Wicked Company (7 page)

For the FIRST time in Edinburgh!

The CLAN ROBERTSON SINGERS

Presenting the famous Highland Bard

RORY ROBERTSON and his HARP

and his balladeer grandson

HUNTER ROBERTSON

and Mother Robertson

Singing Highland and Lowland Favorites!!!

When Sophie had set the type that listed the date and admission prices, she prayed that her superlatives and exclamation points would be sufficient to draw a crowd large enough for Hunter at least to cover his expenses. As she trudged around the town posting her handiwork, she thought about poor playwrights who, she’d heard, actually wound up
owing
money to the theater management, instead of reaping profits for their efforts.

The next day, Daniel McGann drifted down the alley to speak with another bookseller about his recent contretemps with the local clergy. Alone in the shop, Sophie heard the door open and the sound of masculine laughter. As she emerged from the printing chamber wiping her ink-stained hands on her apron, she felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of Hunter Robertson pointing at the placard she’d put in her window announcing his concert. He was flanked by two young men, one of whom was rather stylishly attired.

“Aha!” Hunter exclaimed to his companions, flashing the smile that had lingered in Sophie’s memory. “Here’s the clever wee lassie whose broadsides have garnered me notice all over Edinburgh! Not only does she
write
brilliantly at the tender age of sixteen, but can set type as if she were
twice
her age—as she informed me the day I met her. What’s more,” he added gallantly, “she dances like an angel!” Sophie found herself blushing to her auburn roots. “Sophie McGann,” Hunter continued, “may I present Mr. James Boswell and Mr. William Creech—longtime residents of this fair city who have kindly befriended me.”

Will Creech and Sophie exchanged smiles. They were practically the same age and had known each other for ages. Creech was currently attending the University of Edinburgh and often browsed through the volumes in their shop.

“Will and I are two bookworms of long acquaintance, eh Willie?” she laughed. Her attention focused on the other, elegantly dressed visitor.

James Boswell’s name was familiar to her not just because his father was a famous judge, but because she had heard rumors about the twenty-year-old heir to the Auchinleck estate south of Edinburgh. Boswell had engaged in a torrid affair with a Catholic actress ten years his senior and had subsequently run off to London in the midst of his law studies, much to the fury of his stiff-necked, kirk-going father. She had it from some local gossip that the wayward lad was now dutifully pursuing his legal education locally, under Lord Auchinleck’s watchful paternal eye.

“I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance,” Sophie nodded to Boswell, wondering that such a portly, round-faced law student had proved irresistible to the flamboyant actress, Anna Cowper. “Welcome to our shop,” she added, ignoring as best she could the pillaged bookshelves surrounding her guests.

“Did the raiding clerics leave you your stock of printed plays?” Boswell asked, glancing at the plundered shelves.

“So you’ve heard about our recent visitors,” Sophie replied. “Yes… a few.”

She found herself comparing Creech’s sharp features and Boswell’s rather doughy countenance with Hunter’s; his straight nose and high cheekbones recalled engravings she’d seen of Greek warriors. Then she remembered his look of anguish when he had acknowledged he could not read. In that painful moment of truth, Hunter’s demeanor had been free of any effort to captivate, bewitch, or beguile. Today, however, the charmer who stood in the book shop with his two companions was completely self-assured and treated her like the little sister he had alluded to when first they met.

“Well, wee one… I’ve come to thank you for telling the town so eloquently of my impending concert.”

“How many tickets have you sold?” Sophie inquired.

Hunter erupted into laughter.

“Did I not tell you the lass is a canny merchant?” he chortled to Boswell and Creech. “Bozzy, here, heard me sing at Fortune’s Tavern last night and has promised to write a boast for me in the
Edinburgh Courant
the day before the concert.”

“But have you
sold
any tickets yet?” Sophie persisted anxiously. “’Twould be disastrous if you find yourself
owing
David Beatt forty pounds, or so.”

Her words seemed to give Hunter a moment’s concern, but then he shrugged. “Creech tells me the lads will line up in droves on the day of the performance.”

“Perhaps the young bucks who frequent the tavern will,” she replied tartly, “but you must entice ladies of fashion as well. Otherwise you’ll not get the necessary gentlemen to plunk down the siller for the entrance fees.”

“The lass is probably correct in that,” Boswell said thoughtfully, pulling a book from the shelf and thumbing its pages.

“We could always take him to Miss Nicky’s cotillion tonight,” Creech grinned at Sophie. “If the ladies saw him in satin breeches, they’d swarm to hear him sing.”

“I’ve no satin breeches, I can tell ye that!” Hunter laughed.

“I could lend you a pair,” Boswell said, looking up from the pages of the book he was scanning, his eyes
alight with mischief. “With your height, they might be a wee bit tight,” he added, “but that would be all to your advantage, I suspect!” At that, the three young men laughed heartily, exchanging knowing glances.

“He’ll have to be able to do the minuet,” Sophie said primly. “Miss Nicky insists any newcomer be sponsored by someone known to her, and that he be able to dance properly.”

“Do you know the minuet, Robertson?” Boswell asked Hunter. His questioning look reflected his evident doubt that a rough Highlander could have acquired any drawing room refinements.

But before Hunter could admit that he knew nothing of that complicated confection imported from France, Sophie announced, “I can teach him.”

“By
tonight?”
Creech said skeptically.

“God’s bones, I think she
could!”
Hunter laughed. “She danced some flimflam with me the other day on the street without even knowing the steps.”

Sophie was relieved to see that Hunter took seriously the advantages of making a public appearance at the cotillion to drum up a paying audience for his concert.

“Mr. Boswell,” Sophie entreated, “would you sponsor Hunter at Miss Nicky’s and lend him proper attire? And Willie, would you sing his praises to the ladies of the town?”

Boswell pulled his gaze from the book he had been skimming, a volume written by an English traveler to Italy. “I shall present him to the sister of the Earl of Mansfield
only
on condition that you can make him a presentable dancer of the minuet by six o’clock this evening,” he replied. “I mean it, Robertson,” he added slyly. “I’ll never hear the end of it from my father if I sponsor some hairy Highlander who makes a fool of himself at Miss Nicky’s Assembly. ’Twould destroy my reputation.”

“And
your
reputation is so unblemished, Bozzy,” Creech interjected sardonically, adding, “I’ll champion the lad.’’

Boswell’s soft, round cheeks took on a rosy hue and he swiftly returned his attention to examining an engraving of Roman ruins. Shortly thereafter, Hunter’s new acquaintances departed, and between infrequent appearances of customers in the shop, Sophie drilled Hunter all afternoon in the basic steps of the minuet.

By five o’clock, Hunter, with his natural musical talent and innate dancing ability, appeared to have mastered a passable minuet. Boswell and Creech arrived, dressed handsomely, and Hunter donned his borrowed finery in the back chamber, hanging his tartan trousers on the handle of the printing press.

“Gadzooks, man!” Boswell exclaimed as Hunter entered the front of the shop, “Deuced if you don’t look better in my clothes than
I
do!”

Sophie could hardly credit the extraordinary change in Hunter. Boswell had lent him a fine linen shirt, complete with cascading lace at collar and wrist, which contrasted nicely with his ivory satin breeches and a midnight blue velvet coat with deep cuffs and matching buttons. As she stared at the startling metamorphosis of the strolling player whose unvarnished good looks had been transformed into classic masculine beauty, her heart filled with pride and confidence.

Sophie dashed up to the second floor to change from her printer’s apron and faded skirt into her only dress, a gown cut down from one her mother had worn. The cotton garment wasn’t the least luxurious and the style was more than a decade out of date, but the skirt and bodice were of a pale peach color that set off Sophie’s auburn hair.

She stared forlornly at the fabric bunched-up where her bosom should be. In spite of her sixteen years, her breasts had barely grown! Struck suddenly by an idea, Sophie scooped up her petticoat and rolled down her woolen stockings. Stuffing them into her bodice, she stared at the resulting hillocks. Unfortunately, the protuberances looked hard and artificial. With a sigh, she extracted the scratchy camouflage and headed toward the narrow stairs that led down to the first floor.

By the time Sophie reappeared in the shop, her father had returned and was conversing animatedly with Jamie Boswell about an island off Italy called Corsica. The younger man had seen it mentioned in the book he’d been perusing earlier that day.

“You’ve met Mr. Boswell,” Sophie asked her father rhetorically, “and Mr. Robertson, whose playbills we printed?”

“Aye,” her father said genially as the church bells somberly tolled the hour of six in the cathedral belfry above their heads.

Boswell handed Daniel the book on Italy.

“I’d like to purchase this, if you please,” he said.

“That will be six shillings,” Daniel replied, his eyes dancing with pleasure at the pending sale.

“Will four do for the moment?” Boswell inquired smoothly, “unless Creech will stand me for the other two?”

“Sorry, Bozzy, my lad,” Creech said shaking his head. “A poor university student has barely the entrance fee to Miss Nicky’s.”

“Not to worry, Mr. Boswell,” Daniel said abruptly. “Take the book and pay me the rest when you can.”

“You’re very kind,” Boswell replied cheerfully, digging four shillings out of a small pocket in his white brocaded waistcoat. “I shall retrieve it when we escort your daughter home tonight.”

“We’d best be off,” Sophie said briskly, attempting to mask her annoyance that her father was so easily taken advantage of. Yet, four shillings was better than none, and perhaps young James Boswell was good for his debts. “I’ve left some bannocks and a bit of broth in the kettle for you, Da,” she added.

“Thank you, my dear,” her father answered vaguely, lost in the pages of the book Boswell had selected from their shelves. “Enjoy yourselves, laddies,” he said, barely looking.

“Do ye really think my attending tonight’s assembly will help sell tickets to the concert?” Hunter asked quietly, falling into step beside Sophie as the quartet headed toward Bell’s Wynd. “I perform on cobblestones, not in a ballroom of dandies and ladies in corsets,” he added glumly.

“Just
smile
at those ladies when you speak, and when you’re dancing, concentrate on the steps, not on their corsets. I know you can do it! You can’t afford
not
to!”

Hunter shot her a rueful grin, but also seemed to gain confidence from her words.

“Don’t expect
me
to stay by your side, laddie mine,” Boswell announced bluntly. “Too many beauties will require our attention.”

“I thought your heart was permanently broken by a certain lady of the theater,” Creech heckled his friend.

“’Twas broken, to be sure,” Boswell said with mock seriousness, “—but that was
last
year!”

Even Sophie laughed.

“To the lassies in our futures!” Hunter cheered, extending his velvet-cloaked arm heavenward in a high-spirited salute.

“To the
lassies!”
chorused Creech and Boswell.

Sophie remained silent at this, but none of her escorts appeared to notice. She could hear the sedate strains of a string orchestra playing a minuet as they entered the flow of pedestrians approaching Bells Wynd. She was acutely aware of the whispering onlookers as their small group joined the throng entering the ballroom. Handsome young women, resplendent in satin and brocades, acknowledged their entrance from behind fluttering fans, their ornately powdered wigs nearly colliding as they craned their necks to get a look at the tall stranger with dark blond hair.

Hunter’s skin-tight borrowed breeches showed off his muscular frame to seductive advantage, and Sophie could sense a palpable excitement stirring among the females in the ballroom, most of them wearing deep-cut bodices that barely restrained their rounded, opalescent flesh. Her own peach-colored gown felt grotesquely loose against the pathetically small mounds on her chest, and for the first time in her life, Sophie experienced a witch’s brew of raw envy
flowing through her veins.