“Oh…” Jack said, hoping he sounded as if he was just learning this bit of etiquette. Then after a pause … “I don’t suppose you are acquainted—”
“Yes, I am,” she interrupted, sighing. “And yes, at intermission I will take you to her. Now can we go back to watching the opera?”
“Please,” muttered Bridget, who was sitting next to Jack and apparently annoyed that they were not as enraptured by the storytelling as she herself was.
Thus, at intermission at the end of act two, Sarah and Jack excused themselves (thankfully leaving the Comte behind to assist Mr. Ashin Pha in his hand gestures to Lady Forrester) and walked the long distance from the Forresters’ box to the Devlins. Sarah’s pace was brisk, and her gaze forward, so she did not notice, when they passed the innocuous door of the unused cupboard, that he dropped something out of his pocket.
And, when Jack was introduced by the Golden Lady, Miss Sarah Forrester, to Miss Juliana Devlin (a pretty, if smallish sort of young lady, with pale hair and a smattering of freckles), he hardly had to bow over her hand before she began giggling from the, er, attention from the Golden Lady, likely not from
him. But while they were in the Devlins’ presence, Jack focused all of his attention on Juliana and her father, a factory owner from Lincolnshire.
“What a pleasant coincidence! I grew up in Lincolnshire. My father was a vicar in Stamford.” Jack smiled, earning a happy guffaw from Mr. Devlin.
“Stamford!” that man cried, “I’ve been there, to view the running of the bull.”
As Stamford was well known for its bull-running festival, Jack could easily reminisce about it, thus he and Mr. Devlin fell neatly into conversation, and soon enough Juliana was pulled in as well.
“I should head back and attend to my own guests,” Sarah said after a few minutes of being ignored. “Oh no, Lieutenant Fletcher, do stay; it must have been so long since you’ve conversed with a neighbor. I shall see you back at our box,” she said pointedly before making her escape, and leaving Jack with the Devlins.
This was when the clock began to tick, counting down. If he were going to pull off this little scheme, it would have to be done now. He was counting on two things: First, that the Golden Lady would be waylaid in conversation in the hall for some minutes. Second, that he would not be.
“Miss Juliana, may I have the honor of fetching you some refreshment?” Jack said, a full thirty seconds after Sarah had left.
“Oh yes!” the girl replied on a giggle. “I’ll go with you.”
“No— It was true madness out in the hall, making our way over here,” he improvised. “I should hate for a delicate thing like you to be subject to such a crush.”
Miss Juliana, with a ruddy complexion and freckles that bespoke of a love of the outdoors, could not have often been described as delicate, and she giggled and blushed accordingly.
As Jack ducked out into the hall, he kept hunched, keeping his frame low and his eyes downcast, less likely to catch someone’s attention. There was one tense moment when he thought Lord Fieldstone might have seen him, but Jack sighed with relief when that man turned from his seemingly intended course toward the exit—opera not quite the thing for him, perhaps.
Jack did manage to spy Sarah locked in conversation with a more plain woman, whom he remembered was the Comte de Le Bon’s stepsister, and that lady’s companion. Sarah did not look to be enjoying herself, which made Jack smile, only slightly maliciously.
He quietly stepped into the door of the unused cupboard, and then madly set to work—the pair of dark trousers were an older pair of Lord Forrester’s, and as such, they were large enough to fit over his uniform’s pantaloons. Ruthlessly he tugged them on and got to work on the buttons. Then, he threw the dark, heavy cloak over his shoulders, tied from waist to throat, the mask—which was little more than a dark scarf with holes cut for eyes—was tied over his head and the hood pulled up, shrouding him in darkness.
The only thing that was taking any time at all was the damned false moustache!
It wouldn’t stick to save his life. Even though the wig maker he had purchased it from had told him that the little vial of liquid would paste the dark strip of hair to his lip and chin, it was taking forever to do so. Finally, he settled on holding the hairpiece in place as he counted down precious seconds, waiting, willing the paste to dry.
It was during this time, holding a false moustache to his lips, dressed up as the Blue Raven, and hoping that somehow, someway, Sarah Forrester would see the items he dropped outside the door and follow them in here, that the folly of the situation finally struck him.
This was utter madness. Not to mention utter ridiculousness.
What in the hell was he doing?
His hand lowered from his face, the moustache sticking firmly for the first time.
He wasn’t going to get away with this. He had no experience at subterfuge. He didn’t know how to act like the performers on stage—dressing up in one another’s clothes and fooling people they have known their whole lives into believing they are someone else. Even if (a ridiculously large “if,” as well) Sarah found her way to this door, she would likely recognize him immediately and then laugh in his face.
Would she laugh in his face? Or would she spit in it?
The noises of the operagoers beyond the door, the wedge of moonlight coming in through the small window, and the anticipation and preparation for this moment could no longer distract him from the truth he had spent the last ten days avoiding.
That this was beyond a lighthearted prank.
This could make her hate you forever
.
He had to call this off, he thought madly, suddenly. He had only been gone from the Devlins’ box for … he checked his pocket watch … less than two minutes. He was not yet missed. He could put everything back, run out, grab a few drinks, and no one would be the wiser to his crazed scheme.
Yes. He could undo this, before anything was done. First thing first, he had to grab the items that were meant to act as a lure, just outside the door, before anyone saw them and thought to come in here.
A wave of relief rushed over him. Calling it off was the right thing to do. He creaked the door open slightly, kneeling on the floor and running his hand along the carpeting, trying to find the small black feather he had dropped in the hall, that lay just out of reach.
And why on earth had he thought this plan would work, anyway? He admonished himself. It relied on the idea that not only would Sarah Forrester be the only one to see the small black feathers along the path, but also that she would be curious enough to follow their short trail. Hell, he should be amazed that he even made it into the cupboard without being discovered. Indeed, there is no way the plan should have worked at all.
But as his hand brushed the feather, they brushed something else, too. His eyes peered out beyond the cupboard, beyond the curtain, into the brightness of the hall, where he saw Sarah Forrester, the Golden Lady, crouching down to pick up the feather that rested there, his fingers resting over hers. She met his eyes.
There was no reason it should have worked, he cursed himself as he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the darkness of the cupboard.
Except, it had.
W
ELL
, this night was not going as expected, Sarah thought as she was roughly pulled from her innocuous spot along the wall in the theatre corridor, into the shabby close cupboard hidden behind a curtain there.
First, she had to attend the opera in the first place. As Phillippa was still annoyingly out of town, her mother was her only possible chaperone, and as Lady Forrester was hosting a number of her friends, it was either spend an evening at home or attend with the family.
And so, for the first time in several weeks, Sarah did as her family wished—not the other way around.
It was not as if it was a terrible thing, spending time with the family, of course. It was very quiet, very polite. Very correct.
And it was very tiresome being very correct. It took a great deal of concentration. Almost as much as it took to be popular.
And the reason she was so very certain she had to be very correct was sitting directly behind her for the first two acts.
She was not about to give Jackson Fletcher the satisfaction of doing something more for him to find fault within her. So her posture was very correct, her comments all very banal.
She even kept herself from remarking on Bridget’s overt enthusiasm for the performance. Because even if she said something
nice
, such as it was pleasant to see Bridget enjoying herself for once, Sarah had no doubt that Jack (not to mention Bridget) would twist it into something cruel and unkind.
Luckily, the Comte came to call after the first act, and it would have been terribly rude to not let him stay, when they signaled the end to the intermission. (He wouldn’t have had time to make it back to his own seat, surely, her mother had rationalized, Mr. Ashin Pha at her side.) The Comte made the evening somewhat interesting at least. His breath tickled her ear when he asked to see the libretto, when he whispered the baritone was going to sing at a dinner party next week, when he asked her to do something only one other man had ever asked of her, giving her just the slightest jolt of thrilling fear. He asked that she start calling him by his Christian name—John. (Or was is spelled Jean? She would have to be certain to ask.)
Ha! She could only hope Jack had overheard that!
But she would not come to know if he did or did not, as when Jack leaned down, his breath caressing her ear and sending a wave of shock down her spine, he didn’t harass her about her lifestyle—instead, he’d decided to dip his toes in her advice and be introduced to an heiress!
She should have been pleased, she thought later, after she had deposited him at Juliana Devlin’s side—having been thoroughly ignored once they arrived there, she couldn’t help but be slightly miffed—and making her meandering way back to the opposite side of the theatre’s boxes. She should have crowed with triumph. So, why did she feel so … muddled by it?
It was in this muddled state that she ran into the Comte’s—John’s (Jean’s?)—stepsister, Miss Georgina Thompson. Georgina, whose mother married the Comte’s father when both she and the Comte had been school-aged (as it had been explained to Sarah when they fell into conversation at the Whitford banquet), was positively aglow with pleasure at running into Sarah, so much so that one might, from a distance, call her somewhat clinging.
“Oh, Miss Forrester!” Georgina had cried, her huge wet
eyes filled with relief, taking Sarah’s hand. For someone so small and fragile seeming, she had an impressive grip. “I was so deeply worried when the Comte left our seats after the first act, but then I looked up at your box and saw he was with you, and it filled me with such joy!”
Really, quite clinging.
It was then that Sarah noticed Mrs. Hill behind Georgina, gently pulling the lady back into social correctness.
“Would you be so kind as to tell the Comte we are leaving?” Mrs. Hill said, clearing her throat. “Miss Georgina has a headache, and I am quite weary myself.”
“Oh, I am so sorry to hear it,” Sarah replied. “Allow me to fetch him to you. You should not be on your own.”
Indeed, while the Comte had been very attentive and interesting so far this evening, in her muddled state Sarah had no need to hear him tell tales about traversing the Bengali mountains. Again.
“Oh, I will not be alone. Mrs. Hill is with me. Besides,” Georgina whispered conspiratorially, “I doubt even the King of Burma could pry him from your side.” She winked—winked!—at her.
“Yes, but I hate to rob you of your escort. Not even Mr. Ashin Pha—?”
But Georgina, if possible, turned paler, shooting Mrs. Hill a glance. “That is unnecessary,” Georgina replied kindly. “I was watching your box, and Mr. Ashin Pha seems so comfortable with your mother. I fear he is never nearly so comfortable with me.”
Sarah could not help but notice the skittishness in Georgina’s voice. One tilt of her head had Georgina divulging further.
“He makes me nervous is all, surely you understand. I will never understand a man who walks around barefoot and keeps all manner of swords in the house.” She laughed a little, a nervous trill. “As Mrs. Braeburn said when I explained it to her”—Georgina indicated a tall woman with a huge floral configuration in her hair, standing by her former MP husband, bored out of his mind—“foreigners, no matter how civilized, still have some touch of barbarism to them.”
“Yes, but Mr. Ashin Pha owes your brother—”
“You must forgive us, Miss Forrester,” Mrs. Hill interrupted, steering this conversation back to the acceptable and decidedly less interesting, “but our carriage is waiting for us.”
Thus Georgina and Sarah made their curtsies, and for the first time Sarah was actually sorry to see her go.
Sarah meandered through the crowd, in her still muddled state, nodding hellos and giving surface greetings to people she knew in the mad crush of people stretching their legs, as she headed back toward the Forrester box.
Or she would have, if something hadn’t caught her eye. She was trying to get back to the exterior wall, which was the least blocked path back to the box—it was how they went out, after all, and the sooner she got back to the box, the sooner the opera would be over, and the sooner her mother would finish trying to shove her and the Comte together, she rationalized—when there was the slightest of movements. One of the wall hangings rustling. She shouldn’t have taken notice of it—there were so many people in the hall that someone bumping up against a curtain was not at all noteworthy. But what piqued her curiosity was the fact that the curtain seemed to be moving from the
inside
.
She would have left it at that, shrugged, and moved past the spot on the wall where the drapery moved if she hadn’t also noticed something else. Her eyes were down, she was trying to be sure of her footing, and there it was…
A black feather. Nay, a trail of them.
Large. Perfectly shaped. And black as midnight, so black in the candlelight it shone with blue. Had a bird gotten in and wreaked havoc? Had some well-dressed lady lost them from her coiffure? She bent down to pick one up.