Page 59 of Beguiled
A hot flash of colour invaded David’s cheeks as he absorbed the captain’s words and his gaze snapped to Murdo, his heart beginning to race.
Murdo held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “Captain Sinclair shares our preferences. And he’s not as reckless as he appears—I’ve known him a long time. You can trust him.”
You can trust him.
That reassurance from Murdo—Murdo who had no idea as to David’s real purpose here tonight—made David’s throat tighten and guilt bloom in his gut. He wished, suddenly, he could confess it all. Perhaps he would have done, if the captain wasn’t sitting there, regarding the two of them with interested amusement.
Instead, David nodded once, then crossed the box and took the chair next to Murdo. After a moment, he let his knee loll against Murdo’s, welcoming the tiny contact, wishing he could have more.
He glanced at Murdo. The other man stared straight ahead, but one of those rare, genuine smiles of his was just tickling the corner of his mouth. He must have felt David’s gaze upon him, because he turned his head and their gazes met, and Murdo’s smile—still small and somewhat secret—deepened. Deepened, oddly, without widening. Deepened in his dark eyes; in the gaze that gentled as it moved over David’s face.
On the other side of Murdo, the captain sighed heavily.
“I should’ve stayed with the McInroys,” he muttered.
Over the next hour, the finest seats in the Theatre Royal slowly filled with Edinburgh’s best and brightest. Sinclair secured them two bottles of something that professed to be champagne but tasted rather like David’s mother’s cider.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Murdo murmured in David’s ear at one point.
“Am I?” David replied, feeling guilty. He was so absorbed in watching for Elizabeth he could barely concentrate on the conversation in the box. He checked his watch for the umpteenth time. Soon enough he’d be making his excuses, slipping away to try to find her, wherever she may be.
It hadn’t really occurred to him till now that he’d be leaving Murdo to his own devices when he did that. But then, perhaps it wouldn’t take so very long? Perhaps he and Elizabeth would slip out easily, find Euan, and he’d return to his seat beside Murdo with no one the wiser.
Or perhaps not.
David ran through a hundred scenarios in his mind as he watched and waited, and all the while he was bothered by that nagging sense of guilt that had first struck him when Murdo suggested they miss the performance altogether and that had been growing in him ever since.
Perhaps he should tell Murdo about the business with Elizabeth. Just do it now. He’d understand; he’d already tried to help Elizabeth once before.
But no, it would be unfair to draw him into this, and foolish, with Sinclair sitting there. And it should be a simple matter, really. The fewer people who knew, the better.
A sudden warmth on the back of his hand made him startle. It was Murdo’s hand, resting briefly on his own, squeezing gently.
“Are you all right?” Murdo whispered in his ear. “You look worried.”
David nodded. “I’m fine,” he lied.
As Murdo went to withdraw his hand, David turned his own over so their hands were palm to palm. He tangled his fingers with Murdo’s in a brief caress, and Murdo lingered too, neither of them willing to break the contact even as their hands drew apart and Murdo returned his hand to his own knee.
It was only a few minutes later that David caught a flutter of movement in the box opposite their own, a box that had sat empty all evening till now. Its occupants had finally arrived, and when David turned his head, he saw them.
Elizabeth. And Kinnell.
Kinnell was seating Elizabeth, his every movement a study in uxoriousness as he rearranged her shawl around her shoulders and murmured in her ear. Elizabeth’s expression was blank, closed. Her eyes drifted, drifted…
And then she was looking at David, her shoulders going rigid, her eyes wide and pleading, unseen by her husband.
She mouthed three words, slowly, deliberately. Unmissable.
Half. Past. Nine.
When the King arrived, the orchestra began to play a medley of Scottish airs to welcome him. Once he was safe in his box, surrounded by his inner circle, the theatre management let the wider public in to file into the cheaper seats.
The ordinary people of the town thronged inside, chattering loudly and singing, bringing the place to messy life.
When everyone that was going to get in was inside and the doors were closed once again, there was a great cheer. The King waved from his box in that benign way of his, and in response, the crowd cheered again and waved back with whatever they had, handkerchiefs and scarves, hats and ribbons.
This went on for a few minutes, till the curtains opened to reveal the cast of the play, already in costume. The orchestra struck up the national anthem, and everyone began to sing, an emotional swelling of song, complete with a new verse composed especially for the King’s visit. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know the words to the extra verse.