Terence got to his feet. “It is time to put a stop to this.”
Tom had Signor Arlecchino in a hammerlock hold by the time Terence and Daniel got backstage. “I have him, sir!”
“Explain yourself, Arlecchino,” Terence said.
“Ye won’t understand him if he does, sir,” Tom grumbled.
But to everyone’s amazement, the struggling fellow answered without an accent. “He’s … choking me! Can’t … explain … if he’s choking me!”
“Let him go, Tom.”
Arlecchino coughed. “I am with the Drury Lane players.”
“He was a-spying on us and a-sabotaging our show, sir. He decided to confess.”
“Aye, after you punched me.”
“He was the one what drilled the holes in the roof and made the leaks,” Tom went on. “He painted bears and dogs on The Shepherdess backdrop. He led our Molly astray.”
Daniel folded his arms across his chest. “I see. Terence, what shall we do?”
Terence studied the little man and paced up and down. “What is your real name?”
“John Arly. Close enough to Arlecchino, don’t you think?”
“You had us all fooled.”
Arly grinned.
Terence walked back to Daniel. “There is only one thing we can do.”
“And what is that?”
“ Ask the man to work for us.”
“The idea is insane,” Daniel said severely. “Like everything else that happens around here. No doubt I will eventually go insane myself.”
“Quite right,” Terence said cheerfully, not really listening at all.
Daniel found Jo at last. She was sitting on the sheep box and feeding the animals bits of hay from The Shepherdess scenery, which had been pushed into the wings.
She looked up. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Why the long face? Opening night was a howling success, Daniel.”
“So it was,” he said gloomily. “I now have a performing wife. And performing sheep.”
“They were very good, were they not?” she said, sticking another bit of hay through a crack. “Real troupers, Tom said.”
“I have had a word with Tom, and I shall have another.”
“Don’t scold him, Daniel. What’s done is done. And don’t scold me.”
He picked up a stalk of hay and thrust it through a knothole. A pair of sheepy lips took it eagerly. “I wasn’t going to. You did the right thing.”
“Do you mean to say that you are not angry? I was onstage. All of London saw me.”
“No one will remember anything but the pratfalls. And Lizzie. And the sheep.”
She patted the box. “Poor things. They are very sweet.”
He sat down beside her.
“What are you thinking, Daniel?”
“That I … I love you. No matter what happens.”
“That’s a good start.” She kissed him.
He kissed her back.
“That’s even better.”
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2005 by Lisa Noeli
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ISBN: 978-0-8217-7818-0
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