Wicked Company (36 page)

“Those rustics!” she spat, storming into the women’s tiring-room after being roundly hissed in
Romeo and Juliet.
“All they want is for a simpering dolt-of-a-Juliet to kill herself and be done with it!”

“I was told that two earls and a marquess were in the audience tonight,” Mrs. Lee announced cuttingly. “They are hardly peasants, my dear. Perhaps your strident interpretation of the role is not to everyone’s taste?”

“Oh, do be
still!”
Mavis said loudly. She shed her diaphanous Juliet costume and suddenly Sophie was struck by how slender she was for a woman four or five months gone with child. “Well,” she announced importantly, “at least I have received
some
good news… a celebrated manager has just written that he will mount my play in the autumn.” She cast a triumphant glance in Sophie’s direction. “So, Hunter and I won’t be forced to tread these boards next season, saints be praised.”

Sophie was shaken by pure, unadulterated envy, then ashamed to admit to herself how much she begrudged her rival’s success. When she and Hunter had performed their duo, she retired to the dressing room without a word, feeling utterly friendless.

Within minutes, a stage servant informed her of a visitor waiting for her in the Greenroom. Hastily, she made her way past clusters of stage furniture in the wings and poked her head into the actors’ reception chamber.

“Mrs. Sheridan!” she exclaimed, her spirits brightening for the first time in days. “How lovely to see you!”

“And you, dear child,” Frances Sheridan greeted her warmly. “I’ve come to congratulate you on your dancing tonight and to ask you to come to tea soon, if you have time. We’ve taken lodgings on King Street.”

“Of course,” Sophie replied eagerly. “I’d so love to spend some time with you. Would tomorrow afternoon around three suit?”

“Excellent!” Mrs. Sheridan replied. “Till tomorrow then.”

Sophie arrived promptly at the Sheridans’ rather humble lodgings at Number 9 King Street. The two women had hardly begun to sip their tea before Sophie confided in Frances about the rift with Hunter and the play she had rewritten with Peter Lindsay-Hoyt.

“I suppose Mavis’s success on so many fronts has made me wish violently for my own,” she acknowledged with a rueful smile. “Yet I felt so ashamed of that rush of jealousy when I heard someone was to mount her play.”

“Who knows better than
I
what a harridan Mavis Piggott can be?” Mrs. Sheridan said. “But remember, Sophie, whatever you write, ’tis
your
unique vision. No one sees the world through your eyes, nor you through theirs,” she smiled encouragingly. “So, you needn’t fear that Mavis’s success precludes your own. And speaking of that,” she added, pulling some sheaves of papers from a nearby desk drawer. “I’ve finished the first three acts of a new comedy I call
Journey to Bath.”

“You’ve not given up on play writing then!” Sophie said, beaming. “Oh, I’m
so
pleased!”

“I’d like your opinion if you think the work is of any merit,” she replied. “Sometimes I think I cannot judge its caliber any longer.”

“You would like
me
to read it?” Sophie asked, her eyes shining with pleasure.

“I certainly would,” Frances replied emphatically. “I’ve created an eccentric named ‘Mrs. Tyfort’ who, in her desire to sound erudite, misspeaks herself constantly… she says words like
progeny
where she means
prodigy
and such.”

“I love her already,” Sophie laughed.

“Ah, but I’m having difficulty working out the plotting, so many mismatched couples and calculating mamas….” Frances sighed.

At that moment, a boy who looked twelve or thirteen burst into the room. His complexion was ruddy from his outdoor exertions and he hardly looked at either woman in the room, heading directly for the tea table to sample the sweets.

“Richard!” his mother said sharply. “Please excuse your rude entrance and pray, pay your compliments to Miss Sophie McGann.”

The young scamp nodded perfunctorily, smiled charmingly at his mother, and exited as quickly as he had entered, carrying a sticky bun in each hand.

“Home from Harrow for the Easter holidays,” Mrs. Sheridan said tiredly. “He’s such an active lad…”

***

April melted into May and the weeping willows along the Avon drooped full-leaved fronds into the river swollen from spring rains. Sophie spent as much time in the Sheridans’ company as she could spare, both as a means of enjoying her friendship with the older woman and of keeping her distance from Hunter and Mavis.

The final performance of the 1763-1764 season, a comedy titled
The Old Maid,
was scheduled for late May. Hunter had designed a new musical sketch to accompany the piece. Many in the company had already abandoned the Orchard Street Theater for summer pastures elsewhere. Mavis was forced to learn a new role to cover for a departed actress and was not the least bit cheerful about her task. Hunter, too, appeared to be in an equally foul temper when Sophie arrived to rehearse the new steps.

“No, no, no, Sophie!” he fumed. “’Tis balancé, balancé,
coupé,
balancé.”

“That’s a change from the last time,” she said flatly.

“No, ’tis
not!”
he retorted.

“Yes it is,” Sophie insisted. “You said ‘balancé, balancé, balancé…
then
coupé.’”

“Sink me, if you aren’t a slow-witted dolt today,” he replied cuttingly. “That’s not at all the way I taught it to you.”

Sophie put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, Hunter Robertson, sink
me
if you won’t just have to find another dancing partner!”

And with that, she stormed off the stage.

Before she reached the exit, Hunter grabbed her wrist and continued her forward progress, dragging her into the alley behind the theater. Instead of berating her, as she expected, he pulled her roughly to his chest and held her fast.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I can’t bear this another instant. Please,
please,
Sophie… hear me out.”

She pulled away from his grasp and stared up at him, moved—despite her anger at his recent behavior—by the look of misery that had invaded his eyes.

“’Tis a lovely spring day,” she said quietly, clasping his hand. “Shall we take a stroll by the river?”

Fifteen

’Tis a relief to escape the smell of tallow and breathe the scent of sun and sky and grass again,” Hunter said, inhaling a deep breath. “Come,” he urged her, shedding his coat and spreading it on the grassy bank a few feet from the Avon. “Sit on this while we hold our solemn conference.”

Sophie did as she was bidden. Hunter stretched his long legs toward the river and leaned back on one elbow, plucking a fat blade of grass with his fingers.

“Where to start?” he sighed. “Well, here is what I most wish you to know—I have not shared the bed of the female in question since before you came to Bath.” He glanced at Sophie, who was staring at the river, expressionless. “Mavis was, indeed, enceinte, but not by
this
swain, although I wasn’t able to confirm that until recently,” he continued, twisting the blade of grass between his fingers.

“I know this may surprise you,” Sophie said quietly, “but the fact Mavis is not with child by you really doesn’t alter the situation to my mind. You were lovers in London and here in Bath… she
might
have been carrying your child…”

“And is it your belief,” Hunter finally interrupted, “that when that possible inconvenience reared its ugly head, I simply selected you to be the next object of my affections?”

“Well,” Sophie flared, “it certainly appeared that even
after
you had ceased to enjoy a physical… liaison with Mavis as you claim, you dined and danced and promenaded with her through Bath continuously. If I were she, I’d have been certain you’d mend the breach and become lovers once again—especially as she’d written a large part for you in her new play!”

“That’s
not
the way of it,” Hunter replied heatedly. “I have been trying to disentangle myself from Mavis Piggott since
before
you turned up on my doorstep.” Sophie bowed her head and cast unseeing eyes on the river flowing at their feet. “I played the typical, randy fool with Mavis,” he confessed. “I was lonely and bored when she tipped up from London last autumn in such a huff. She was eager to renew our… uh… previous connection. She was charming… she was
willing.
I suppose I lacked the moral fortitude to turn down her invitation in the dead of winter to warm her bed.”

“And, as the winter wore on, what prompted you to desert such cozy accommodations?” Sophie demanded, sounding unconvinced.

“The lass herself,” he said flatly. “Mavis, I must admit, is a fascinating creature, not uncomely, and not a dullard. But she is totally, absolutely,
completely
absorbed in one subject only—herself.”

“That must have been uncomfortable for you,” Sophie shot back.

“And you think I am like her in that regard?” Hunter demanded.

“Well, let us merely say, you have a healthy estimation of your good looks and your abilities,” she replied.

“You are certainly direct,” Hunter winced. His level gaze unsettled her somewhat. “Haven’t you yet realized one thing about me?” he queried gently. “My good looks, as you describe them, have often been a curse. I rarely know
why
my company is desired, other than for some peculiar fascination with this cleft in my chin, or these blue eyes, or this straight nose,” he said, touching each of his classic features with the blade of grass he held in his hand. “But you… you were always my friend, my good companion. From that very first day on the High Street, you seemed to wish me well.”

“I did…” Sophie replied slowly, “but I
was
dazzled by your… your… handsomeness and your large stature… and the way you have of appearing so sure of yourself. It made me feel safe.”

“And when you suddenly sought me out in Bath,” Hunter said, smiling at his recollection of that chilly December day, “it finally penetrated my thick skull that what I felt for you was far from mere brotherly affection. All this time I had deliberately cast you as ‘little Sophie, the Edinburgh waif’… my tutor and my friend.”

“But
why?
Why did you fend me off with this pose?” she asked, swallowing, painfully.

“You so put me in mind of Megan,” he replied slowly. “It rather felt like—”

“Well, ’twas
not!”
Sophie interrupted hotly. “I am Sophie McGann, not your deceased sister, Megan Robertson, and I am thoroughly
sick
of being treated as if ’twas some unnatural thing, this… attachment… that’s grown between us.”

“Exactly!”
Hunter agreed with a teasing smile. “Why did you not call my attention to this fact a bit sooner?”

“Your attention, sir, was riveted elsewhere!” she reminded him bluntly. “We were speaking of Mavis… and of your belief her child was not sired by you,” she added, forcing the conversation around to matters at hand.

“Ah… yes,” Hunter said, frowning. “I know this may sound harsh to your innocent ears, but I soon grew tired of Mavis’s demands—both intimate and otherwise. It all seemed so… so calculated on her part. Long before Christmas, we had ceased being lovers. Within the week of our estrangement, she flaunted Geoffrey Bannister as her latest conquest, so I was fairly certain that her story of my fathering her bairn was false.”

“But she told me the day after my arrival here at the end of December that she was carrying your child!” Sophie interjected accusingly. “She had only to inform you of it, she said, and you would be wed.”

“But she didn’t tell
me
she was breeding… not for quite some time,” Hunter protested. “She merely hinted at it… demanding to see me… demanding that I sup with her or walk with her, but never coming out with it until after that evening I encountered you at the Assembly Room ball with Darnly and Lindsay-Hoyt.”

“Well, given the news of Mavis’s condition,” she asked quietly, “what was your reaction?”

“Of course, I was disturbed to hear her claims, especially as my feelings for you were becoming—” Hunter cut himself short. He shifted his weight to his other elbow and stared off, across the river. “You see, your arrival in Bath had prompted Mavis into action. Geoffrey Bannister is
already
married, and she realized she had to move swiftly if she wished to avoid the embarrassment of bastardy, and she liked me well enough, then, I suppose… so she used such deception in an attempt to persuade me to marry her.” His eyes were now fixed on the blade of grass clasped between his fingers. “When she told me she was with child, I felt I had no right to… to make my feelings known to you until I knew the truth of her claim.”