Wicked Company (79 page)

“I see , . .” Sophie said thoughtfully. “I have just been told I am not to be paid my author’s fees until the season ends and the accounts of all the summer’s presentations have been totaled and expenses on them paid. Rosoman refuses even to estimate the house profits—though, clearly, they are considerable. I saw with my own eyes an amazing amount of blunt in Rosoman’s Treasure Room this very morning.”

Hunter grinned at her across the table.

“So
that’s
where you got to at the crack of dawn… sneaking off to count the treasury and abandoning me in your bed! To be honest, I’ve been so bloody busy all summer, I figure if I can garner enough wages to buy myself an ale and a chop when I remember to eat, ’tis sufficient! I haven’t even asked Rosoman for an accounting yet.” He looked at her intently. “Do you need funds?”

“No… not yet,” she answered, “but I want my author’s fees… or at least I’d like to know what I can expect. There’s something afoot here, Hunter, and I don’t like it.”

“At least, this time, you don’t suspect me of trying to cheat you of your wages, do you, my love?” he asked lightly.

Sophie knew instinctively that his question was in dead earnest. She gazed at him for a long moment and then reached across the table to lay her hand gently on his.

“I believe that the boy I taught to read and the man who rescued me from the clutches of Lord Auckinleck’s ire—not to mention the bowels of Bedlam—would never dream of doing me harm.”

“At last!” Hunter gently chided, clasping her hand. “I wondered when you’d realize I, too, am your champion.”

“You, my father, and Garrick,” Sophie grinned.

Hunter raised his eyebrow in mock resignation at the inclusion of Garrick in her pantheon of heroes.

“Well…” he ventured, smiling crookedly, “unlike David Garrick, I owe my entire professional life to
you,
not to mention my future happiness. Could that be the reason we’ve never become utterly disgusted with one another?” His smile faded and he looked at her solemnly. “I cannot honestly imagine another woman sleeping in my bed—or complicating my life.”

His voice had lost its bantering tone and the depth of his emotions was reflected in his eyes.

“Even if I cannot be your legal wife?” she replied sadly.

“Even if you cannot…” he repeated.

“And children… ?”

Her questioning words hung in the air between them.

“Why not have a bairn or two?” he answered, his blue eyes gleaming with mischief. “After a night like ours in the garret room, here, I cannot imagine how we can avoid…” Sophie flushed crimson with embarrassment, but Hunter merely reached for his tankard and took a healthy swig. “So?” he continued expectantly, setting his drink to one side. “What shall we do about getting you your author’s fees?”

“I wish there was some way to have a look at Rosoman’s ledger books,” she said, sighing with discouragement.

Hunter seized her hand again and raised it to his lips. “You’re not to worry on that score,” he said softly, intimately grazing her flesh. “We shall find out the truth—”

His words were suddenly interrupted by the tavern door banging open and Lord Roderick Darnly appearing at the threshold, a commanding figure in an elegant black cape. He glanced swiftly around the room, surveying every patron in the chamber. His eyes narrowed as Hunter lowered Sophie’s hand to the table, keeping it tightly in his grasp.

Accompanying Darnly stood Thomas Rosoman, appearing harried and out of sorts, despite its being Sunday when no performances were scheduled. The manager of Sadler’s Wells nodded a brief farewell to Viscount Glyn, then spotted the visitor from America, John Henry, and quickly headed for his table. Darnly marched over to Sophie and Hunter’s table and bowed curtly.

“May I join you for a moment?” he asked, taking a seat before either of them could extend even a perfunctory welcome. “I understand you were pressing poor Rosoman for your author’s fees this morning,” the viscount said coolly, after hailing the barmaid for a brandy. “I was under the impression we had agreed that I would take charge of such financial arrangements.”

Both Hunter and Sophie bristled at the nobleman’s condescending tone, but Sophie quickly intervened before her companion could speak.

“Roderick, I made no such agreement that you should—in your words—‘take charge’ of monies owed me. I merely wished to know from the proprietor of Sadler’s Wells what fees I could expect,” she declared coolly. “Since you are so well informed on these matters, I would like you to estimate for me, then, what percentage you will pay me when accounts are closed.”

“As you have been told, Rosoman will not close accounts until the end of October… therefore, as much as I would like to be of service, I cannot forecast the amount.”

“And are you saying, m’lord,” Hunter injected, despite Sophie’s tempering hand pressed urgently on his forearm,
“
that
you
have not received any monies owed your original investment, despite the play’s great success?”

Lord Darnly turned to gaze imperiously at Hunter, his icy glance signaling his disdain.

“I am not in the habit of divulging my business affairs to common players, sir!” he snapped.

“But
The Vanquishers Vanquished
has been enormously popular!” Sophie protested. “I saw stacks of blunt in Rosoman’s office this morning… surely, you—”

“God’s bones, woman!” Darnly barked in a rare display of temper. He pulled a tooled leather pouch from his embroidered waistcoat and slapped down several gold coins on the table. “Here’s ten pounds, if you are so presumptuous as to
beg!”

The silence crackled between them and Sophie sensed several patrons, including Thomas Rosoman and John Henry, watching their little drama intently. Sophie extended the fingers of her right hand across the table and slid the coins to her left, balling her fist around them.

“I shall accept what is due me,” she said stiffly, “and hope that soon I shall receive a full accounting, along with the rest of what is owing.”

“And a goodly sum it should be!’’ Hunter growled.

Lord Darnly took a long sip from his brandy snifter and seemed to regain his composure.

“One can be permitted to hope,” he said mildly. “The play has certainly been an outstanding success, but, sadly, Rosoman warned me this morning that the scenery and costumes were costly beyond compare. Really, Sophie, if your fees don’t rise to what I fear are your unrealistic expectations, at least your reputation as a female wit is assured.”

“Reputations don’t pay the butcher, my lord Darnly,” Sophie replied pointedly. She took pleasure from the fact that Roderick was offended by her use of his formal title and she no longer cared if the sight of her sharing an intimate moment with Hunter only added insult to injury. “Will you excuse me?” she added, rising abruptly. “I find I’m really rather tired. Hunter… shall we go?” she asked, gratified when her companion rose to his feet. “We bid you farewell, sir.”

Outside Myddleton’s Head, the late afternoon sun had given way to dusk. Billowing clouds scudded across the sky, plunging the Sadler’s Wells grounds into deep shadows.

“They’re all still downstairs, drinking,” Hunter said as he reentered her chamber atop the pub. “’Tis a good bet they’ll be there till they close the place.”

Sophie, relieved he had returned from his reconnaissance, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest, taking comfort from the steady beat of his heart.

“Roderick Darnly is beginning to frighten me,” she said in a low voice. “’Tis evident he already surmises that you and I are…”

“Lovers?” Hunter teased. “From what I gathered from my odd conversation with Edward Capell concerning their little ‘club’ honoring certain Greek traditions… the love between a man and a woman shouldn’t be of much interest to men like Darnly and him.”

“I don’t know,” Sophie said, biting her lip. Haltingly, she related the sinister scene she had witnessed in the beech grove, where Darnly and his confederates performed the strange druid rite of killing a feline upon the stone ‘altar’ and then stripping naked and fondling Darnly’s female servant.

“Was that the ‘other dimension’ to Darnly you so cryptically mentioned a few weeks back?” Hunter wondered aloud.

“That… and something more,” she acknowledged reluctantly. Shuddering at the memory, she described Darnly’s troubled family relationships, his anguished ramblings in her cottage the night of the haying fete, ending with her account of coming upon her host, entwined in the arms of his factor and the parlor maid.

“Jesu!” Hunter breathed. “The man seems not to know
what
he is. And then, for his brother to be killed and his father maimed the very next day after your play ended so disastrously…”

“Aye,” Sophie said somberly. “I think he’s quite tortured by it all. Even before Vaughn died, it seems this terrible duality in Roderick’s character affected every aspect of his life. Does he wish to be a lover of women, or men? Is he a poet or mere patron of the arts? He appeared genuinely distraught when his twin brother was killed, yet up to the moment he emerged from the mine shaft after the accident, he acted as if he wished the man had never been born!”

“I doubt we can ever fathom Darnly’s true intentions,” Hunter said quietly, “but whatever his private devils may be, he doesn’t have the right to deprive us of what we’ve rightfully earned. Are you up to a little sleuthing, my love?” he asked.

She glanced out her window at the broad expanse of lawn below.

“But what if they come upon us while we’re in the Treasure Room?” Sophie ventured. “There’s no telling what they’d accuse us of.”

“I am assistant manager!” Hunter declared. “And a partner in this particular venture, as Rosoman told you. I have a perfect right to examine the books. You needn’t come with me, you know,” Hunter added. “In fact, it’s probably better that you don’t.”

Sophie fell silent for a moment.

“No,” she said at length.”We are both owed the fees and should equally assume the risk of being discovered.”

“All right, my lovely,” Hunter agreed, shaking his head resignedly, “don your cloak against the foggy night and let us be done with this snooping among the ledger books.”

Stealthily, the pair crept downstairs, peering through a crack in the door to satisfy themselves that Rosoman, his guest, John Henry from Maryland, and Lord Darnly remained preoccupied with their bottle of port.

“Excellent…” Hunter said in a breath. “Quickly, now…”

When they had made their way to Rosoman’s chambers inside the theater, Hunter pulled out a candle and a flint from his pocket and soon illuminated the way into the Treasure Room itself. “I fear they may notice our light from the tavern,” Sophie said anxiously.

“I doubt they’ll look up from their snifters,” Hunter replied.

“Oh, no!” she moaned, noting that the manager’s ledger she had seen earlier in the day was nowhere in sight. “Do you suppose ’tis locked in the safe?”

However, Hunter strode over to the large cupboard leaning against one wall and flung open its wooden doors. In the flickering candlelight Sophie breathed a sigh of relief as he shoved several items of clothing to one side and pulled the heavy account book from the bottom shelf.

Hunter sat in Rosoman’s chair and lay the book flat on the desk. Quickly, he flipped through several pages before stopping at one inscribed with flowing script—
The Vanquishers Vanquished
—
August, September 1770.
Indicated in the tidy columns were numbers charting ten days of full attendance.

“My play has brought in more than two thousand pounds!” Sophie whispered excitedly. “
Two
thousand pounds,
Hunter!”

“And all from that clever little head of yours,” he teased affectionately. “Let us see,” he murmured, “…disbursements…”

There were amounts listed for candles, costumes, scenery, house servants, players fees, and the normal expenses associated with running an establishment like Sadler’s Wells.

“Look!” Sophie said in an awestruck voice. “Under today’s date—September fifth. Rosoman notes—”

“‘Roderick Darnly, Viscount Glyn… one thousand pounds!’ “Hunter read. “The blackguard had
just
received his percentage of the profits, yet he had the temerity to tell us at the tavern that you wouldn’t be paid until October—”

“And he had the
gall
to hint expenses were such that I shouldn’t hold ‘high expectations,’” she mimicked scathingly.

“The brigand!” Hunter cursed. “I’d like to—”

“Shh!” Sophie hushed him suddenly, her eyes
wide with fright. “Sink me… but I hear something! Someone’s
coming!”

They both froze and strained their ears. The sound of running footsteps pounding down a nearby passageway filled the air.

“Quick! Hide in the cupboard! Behind the cloaks!
Hurry,
Sophie!” Hunter whispered hoarsely.