My Secret Life

by C. J. Archer

  "The Admiral's Men," she said quickly.

  "Lord Howard is patron of a theatre company?"

  Where had this man been living that he'd never heard of London's best company of players? Even her father had seen one of their productions. He'd escorted her last winter. It was the first and last time he'd taken her to the newly opened Rose theatre, or to any other theatre for that matter.

  Style snorted. "Henslowe wouldn't touch a comedy. Alleyn is not a comic actor. His range is limited to blustering, diabolical villains,"

  "Really?" Blake sounded impressed, darn him.

  "Henslowe is the Admiral's Men's manager," Min said, "and Alleyn is their lead player." When Style raised both his eyebrows, she added, "Blake's led a sheltered life. He hasn't been to the theatre much lately."

  "How odd," Style muttered, staring at Blake as if he were a creature emerging from the sea.

  "Henslowe would take on this one," Blake said with all the certainty of ignorance. Min didn't know whether to kiss him or tell him to be quiet. His blind faith in her work was quite intoxicating—and yet she knew it to be false. "I'd probably get more money from him too."

  "Then why not try them first?" Style hadn't become a manger because he was a good actor. A solid business brain must be crammed into that fancy hat.

  "I saw a performance of yours years ago," Blake said. "You used to be good. Very good. But not anymore." He nodded up the road to the White Swan. The coaching inn was now deserted of theatre-goers but still busy with the arrival of travelers on horseback, coach or on foot. Inside, the rest of Lord Hawkesbury's Men might be having a drink in the taproom, perhaps dissecting the day's performance or even discussing her play if Style had shown it to the other members.

  The thought sent a ripple of excitement down her spine. He hadn't said no yet.

  "I felt sorry for you," Blake went on. "That's why I'm offering the play to you first. I want to see Lord Hawkesbury's Men doing well once more. It'll bring back fond memories to see you bowing to a full gallery again."

  Style puffed out his chest and tilted his head. The feather shivered. "Yes, of course. That's understandable."

  Min rolled her eyes. Only Blake saw it. The ghost of a smile played around his lips. As lies went, it was a blunt one. However Style didn't seem to detect it.

  "Four pounds it is." He clapped Blake on the arm. "It's a good play."

  Four pounds! With that much money she could give Jane what was owed her and there'd still be enough left over for wax candles, paper and ink for herself and her father. And perhaps a new pair of gloves since she'd ruined her only decent pair that morning attempting to reunite the frying pan with its wayward handle.

  "Good man," Style said. "Now, come meet the rest of the company. They loved the play."

  "Yes," both Min and Blake said together. He raised one brow at her. She shrugged shoulders still tingling with excitement.

  "Excellent." Style beamed. "They're waiting." With his hand on Blake's arm, he steered him in the direction of the inn. Min followed. "Er, perhaps you should wait here," Style said over his shoulder. "An inn's taproom isn't an appropriate place for a girl such as yourself."

  "I have been to inns before," she said, resisting the urge to stamp her foot.

  "Really? Well, your menfolk can't follow your every move I suppose. Anyway, this one will be full of players and a few remaining audience members. That is, mostly men. We wouldn't want you to see or hear something that might frighten you."

  "Frighten me?"

  "Men's talk can get a little...ribald. It's not for your gentle ears, my girl." With that, he marched Blake up to the inn. At the door, Blake shrugged at her as if to say he could do nothing.

  He certainly could do something. A man with shoulders like that could get his own way if he wanted to. But he hadn't even bothered putting a word in for her. He might have pretended he was her brother or a cousin to convince Style she was chaperoned, but no, he chose to do nothing.

  Min's eyes stung with anger and frustration. Just wait until you come back out Blake-whoever-you-are. I'll make sure you remember who is responsible for getting you into Lord Hawkesbury's company.

  A thought nibbled away at her until it became a gaping hole. She'd been so caught up in her own hopes for her play that she'd not asked herself a vital question: Why had Blake so readily accepted the role she'd shoved onto him? What was in it for him? She'd offered him no incentive, financial or otherwise, and yet he was going along with the scheme with enthusiasm. It was an oddity. He was an oddity.

  She wandered over to a milliner's shop opposite the inn where she could watch for his return. When he emerged, she would take back control of this situation and find out his motives.

  If she could wait long enough, that is. Her father might notice if she was gone for the entire afternoon. They'd discussed his research paper that morning over breakfast but she'd not confided her concerns over his new theories to him. Some of his mathematics simply didn't add up and at least one of his conclusions was quite wild. She sighed. What had happened to send him down a different scientific path to the one he'd been working on?

  Perhaps he would discuss it with her later. Much later. If he went looking for her now and couldn't find her, yesterday's little argument would become as insignificant as a single snowflake in a blizzard.

  CHAPTER 4

  Peabody. Blake knew that name. Every English sea captain did. Sir George Peabody had created a new method of determining a ship's location based on a series of calculations, factoring in the positions of the stars and known landmarks. It was set to revolutionize sea-going adventure. The method and accompanying instrument had the potential to guide a ship around obstacles such as reefs, rocky coasts or treacherous waters. It was the scientific discovery of the century. Peabody had been knighted for it. Noblemen fought over who would be his patron. He was on his way to becoming one of the wealthiest and most lauded scientists in England.

  Except his invention didn't work.

  Blake, like Drake, Raleigh and other privateers, had been bitterly disappointed when the Lucinda May—the ship carrying the instrument—had sunk, taking with it everyone on board as well as the hopes of a fledgling navy. It had been a tragedy beyond measure. The failure of Peabody's Method, as the navigational theory had become known, set English seafaring back several years. All that research come to nothing. All the time and effort of not just Peabody, but every scientist he'd dragged along in his wake, wasted. Gone. The method, the instrument, both useless, worthless.

  Many times Blake had thought about the waste of time, effort and most of all the lives of the sailors on that historic voyage. But not once had he spared a thought for the man behind the invention. What had become of Sir George? Was he still alive or had his failure ended him? Had he lost all his friends as well as his life's work or had they rallied around him?

  Blake didn't know if Min was any relation to the infamous scientist but hearing her name made him want to find out. If she was, and her patched-up clothes and calloused hands were any indication, then Peabody had not fared well at all.

  He entered the White Swan's taproom with Style and his mind shifted away from his real life to this newly fabricated one. It needed his full attention if he was to find out which of the troupe must pay for what he did to Lilly. The room was dimly lit but clean and its few patrons seemed mostly respectable as they huddled together in conversation. Several benches, tables and stools dotted the floor space, leaving little room for maneuvering, which Style did with a kind of grace not usually associated with men.

  "And here they are," Style said. "May I present to you Lord Hawkesbury's Men." He swept his arm in an arc, encompassing four men seated at a table in the corner. Or more accurately, three men and one boy barely old enough to grow hair on his chin. Blake struck him off his list of suspects. "Lord Hawkesbury's Men, may I present to you...er, Blake."

  As introductions went, it was a grandiose one, said in Style's booming stage voice so that the entire taproom
must have heard. All it lacked was the blaring of trumpets and a shower of rose petals.

  "Blake who?" the boy said more to his tankard than to anyone in particular.

  "The playwright," Style said. Four faces stared blankly at him. "He wrote Marius and Livia," he added.

  "Ah," said one of the troupe, nodding. He had gray hair and a long wizard's beard and was the only man Blake didn't recognize from the single performance he'd had the misfortune to see the day before. "The play that will save us from poverty." Blake couldn't tell if he was serious or not. Either way, the man continued nodding as if a puppet-master worked an invisible string attached to his skull.

  "It's good," said another man, a younger version of Style. Brothers? "But not that good."

  "It's not?" Blake said. He didn't understand—Style had been exuberant in his praise. And he'd paid four pounds for it. It must be good.

  "With a little improvement it will shine," Style said quickly, beaming at Blake. "A tweak here, a tweak there and the audience will be begging for more."

  "And who's going to do that?" the nodding wizard said. "You? Or the last poet you hired?" He snorted and took a long swill from his tankard.

  "Blake will." Style clapped Blake on the back. His smile widened. "All we need to do is tell him where it needs a little more and," he kissed his fingertips the way Sicilians did after a hearty meal, "the play will be perfect. The audience will be eating out of our hands."

  "As long as they don't puke all over them afterwards," the boy said.

  Style ignored him and patted Blake's back. "And you, my friend, will write us another play to satisfy them."

  Blake glared at him. Style's hand dropped to his side but, to give him credit, his smile didn't slip. "What do you mean by 'a little more'? More sword fights? More cannon fire?"

  "More..." Style's gaze searched the beams above them, "...suggestion. Yes, that's it. Suggestion."

  "Suggestion of what? Violence?"

  "No-oo," Style said, pulling at his short beard. "Not quite what I meant."

  "He means more rutting," the boy said. Blake mentally put him back on the suspect list. Young or not, the lad wasn't as innocent as his cherubic face implied.

  "Just a hint," Style said with a pointed glare at the boy. "A few titillating remarks, some ribald jokes, that sort of thing."

  Blake couldn't imagine Min knowing any ribald jokes. Perhaps he could tell her a few. The thought almost had him smiling. She would blush from her tightly coifed roots to her prissy little toes. And everywhere in between.

  It was the everywhere in between that sobered him quickly. Best not to think about her in-between bits. She, and women like her, were to be avoided. He was home for one reason only—to find out who'd got his sister with child and force him to marry her, or kill the prick if he refused. There was no room for distractions of the Minverva Peabody kind.

  As to suggestive remarks... Not from Min's quill. She wouldn't know a suggestive remark if it lifted her skirts and bit her on the arse.

  "Maybe a stolen kiss," the fourth member of the troupe said, speaking up for the first time. "You could add in a lover's caress here and there."

  Min definitely wouldn't know anything about kisses, stolen or otherwise. Even though her mouth was made for them with those soft, full lips the color of ripe strawberries. Did her other, nether lips blush the same shade when she was just about to—?

  "My name is Henry Wells," the man said, rising and offering his hand to Blake. With the other, he signaled the serving girl for more ale. "Welcome to Lord Hawkesbury's Men."

  Grateful for the distraction, Blake shook his hand and sat on the vacant stool next to Wells. Out of all the company, Wells seemed the likeliest candidate for Blake's list of suspects. Fair-haired and sturdily built—two qualities all Englishwomen seemed to admire—he was also the friendliest of the troupe. Apart from Roger Style himself who didn't stop smiling as he introduced everyone.

  The youth was an apprentice, Freddie Putney, who played the lead female roles. He lifted a finger off his tankard in salute to Blake before downing the contents, some of which managed to spill into his mouth. The man who looked like Style did turn out to be his younger brother, Edward, and the nodding wizard was John Croft.

  "He's our tiring house manager," the elder Style said. Blake must have had a blank look on his face because Style added, "He's responsible for all the costumes. Cleaning them, mending them, keeping them safe. It's a very important role. Our costumes are our most valuable assets."

  Blake could well believe it. He'd seen some of those valuable assets worn during that one God-awful performance. They might be a few years out of fashion, but the costumes could have graced a nobleman or woman. They probably had. Even his mother had donated a gown once to a troupe because it amused her to see a boy dressed in something she'd worn to court.

  "Is this it?" Blake looked at the faces around the table. "Five men make up the entire company?"

  "The core of it. We hire out the minor roles and some of the backstage work," Style said.

  "There is a vacancy for a bookkeeper though," Edward said. "That usually goes to the writer since he knows the play inside out."

  They all stared at Blake. "Bookkeeper?" he said.

  "You'll have the only whole copy of the play," Wells explained.

  "Protect it with your life," Edward said. "Along with the costumes, the play is our fortune."

  "Unless it turns out to be a pile of shit," Freddie mumbled. "Then you can use the pages to wipe the stage clean." He laughed at his own joke which earned him another glare from Style. The boy didn't seem to notice.

  "The bookkeeper also has to write a summary of the plot for everyone to refer to before and during the performance," Edward went on. "And you'll need to make sure every actor and any necessary props are on stage when they're supposed to be."

  "No," Blake said.

  "No?" Edward tugged on his beard in a mirror image of his brother, right down to using his left hand instead of his right.

  "I only write plays. I don't do anything else."

  "But you have to be bookkeeper," Roger Style said with none of the powerful stage voice of earlier.

  "There's no one else," Croft added.

  "You have to do it," Style said again. "It was part of the deal we made. Four pounds for the play and your services as bookkeeper."

  "That wasn't the deal." Blake rubbed his temple. He really didn't want to have to settle this with swords. A duel with the company's manager might ruin his plans.

  Freddie broke the tension by slamming his tankard down on the table then belching. Style jumped then tried to laugh it off.

  "It's not that hard," Edward said.

  "It is a little bit difficult," Wells countered. "I tried it once and sent Freddie on when it was Roger's turn." He scratched his head and shrugged.

  "Don't worry," Edward said to Blake, "I'll show you what you have to do."

  "I can't be your bookkeeper," Blake said. "I won't be around for the performances." Five pairs of eyes stared at him blankly, as if he was speaking a foreign tongue. "Straight after I've finished the alterations to the play, I'm leaving London."

  In and out, that was the plan. Find out who was responsible for Lilly's predicament, make him pay one way or another, and then leave. Get out of London and get back on board the Silver Star where the men were hard but at least they had integrity. Of sorts. He'd forgotten what London was like, with its courtly manners hiding a viciousness that could put the most bloodthirsty pirates to shame.

  "B, but," Style spluttered, "who'll do it?"

  "I will."

  The now familiar voice brought a chuckle to Blake's throat. It seemed Min wasn't going to be left out of this experience—her experience—no matter what. She was turning into a most surprising woman.

  He turned round and was struck by how small she looked in the roomful of mostly men. But even in her faded cloak and old hat, she was a bright light in the grimy taproom. He smiled at her. He could
n't help it.

  Surprise fluttered across her pretty features before she smiled back.

  "You can't," Style said to her.

  "Who's she?" Wells asked, tossing his head. Peacock.

  "Her name's Min," Blake said. "She's my friend. And your new bookkeeper."

  "But she can't!" Style said, more vehement this time. "She's a woman."

  "Thank you for noticing," Min said, standing between Blake and Style. "But I happen to think I'd make an excellent bookkeeper. I've read the play so I know it well and I've an eye for detail."

  "But you've never done this sort of thing before," Style protested. "You won't know what to do."

  "You offered the job to Blake a moment ago and he's never done it before either."

  A heavy silence weighed down the air, already thick with the stink of ale and sweat. Min raised her eyebrows. Style clicked his tongue.

  "Welcome aboard," Wells said, standing and offering his seat to Min. He smiled at her as she sat and she grinned back.

  Wells was definitely going to the top of the list.

  "But you'll be backstage!" Style said. He pressed a be-ringed hand palm-down on the table and leaned forward, closer to her. Blake shifted forward too, just in case. "You'll see things that a lady of your...bearing shouldn't see." He shook his head, sending the plume into a frenzy. "No. I can't in all conscience allow you to subject yourself."

  "I'll avert my eyes," Min offered with a shrug.

  "But...what would your menfolk think?"

  "Let me worry about my menfolk."

  If the Peabody of Peabody's Method infamy was indeed her father and he'd sunk so low as to allow calluses on his daughter's hands, he probably wouldn't care if she spent most afternoons backstage with a troupe of players. Why in hell didn't someone, anyone, speak to the old fool!

  "But backstage can be dangerous for a woman," Style said.

  "What could possibly happen to her in the middle of a performance?" Croft said. "Apart from trip over something and break her neck, and we all face that danger, including my own daughter who works in the tiring house. Not that your conscience has ever spared a thought for her," he said bitterly.