Page 37

Rosanna Wyverne looked at herself critically in the spotted mirror as she used a rag to wipe away the chalk powder and rouge that coloured her face.

The light was poor backstage in the shabby little theatre this late in the evening, candles and lamps being expensive, and her dressing room – more of a stuffy cupboard, really – was dark and dingy, but she could see well enough for her purposes.

Stronger light wouldn’t necessarily have been welcome.

Not bad, she thought, comforted. Still not bloody bad .

How in God’s name had she ended up here?

Well, that was a tale and a half. She’d gone straight to Bath after Gervais had died and they’d thrown her out of his mansion in the country.

That might have been partly her own fault; she could see that now.

She’d lost her temper once too often in her panic and shock, had caused memorable scenes.

But Bath had been a failure. A humiliation.

What was the use of rooms at the best hotel, the finest black silk mourning dresses, and hired carriages with glossy matched horses and smart liveried servants, if nobody apart from the lowest of toadies would so much as talk to her?

Her reputation had preceded her; she snorted at her wavering reflection in the glass.

It had preceded her also to louche Brighton, where you’d think standards might have been lower.

It had preceded her even to Yorkshire – to Harrogate, to York.

She couldn’t even get the time of day from anybody in fucking freezing cold Yorkshire, except from hangers-on – parasites who wanted her money and didn’t even try very hard to conceal it.

Bills had mounted faster than she could have believed: modistes, milliners, jewellers, wine merchants, blood-sucking servants, people who sold mouldy cabbages and stinking candles and most unreasonably expected to be paid for them.

Dowager marchionesses of obscure origins who weren’t on terms with their late husband’s family, it transpired, didn’t get much in the way of credit from anybody.

But she had to live. She borrowed money from those shady characters who’d agree to lend it to pretty much anybody at extortionate rates, so that the next instalment of her jointure was gone as soon as it arrived, and the next, and still the debts grew and grew somehow.

Matters waxed unpleasant with terrifying rapidity.

There was talk of prison, and even worse things.

Threats of violence, of a pretty face marred.

So it hadn’t even been a year after her widowhood when she was forced back to the stage, putting a brave face on it up west. It hadn’t been so bad at first, she thought now. Her noble, notorious name had been a draw, written big and bright on the posters, bringing in the guineas.

We are proud to present the lovely Lady Wyverne, the Scandalous Marchioness and talk of the London Ton, in positively her First Appearance on any stage in over fifteen years!

Society people had flocked to see her, even if only to point and stare and snigger, and she hadn’t cared – had liked it, in fact, because the Wyvernes, those that were left in possession of all the wealth and estates now her husband was gone, must surely hate it, and that had made her smile.

They wouldn’t receive her, they wouldn’t give her any part of her due, but they couldn’t forget her either.

Not with her name – and theirs – blazoned everywhere, not when their friends and their enemies both were coming to see her and whispering furiously about it.

But the debts and the duns made it impossible to stay in the fancy theatre.

Having your name written a foot high on a poster meant that everyone knew exactly where to find you.

There had been more scenes, and the theatre management had not been amused.

So now she was here, under another name, but even here they’d tracked her down.

The duns were growing even more pressing, their threats more urgent, and the fine silk gowns and fancy horses and all the rest were long gone.

She was living hand to mouth again, hating it.

All her long, hard journey had brought her back east, from poverty to wealth to poverty again, getting her much-admired bubbies out twice a night for a far less select audience in far less classy pieces.

And it was still a form of revenge, in a sick sort of way, though a much less satisfying one.

Lots of people, she knew, thought that she was receiving no more nor less than she deserved – sinking back to her natural level in the Thames mud, from which the dissipated lord had so mistakenly raised her.

But some less censorious types must think that the Wyverne family had treated her badly – stolen what she was owed as the Marquess’s widow.

This was an idea she encouraged at every opportunity, though it didn’t bring her much consolation any more.

And it wasn’t true, of course, not really.

Her late husband had been a terrible sinner – the worst kind, the kind that didn’t even seem to enjoy it all that much – but there was no denying that he had left her well enough provided for.

If his frosty-faced son had wanted to overturn the provisions of his will and leave her penniless, he’d soon found he couldn’t.

She had that widow’s jointure, paid quarterly, and by most people’s standards, it was ample.

But when you’d been living as a grand lady for so many years – a marquess’s mistress and then his wife – it turned out that it was hard to get by on a fixed income that had to cover everything.

Impossible, in fact. She hadn’t come close to managing it.

She’d love to tell herself that if she had the last two years to live again, she’d do it differently – live frugally and sensibly, within her means.

Save money for her old age, which loomed closer tonight than it ever had before.

But she knew in her heart it wasn’t true.

She’d long ago got out of the habit of being sensible, of scraping by.

The quiet theatre and her dark thoughts had lulled her into carelessness.

She’d heard no footsteps approaching, but the door creaked open suddenly, dragging her rudely from her bitter musings, and she twisted quickly round to see who it was.

It was quite likely to be a most unwelcome visitor, at this time of night, and she was tense, instantly watchful.

Men who wanted her and were prepared to pay for their pleasure had been woefully thin on the ground lately – she couldn’t fool herself it would be one of them, come to get to know her better after watching her perform.

And if by chance it was someone looking for a bit of female company, it’d be no gentleman.

Those days were over. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon be back on her knees in the shadow of the rotting dockside warehouses, where she’d started. A bloody great big pointless circle.

It was a cloaked figure – that couldn’t be good – but not a man, a woman.

Rosanna relaxed a fraction. They surely weren’t sending women out to collect on bad debts now.

No, she must be some sort of messenger or go-between, some doxy with a note, making a production of it, all wrapped up as if in disguise.

Maybe she had aspirations to the stage herself, the foolish jade.

The mysterious visitor put her hood back…

No, not a messenger woman, not an abigail, a lady .

An icy beauty in what she probably thought was a plain gown, though it had still obviously cost a small fortune, youngish but not a green girl, with silvery fair hair that gleamed expensively even here, and unreadable violet-blue eyes.

She looked so out of place in this nasty little room that it was almost laughable, like a visitor from another world.

An angel come down from heaven in some piece of stage machinery, just missing her wings.

What the devil did such a fine lady want with her?

Rosanna would bet Mrs Princum Prancum hadn’t come to grant her three wishes, wave a wand and say she could go to the ball and dance with the prince.

She’d set to it on a satin sofa with a prince once, but then, given the nature of the prince in question, who hadn’t?

Not this chilly piece, probably. She seemed like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, nor anywhere else either, but to Rosanna’s experienced eyes, she had a bit of a crazy look about her.

Feral. As though all kinds of powerful emotions were being just barely held in check.

You might not want to cross her, fine lady or not. She looked like she’d bite.

The strange woman was composed, even in these unfamiliar and lowly surroundings.

‘Lady Wyverne,’ she said, her voice tinkling like tiny silver bells.

She even sounded like money. ‘Though we do not know each other yet, I hope you will forgive the informality of my approach, and the lateness of the hour. After all, we have some acquaintances in common – more than acquaintances, I suppose, since they are your family. Your dear stepchildren, to be precise. And perhaps we may discover, if we chat a little, that we have common interests too, you and I, and can help each other. May I sit down? I have a proposition to put to you.’

There was another rickety chair in the tiny room, currently piled high with discarded garments.

No lady’s maid for Rosanna, not any more.

She scooped the soiled clothes up in one economical movement and shoved them all anyhow in the corner.

‘Sit down, then, whoever you are. Talk,’ she said. ‘I’m listening.’