Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (28 page)

Freddie tapped his cane on the floor. “And this rightful owner is the girl that you are engaged to? Melissa Sumner?”

James nodded. He tried again to plant a foot on the steps. This time he managed to hit the middle step carefully with his booted foot. Grasping the handles on either side of the carriage door, he pulled himself up into the carriage. With a thump, he let himself fall onto the red velvet seats.

Freddie followed slowly after him, lowering himself gingerly onto the seat opposite. “It’s a good thing there’s been no one else.”

James hung his head.

“Blood hell, James, there is, isn’t there?”

James nodded slowly, but then shook his head. “I thought there might be, but I lost her.”

“You chose your father over her.”

James nodded again. “Two years of hate, Freddie, on top of fifteen years of hurt. I couldn’t let it go in a matter of months, weeks even. It was too much too soon.”

“You can’t go back and tell her how you feel?”

James put his head in his hands. “I want to try. I think she is here in London. If I find her, I’ll tell her everything. I think she loved me, and I rejected her.”

CHAPTER 27

The curtains fell as the audience stood and clapped. Harriet sat in the theatre box with her hand on her chest, her other hand clenching the opera glasses Freddie had lent her.

“How was that?”

Harriet turned to Freddie, who sat back, his arms folded at her side. “Marvelous,” she breathed. “Didn’t you just love the way that Kean portrayed Iago, the feeling, the abandon?”

Freddie sniffed. “Can’t say as I was moved by it much. Load of emotional claptrap if you ask me.” His eyes dropped to where her hand rested on her chest. “There are far more interesting things in life.”

Harriet swallowed. She turned to her aunt, who was listening intently. Lord Anglethorpe and Lady Colchester sat on her other side. “What do you think, Aggie?”

Lord Anglethorpe snorted. Agatha gave him a freezing look. Harriet frowned. There was something almost playful between the two of them. Something that was there that was familiar. Harriet shook her head. From the moment Agatha was with Lord Anglethorpe, the more she acted like a cat on skates. She acted just like Harriet did when James was around.

Harriet dropped the opera glasses into Freddie’s hand and stood. James. Why did something have to remind of him every day? She had thought the pain might lessen. That the amusing presence of Freddie might dim how she felt. But it wasn’t the case. She hadn’t let him speak, she knew that. Like the prickly hedgehog he’d called her, she’d jumped in and put words in his mouth.

What if he saw her now? Dressed up in her finery? Now that she was a bona fide lady with fortune to match. That was the latest shock. The exhibition hadn’t even taken place and already there were buyers circling to buy the paintings. Word had got out somehow. Still no one knew her identity yet. She smiled. James would be amused by her turnaround in fortunes. They’d always laughed together about her scrapes afterwards.

Harriet frowned. They hadn’t laughed together in the last few months.

“Harriet.”

She looked up; Freddie stared at her with an eyebrow raised. “I’m sorry Lord Lassiter, I was somewhere else for a moment, what did you say?”

“I said, would you like to meet Kean?”

Harriet stared at Freddie, whilst he stood and leant heavily on his stick. “Yes, please,” she gasped. “You can do that?”

“For you my dear, I would do anything,” Freddie said grandly, opening the door to the theatre box.

Harriet took in a deep breath “I…” She wrinkled her nose. The smell of brandy faintly permeated the air. She’d had enough of that on the
Rocket
to know the smell intimately.

“Is there something the matter?” Agatha asked.

Harriet shook her head. “No.” she walked towards the door. As she passed Freddie, the fumes grew stronger. She held her breath. Outside the door, the air was fresh again. She swallowed. Freddie was interested in her. She knew that. He’d made it abundantly clear. He’d even invited her to tea with his mother. But he wasn’t for her. Harriet swallowed at the memory of strong arms around her, overlong dark hair brushing at the nape of her neck. “Go away, James,” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon?” Freddie stood beside her again. The brandy fumes seemed to have cleared. She shook her head. Perhaps she had imagined it.

“Nothing,” she said. “Where do we go now?”

“The stage door, follow me. No falling under his spell, mind. Don’t know what it is about ladies and actors.”

Harriet held her breath as a sullen man opened the stage door to them at Freddie’s knock.

“Lord Lassiter to see Mr. Kean,” Freddie drawled.

The man’s face lightened and he gave a bow. “Certainly your lordship. If you would follow me?”

The backstage of the theatre was fascinating. In contrast with the ornate gilt and cherubs that flew throughout the auditorium, here the floors and walls were scuffed. Ropes disappeared into the rafters. Piles of props lay in dusty corners. Large pieces of scenery lay propped precariously against the walls. Harriet held her full skirts up as they walked over the dusty floor, down a set of stairs and into one last long corridor, along which a row of doors stood open and closed.

It was plain to see which room Kean was in. Flickering light spilled out of the room into the dark corridor. High voices occasionally punctuated by one low one staccato through the air.

Harriet lifted her foot high to step over a pile of clothes that had been dropped in the hallway. “Is it normal to sing after a performance?” she asked, looking back at the clothes on the floor.

The stagehand stopped and turned. In the darkness of the hallway, Harriet could still see his frown. His gaze flickered to the clothes on the floor.

“Don’t know if today is the best day to meet Mr. Kean,” the man said doubtfully.

“I’m not sure about that.” Freddie tapped his cane against the wall. “It sounds like he is in high spirits.”

The stagehand’s head dropped as he looked at the floor. “That’s what I’m worried about,” he mumbled.

“Lead on then.” Freddie took a step down the corridor toward the lit room. “Miss Beauregard has been waiting to meet Mr. Kean for a long time.”

The stagehand shook his head and marched towards the room. The volume of the singing had increased. He stopped at the door and looked in. Taking a step back, he put out a hand. “Um I—”

Harriet stepped round him. Nothing was going to stop her meeting her hero. Why, he had helped her sew up Tommy’s shoulder, climb onto the
Rocket
… hide her emotions when James had rejected her, again. She put a hand to her mouth and brought it quickly away again.

“Go away, James," she whispered for the second time that hour.

Blinking heavily, she took in the brightly-lit room, the flaring tapers, the large mirror, the racks of clothes, the bottles of powder and kohl, and the four scantily clad ladies surrounding an unshaven man who lay on the floor, thumping his bare chest and singing.

Harriet stepped back and turned to the stagehand. “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken, but Mr. Kean is not in there.” She laughed nervously. “It is quite a party, however.”

The stagehand shook his head and peered round the room. “No. He’s definitely in there. He sniffed the air. “And the rest of it.”

One of the ladies came to the door. Her face was a light pink, highlighted by a deep red lipstick. A corset cinched her waist in tight whilst a feather was tucked into her undergarments. “’Ere, I thought I heard noises. Come to join the party ’ave you?”

“Um.” Harriet looked round for Freddie’s support. But he was too interested in taking in the lady’s svelte form.

“I say,” he said abruptly. “Aren’t you Matilda from the Pink Canary Club?”

The lady frowned and stepped further into the corridor. “Oooh, Mr. Freddie we haven’t seen you in an age!” Grabbing at Freddie’s hand, she pulled him into the room. Harriet peeped her head around the door after his retreating form.

“Look what I’ve found, ladies! It’s Mr. Freddie.”

Freddie didn’t look behind him once for Harriet. She looked round the corridor, but the stagehand seemed to have disappeared as well. With a deep sigh, she stepped in to the room. There didn’t seem to be much else that she could do.

Two of the ladies turned to look at Harriet and then laughed. One of them tapped Freddie on the shoulder. “You didn’t say you were with anybody, Mr. Freddie.”

Harriet’s chin tipped up slightly and her eyes narrowed. The man with the bare chest groaned and put a bottle of wine to his mouth. She winced as it ran down his chin and onto the floor.

“Ah, oh. Yes, ladies, Mr. Kean, might I present Miss. Beauregard. Mr. Kean, she has been very interested in meeting you.”

Harriet looked around. Who on earth was Freddie talking to? Kean wasn’t in the room.

As the wine dribbled down his face, the man on the floor attempted to sit up. “Charmed,” he gurgled and then coughed. “Always nice to meet a follower.” His eyes, slightly unfocused, met Harriet’s. With obvious effort, he closed one eye. A large smile spread across his face as he put a hand to the floor to push himself up. “And even nicer to meet a pretty follower,” he slurred.

A Pink Canary Club lady put a hand under his arm as he stood. The red wine now dripped downwards onto his chest.

This was it? This was the man that she had always wanted to meet—a wine-soaked, lecherous drunk? Where were his higher emotions? Those tantalizing words of spine tingling spirit that the papers had written about and that she had just seen herself in person. The type of man who could jump on his charger and with a few words sweep Harriet off her feet?

“You are Kean?” she said frostily. Another dream shattered in the brightly-lit room.

The drunken man frowned. “Of course I’m Kean. What did you expect? A red flamingo with a hat on?”  

The ladies of the Pink Canary Club laughed. Harriet glanced at Freddie. Even he smirked slightly. A smirk that disappeared quickly when he met Harriet’s gaze.

She cocked her head on one side. “Somehow I expected someone a little more… impressive,” she said coolly. Sweeping her glance one last time around the room, she allowed it to rest finally on the puce features of Kean’s face. “The performance I saw today wasn’t too bad, however.” She turned to leave. “I shall see you later, Lord Lassiter.”

“Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move,” a deep voice proclaimed behind her. Harriet whirled, the full skirts of her dress flying out to touch the cloak of a handsome man, his face half-covered with a hat. “Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”

He took a step towards Harriet. Harriet stood rooted to the spot; she couldn’t move, although her mind told her to flee. Her eyes widened. Oh God, he was coming closer.

A small hand crept round the cloaked elbow of the man. From far away a shrill laugh penetrated the bubble that surrounded Harriet and the cloaked man.

“Oooh Mr. Kean. You’ve done it again. You always do that to the ladies. If I didn’t know you so well I would right go weak at the knees every time you did that.” The creeping hand developed an elbow and barely clad body of a Pink Canary Club girl. She took the hat from the man and perched it saucily on her head. “I love a bit of play acting me,” she continued.

The bubble popped, and the sound and light flooded in. With a roar of laughter, the man threw off his cloak. The bare chest of Kean gleamed in the candlelight. He picked up his bottle of red wine from the floor and drank deeply. “Works every time,” he gasped between gulps.

Harriet put a trembling hand to her throat. Her ears felt red hot, and still she could not move. The girl was wrong. Whilst the man had yes, exerted a dark seductive pull, Harriet had recognized it and felt nothing for it. What she had felt more was an intense yearning for the safety of James’ arms, a feeling so powerful she had been unable to move.

All the hurt welled up in her voice. “But, but, you are a barbarian,” she cried, uncaring of her words. “How can you show such compassion and then be—”

“—a man such as me?” Kean narrowed his eyes at her and squinted. “Young women are the same these days.” At the chorus of protests from the Pink Canary Club ladies surrounding him, he put up his hands and laughed. “Alright, most young women.” He paused and peered heavily at his wine bottle. “Damn. All gone.” He sat heavily on a chair and covered his hands with his eyes. “Matilda, get me another.”

Matilda nodded and crawled under the racks of clothes. She emerged with three bottles of wine clutched to her chest.

“Open it, girl,” Kean said, waving his hand.

“Of course.” Swiping a bottle opener from the table in front of the mirror, Matilda deftly pushed the corkscrew into the bottle and then, placing the bottle between her knees, gave a saucy look to Freddie.

Harriet tossed her head as Freddie’s eyes widened. Men were such fools.

“Women are such fools,” Kean said.

Harriet frowned. That was her line. She jumped as, with a pop, Matilda drew the cork from the bottle.

“All you need are a few fancy words, and they drop like flies at your feet. All this rubbish about higher sensibilities and spiritual connections or even.” He laughed. “Romance in the soul.”

Harriet drew in a breath. How many times had she said that to herself?

Kean fumbled on the table for a glass and poured wine into it. He handed it to Freddie. “Sure we’ve got another glass here somewhere. Your lady looks like she might need a drink.”

“I’m not his lady.” Her hands clenched by her sides.

Kean gave a grunt and sat back in his chair. “That’s not what he thinks.” He tapped his wine bottle with a finger. “That’s the thing about being an actor and a drunk. You see things more clearly than common people.”

Harriet drew her chin back into her chest.
Really?

“For example, actors know that words are powerful, but ultimately they mean nothing unless accompanied by actions, depth of emotion if you will. Until that point they can lie, misdirect, point the wrong way.
That
is the actor’s skill, to make those words as believable as possible.”