A Wild Night's Bride

A Wild Night’s Bride

Victoria Vane

Breathless Press

Calgary, Alberta

www.breathlesspress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or

persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Wild Night’s Bride

Copyright© 2012 Victoria Vane

ISBN: 978-1-77101-131-0

Cover Artist: Victoria Miller

Editor: T. S. Chevrestt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.

Breathless Press

www.breathlesspress.com

Dedication:

To my soul sister Jill

Acknowledgments:

This fabulously fun book would never have happened without the talented eye of my editor, Tara Chevrestt. I am deeply grateful for your support and guidance in this endeavor.

P
ROLOGUE

St. James, Westminster – 1783

“Ned, you must wake up.” The frantic whisper and tickle of silky hair pleasantly penetrated the periphery of Sir Edward Chambers’ drink-induced, sexually sated, and fog-enshrouded consciousness. “Come, Neddie,” the soft voice implored. “You must wake, or there will be the devil to pay.”

He groaned, rolling onto his side to the simultaneous awareness of a pounding head and the soft, warm presence beside him. He groped blindly, defining a shapely feminine backside that tauntingly wriggled against his groin, stirring quite another part of him to a wakeful and throbbing state. He nuzzled her neck while his burgeoning erection sought the warmth betwixt her thighs. “Annalee, my sweet Annalee,” he murmured into her hair.

The warm, welcoming body became cold stone. “Phoebe,” a voice intoned.

Ned’s bleary eyes popped open, his attention immediately riveted to the massive bed, the heavy velvet curtains of rich crimson and gold, and the towering hand-carved posts of mahogany. He jerked upright as if doused with ice water, his gaze settling on the voluptuous, blue-eyed blonde lying amidst the tangle of luxurious linens. “Kitty?”

“No.
Phoebe,
” she answered. “My name. It’s Phoe-be.”

“Phoebe?” He frowned in puzzlement. His gaze darted from his thoroughly tumbled bedfellow to the opulent room. He frantically scrubbed his face and looked wildly about the room, eager to light upon something,
anything,
to assure himself he wasn’t going mad. The vision of his surroundings sent him scrambling to his knees, entangling him in the bed sheets, and tumbling him to the floor. Lying stunned on the thick Turkish carpet, his confused conscience absorbed the soaring twenty-foot, shadow-boxed ceiling depicting classical heroes.

“Kitty, Phoebe, or whoever-the-devil-you-are,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “This isn’t Carlton House, is it?”

“No.”

His heart beating apace, Ned willed himself first to breathe and then to modulate a tone verging on panic. “I was with DeVere last night.
Where
is DeVere?”

“DeVere is locked safely in the linen closet.” She hugged her breasts, her expression suddenly wary. “Don’t you remember anything?”

He vigorously shook his pounding head only to bring forth a chaotic kaleidoscope of last night’s events, and the impossible truth persisted to push its way to the surface.

His gaze glued to the bed, Ned made a mechanical backward retreat to the center of the room where he had a clearer prospect of its crowning glory. His vision rose to the top of the headboard, to the heraldic shield seated betwixt the carved figures of a lion and a unicorn. His gaze slid with dread to the engraved scroll beneath.
Dieu Et Mon Droit.
God and my right, the motto of the king. His chest seized. The room began to spin. He looked to Phoebe, aware that the blood was draining from his face, and that his voice emerged as a strangled sound. “May the same God save me...for I’m going to be hung, drawn, and quartered for spending last night rutting in the King of England’s bed!”

Chapter One

Covent Garden Theatre, Westminster

Although the normal flurry of activity persisted, with bodies coming and going and articles of clothing flying hither and yon, the communal dressing room of Covent Garden Theatre was a somber twin to its normally gleeful self, the chatter and bonhomie of the players subdued and even forced. What the company all knew but refused to voice aloud was that most of those performers not already taken on by Mr. Sheridan would be unemployed once tonight’s curtain dropped. It was the last performance of the season and the one that would officially close the venue for renovations needed to keep up with its chief competitor, the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane.

It was Phoebe Scott’s third season. She had joined the troupe with dreams of gracing the stage as Ophelia or Lady MacBeth, but, to her growing frustration, she’d yet to advance beyond ladies’ maids and other bit comedic parts. The rest of the time, when she had no speaking parts, she earned her keep by the generosity of the deputy stage manager, Mr. Hull, who paid her five shillings per night to act as a tire woman to the lead actresses. Such was the case tonight, but with the doors closing tomorrow, even this meager income would soon be lost.

Although she eked out the most parsimonious existence, Phoebe wondered how long her savings would keep her, and more dismally, if she would even have a chance of rejoining the theater troupe next season when it reopened its doors in all of its shining, new glory. With so little true acting credit to her name, her chances were slim. Tonight, however, she refused to allow the uncertainty of her future to dim her enjoyment of the show. It was her favorite play, Mrs. Cowley’s
Belle’s Stratagem.
In her three years at Covent Garden
,
Phoebe had never missed a performance of it and had even committed every bit of dialogue to heart.

Donning her chambermaid’s costume, she forced a cheerful smile upon her painted lips and took herself off briskly to the leading actress’s private dressing room, where she would help to outfit the not so
young
Miss Younge for her starring role as Leticia. Knowing any number of surprises might lurk behind closed dressing room doors, Phoebe rapped thrice before entering, only to find the room devoid of the star player.

“She ain’t ‘ere, luv,” said Mistress Andrews, an aged bit-part actress, now full-time wardrobe mistress.

“Miss Younge? Not here?” Phoebe repeated blankly.

“Aye. Whilst you know I hate to be the tale bearer,
some says
she wasn’t happy with her new contract and now claims to be bedridden with the ague.” The plump woman gave a conspiratorial wink. “And word is Mrs. Mattocks has a sprained ankle, though I hear she was seen driving in Hyde Park earlier today.”

Before she could elaborate, Mr. Thomas Hull burst through the door with a rubicund face and jowls aquiver, shaking a sheet of parchment and looking apoplectic. “The devil you say! Miss Younge and Mrs. Mattocks, both? No one is permitted the ague or ankle sprains on a command performance night! The bloody ungrateful wretches! We’ve now thirty minutes to curtain, and I’ve no Leticia and no Mrs. Racket!”

“No Leticia? No Mrs. Racket? You don’t mean to say—”

Hull cut Phoebe off. “Cancel the performance? Let Hell and a thousand furies seize me before I let pampered actresses run roughshod over me. I’ll show them no one in this company is indispensable. The show bloody well
will
go on!”

“But how are you to manage that when you want for two of your leading ladies?” the wardrobe mistress asked with a smirk.

“I must ask you to reprise your last role, Peg.”

“As Mrs. Racket?” She laughed outright. “Even if I did by some miracle remember all my lines, little good ‘twill do when ye also want for a Leticia.”

Phoebe’s heart slammed against her breastbone, her gaze flying with uncertainty from Mrs. Andrews to Mr. Hull. Yet desperate to grasp this once-in-a-lifetime chance, she stepped forward. “I—I know the parts, Mr. Hull—Leticia, Lady Touchwood, Miss Ogle, Kitty Willis. I can play any of them. I swear I won’t disappoint you.
Please,
will you give me a chance?”

“Hmph.” Hull regarded her with narrow-eyed scrutiny while Phoebe held her breath, feeling much like a horse at auction. Before Hull could say anything more, Phoebe spun around, grabbed an ornate fan from the dressing table, and transformed into the character of Leticia.

She sashayed across the room, pert nose raised above her fluttering fan. “Men are all dissemblers, flatterers, deceivers! Have I not heard a
thousand
times of my air, my eyes, my shape—all made for victory!” She lowered the fan and struck a pose. “And today, when I bent my whole heart on
one poor conquest
, I have proved that all those imputed charms amount to nothing.” She snapped her fan shut with a toss of her ringlets.

Turning eagerly to Mr. Hull, she bit into her lip as she studied the aging actor’s face with desperate hope and apprehension. He regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

“While there is an air of freshness about you that is sorely lacking in our other performers of late, and I daresay such a fair face and figure as yours would cover a multitude of sins with our
male
audience...” Her pulse sped with rising hopes only to be dashed back to earth. “However, I fear I can’t risk the disfavor I would incur by allowing you a starring role.”

“Disfavor? What do you mean?” Phoebe asked in bewilderment.

“The disfavor of our chief patrons, my dear. Surely, you can’t have lived amongst us for so long without understanding
how it is.
”

“How
what
is?”

“Patronage, my dear. The theater is but an imitation of that world around us and as such, thrives on patronage. Anyone who aspires to be
anyone
must have a benefactor. The more powerful the benefactor, the better one’s roles and the more profitable
for us all.
” He chucked her under the chin. “Surely you understand
that
by now?”

Phoebe nodded with dawning comprehension. Deep down she
had
known but had chosen not to acknowledge the stage manager’s frequent role as pimp to the noblemen who patronized the dressing rooms. Many times, she had witnessed actresses using their connections with noble lovers to further their careers and had seen the initial flames of passion burn out. The gentleman always moved on to fresher conquests, leaving the lady to seek another protector. It was a vicious cycle and
not
the kind of life she had envisioned in joining the theater.

“I’m sorry, my dear. While you do show some potential, and with work, I could very well picture you as the delectable ingénue, Leticia, I fear I must move Miss Stewart into the role.”

Phoebe’s heart contracted with a painful mix of disappointment and disillusionment. The lines she had just spoken echoed her thoughts —she had
once more
engaged her whole heart for nothing. Naively, she had believed hard work and perseverance would prevail, but now she wondered if she would ever have another chance. Yet she refused to give up completely.

“But surely, Mr. Hull, if you must switch the parts of the leading players, there is
some
small role I can play? Please,” she begged. “I won’t disappoint you.”

“Indeed? But I question how badly you want it—”