Lauren Willig (49 page)

 

 

“J-Jamie. Jamie Stuart. But he prefers to be called Your Highness.”

 

 

Vaughn grabbed Anne by both shoulders. “Where is he?”

 

 

“At—at Lady Euphemia’s estate in Richmond. For the play. When he heard the royal family were going to be attending the theatricals tonight…”

 

 

Vaughn didn’t wait to hear more.

 

 

Mary was at Richmond

 

 

“Don’t you see?” Anne’s voice rang with satisfaction. “I’ve kept you clear of it. I saved you. Sebastian? Sebastian! Where are you going?”

 

 

Vaughn took the stairs two at a time. Behind him, he could hear Anne panting as she trotted down the stairs after him, but her breathless commentary didn’t make a dent in the hideous scenarios unraveling through his mind. He knew what the Black Tulip was capable of; he had seen it before. But not Mary. It couldn’t be allowed to happen to Mary.

 

 

“For goodness’ sake, Sebastian…,” Anne demanded breathlessly behind him.

 

 

Vaughn slammed out of the front door as though a dozen demons were at his back. The water stairs, he decided. A boat would be far faster than trying to go overland, and they were hard by the Thames and the dock that served Parliament. As he pounded down the front steps, a figure dropped lightly from a tree, to land on the ground beside him.

 

 

“He’s in Richmond,” Vaughn said tersely, never breaking stride or looking at the man beside him. “With Mary.”

 

 

Pinchingdale didn’t need to be told twice. “A boat will be fastest.”

 

 

“My thoughts precisely.”

 

 

A flurry of white muslin caught up to them just short of the water stairs, and tugged on Vaughn’s arm. Vaughn shook the restraining hand off.

 

 

“Him—tree!” gasped Anne, waving an arm at Pinchingdale.

 

 

“I’ll perform the introductions later.” Since it didn’t seem like he would be able to get rid of her, Vaughn boosted her hastily into the boat. Perhaps she could be used to distract the Tulip. If she didn’t decide to turn coat again, that was.

 

 

Pinchingdale hopped lightly down beside her, eyeing his shipmate in a way that suggested his wife was going to get a full account later on.

 

 

Swinging his sword out of his way, Vaughn swung down beside them, slapping two coins into the palm of the waiting boatman.

 

 

“Richmond. As fast as you can.”

 

 

* * *

MARY STOOD SHIVERING in the wings of Lady Euphemia McPhee’s personal theatre. Built to rival Garrick’s temple of Shakespeare, the marble edifice was certainly impressive. It was also cold. While Lady Euphemia had blithely installed trapdoors for
Hamlet
(should she ever want to play Hamlet) and all sorts of complicated machinery for manipulating scenery or dropping Greek gods from the sky, she had neglected to include any fireplaces.

 

 

As a princess of Briton, Mary was draped in flowing white samite edged with cloth of gold. That translated to white muslin hung with yellow tassels that looked like they had recently come off someone’s drapes, presumably Lady Euphemia’s. Her long black hair, falling free to her waist, had been adorned with a filet of purest gold. In other words, painted pasteboard, to go with the equally “golden” armlets that encircled her bare arms just below and above the elbow, detailed with what Lady Euphemia and Aunt Imogen fondly believed to be ancient Druidic runes. What the Druids had to do with St. George, Mary wasn’t quite sure. But, then, neither was Lady Euphemia. It was, she had explained airily, poetic license.

 

 

Onstage,
A Rhyming Historie of Britain
had only just begun, and the shuffling of feet was already louder than the voice of the narrator.

 

 

From the front row, Mary could hear her mother’s voice, with more carrying quality than anything on the stage, announcing, “
Such
a clever woman, Lady Euphemia! And connected to the royal family, you know…. My daughter is playing a princess. Not my daughter who’s a Viscountess, but the other one.”

 

 

Rubbing the gooseflesh on her arms, Mary wondered how Vaughn was getting on with the Black Tulip. She would have given anything—well, nearly anything—to be out of her ridiculous draperies and in a carriage to Westminster, crouched next to a window with a pistol in her hand. Even the sight of Turnip Fitzhugh being tugged across the stage in a large rowboat failed to divert her.

 

 

Mary irritably shoved her hair back over her shoulder, twitching at the prickle of the ends against her bare arms. She wasn’t sure what she was more afraid of: the vengeance of the Tulip or Vaughn being left alone with his wife.

 

 

The Tulip, she concluded after some reflection. Definitely the Tulip.

 

 

Onstage, Turnip’s bearers had dropped their tow ropes with more than a little relief, depositing Turnip right in the center of the stage.

 

 

Funny that she had never noticed before just how much Turnip sounded like Tulip. All that wanted changing was the middle.

 

 

It was hard to imagine anyone who looked less like a deadly spy than Turnip Fitzhugh. According to the script, Turnip was meant to be Brutus, founder of Britain, who had fled the rack of Troy to found a mighty kingdom in a new land. With his toga falling off one shoulder (much to the appreciation of some of the older women in the audience, including Aunt Imogen), and his face screwed up in a squint as he tried to read Lady Euphemia’s lips as she mouthed his lines at him, Turnip looked more like one of Shakespeare’s rude mechanicals than a mythic hero.

 

 

Hitching up his toga, Turnip proclaimed, “I am bravest Brutus. From funny Troy I flee.”

 

 

“Sunny Troy!” hissed Lady Euphemia.

 

 

Turnip nodded vigorously. “From funny,
sunny
Troy I flee,” he declaimed proudly. “Go I now to a new place, where King I shall see—er, be.”

 

 

“Heaven help England,” muttered someone in the audience.

 

 

From the look on Lady Euphemia’s face, Turnip’s dynasty was destined to be a short-lived one.

 

 

In the wings behind him, Mary could see the other actors queuing up and servants who had been pressed into service as stagehands bustling about with scenery and props for the coming scenes. It was an eclectic collection of props, ranging from a very large ham haunch (for Henry VIII), to a scaffold (for King Charles), and finally an immense bust of George III (for George III), garlanded with flowers and balanced on a wheeled plinth. If the royal family did put in their promised appearance, the bust was due to be ceremonially rolled out, accompanied by fireworks and the entire cast singing “God Save the King” in three-part harmony.

 

 

Despite the absence of the royal family, George III was already on the move. Over Turnip’s artistically bared shoulder, Mary saw His Majesty’s head go past, nose first, making for the back of the stage with a speed that resulted in a near collision with a miniature version of the Spanish Armada.

 

 

The servant wheeling him was bent nearly double with the effort. That was curious in itself, since the statue was made of plaster, hollow inside. Lady Euphemia had originally intended to fill it with doves, which would burst out and flap picturesquely around His Majesty. At least, that had been the plan until St. George had pointed out that if the doves didn’t expire from their captivity and make a nasty stench inside the sculpture, one was likely to soil the royal shoulders. Lady Euphemia had regretfully reconsidered, and the bust remained empty.

 

 

Or it should have been. Then why was the man having such trouble? His neck was pulled so far into the neck of his livery that it looked like his stock was eating his chin and a white wig with rolled curls on the side effectively shielded the rest of his face. But in his efforts, the wig had slipped, revealing a sliver of close-cropped black hair, a gaunt cheek, and a long aquiline nose.

 

 

Creeping as close to the stage as she dared, Mary squinted across the way. The man had moved into the shadows, bearing the King’s bust along with him, but his profile was unmistakable. The sallow skin, the long nose, the oddly sunken cheeks that made her think of John the Baptist in the wilderness…

 

 

What in the blazes was Mr. Rathbone, vice-chairman of the Common Sense Society, doing in the wings of Lady Euphemia McPhee’s pet theatre, dressed in the McPhee livery, making off with the head of George III?

 

 

Mary rather doubted that he’d had an abrupt reversal of fortune and decided to go into service.

 

 

He might, of course, be indulging in a bit of amateur espionage, gathering information to send off to his sister society in France, that society with the long name that Vaughn had reeled off with such nonchalance.

 

 

As Vaughn did everything.

 

 

Mary hastily recalled her mind from the recollection of Vaughn’s other talents, and back to Rathbone, not nearly so pleasant a subject, but far more pressing. The cast of Lady Euphemia’s fiasco was replete with the sisters, daughters, and wives of men of influence, the scape-grace younger brothers of members of Parliament, the cousins of the King’s advisors. Any one of them might let something slip in the casual chatter as he waited in the wings, any one might have information he wasn’t supposed to have.

 

 

But why make off with the King’s head? Was he using it as a shield? An excuse for his presence? An act of petty sabotage? The last seemed the most likely. It would be just like Rathbone and his group of petty revolutionaries to expend their energies in symbolic statements, like replacing the King’s bust with one of Bonaparte, or sticking a large red, white, and blue cockade in the royal wig.

 

 

No matter what he was doing, it couldn’t be good. Mary took quick inventory of events on the stage. At the rate Turnip was blundering along, she had a good ten minutes at least, as long as Lady Euphemia didn’t bludgeon Turnip to death with the script before he got to the end of his part.

 

 

Oh, well. If that happened, it should take them some time to clean the blood off the stage.

 

 

Setting her pasteboard circlet more firmly on her brow, Mary slipped quietly through the wings, weaving her way past Charles II’s spaniels, who nipped at her heels, and a pillow-stuffed Henry VIII, who attempted to nip at something else entirely. Mary gave him the sort of look reserved by princesses of Briton for impertinent mortals.

 

 

There were plenty of men in the McPhee livery scuttling about, but no large plaster head. Casting a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one noticed her departure, Mary slid into the narrow space behind the backdrop, where spare scenery was propped against the wall and props laid out on a long, wooden table.

 

 

Rathbone was there, bent over the plaster head, running a long piece of string out of the royal nostrils.

 

 

Mary paused at the very edge of the backdrop, considering her next move. Despite his gaunt frame, Rathbone was still considerably taller than she was; she still hadn’t forgotten the discomfort of being backed into a corner by him at the Common Sense Society. And there they had been surrounded by people. Revolutionaries, but people, nonetheless.

 

 

He might not be too happy to be surprised at his task. And if he were the Black Tulip…Mary surreptitiously rubbed her hands along her arms. She still bore the bruises.

 

 

Glancing quickly around, her gaze fell on the table of props. The swords were all pasteboard, flimsy things that would bend at a touch, and Robin Hood’s bow had a broken string. But in the midst of it all hulked Henry VIII’s ham haunch.

 

 

Mary crept closer, resting one hand on the bony end. Beneath its pink and red paint, the ham haunch was solid wood. The narrow end made a convenient handle. Closing her hands around it, Mary hefted it experimentally in the air. Muttering to himself at his task, Rathbone never turned around. Adjusting her grip, Mary raised the ham haunch over her head, and swung it down.

 

 

The haunch connected with Rathbone’s head with a satisfying crunch, bowling him over sideways. He thudded against the bare boards of the floor and was still.

 

 

Gathering up her draperies, Mary leaned forward to inspect him for signs of sentience. He seemed most convincingly inert. Still alive—she could tell that from the uneven rasp of his breath—but his closed lids and the darkening bruise on his temple suggested that he wouldn’t be a bother to her for quite some time. Laying the ham haunch within easy reach, just in case she needed it again, Mary knelt down beside the fallen man and used two fingers to peel back one eyelid. The pupil stared straight ahead, devoid of recognition.

 

 

Feeling rather smug, Mary rose, brushing her hands on her skirt. If she’d only had a ham haunch to hand the other day when the Black Tulip appeared…Ah, well, one couldn’t be expected to foresee every eventuality.

 

 

Bending over, Mary lifted the string that had fallen from Rathbone’s hand when he toppled over. The waxed twine was oddly gritty to the touch, dotted with dark flecks like bits of sand.

 

 

Grimacing, Mary rubbed her fingers together to dislodge the residue. Dirt? Or something else? Either way, she didn’t like the feel of it on her fingers.

 

 

For whatever reason, Rathbone had threaded the string through the enlarged nostrils of the larger-than-life-size bust. Twisting sideways, Mary peered into the royal nose. There was something inside, several somethings, in fact.

 

 

Straightening her aching back, Mary eyed the bust. There had to be some other way to get to the inside. Whatever was in there was too large to have been shoved in by the nose. And Lady Euphemia’s doves would have needed an outlet, too, short of striking the King’s head with a mallet. That would hardly be a spectacle calculated to please the King, seeing his head broken open in effigy.