Wicked Company (101 page)

Puzzled, Sophie returned her gaze to the honored guests stationed near the grave site in Poets’ Corner. She found herself staring at the self-satisfied visage of Roderick Darnly, Earl of Llewelyn. Trevor Bedloe was consigned to an area near the choir stalls, awaiting his master’s bidding. On the nobleman’s left sat Sophie’s nemesis, Edward Capell. And on Darnly’s right, Dr. John Monro, the director of Bethlehem Hospital—the infamous Bedlam!

The shock of seeing the hateful trio assembled beside one another and only feet from where she stood nearly caused Sophie to turn heel and run with all her might. Quickly, she averted her eyes from her three enemies as Garrick’s coffin, borne by the eight elegant escorts recruited by Richard Sheridan, was gently placed next to the opening in the floor. Sheridan and Dr. Johnson stood forlornly at the foot of Shakespeare’s monument, weeping openly, and above them, peering down from the Dean’s gallery was Hannah More, her eyes brimming with tears.

The Bishop of Rochester began to intone prayers for David Garrick’s dead soul.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…

Sophie’s eyes were inexorably drawn back to the figure of Roderick Darnly. The Earl of Llewelyn was staring at her steadily, attracted, it appeared, by the sight of a lock of reddish brown hair that had escaped from her white periwig and was tickling her cheek. Self-consciously, she tucked away the telltale strand. Immediately, Roderick’s scrutiny turned into a look of recognition. With glazed eyes, she watched him lean to his right and whisper to Dr. Monro, then to his left, to say something to Edward Capell. Slowly, he pointed a finger in her direction.

With a bolt of sudden insight, Sophie knew, at last, why Edward Capell had declared Sydney Ganwick to be a woman scribe, and why Dr. John Monro had recently learned that Sophie McGann
was
Sydney Ganwick, author of the scathing
School for Fools!

The fashionably attired Mary Ann Skene!

Sophie felt her breath coming in ragged gulps. Christmas Day! Mary Ann must have scanned the draft of
School for
Fools
that Sophie had quickly transferred to a drawer when the harlot came home from her nightly labors, inquiring if her flat mate intended to visit Hunter in Newgate Prison later that day. For a price, no doubt, the chit had confirmed this gathering of worthwhile intelligence to Darnly.

What else had she told him? Sophie wondered, her heart beginning to thud in her chest. Mary Ann Skene had probably kept him apprised of her every move! And not just in recent months! What of the time, years ago, when Darnly himself had paid for Mary Ann to lodge with her?

Frantic thoughts whirled through Sophie’s brain. Staring straight ahead at Garrick’s crimson-covered coffin, she tried to steady herself and think clearly while the bishop and mourners began to recite the Twenty-Third Psalm.

Mary Ann Skene was a female Trojan Horse!

During the time the strumpet had lived under her roof, Sophie had experienced nothing but difficulties with the Lord Chamberlain’s office! Mary Ann Skene, the slattern who appeared to sleep all day and practice harlotry at night, had been a paid
spy!
But
why?
Why would Lord Darnly have a care for the literary efforts of a writer of plays—woman or no woman? And who else had he enlisted over the years in his attempts to control her and her dramatic work? Mavis? Peter? Hannah More?

A sudden vision of Peter’s bruised and battered countenance appeared before her eyes. Mary Ann had watched Sophie paint her face like a tart the evening she set out, dressed in a provocative gown, to attempt to locate her estranged husband. But Peter had died before Sophie could even implore him to tell Lord Mansfield the truth about Peter’s being coerced by Darnly to sue Hunter.

Hit… our daughter…
Peter had mumbled that terrible night as he lay dying in St. Paul’s churchyard beside Danielle’s grave. The authorities had assumed he’d struck his head on a granite marker nearby. Had something—or someone—attacked him?

Despite her best efforts to remain calm, Sophie began to tremble. Roderick Darnly continued to gaze at her like a serpent poised to strike. As Garrick’s coffin was slowly lowered below the level of the chapel’s floor, the bishop solemnly cast a clod of earth on its polished wooden lid.

In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother, David, and we commit his body to the ground…

Like a thunderclap, a more violent emotion subdued all others raging in Sophie’s breast—that of pure, unadulterated
fear.
Not only was Roderick Darnly capable of murder; he had committed it.

In a lightning move, she bolted from the tidy honor guard of pages flanking Poets’ Corner and quickly threaded her way through the throng. Begging pardon for banging elbows and stepping on toes, she slipped through a door behind the choir stalls and darted into the ancient cloisters where monks had once dwelled in the days before King Henry VIII severed his church from Roman authority.

She entered the chilly passageway and hurried toward what she hoped would be an exit from the grounds of the enormous cathedral. Her upper lip was laced with perspiration, despite the cold blast of February air sweeping through the opened arched windows on her right. Struggling for breath, she halted abruptly, confused by the labyrinth of passageways branching off in several directions. She whirled around and retraced her steps for several yards. Then, without warning, a hand grabbed her arm and spun her around. Assuming that one of the King’s Guards had stepped from some hidden portico to apprehend her, Sophie stared, open-mouthed, at the slender figure of Trevor Bedloe, who smiled at her with grim satisfaction.

“You’re to wait right here, Miss McGann,” he said in a low voice, his grip on her forearm surprisingly firm for a man of such slight physique.

“Let me go, villain!” Sophie exclaimed, attempting to free herself from his grasp.

“Ah… the celebrated
Sydney Ganwick,”
a familiar voice exclaimed as Lord Darnly rounded the corner. He, too, took hold of her arm, pulling her into a recessed area adjacent to the Chapel of the Pyx, a stone chamber that once stored royal treasure. “Thank you, Trevor,” the earl said pleasantly, as Bedloe released his grip. “’Pon my word, don’t you reckon that Sophie, here, should have tidied her hair before playing a breeches part?” he mocked, pulling her white periwig off her head and tossing it aside.

“So, you’ve deduced who I was,” Sophie retorted, trying to catch her breath. “And that I was writing as Sydney Ganwick. ’Tis no cause for this ambush. Let go of my arm, please.”

“I’ve suspected your little ruse for quite some time,” Roderick said, tightening his grip. “However, ’twas most gratifying to have Mary Ann prove it to my satisfaction.”

“And so you betrayed me to Edward Capell and Dr. Monro,” she said quietly. “Pray, why? What could it possibly gain you?”

“What I am so desirous of having,” he smiled affably. “You…
and
your quill… and your babe-producing female parts—and, of course, your silence. I’ll wager you’ll prefer answering to me, rather than to the authorities. I revealed your identity to my fellow club member, the honorable Edward Capell, only recently when he found he could do nothing legally to thwart such female impudence.”

“Ah, yes,” Sophie said grimly. “It doesn’t surprise me that he, too, would be among those female-despising men whom I saw don monks’ robes and kill defenseless animals for their amusement. I would have thought your sensibilities a bit more elegant than that, Roderick.”

Darnly paused, and then apparently chose to ignore her remark.

“’Twas Capell himself who informed the good doctor that his complaints against
School for Fools
filed at the Lord Chamberlain’s office had merit,” he said icily. “How fitting that the scandal-mongering author of the play was, in truth, a former
inmate
of the institution.” He gave her arm a warning squeeze. “Sophie, my dear, if you will simply agree to be my anonymous scribe as well as my wife, and provide me an heir—and a spare, I will put an end to all this unpleasantness about seditious libel.”

“Your
wife!”
she exclaimed, her fists balled at her side in frustration. “Why do you persist in this nonsense when you know perfectly well that, my marriage to Hunter Robertson is legal? Even
you
can’t change the official registry.”

“Ah… but what if you… sadly… were widowed once again?” he asked coolly. “You’ve produced two live births. Why not an heir to an earldom? ’Twould be ever so convenient for me, don’t you see?”

Sophie stared up at her erstwhile benefactor, as certain truths became more that mere speculations.

“W-wouldn’t Mavis Piggott serve your purposes just as well?” Sophie temporized, frantically seeking a means of escape back into the sanctuary where the sounds of Purcell’s music soared toward the Gothic arches overhead.

“The strumpet aborted a babe once, it appears, and can no longer become enceinte
.
And she’s not as able a playwright as you, either, as I discovered. Furthermore, she doesn’t know me as well as you do, does she, Trevor?” he added cryptically. “There’s no need to prepare you for my certain predilections, is there, Bedloe, my man?”

There was no reply from the slender young man who had apparently retired to the shadowy arch several feet from where they stood.

“No… Sophie, my dear… I wish
you
to be my silent and obedient spouse
and
my amanuensis. You are the perfect choice to carry my child and to take my ideas for plays and give them form and substance.”

“For what purpose?” Sophie demanded, wondering silently if Roderick planned a
ménage à trois
in the wilds of Wales in order to succeed in bringing forth the necessary heir.

“For my amusement, profit, and renown,” the earl replied mildly. “There’s little about the life I was born to that I do not find tedious in the extreme. And gambling at faro or whist bores me rigid. But gambling in the
theater…
now that is a capital sport, but one must have the requisite chips to enter that game, and you will serve splendidly to gain me entry and respect!”

“If that is so,” Sophie retorted, “why not employ your own efforts at play writing? Why appropriate someone else’s work?”

“Why not?” Darnly shrugged. “’Tis so much more pleasant to gain influence and accolades without soiling one’s fingers with ink. With your pen and my connections, we can gain the patent from those buffoons and—”

“We?”
Sophie scoffed. “My business dealings with you at Sadler’s Wells are all too fresh in my memory. I was in the cupboard in Rosoman’s Treasure Room, Roderick. I saw the ledgers and how you short-changed me. You didn’t think twice about cheating me of my due!”

“If you have any sense, my dear, you would be grateful for what generosity I do extend,” Lord Darnly retorted, ignoring this revelation. “I suggest you accept my proposal to be my resident playwright and avoid what could be a very dicey situation for you with the authorities.”

“Ever the dilettante, never the drudge… is that it, m’lord?” Sophie observed.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, stung.

“Your ambitions extended beyond merely acquiring a few mortgages on theater shares, didn’t they?” she said mockingly. “You want the blessed balm of the public’s
praise
heaped upon your brow!”

“My work has been accorded some worth!” he retorted.

“By
whom?”
she responded ruthlessly. “The members of your ‘club’ who applaud your little playlets? Whatever the endeavor, you and your ilk were bred to assume that someone else would do the work! Well, I can tell you this,” she glared at him, “art can only be evoked by
artists.
You’ve, shown neither the talent nor the perseverance it requires to be a dramatist in the way that Garrick was a dramatist, or Sheridan or Goldsmith or Colman or—yes!—women like Aphra Behn, whom you so abhor!” she shouted, nearly out of breath.

“’Tis unlikely that you
female
scribblers will be remembered day after tomorrow!” he retorted.

“Not if men like you have anything to do with it!” Sophie replied furiously. “But
you,
Roderick… you are merely a charlatan, posing as a man of wit and sensibility! No one will know your name a hundred years from now either! Your entire existence, since the moment you had the misfortune to be born two minutes after your brother, Vaughn, has been one consisting of nothing but
envy!
It consumed you before your brother died… and has obsessed you ever since. You, my dear earl, have become a covetous scoundrel, a poseur—and the worst kind of
fraud!”