Into this ghastly tension came Lord Landry’s voice, light, affable, and impervious to the hostile undertones.
“Hello, Miss Brightcastle. I see you’ve met Edward Kennan.”
“Do you know this girl?” said Kennan.
“Scott introduced us upstairs,” lied Landry smoothly, and received a grateful look from Frances. “Miss Brightcastle wanted to see the headdress and jewelry Sheila wore in
Cleopatra
. I’m afraid I misdirected her—they’re in that chest at the other end, I believe.” Landry’s casual tone did much to allay Kennan’s suspicions. The actor let go of Frances’ wrist and bowed slightly, as if in apology. The madness left his face, and he said testily:
“Very well, but these are valuable props and we can’t have them mulled by inexperienced hands.”
“Isn’t Miss Brightcastle holding the costume you wore in
Sorcery,
Edward?” said Landry. “You needn’t worry that she’ll mistreat any costume you’ve worn, Edward. She’s one of your most fervent . . . followers.”
This promptly reminded Frances that Landry’s sense of humor made him, at best, a capricious ally. She managed a simulated smile as Kennan extended his hand to her, apparently soothed by the reflected credit of Landry’s acceptance of Frances and by the playwright’s agile flattery.
“Ah,” said Kennan, “I have seen you about . . . in the farce, are you not? A new face! And you take an interest in my career, do you?”
“Closer than you imagine,” murmured Landry.
Frances hoped her hand was steady as she received Kennan’s. “I feel you are the most interesting actor in the theater.”
There were footsteps in the hall, and then Sheila Grant appeared in the doorway.
“David! Scott said I should find you down here. I’m delighted to see you back in London!”
Frances stood with cold hands clasped loosely before her, a tightness building in her chest, as she watched Miss Grant give herself into Landry’s arms for a kiss of greeting. Insanity for the parson’s daughter from Beachy Hill to care who the renowned Lord Landry chose to kiss!
Miss Grant gave a shiver of pleasure and danced coyly out of Landry’s arms. “Have the measles been put to rout?”
“The measles,” said Landry, “never had a chance. We’re a healthy lot. But I hear you’re to be beheaded.”
Sheila made a pretense of fussing with his cravat. “There’s no bearing it! Could you not have talked Scott out of the idea?”
“My dear Sheila, I only write the words. Scott does as he likes with the production. He was very enthusiastic about the new touch. He fancies himself as catering to the popular taste, so it seems.” Landry gave Kennan his effortless, winning smile. “I hear it was your idea, Edward.”
Kennan smiled back—a canine smile, the lips rolling over his teeth. “The appropriate flourish to end
Marie
. When Marie Antoinette finishes her monologue on death, she will turn, walk toward the back of the stage as though in a trance, and drop to her knees before . . .” He pointed dramatically to a tall, shrouded object at the back of the room and strode over to it. With both hands he pulled a dust cover away to reveal—a guillotine! It was apparently in operating order, still surrounded by wood shavings at its base, the serviceable blade poised for its assigned task. Kennan basked proudly in the little shriek given by Miss Grant at the sight of the machine.
“It’s hideous,” exclaimed Frances involuntarily.
“But so effective, don’t you think?” Kennan grinned at her and ran a finger carefully across the length of the blade. “Sheila will lay her head here”—he indicated the stock below the blade—” the apron lights darken, and then the blade falls, appearing to decapitate the pitiful Marie. We bring down the curtain as the blade emits a satisfying clang. A brilliant ending!”
“A smarmy ending,” retorted Sheila, and studied the contraption with a disdainful eye. She threaded her slender arm through Landry’s and smiled enticingly at him. “And after all your beautiful lines . . .”
Landry disengaged himself with deadly friendliness, pinched her chin, and gave her a kind smile before resuming his study of Kennan’s dreadful brainchild. “You designed the monster, Edward? Is it safe?”
Kennan’s face showed clearly that he relished not at all the implied doubt of his engineering ability. “Of course it’s safe! You see the pipe sections here? They’ll catch the blade before it comes close to Sheila’s pretty neck.”
Frances said daringly, “Would you put your own head in it, Mr. Kennan?”
Arrogance and cruel enjoyment of the grotesquerie before them were in Kennan’s face. “If my part called for it, yes. But, as I play Robespierre in
Marie
. . .” He shrugged.
“Robespierre followed Marie Antoinette to the guillotine, don’t forget,” said Landry smoothly, with amusement. “Perhaps I’ll write a sequel to accommodate you.”
“You’re too kind,” said Kennan sardonically. “Which calls to mind that I promised Her Grace the Duchess to entreat you to attend her masquerade ball on Sunday evening. No occasion could be a success without your . . . so charming presence! The Duchess has spent thousands preparing Fowleby Place for this event.”
“I’ve already thanked the Duchess for her kind invitation and told her of my previous engagement that evening.” Landry’s gaze focused with unconscious volition on Frances, and she stared back. She had no intention of spending that evening or any other with Landry, nor, she was sure, had he meant the accidental linking of their gazes as an invitation; yet Frances felt some desperate undertow of emotion tugging her toward him. She was sure Sheila Grant had seen the attraction in her eyes, for the actress gave Frances a look of suppressed hatred. Too clever to show jealousy, Miss Grant attached herself once more to Landry’s arm and spoke sharply, as though to cut through any budding connection between Frances and the golden playwright by her side.
“I’m surprised the Duchess has continued with the idea of a masked ball after the dreadful thievery of His Grace’s art collection. Four masterpieces stolen in as many months; the Fra Angelico, two canvases from Filippo Lippi, and then the El Greco. Is he not worried for another attempt?”
“He worries about it day and night.” Faint contempt seasoned Kennan’s voice. “He’s done what he can. There are guards watching the door into the gallery and anyone entering who is not a member of the household is stopped instantly. Fowleby grieves over his lost paintings as if they were lost children! The Duchess feels it best to go ahead with the ball to divert His Grace’s mind.”
Landry was as relaxed as ever, but it seemed to Frances that he was studying Kennan closely during this last speech. “They still have no clues, then?” asked Landry.
“None,” answered Kennan. “The canvases were slit from their frames, the last three practically under the noses of the guards. The only sign of the thief’s presence was a window left open downstairs after the first theft. The mansion has been searched from tip to toe but not a single piece of evidence has been turned out.”
A search! The word sparked in Frances’ mind. She had regretfully acknowledged that her discovery of the Blue Specter’s costume was useless. It was impossible to prove that Kennan was the man who had worn it to Beachy Hill. If, though, she could find an opportunity to search Kennan’s apartments at Fowleby Place, she might find positive evidence to link Kennan with his crime. If she could find one incriminating letter, one list of names, perhaps it might be enough! And Sunday night’s masked ball would be exactly the chance she needed to enter the Duke of Fowleby’s guarded mansion.
By Saturday morning Frances’ plan to gate-crash the masked ball at Fowleby Place had so far advanced that she had obtained the necessary disguise from Miss Freelove, who, Frances had discovered, made a generous addendum to her otherwise modest salary by arranging illicit loans of theater wardrobing upon request and the presentation of two pounds, six shillings.
That left the problem of how to get into the party. No one in the Drury Lane company was invited, save Kennan, in his privileged position as Fowleby’s grantee. It was an affair open only to the first stare of fashion. The gentlemen of that lofty breed might choose to pass their leisure time with dramatis personae, but ladies of birth, except for an infamous few, would have as soon enjoyed an evening with a tribe of wild nomads. Even Aunt Sophie, a lady of quite respectable birth and reasonable fortune, could not aspire to the Duke’s ball. So Frances discovered at Saturday tea, politely interrupting Miss Isles’ fervent condemnation of her friend Mrs. Lairlarge’s cook, who had possessed the temerity to have served Miss Isles red mullet
boiled
.
“Baked, broiled, or roasted!” exclaimed Miss Isles with an emphatic rattle of her teacup. “But on no occasion boiled! Of course I’m not invited to the Duke’s. I don’t know the man. And If I did, he probably wouldn’t invite me anyway. That’s the castle and ten-thousand-acre crowd.”
“You’re a bishop’s aunt,” suggested Frances hopefully.
“It wouldn’t make any difference if I was the Pope’s aunt. Religion’s been out of fashion since George I. Mark my words, child, nothing below an earl will nose through those gates Sunday night. And if you think to sneak in masked, it won’t serve. You’ll have to show an invitation at the door. You’d think you had learned your lesson the last time—Chez la Princesse indeed.”
Frances eyed her aunt with mild reproach. “You promised if I told you, you wouldn’t lecture me.”
“You made me promise,
then
you told me. Is that your notion of
summum jus?
Your mother would have fits.”
“My mother,” said Frances seriously, “never has fits, though of course it wouldn’t do to tell her. I shall tell my brother Joe, and Charles, too, as soon as he returns to England. But my mother—never.”
Miss Isles treated herself to a chocolate drop from the Wedgwood comfit dish before her. “And what if Lord Landry starts talking? You’ve no idea how many people you’ve never met in your life would be fascinated to hear the whole story.”
Frances stared at her aunt with puckered brows. “Lord Landry wouldn’t gossip about it.”
“Ho. Wouldn’t he? I thought he was Herod, Caligula, and Machiavelli rolled into one! So you’ve led me to believe. And now I hear he won’t gossip.”
“What I said,” replied Frances carefully, “was that Lord Landry was a dissolute, obnoxious, cunning, and thoroughly selfish man; I didn’t say he was a blather-mouth.”
“I had wondered,” Aunt Sophie said dryly as she dabbed a smear of melting chocolate from her forefinger with an embroidered handkerchief, “when you would begin to notice his redeeming qualities.”
Frances looked self-conscious. “I hope, Aunt Sophie, that I am not so
judging
as to blind myself to the full value of a fellow being. There are reasons, though, that compel me to . . . in short, dear ma’am, I find it more comfortable to dwell on his shortcomings.”
“That’s why I don’t worry
so
much about you.” Aunt Sophie’s lips twitched into a conspirator’s smile. “You’ve got half an iota of common sense—which is more than I can say for most girls at nineteen! I’ll warrant, though, that when your mama finds out that you’ve trod the boards at a public theater, she won’t like it a bit better than your scuttley-tup at a bawdy house. Or do you intend swearing the audience to silence?”
“They’ll know me only as Frances Brightcastle,” she reminded her aunt.
“All you need is one, just one, soul to recognize you and . . .”
“Oh, I know, Aunt Sophie, and I worry, but what’s to be done? If only I could gain entrance to Fowleby Place tomorrow night; and then, while everyone was occupied at the ball, I could search Kennan’s apartment. If I could bring him to book before Tuesday’s opening, then I need never appear in public!” The mahogany long case clock in the corner gave a mechanical sigh and ponderously chimed the hour while Frances mulled over the possibilities. “I wonder . . . Aunt, do you think I might be able to induce Mr. Rivington to help me enter Fowleby Place?”
Aunt Sophie threw up her hands. “I shouldn’t be surprised at anything you could induce some poor harried male to accomplish. Just don’t tell me your plot. I find it harrowing enough to hear about them after! Come into my bedroom instead and give me your opinion on my new redingote. Canterbury blue, they call the color! Unless I miss my guess, it’s just the thing to wear tomorrow morning when I ride out to Westminster with Pris Bolton. Don’t have rehearsals, do you? Why not join us?”
“Thank you. But I’ve already promised Captain Zephyr that I would assist him tomorrow with his balloon.”
“Bless my soul, child, you haven’t agreed to ascend in it, have you?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that! Captain Zephyr is preparing a paper for the Academy of Science pertaining to altitude and animal temperament.
Next
month he will ascend in Surrey with a pair of sheep. Tomorrow he will only inflate the balloon to test its airworthiness and try the sheep in the gondola. And I’m sure Mr. Rivington will be there, so I shall be able to talk with him about Fowleby Place without resorting to anything as improper as knocking on his door to ask him. Aunt! Why are you laughing?”
Rising with the assistance of the chair arm, Miss Isles gave her newly discovered favorite niece a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Because, my dear, you have the
oddest
scruples of any female to pass through my acquaintance!”
* * *
Frances rode beside Captain Zephyr to a field outside the city in a bright-red Essex wagon filled with hydrogen casks and the gondola, which overlapped the end of the cart by a foot and threatened to abandon them after a particularly hard bump. Mr. Bilge had joined the expedition at Captain Zephyr’s invitation. Frances had agreed to bring him, deciding that a day in the country would do the parrot good, as well as provide a respite from his presence to the long-suffering Henrietta. So Mr. Bilge sat, an exotic accent on the wagon shaft, where he was attached by a long leather thong, and enlivened their ride by whistling, waving his wings, and startling the docile carriage horses with an occasional shout of “Avast abast a beam!”