue!”
She was rewarded with more and more laughter as even Mrs. Carlton playfully added to the fun as her wig became turned around when she came too close to the cumbersome donkey. “Pray guide me to my spot, Queen Titania. I seem to be blind.”
Comedy became farce and the earl rose to his feet. “Oh, god! Shakespeare is spinning in his grave and I do not care for I think I have laughed myself senseless! Enough, I beg you! Mercy, ladies! Let us all have you take a bow and then see to some toasts to our incomparable little thespians!”
The ladies awkwardly formed a line and curtsied or bowed as they could within the limits of wings and masks, accepting the praise of the audience as graciously as they could.
“Take that damn thing off, Millicent! You are making an ass of yourself!” Lord Morley barked.
His unfortunate choice of phrase made several guests laugh, and the lady in question shyly tried to slip back behind the curtains to comply with her husband’s command.
Lord Morley’s patience was at an end. He walked forward to grab the cloth ears only to have his wife clutch at the headdress in a strange tug-of-war. “Millicent! Take that damn thing off!”
“No!” a muffled cry rose up, and chaos began to take hold as the earl sought to restrain his friend and Raven and Mrs. Carlton held onto Lady Morley to prevent her from being pulled apart.
Everyone was on their feet, some frozen by the spectacle of a lord of the realm wrestling to pull a paper donkey’s head off of his wife but others were pushing forward to offer assistance to one side or the other.
“Nooo!” It was an inconsolable sound but in one vicious move, Morley achieved his goal and he held the donkey’s head aloft, like Perseus holding an equine version of Medusa’s head for all to see.
“There!”
For a split second, there was raw silence at the shocking maneuver. Then Lord Morley was howling in fury. “Where! Is! My! Wife!”
A new chaos unfolded as it slowly registered that the woman he had unmasked who was now cowering on the floor was not the lady in question.
“Kitty?” the earl asked. “What is the meaning of this?”
Raven deliberately stepped in between the maid and Lord Morley. “We meant no harm! She took the part at my bidding!”
“Where is my wife?” Lord Morley barked again.
“You are making a scene where there is no cause for it, Morley,” Geoffrey said calmly. “And you are ruining my evening.”
Lord Morley’s gaze narrowed. “Something is afoot. I can see it on her face.”
“My face? Whatever do you mean?” Lady Baybrook asked. “What is the meaning of this display, sir?”
“Not you, you old cow!” Morley snarled. Silence descended as shock and horror warred for the room’s attention. “Her!” Lord Morley extended a pointed finger directly at Raven. “What have you done, you little witch!”
Phillip had heard more than enough but Raven answered him before he could get past the bodies in his way.
“I?” she batted her eyes. “I cannot think of an accomplishment I can claim except proving you to be a fool after all.”
Lord Morley’s rage carried him forward, hands twisted into claws intended for Raven’s throat. But Phillip tackled him without hesitation, driving him into the curtains that tore and covered them both. With the blanket encumbering them both, Phillip instinctively took advantage and kept a tight hold on Lord Morley to prevent him from lashing out.
By the time some of the men in the room had freed them both, Morley was practically foaming at the mouth in frustration. “She proves me a fool, does she?” Lord Morley tried to shake off the hands that held him in check. “Where is my wife? You’ll tell me this instant or I’ll kill you, Raven Wells!”
Several female spectators cried out in alarm at the threat and the earl signaled his butler. “Send for the authorities. It seems Lord Morley has abandoned his senses.”
“Damn you to hell! There isn’t a law in this land that keeps me from my wife!”
“Perhaps, but there may be something about threatening murder.”
Mr. Carlton began to help Phillip to his feet but Lord Morley surprised all of them by wrenching free and kicking Phillip in the face. White hot pain sent him back against the floor, but Phillip gained his footing to prove that he wasn’t defeated.
“Phillip! My love!” Raven rushed to his side and Phillip pulled her toward his back to protect her just in case Lord Morley made another charge.
“What was that?” the earl asked.
“Unhand me, you misc
reants! My wife is—“
“Probably upstairs changing into her clothes and wondering what all this bellowing is about,” Trent cut him off. “Walters. Send a maid up and fetch Lady Morley. In the meantime, hold his lordship fast.” His eyes locked onto Phillip. “My love?”
“We should talk privately, your lordship. This is hardly the time or place to—“
Trent held up his hand to command silence. “I’ll have it now.”
The audience quieted again, the dramatic finale to the evening’s performance far more than they’d bargained for. Phillip took in their curious gazes and then back to Raven. Her eyes were wide with hope and fear and he knew there was no avoiding it any longer. It was time for a grand gesture, though not as elegant a step as the one he’d planned for the morrow. “I wish to ask you for Raven’s hand in marriage. For your blessing.”
The earl’s gaze narrowed dangerously. “I think not.”
“Please! Lord Trent, I beg you to reconsider—“ Raven cried out but another flurry of movement at the door interrupted the scene.
Mr. Walters strode up to Geoffrey to whisper something urgently in his ear.
The earl closed his eyes and then stepped forward to pull Raven roughly out from behind Phillip. Raven cried out at the bruising pinch of Geoffrey’s hands and Phillip acted out of instinct, striking out at the earl to keep him from hurting her. It became a full on melee as his fist connected with Geoffrey’s jaw. Raven screamed and Lord Morley began howling when Mr. Sheffield and several other men drove him to the floor when he moved to grab a fistful of Raven’s hair. Chaos reigned again until all the combatants were separated. Lord Trent was breathing so hard in his rage, Phillip feared for him.
Hell, he feared for all of them.
Chapter Twenty
“Very well, let’s attend to one matter at a time, shall we?” The earl reached up to rub his jaw. “Lord Morley, your wife is indeed gone. Apparently the lady took the opportunity of tonight’s theatrical to leave you, sir.”
Lady Falls (Black Rose Trilogy) Page 16
