A Curse of the Heart (25 page)

They looked through the other sketches, all depicting various scenes of an ancient castle, the heavy use of charcoal suggesting a dark, oppressive place.

The only sheet left was a playbill for Shakespeare’s
Anthony and Cleopatra
staged at a playhouse in Covent Garden. Again, it was old, and Dorothea Carmichael was listed as playing the lead role.

“This is twenty-five years old,” Gabriel said handing it to Freddie. “Do you have any idea why he’s kept it?”

Freddie shook his head. “No, but he did go to Covent Garden after we left Rebecca’s. We’d been drinking, and we tried to hail a hackney. But with the torrential rain, we ended up having to walk. Pennington said he’d got lucky, I assumed he meant with a woman, and he headed off for his secret rendezvous. I recall thinking it wouldn’t matter if his clothes were wet as he would soon be —”

He stopped abruptly, his cheeks flushing as he glanced at Sarah.

George frowned. “There was a fire at that playhouse two days ago. It destroyed the orchestra pit. The manager put a notice in
The
Times
asking for information as it started during the night. He was baffled because it didn’t take out the whole building and said something about there being a series of small fires that had been put out. It’s closed for a week.”

The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted.

An icy chill seeped into Gabriel’s bones, his body frozen by the thought of impending doom. Rebecca had been on her own with Pennington for more than an hour.

“The playhouse is closed,” he repeated, trying to suppress a shiver, trying to focus on the only thing that mattered. “Come,” he said gathering all the evidence. “There is no time to waste.”

Chapter 26

Rebecca glanced out of the carriage window, surprised to find only a handful of people wandering the streets of Covent Garden. Not being particularly fond of jeering crowds and bawdy antics, she could not recall the name of the play showing or knew why the sinister gentleman sitting opposite had stooped to such lengths to secure her company.

“Are you going to tell me what we are here to see?” she said casting a dubious look over their inappropriate attire as the carriage stopped outside the playhouse.

He looked up at her, his eyes like small black buttons. “We are here to witness a tragedy,” he said cryptically.

Rebecca doubted such a play could equal the terrifying events she’d experienced this afternoon. Yet the thought that every tragedy ended with a disastrous climax caused a strange sense of foreboding, an overwhelming need to prolong her time in the carriage — despite the faint whiff of dirt and urine clawing at the back of her throat.

“It’s one you’re familiar with,” he continued, “
Anthony and Cleopatra
.”

He did not give her time to contemplate the coincidence. Without any further explanation, he jumped from his seat and opened the door. Her heart skipped a beat as he yanked her up by the arm before pulling her down to the pavement. With the tip of the blade pressed to her back, he forced her to walk through the wrought-iron gate, to a side door situated on the left.

His free hand snaked up to the inside pocket of his brown coat. “A key in exchange for a promissory note,” he said waving it about with an air of arrogance. He rolled it into position with the tips of his fingers and then thrust it into the lock. “My skill at cards is the only good thing to come from all my years in Scotland. Your brother, Frederick, can testify to my claim as I have recently acquired all of his notes. Although I doubt he expects me to call them in.”

She wondered how well he knew Frederick, wondered if conveying a level of familiarity was part of the game.

“You mean to call in his debts?” she asked with a contemptuous snort. “You mean to ruin him?”

“I mean to show him what it’s like to feel the earth fall away beneath his feet. To know how it feels when the evil hand of fate deals a losing card.”

Pain lay hidden beneath a veil of bitterness.
What had happened to rouse such depth of anger and resentment? Was it something her father had done? Was she to pay the price for someone else’s crime?

“Get inside,” he said jerking his head by way of reinforcement.

Rebecca looked beyond the door, to the long dingy corridor. There had been a nervous hitch in Gabriel’s tone this morning, an anxious look in his eye that prompted her to carry the pistol.

If only she’d taken the time to load it.

Clutching her reticule to her chest, she took a hesitant step over the threshold, her gait unsteady and clumsy. There would be other people in the building she told herself, breathing a sigh of relief. There would be actors preparing for tonight’s performance, sourcing costumes, searching for props. She would get lost amidst the bustling activity, providing the perfect opportunity to escape.

Finding the courage to continue inside, he led her down a narrow passage, to a flight of stairs that took them up to the grand lobby. The place was deathly silent, with no sound of laughter, no echo of footsteps on the wooden stage, not even the rambling mumbles of those rehearsing their lines.

“In here,” he said pushing her through the double-doors into the auditorium.

The smell of charred wood hit her immediately. Her nostrils twitched in response as her wild eyes scoured the empty room. Panic flared as she searched for some sign of movement, her chest growing tight as she shuffled past the rows of seats, the dry dust in the air making her cough.

Annoyed at her dawdling, he stepped in front and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the burnt-out orchestra pit, to the crude flight of steps.

“If you run I will catch you,” he said, dragging her up onto the stage.

Her gaze flitted about the abandoned set and then down into the pit. “We’re obviously not here to see a play,” she said, trying to push aside her fear.

“Oh, there will be a show, but tonight we will be the performers.”

“We will perform? You said we were here to see a tragedy.”

He ignored her, forced her to walk backstage to a room halfway along the corridor. “You will find everything you need in here, costumes, powder, rouge. You have ten minutes to transform yourself into a likeness of Cleopatra.”

“Cleopatra?” He wanted her to dress like an Egyptian queen. The man was a raving lunatic. “Surely you’ve not abducted me off the street to satisfy your love of a Shakespeare play,” she said, her body growing hot, her pulse quick, as anger stamped out every other feeling and burst to the surface. “Just because my mother was an actress, it doesn’t mean I know anything about acting. I don’t know what strange, fanciful notion has possessed your logical mind, but you cannot just expect —”

“Shut up!” he barked, the thick green vein in his neck bulging as he flashed the knife by way of a threat. “You will do exactly as I say. Now you only have nine minutes.”

With a push in the back, he forced her into the room and closed the door, leaving her alone.

Her first thought was to look for a means of escape, but after a frantic search behind rails of costumes, behind the curtained recess and overflowing hat stands, her efforts were in vain.

In a bid to banish the feeling of hopelessness, she took a moment to breathe, to clear her head, to think of how best to proceed. An image of Gabriel flooded her mind, of him scouting under the sheets in search of the mysterious spider, his playful smile and wandering hands leaving her feeling happy and content.

“Seven minutes.”

Damn him.

“Cleopatra,” she muttered to herself, moving to browse through the rail of mismatched garments. Nothing resembled the dazzling dress her mother once wore. She spotted a white Grecian style dress with a braided belt and quickly undressed and put it on. Grabbing a yellow shawl, she draped it across one shoulder, tucking it down inside the belt.

“Three minutes.”

Panic set in, and she rushed to the door. “I need five more minutes,” she called out to him. “There’s nothing suitable, so I’ve had to improvise.”

“You have three minutes, nothing more.”

She scurried about looking for a headdress or a crown and finding nothing suitable settled on threading a beaded necklace through her hair. After powdering her face and applying rouge, she pulled the belt through the drawstring on her reticule and disguised it with the shawl.

There was no danger of the pistol blowing a hole in her foot, or in anything else for that matter, yet it might prove to be a useful deterrent.

“Time’s up,” he shouted flinging the door open as she scurried back, ready to face him.

“It’s the best I could come up with,” she said throwing her hands in the air.

His beady eyes scanned her from head to toe, the look of disappointment evident. “It is not as I imagined,” he grumbled, “it is too virginal. It is nothing like the vibrant image hanging on your wall.”

How did he know what hung on her wall?

Rebecca’s hand flew to her chest, and she gasped. “It was you. You were the one who ruined my mother’s painting. You broke into my home with Frederick and scared me half to death.”

“It was a shame you missed the fun,” he snorted. “Freddie thought you were making a fool of yourself with your Egyptian scholar and so came to snoop. I was merely hoping to cause you some distress. Discovering the painting of Dorothea Carmichael was a pleasant surprise.”

Tears threatened to fall, yet she managed to hold them at bay. How could he be so callous, so cruel?

“You might have ruined my mother’s portrait, but you will never ruin her memory.” Then another thought struck her. “Does Frederick know what you did to the painting?”

He laughed though his face remained impassive. “The boy’s a fool and often struggles to place one foot in front of the other. He has no idea I plan to destroy him. Although that was before a far more rewarding prospect presented itself.”

“You mean me?”

With a wave of his knife, he gestured towards the corridor. “If I were to reveal all to you now it would spoil the performance. The climax of a tragedy is far more dramatic when merged with suspense.”

Moving behind her, he maneuvered her back to the auditorium and forced her to stand opposite him at the front of the stage.

“We will begin with the entrance of Anthony and Cleopatra, or as I prefer to call it, the entrance of Lord Wellford and Miss Carmichael,” he said sounding like the narrator. “In the play, Philo explains that Anthony is ‘
transformed into a strumpet’s fool
’ and so that will be the basis for my story.”

Rebecca stared at him, baffled as to why he intended to compare the relationship of her parents to those of characters in a Shakespeare play.

“You will play your mother,” he said, his lip curling upwards to show his disdain. “You will play a harlot, a deceiver, a consummate actress whose emotion lacks any genuine warmth.”

The insult caused her chest to tighten even though his description bore no resemblance to the mother she knew.

“Allow me to set the scene,” he continued. “Your father is a man of prominence; a man sought after to offer guidance by the manager of a playhouse, who wishes to give an authentic portrayal of Egypt.”

Rebecca frowned. “You obviously know that is how my parents met. My father helped explain the history and culture to the performers.”

“Did you know that your mother was not a member of the original cast? Did you know she was a late addition to the bill — an interloper?”

Rebecca shook her head. “No. I doubt they deemed it important enough to mention.” The words dripped with contempt in retaliation for his insult.

“Oh, it’s important,” he countered, pointing the tip of the blade at her face. “My mother was cast as Cleopatra. My mother was forced to suffer the humiliation of being downgraded to the role of Octavia, forced to play a powerless woman, a woman lacking any strong emotion.”

“What does that have to do with me?” she said pushing aside the need to challenge his interpretation.

“Everything,” he spat. “You mother sauntered in like a queen of Egypt and took away everything my mother held dear. Your father was generous with his time, and my mother loved him for it. When he failed to return her affections, she admired him all the more, as a man loyal to his family. Then he took Dorothea Carmichael as his mistress, and my mother took solace in a bottle of laudanum. So you see, your father became the ‘
strumpet’s fool
’ and like Mark Anthony, chose desire over duty, emotion over reason.”

“He could not help who he fell in love with.”

“He should have bloody well helped it,” he yelled, his face turning scarlet, the words exploding from his mouth with such vehemence that saliva bubbled at the corners. “That one decision ruined my life. My mother soon became addicted to laudanum, soon lost her position and took up with a Scottish laird, who was more than happy to finance her addiction. She died of an overdose a few months later.”

Rebecca knew the pain of losing a parent. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, feeling the tiniest sliver of sympathy, “but you cannot hold me responsible for that. Doing all of this will not ease the pain of your mother’s death.”