Miss Westlake's Windfall (25 page)

Ada picked up the second pup when Tally was finished with it, examining the next miracle. This one was Tally’s foxhound brown and white in color, whereas the first had been black and gold. “You would never hurt a fly, would you, much less a fox? No, I know you wouldn’t, precious thing that you are. We’ll make sure you are never hungry, never thinking you have to kill something to survive. I won’t let those stupid men make savages out of your brothers and sisters and you, no, I won’t.”

In her heart, Ada knew that a dog was going to chase a moving object, ball or butterfly or bounding deer. The dog was going to act like a dog, no matter how much she fed it. In her hand, though, she held the sweetest thing she had ever seen. She rubbed the velvety baby against her cheek before setting it next to its brother. Or sister. She hadn’t thought to look.

After the fourth pup, a black and white one, Tally lay back, exhausted. Ada brought her a bowl of water and some fresh towels. “Four darling babies, my girl. You have every right to be tired.” So did she, but she’d never get back to bed now, Ada knew, even if the new family wasn’t on it. She decided to go make herself a pot of tea, and find some food scraps for Tally. If there were no leftovers, Ada decided, she’d cut her a plate of ham from the pantry. “Good dog.”

When she got back, there were five pups. The new one, though, was smaller, not moving around, although Ada could see that it was breathing, but shallowly. “Oh, no. If we were meant to have five puppies, then five puppies we are going to have. Do you hear that, baby?” Ada was holding the tiny thing, warming it in her hands. Then she moved one of the first puppies aside and set this one to the teat. When the first complained she said, “You’ve had enough. Your brother needs some now. You are the biggest and strongest, you know, so you have to look out for your family.”

In a moment the newest arrival was sucking away and Ada could actually see its belly inflating with milk. She started breathing again. Tally wagged her tail, reminding Ada of the ham. “Yes, you did well, Tally. I did too, didn’t I? I did not cry or cast up my accounts or get fuzzy-headed, did I? Chas better appreciate that!”

* * * *

Chas would have appreciated Ada’s efforts more if she let him see the puppies. He’d arrived home days later than he’d planned, Whitehall having him track down some of the so-called gentlemen on Prelieu’s list. He’d also seen Prelieu and Jane temporarily established at the home of one of his many married cousins, a curate’s wife, who was convinced by a large donation to her husband’s church to lend what countenance she could to a disgraced widow and an émigré embezzler. Prelieu was being hailed as a hero, though, and Filbert Johnstone’s complicity had been ignored, in light of so much juicier gossip. Some of the names on the list were high in the government; others were high in Polite Society.

Chas had no idea what was to come of Jane’s sudden attachment, but Prelieu seemed pleased with the company of the buxom beauty, not in the first blush of youth, but wellborn. Chas did not much care what became of either of them, as long as they did not batten on Ada or pour scandal broth on her doorstep.

His own doorstep was being repainted when he finally dragged himself through it, exhausted and aggravated. The rest of his house was in an uproar, too, with preparations for the dramatic entertainment. An army of servants was washing and polishing every inch of the old pile, as if it hadn’t just been in prime twig for the masquerade. Workmen were sawing and hammering, the kitchens were too busy to fix full meals, the gardeners were denuding every plant in the conservatory and his mother
—

Chas decided to call at Westlake Hall to retrieve his dog.

Ada’s home made the Meadows look like a peaceful haven. Most of the hustlers and bustlers here were laughing, though, singing or dancing or reciting lines while carrying paints and fabrics and ladders. Half of the workers barely came to his waist.

He found Ada upstairs in Tess’s attic, hand-coloring a huge stack of programs that had Leo Tobin’s picture, in pirate guise, printed on the front. The viscount’s mood was not improved by the sight of hundreds of his half-sibling, half-dressed, nor by how fatigued Ada seemed, and pale, as if she hadn’t been sleeping enough or getting any fresh air.

Her welcoming smile almost made up for the past week’s botheration, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, until she told him he could not take his dog, his own pet, home with him.

“What do you mean, you won’t give me back my dog? I didn’t give her to you, for heaven’s sake. I did not even lend her. I merely asked you to watch her, dash it!”

“I am not keeping her, exactly, Chas. It’s just not the right time to move the puppies. It’s too cold out for one, and they are enjoying being cuddled by all the children, for another. You wouldn’t want them to grow up unused to people, would you? As you said yourself, Tally is not permitted in your home as long as Lady Esther’s cat is there. You couldn’t drag the poor thing and her babies away to your drafty stables, could you?”

“My stables are not drafty, by Jupiter. And I meant you to find her a bunk in your kitchens, not your blessed bedroom. Why, I cannot even go see the babies while they are up there!”

“You could if we were ma
—”

“And what the devil do you mean, making me the narrator of the pestilential play? I won’t do it, and that is final.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Once upon a time ...” Chas began, looking out at the Lillington-sized audience in his ballroom. The viscount’s voice faltered, so Ada played a few encouraging notes on the pianoforte. The violinist behind her, her butler Cobble with his fiddle, played a trill. Chas frowned at her, then at his mother, who hissed at him to stop acting like some niminy-piminy prig and get on with it.

Lady Ashmead was seated near his lectern at the side of the stage in her usual oversized chair, befitting the benefactress of the orphanage and patroness of the play, they had told her. No one, wisely, had told her she was to have a role in it.

“... In a long forgotten kingdom”—her loving son continued reading from his script, one hand gesturing toward his mother’s throne-like chair—“there lived an evil queen who was jealous of her own stepdaughter. The dead king’s only child was to inherit the crown and rule Pitsaponia as soon as the young princess came of age to take a husband. The queen had Princess Pretty kidnapped the day before her fifteenth birthday ...”

“Hah!” Lady Ashmead said, loudly enough that the first five rows of the audience could hear. “As if I wouldn’t walk through hot coals to see my last child wed. Look what tomfoolery I am putting up with tonight.”

“... and carried off to the shore where the fierce, finned, fanged kraken hunted.”

Ada played a fanfare and the stagehand boys, dressed in dark skeleton suits, skipped across the stage, opening the curtains.

The playgoers, villagers, Londoners, servants, and orphans, all went “Aah” when they saw the set.

“Aha! So that’s where all my ferns got to,” Lady Ashmead complained.

The greenery was banked along the rear of the stage, with vines and flowers and fanciful birds painted on the backdrop, which had last seen service as a sail. Blue wooden waves bordered the performance area.

Ada played the “Princess’s Prelude,” and Lady Esther ran onto the stage. Her satin gown dotted with colored rhinestones, she glistened as she turned, looking behind her. The jewels in her crown glittered like diamonds, as well they might, since the earl’s daughter was wearing her own heirloom tiara. Esther looked more like a princess than Ada ever could have, although Miss Westlake could have done a better job of appearing abandoned on a deserted shore after a three-months’ journey. The little beauty looked more like she’d just left her dresser’s hands, which she had, but she shrieked quite artfully.

At the second shriek, Ada gave a nod, and the green serpent entered the stage. The audience went “Ooh.” One of the children inside the fabric body went “Ouch,” but Ada did not think anyone else heard. The first child rotated the huge painted head this way and that, searching for a tender morsel. The princess ran across the stage to the left; the dragon slithered after her. The princess ran to the right; the kraken followed. Left, right, while Ada played a scary, pounding tempo and the fiddle thrummed and Lady Esther shrieked.

The boys pulled the curtains across to thunderous applause.

Chas started reading again. “The dead king’s ministers offered a great reward for Princess Pretty’s return.”

A shower of coins was hurled over the top of the curtain at the audience, one of whose members loudly called, “Bit of all right, I say. I usually have to pay to be so entertained
.
” The wit had obviously missed the donation jars at the entrance, for the orphans’ fund. Epps was watching; he’d find the fellow before he left.

“So the Scourge of the Sea, Sebastian the Pirate, set out to find the missing princess and claim the reward, which included the hand of her royal highness in marriage.”

The curtain opened again, but this time the backdrop was plain, solid blue except for a single cloud where one of the helpers had spilled paint. Ada played the “Pirate’s Theme.” Then she played it again. Finally the prow of a boat appeared, with Leo balanced on the gunnel, shouting “Row, me hearties, an’ there’s an extra tot o’ rum for the lad what spots land.”

The boat rocked—unintentionally, Ada knew—and Leo sat down hurriedly, but not before the watchers had seen his corded chest and muscular thighs. Half the audience sighed. The other half elbowed their husbands, with their padded shoulders and spindly shanks.

“Sebastian and his band of pirates searched for days into weeks, weeks into months. They captured a warship and a whaler and a wealthy merchantman, but still they kept searching ...”

“Sail ho,” came from offstage.

“Hard abeam.”

“Belay that, matey.”

“... until one day they came upon an island that was on no map. And there they found the princess.”

“Oh, thave me, Thebathian. Thave me from the thea therpent!”

The audience roared and so did the children in the dragon costume. The princess rushed off the stage, shrieking, of course, and Sebastian climbed out of his boat, his sword flashing in the air. Swish! Slash! Slice! While Ada played and Cobble fiddled, Leo fenced and feinted across the stage, nimbly avoiding the monster’s teeth in finest swashbuckler style. Finally he cut the dragon’s head clean off, and strode away, offstage, to claim the princess, his bride.

Ada softened her playing. Cobble plucked a string here and there.

“Even the worst of us,” Viscount Ashmead told the audience, “can be loved by someone. The kraken had once been the lover of Sirenia the Sea Goddess before he turned evil, and she came to mourn his loss.”

Tess came on stage in her flowing robes, keening her lament. She picked up the severed head and danced with it, singing her troubled eulogy, showing her bare legs. She swayed, she spun, her voice filled the huge ballroom with young love turned bitter, with all the lost chances, all the wasted years. The audience was enraptured. Many wept. Ada herself could barely read the music in front of her through the tears in her eyes, tears of pride for her sister’s success.

Chas cleared his throat to reclaim the audience’s attention. “Done with her mourning, the sea goddess grew angry. Someone had dared enter her province, had dared take the life of her lover. That someone would pay.”

Cymbals crashed, drums rolled, Ada pounded the keys of the pianoforte. The goddess stood at the side of the stage—the side as far away from Lady Ashmead as possible—with her hands raised in wrath, the trident pointing at the sky, calling down the storm. Sebastian’s boat was rocked and bounced, then the bow was raised and the pirate was tipped out. The sea sprites draped the blue backdrop over him.

“Sebastian and his men were all taken to the bottom of the sea, drowned.”

The curtains were quickly pulled, the noise drowning out Lady Ashmead’s: “Good. Now can we have refreshments?”

“Some of Sebastian’s men were still ashore, however. One of them was the officer from the captured warship, Captain Corazon ...”

(Emery had refused to be Generalissimo Markissimo.)

Ada played a sprightly march.

“... who discovered the weeping princess on her island prison. Despite his injuries, the officer freed the damsel, but she captured his heart, and he won hers with his bravery and goodness.”

The curtains parted to show the fern island, with the young couple ready for their duet. Emery was in some foreign uniform, with ribbons and medals and gold braid strung across his chest. His own injured arm was strapped against his body under the white coat, which did not do much for the jacket, or Emery’s arm. Still he managed to put his good arm around Lady Esther at the end of the song, and drew her to him for a remarkably well-rehearsed and well-acted kiss that continued while the audience whistled and stamped their feet.

Before Chas could read further, there was a disturbance from the rear of the room. A well-tailored gentleman of mature years but less than impressive stature shoved his way through the standing servants at the back, down the narrow aisle between crowded rows of seats, forcing his way toward the stage.

“Thtop!” he shouted.

Thtop? Chas looked to Ada and whispered, “Did Tess rewrite the script?”

She shook her head.

The diminutive gentleman shook his fist at the stage and yelled to Emery, “Unhand my daughter, you cad!”

Lady Esther threw her arms around Emery and declared: “I am Princeth Pretty and thith ith the man I love.”

“The devil it ith!” the Earl of Ravenshaw swore, waving his cane like a sword. The audience was confused, but they applauded anyway.

“Archie?” Lady Ashmead lifted her lorgnette. “Is that you? Stop making a fool of yourself. It is only a play.”

“A play? My daughter ith no common performer!”

“But thith ith thtill the man I love.”

“Oh, do sit down, Archie.” Chas had signaled one of the servants to fetch another chair, which he hurried to position next to the viscountess’s throne. “You can argue about it later, without that ridiculous lisp.”