A Date at the Altar

by Cathy Maxwell

Rov laughed. “Jane’s a good lass, but a man can get bored eating the same meal night after night. There comes a time when he realizes he is growing soft, aging . . . and he wishes for something more. You don’t know how fortunate you are to have escaped the parson’s knot—”

  “What ho, what are we discussing here?” Admiral Daniels said boozily, leaning between them. “Is His Grace still trying to find a wife?”

  “I tell him it isn’t worth it,” Rov answered.

  “It isn’t,” Daniels said. “Better a mistress than a wife. I liked that yellow-haired gal up there on the stage. Nice bit she was. More than a handful.” He made a squeezing motion in the air as if he held a breast in his palm.

  Rov laughed and Sir John twittered and Gavin wished he were somewhere else. He hated that his personal affairs had become public knowledge. Of course, after being jilted by two women, there would be gossip.

  And advice.

  And marriage offers.

  Everyone was tendering their daughters, sisters, cousins, even aunts to him, along with the promise that their candidates for his wife would go through with the marriage. Meanwhile, Gavin sensed those same young women were wondering what was wrong with him that two women had bolted. Humbling.

  But he wasn’t about to take advice from the likes of Daniels.

  Before he could give a tart response, a serving girl with rosy cheeks entered their box with drinks that had been ordered. Lord Phillips reached right across Gavin to slam his empty tankard on her tray.

  “Careful now,” the girl chided.

  Phillips looked taken aback. “Do you know who I am?”

  “A drunk,” she shot back as if she’d seen too many of his kind this evening. “Here’s a full one.” She offered the full tankard she’d carried over to him.

  Phillips took it, but then gave the girl a leering smirk and poured the contents down her frightfully low bodice before Gavin even realized what he was about.

  Ale splattered everywhere including over Gavin. Phillips then followed this antic by lurching forward and diving his face into her cleavage. He shook his head wildly in her bosom, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  The girl screeched for him to let her be. She hit his back with her tray and struggled to escape. All around them, men roared with laughter. Some stood on the benches or their chairs in the boxes for a better look. They thought this a great stunt and shouted encouragement loud enough to drown out what was happening on stage.

  Gavin thought it criminal. He stood, grabbed Phillips by the collar and the seat of his breeches and yanked him up. “Run,” he said to the girl, and he didn’t have to tell her twice.

  Swinging Phillips around to meet him, Gavin said, “You are chairing a committee meeting on the morrow with the Regent. Sober up.”

  Phillips looked into Gavin’s face, grinned like the sod he was, and burped. Offended by the odor, Gavin let go of his hold and Phillips dropped to the floor at Harris and Crowder’s feet where he did not move.

  “I told you he’d be the first to pass out,” Rov announced to Daniels. “Pay up.”

  “You’ll have my marker on the morrow,” the admiral answered, unconcerned.

  “Do you wager on everything?” Gavin asked his friend in horrified surprise.

  “Only when I know I shall win,” Rov assured him, sitting back in his chair and crossing his legs. “For example, I’ve a wager that I shall bed the Siren before any other manjack in this room.”

  “That is a ridiculous bet,” Gavin answered, pleased to finally be able to express his opinion on the matter.

  “Is it?” Rov asked, unperturbed. He took out his snuff box and took a pinch. “Perhaps you would like to place money against me?” He sneezed.

  “I don’t waste money on immoral women,” Gavin answered.

  “The Siren is more than just any woman,” Daniels said, speaking as if Gavin was a simpleton. “Don’t you know who she is? Why are you here if you don’t?”

  “No, Baynton doesn’t know,” Rov said. “I’m certain he wasn’t in attendance when she appeared in London years ago.”

  Daniels chortled his thoughts. “Well, you are in for a treat, Your Grace. Loveliest creature in the world. Captured every male heart and then disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Gavin asked.

  “Aye,” Rov said. “When they had the Naughty Review years ago, she was the queen of the evening. God knows I had never laid eyes on anything more magical than her. There wasn’t a one of us in the theater who didn’t want her.”

  “Aye, that is true,” Daniels said.

  “But she vanished and no one, including the theater managers would tell us who she was or where she went. I know because I spent a pretty penny trying to learn the information. But tonight, she is back and she won’t escape me, not this time.”

  “Do you intend to hunt her down?” Gavin said.

  Rov laughed. “Absolutely, Baynton. She’s an actress. She’s fair game. It is what her kind expects.”

  “You aren’t stalking a deer. This is a person.”

  “A lovely one,” Rov agreed, unrepentant. “Wait until you see her. You’ll want to stalk her as well—oh, wait, you won’t keep a mistress.”

  This had been an old squabble between them. Rov didn’t understand why Gavin didn’t use his ducal title to wallow in female flesh. “You are suspiciously like a monk,” he was fond of saying, only half in jest.

  If he knew the truth, he’d truly roast Gavin . . . because Gavin had yet to “know” woman, as biblical scholars were fond of saying.

  It wasn’t that Gavin didn’t wish to. He was hungry for sex. He longed for the softness of a woman, a wife, a helpmate.

  However, as a duke, it was important that his wife be a virgin. Otherwise, as his father had stressed on several occasions, how would he know her offspring were his?

  And if Gavin’s wife must be a virgin, should he not be one himself? ’Twas said that knights of old remained celibate until they’d taken their vows and the idea had captured Gavin’s imagination, not that his father had allowed him any time to go whoring with Rov and the others. His father had been a tireless taskmaster in preparing his eldest son.

  Furthermore, when Gavin had made his decision to wait for marriage, he had not believed it would be such a long wait. After all, he’d been betrothed since boyhood to the heiress Elin Morris. He’d expected to marry her when she’d turned of age but his father’s death and then the loss of her beloved mother had delayed those nuptials for years. Too many years, and then she’d married another, his youngest brother Ben. Theirs was a true love match and Gavin could not in good conscience hold her to her promise to him.

  So, here he was, now three-and-thirty and untried . . . in a room where every man claimed to know the secrets to women, or at least that was what they were shouting at the female “sheep” dancing on stage. Meanwhile, Rov was so confident of his manhood, he was betting on bedding the Siren.

  No wonder Gavin felt alone. He wanted to believe that there was something sacred to the marriage bed, to the binding of body and spirit between a man and a woman. “What if you don’t win your wager?” he asked his smirking friend.

  “I’ll win.”

  “But if you don’t?” Gavin pressed, wanting Rov to consider the error of his ways.

  “There are always ways to find money,” was the cryptic answer, and Gavin knew then that he must see Rov removed as Chairman of the Committees. He also knew it would not go over well. Not only for Rov but also for Jane. But how to handle the matter delicately?

  The sheep finished their dance by bending over so that everyone could see their bare buttocks beneath the silly costumes. The male crowd hooted their appreciation and then fell into an expectant silence.

  “’Tis time for the Siren,” Daniels whispered, leaning forward. Even Harris and Crowder also sat up.

  Phillips roused himself from the floor and said groggily, “Have I missed her?”

  Several voices around them shushed him and Ga
vin couldn’t help but be caught up in the moment.

  The Siren. A woman of mystery. No one knew her identity and yet all in this theater waited for her. They were also aware of Rov’s boasting wager. It added an edge to the evening.

  Then, in the stillness, a woman’s voice, as clear and strong as a songbird’s, sang out. The sound filled the theater.

  Gavin looked around for her, expecting her to come from the stage.

  Instead, a thick, silver rope lowered. Wrapped around it was a glorious golden creature with raven-black hair. Her translucent dress was light as air. It clung to her well-rounded curves, pulling across full breasts. She wore a mask of sparkling jewels. Her lips were ripe and red. Her legs could be seen through her skirts and her feet were bare.

  Gavin’s reaction to the Siren was immediate and demanding. He did not believe he’d seen a more beautiful sight in his life.

  He had to stand. He could not sit, and he was not the only one. Rov was clapping, holding his hands in the air as if doing homage. Sir John was twittering and the other men around them including the sharps were equally in awe.

  She was no mere actress.

  The Siren was a goddess and true to her name had the power to lure men wherever she wanted them. Now, Gavin understood why the theater had been packed. Now, he believed that having once seen her, he would never forget her.

  The rope slowly turned.

  She raised her leg, bending it at the knee. One arm curled around the rope, a gesture of pure feminine grace. The rope began to swing back and forth. Her diaphanous skirts swirled around her, revealing shapely calves and a glimpse of thigh and, perhaps, something more? Something so tantalizing a man would sell his soul for it?

  And all the time she sang.

  Gavin didn’t hear the words. All he grasped was the sound of her voice, a voice that called to the deepest part of his soul . . . a voice that actually sounded somewhat familiar—?

  The thought was startling. It gave him pause.

  She leaned back. Her skirts slipped between her thighs. A man could imagine his hand there, himself there. Her black, black braid whipped around her and she turned and looked right at Gavin.

  Her eyes were green.

  It was actually hard to tell, even though Rov’s box practically sat on the stage, but Gavin knew.

  In fact, he knew who she was.

  The impact of recognition was both startling and jarring. The Siren was Mrs. Sarah Pettijohn.

  He sat, jolted by the realization.

  Sarah Pettijohn was the most obnoxious, opinionated, headstrong woman of his acquaintance. The last time they had been together, he couldn’t wait to escape her.

  She was the aunt of Lady Charlene, the last woman to jilt him, with Sarah’s blessing, of course, because that was how contrary Mrs. Pettijohn could be.

  And now here she was, wearing barely anything and flaunting herself in front of the male population of London.

  Then again, Mrs. Pettijohn was an actress. Actresses put themselves on display for a living, although Gavin could never have imagined the proud woman he’d parted company with in Scotland would parade so much of herself. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

  She twirled the rope, holding the last note of her song and Gavin crossed his arms, waiting for the black-haired wig to fly off her head. Then the world would know their glorious goddess was nothing more than a surly shrew with fiery red hair.

  But she did look good.

  Dangerously good. The sort of good that makes a man prickly and hungry. Even a man like himself who prided himself on his control and tried never to have the thoughts he was having now.

  The spinning rope slowed and lowered her to the stage. The jewels around her mask sparkled in the candlelight. Her arm extended with grace as she brought her song to a close. She turned, looked once again directly at Gavin, and smiled with a smug little lift of the lips as if she felt she’d put him in his place.

  Lust died a quick death.

  Knowing her as he did, how could he have even responded to her in that manner?

  Of course, the audience had no such hesitations. They went wild in their enthusiasm, crying, “The Siren,” as they pounded the floor with their feet. They clapped. They whistled. They shouted for more—and she preened in their adoration.

  She waved, accepting their adulation, pointing her bare toes in a dancer’s graceful stance as if she knew how strenuously Gavin disapproved, as if she performed for him. In fact, it was all he could do to not jump onto the stage and either throw his coat over her to hide her nakedness or carry her off to his bed—

  Gavin might not have jumped on the stage, but Rov did.

  In a blink, before anyone could react, he leaped from the box and rushed to Mrs. Pettijohn. He grabbed her around the waist, swung her around to face him, and attempted to kiss her. The black wig fell to the floor and now everyone knew her secret as the deep red hair she’d been hiding tumbled down to her waist.

  Gavin reached for the edge of the box, ready to fly to Mrs. Pettijohn’s aid and rip Rov’s lips off of her body. However, she did not need him. Her knee came up, and with a robust, unerring movement, caught Rov squarely in a very sensitive place. Indeed, if Rov was like Gavin at this moment, he was probably fully aroused so her well-placed attack had greater impact.

  Rov doubled over in wheezing pain.

  There was a moment of shocked silence and then the audience burst out into laughter, one beat before mayhem broke out. Everyone decided to follow Rov’s example. Men jumped onto the stage from expensive private boxes or clambered over the musicians’ pit and pulled themselves up. They all had one desire and that was to put their hands on Mrs. Pettijohn.

  She saw what was coming for her and had the good sense to run.

  Chapter Three

  Stupid, she had been so stupid . . .

  Sarah didn’t know what man had accosted her. She’d been focused on Baynton—the proud, mighty duke sitting in his box watching her with his arms and legs crossed as if in judgment.

  Oh, she’d wanted to shout at him to look at her now! All of London was at her feet. She had power, too. She also had talent and even though she was considered old for an actress at four-and-thirty, men now acclaimed her. She was the Siren!

  That had been her last thought before she’d been flipped around and bussed on the lips by the lout who had accosted her. She hadn’t even known who he was, except that he sat in the duke’s box.

  Had Baynton put him up to attacking her? Was this his way of delivering a comeuppance?

  If it was, she was sorely disappointed in the duke. The kissing attack was far from original.

  Fortunately, having spent the last few weeks trying to keep her identity a secret so as to not harm her reputation, Sarah knew every hidey-hole in the theater. She dashed backstage, heard the pursuit of a horde of men behind her and, with quick thinking, knelt and began feeling for the line of the trap door located in the floor. Digging her nails into the wood, she lifted the door and jumped into the darkness below, closing it behind her.

  No call of alarm went up. And within the span of four racing heartbeats, there came the sound of heavy boots and shoes overhead. Men shouted at each other. “There she went,” one called.

  “Who grabs her first, has her first,” was the buoyant answer and the pounding feet stormed over her head.

  Sarah crouched, covering her ears, not wanting to hear any more. What if they realized they were following the wrong trail? Would they return to the theater and hunt her down?

  And what would they do once they caught her? She dared not think on it.

  Her hand brushed against her mask and she was surprised she still wore it. She took off the fanciful thing and threw it. She would never play the Siren again. Ever.

  On the floor above, there were more footsteps, more running around. She could hear muffled voices but they were too far away to make out the words. She began to believe she might be safe.

  She kept still, her mind going pl
aces she rarely let it venture. After all, how many times in her childhood had she hidden this way? Curling herself into a ball so as not to disturb the men who visited her mother? She’d once been quite adept at tucking herself away where she couldn’t be seen. Or pretending to not be where she was.

  Dark memories . . . they marked the passage of time until the theater above her seemed quiet. She allowed herself to breathe. She rose and lifted the door. All was dark except for a light that came from the back door entrance. In the distance she could hear movement but they were the sounds of the theater being closed. That must mean that her pursuers had left.

  Sarah pushed back the door and climbed out. Her muscles complained and she felt every one of her years. Most of the pins had fallen from her heavy hair. She gathered it up with one hand and pulled it behind her.

  For a second, she debated just going home but then realized she couldn’t run around London in this dress.

  As she walked across the backstage, she held out her hand to keep from tripping over anything in the dark. Apparently even Geoff and Charles must have left. She knew she needed a candle before going to the dressing rooms. Otherwise she’d never manage the labyrinth of corridors and old stage pieces. She moved toward the light where she knew Old Ollie the back door watchman sat. His last act of the evening before locking the door would be to blow out his lantern.

  All the other cast members appeared to be gone. Sarah hoped no one had been caught up in the craziness of the riot and that none of the other actresses had been harmed.

  She heard the sound of sweeping. Reaching the rear entrance, she saw Ollie using a broom to set things to rights in his area. Ollie had worked around most of the theaters in the London area and knew Sarah by sight. He smiled when he saw her.

  “Hey there, I wondered if you’d escaped them. Hot after you they were.” He set his broom aside.

  “Men are strange, Ollie.”

  “Aye, we are.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, the girls they know how to take care of themselves. I shouted that you’d gone out the back door and the lads went running after you. We cleared this theater out quick.”