Kit drew back. There was no sign of the mystery lady he’d met in the hall. He should have thought to remove his mask to get a better look at her. All he could remember was that she had dark hair and a reproachful smile and wore a lilac-gray gown that wrapped around her enticing curves like twilight.
It wasn’t that he dallied with every pretty woman he met. God knew he’d almost been late to the performance, and he wasn’t sure why he had stopped to tease her. Something about her had caught him by surprise. He didn’t happen upon a lady whisking a wooden sword at the wall every evening. Especially not one with a tempting silhouette and dark eyes that sparkled with secrets and a mouth that he wanted to make smile and to kiss at the same time.
She reminded him . . . of whom? He searched his mind.
Damnation
. She hadn’t been one of the maidservants who made a fuss over him whenever he visited the house for lessons. He didn’t think she was one of the young ladies who took tea with the marchioness from time to time and watched him fence with Master Rowan.
But he felt as if he knew her.
Which, of course, he didn’t.
If she had a desire to meet him again, she had only to pick up a program to find his name. It wasn’t as if he would be hiding in the wings all night.
The audience clapped and stood as the curtains closed on a scene from
Hamlet
. The master of ceremonies appeared onstage and promised over the uproar that more swashbuckling acts would follow after a brief intermission, and that any subscriptions bought tonight from Master Fenton’s academy would be donated to charity.
Pierce Carroll, the academy’s newest pupil, was still taking a bow when Kit vanished backstage and hurried into the retiring room. For a moment he expected to see his mentor and adoptive father, Captain Charles Fenton, hunched over a stool, criticizing and praising Kit in turns. He’d been dead four months now. But it didn’t seem that long ago that he’d bought Kit’s indenture, and Kit had thought it was the end of him. Instead, it had been the beginning.
There wasn’t any doubt that he and Fenton had found each other at a low point in their lives. Fenton was a bastard when he drank, and Kit gave him hell in return. But he thought about Fenton all the time.
Tonight he swore he could feel his presence. He swore he could hear his father’s voice.
Live with passion. Fight with honor. And look over your shoulder every now and then.
Look over his shoulder?
Was that meant to be a warning?
His father didn’t answer.
Another voice intruded on his thoughts.
“They love you, sir.” Pierce slipped inside the room, his face lean and clean shaven. “Did I do well enough?”
Kit grabbed one of the damp towels on the dressing table and rubbed it over his jaw. “You know you did.”
Kenneth poked his head in the door. “Sir Godfrey is on next!”
Kit buckled on the sword belt that his valet had thrown at him. “Remind him that the light in Pierce’s lantern is alive. He is not to fling his cloak anywhere near the curtains. Encourage the audience to hiss when Pierce sneaks on the stage and to applaud when Sir Godfrey wins the duel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And . . . have any messages been sent to me in the past hour?”
“Messages? Oh, yes, sir. The senior footman of the house has sent word that the marchioness thanks you for finding the young master for her.”
“Oh. Good.”
“And some other guests are inquiring about the availability of private lessons through July. A member of Parliament wishes to take up the sword again, at his wife’s encouragement. Seems your swordplay lit a dying spark, sir.”
“Splendid.” He wasn’t averse to additional income, nor to enhancing the romance of the sword. But he
would
appreciate having the privacy to stir up a little passion in his own life.
“Actually, Kenneth,” he admitted, shying away from the brush his valet bore toward his head, “I was thinking—
ouch
—of a more personal message, from—”
The valet’s brush stilled, caught in Kit’s hair. “Ah. A liaison?” Martin said, eyeing Kit over the lowering brush. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? There were a legion of them. I sent the footman packing and tore up the messages. We don’t want those nasty women around here.”
He ducked the valet and swung around in disbelief. “You did what?”
“You said we should never let a flirtation distract you from a lesson, duel, or performance. I thought I’d be doing you a favor by keeping your mind on course. Wait. There was one message that I promised to give you.”
“Well.”
The valet lowered his voice self-consciously. “The viscountess said—”
“That’s enough, Martin. She isn’t the distraction I was hoping for.”
By the time Violet was convinced that her aunt felt better, she had missed all but the closing acts. Not wanting to disturb anyone, she took a seat at the back of the theater. The audience seemed in high spirits, speculating in whispers what the finale would include. The master of ceremonies was taking bids for a midnight duel with the sword master, all the proceeds to benefit an orphanage or hospital of their choice. It sounded like fun, Violet thought, and if she had a decent purse, she might have bid herself.
She wouldn’t have been the only lady in the audience to do so. The sword master counted plenty of female followers.
She studied the stage, wishing she had been able to find a closer seat. Judging by the set, a candlelit altar and church interior, it seemed like the next scene would be a romantic act. What part would the masked rogue she’d met tonight play? Had she missed him? Godfrey had talked only about his own role. In fact, he’d talked about it so much that Violet felt she
had
seen it. Or she could convince him she had.
“Ladies and gentlemen! May we have silence in the theater?” The apron lights dimmed. The crowd hushed. “Thank you,” the master of ceremonies said. He paused to acknowledge the marquess and his family in the upper gallery. “And now for our finale, we require one brave young lady from the audience—”
A commotion broke out across the theater. Countless white-gloved hands crested the air like waves. One of the footmen behind Violet said to another, “If only the army could get volunteers that easily.”
Volunteers for what?
The master of ceremonies selected a blond woman in a pale yellow dress from the second row. Sighs of disappointment escaped the ladies not chosen. Violet regarded the empty seat with a wry smile. First seat on the right from the center aisle. Well, it hadn’t taken the rogue long to replace her.
She sat forward, interested to see what mischief she had missed. Would she regret her decision to remain uninvolved? Probably not. She had grown remarkably staid in recent years. Like most young gentlewomen she had learned that a lady obeyed the rules, or broke them to her rue.
The act turned out to be an adventurous escapade that delighted the audience, performed in high-spirited energy. A black-garbed swordsman paraded a white stallion through the theater and up onto the stage to rescue an unwilling bride from a wedding altar. A lively duel between the rescuer and the enraged bridegroom and his retainers ensued.
Violet noticed two assistants waiting at the end of each aisle to catch the horse and its rescued bride, who dismounted as skillfully as a cavalry officer. Of course it was all staged. The rescued damsel worked for the scalawag dancing the villain across the stage at sword point.
To Violet’s frustration he moved too fast for her to get a clear look at him. Strong chin. Limbs as flexible as a dancer’s. Dark silky hair with glints of gold. She felt her skin tingle in recognition.
Just because he’d flirted with her in a hallway? And what part in this performance had he expected her to play? Not only an onstage role, but a private one, no doubt. A backstage affair. Godfrey would have a word or two to say about
that
. Furthermore, he would have died of shock if Violet had ridden a horse through the theater, her ankles exposed to the audience.
All you have to remember is to put your arms around me and hold on tight.
In that moment, if she could have reached the swordsman, she might have done exactly that.
The action onstage commanded her attention. But in less than a minute the mood of mischief darkened to menace. From behind the pews of the chapel innumerable enemy soldiers sprang up like dragon’s teeth to challenge the stolen bride’s defender. Violet soon forgot this was a performance.
She barely noticed when a footman ushered a late-arriving guest into the seat beside her. The swordsman leaped over the pews with his back to the church altar, his enemies forcing his retreat. One by one, he beat them down until at last he stood against a stained-glass window, trapped, outnumbered.
Violet frowned, caught up in the outcome. The figure onstage represented chivalry, vulnerability, and the unconquerable power of right. He exemplified the courtier who refused to bend to any power but one who treated his subjects with grace. How could this brave knight find victory? It looked as if he were done for.
She cringed as an enemy swordsman disarmed him, slashing a bloody wound from the shoulder of his tunic to his hip. She knew perfectly well it wasn’t real blood. But she and several other ladies gasped all the same. His sword clattered to the stone floor of the chapel.
How at the last hour could a defenseless hero win?
All appeared to be lost.
He fell to his knees, his silky hair covering his face, blood running from his wounds.
Was the audience to be left unsettled and helpless, with even a theatrical triumph denied? The hero they had championed could not die at an altar, grace and victory snatched from his hand.
The light that pierced the stained-glass window behind the fallen knight faded. The stage went dark. Violet felt the uneasiness that gripped the audience.
The knight could not fail. Evil must not win.
The curtain closed on his unmoving figure. Was it over?
“For God’s sake,” one gentleman muttered, “get up. It cannot end like this.”
“Get up!”
“Get up!”
The audience chanted the words with righteous anger, with passion. Their voices resounded to the painted medallions of the soaring plaster ceiling. The swell of emotion that swept through the small theater mounted until Violet’s very pulse echoed the same refrain.
Get up. Get up.
She knew it wasn’t real. And yet she believed in the hero’s pain with all her heart.
Get up. Get up
.
Show us it can be done. Give us courage. Help us. Stand up for what is right.
It’s only an act
, she thought.
The fallen swordsman was just trying to make an assignation with me. Of course he isn’t going to die.
The cheeky rogue had the vigor of a dozen men.
“Get up,” she whispered, her voice joining the others. And as she spoke an image from long ago stirred in her mind. “Get up,” she said, shaking her head in frustration as the image subsided before it could take shape.
He reminded her of . . .
The curtains opened again. Mist swirled around the warrior, who slowly rose to approach a massive anvil in which was embedded a sword.
Appearing from the wings to flank him at either side came a dozen knights in foot chains. One dared throw him a pair of gauntlets. A second wiped the blood from his shoulder with a cloth. Two others defied their captors by struggling free and helping him put on a tunic. A fifth knight—heavens above, Violet thought, stifling a giggle, it was Godfrey—knelt at his side.
When the knight stood, the audience held its collective breath. And when he pulled the stone from the anvil, he rose above disgrace to defend those who could not defend themselves. The sword glittered over his head. It shone as he lifted it to the cheering audience, a young Arthur in a satin tunic. It rang as he broke the chains that bound his knights.
Violet sniffed. He reminded her of every girl’s hero, she supposed. A man who could chase a child through a house when he was about to perform the show of the season and
not
lose his patience. A man who even managed to plot an after-performance rendezvous.
A legendary hero or a consummate artist? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Tonight he had staged a call to arms to help the downtrodden, using the romance of the sword to inspire. Never mind that he had inspired romantic notions in the ladies watching him, Violet included. She gave a sigh.
No wonder Godfrey bragged that he was one of only twelve students chosen to perform. And what dreadful timing for Violet to miss his important scene. She would never hear the end of it.
The end.
She blinked.
The Marquess of Sedgecroft had come onstage to deliver his final words.
The crowd cheered wildly. Grayson Boscastle, the fifth marquess, was a gregarious lion of a man, beloved by London society despite, or perhaps because of, his previous sins.
“We are all of us tonight a privileged class,” he addressed the audience. “We have dined on the food prepared by the finest chefs in England this evening. We have been well entertained. And we have no doubt spent more hours pondering our evening dress than we have the beggars we passed on our way to the tailor’s or the mantua maker’s. But for your generosity, the destitute, the downtrodden, and I thank you. And for the heart-stopping sword duels in which my son is eager to engage me, I thank Master Fenton and the dedicated students of his academy.”
Master Fenton.
He appeared at Sedgecroft’s side, the epitome of sensual elegance. Violet couldn’t take her eyes from him.
She wished she hadn’t come here tonight.
A horrible pain had pierced her heart. It took her a moment to work out what she was feeling, but then she knew. It was the pain of wanting what could never be.