"Why, it must have been two months ago-before he and his lovely wife went north for a shooting party." Aggie smiled and went back to studying his reflection in the mirror.
"Two months," she asked. "Are you positive?"
"Quite," he said, warming to his invented tale. "The dear pair invited me to join them-really, 'begged' would be a more apt account, but I explained quite patiently that I had my commitments here. Why? Is he still cross with me for declining?"
She shook her head. "He uttered not a word of it."
"That is because he is a gentleman. Ah, well, next time." Aggie reached under her hat for a bit of cloth to begin blending a new color into his already rouged features.
"Now that's the funny point about all this." She leaned over his shoulder and stared at his reflection in the mirror. "As it turns out, your dear Freddie is dead. Quite dead, and has been so for seven months!"
"Oh, my!" Aggie swallowed several times, his great Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
"Oh, my, indeed," she returned. This had been Aggie's responsibility-to keep tabs on their investor, to ensure he remained happy with their arrangements and see that the flow of Ashlin money moved in one direction-into the theatre's coffers.
"Seven months, you say?"
"Seven months."
"Oh, my. I don't see how I could have gotten that so wrong." He shifted in his seat under her cold gaze. "Now that you mention it, I do remember some such bit of gossip about the Earl of Ashlin and his wife being lost at sea." He snapped his fingers. "Yes, I remember-their boat overturned and they drowned. Don't know how I forgot. Quite tragic. Might even make a good play." He pushed aside her hat, selected a pot of yellow paint.
Riley frowned back at him. "Tragic would be a better word to describe our situation."
He dismissed her dire words with a wave. "What does it matter whether it is Freddie or his heir? Ashlin men are all reprobates and wastrels. And poor businessmen to boot. You probably had the new Earl kissing the hem of your gown and begging you to take more of his gold."
Kissing her hem, indeed! She pulled a chair up next to Aggie's table. "This Earl may have gained the title, but the rest of his Ashlin inheritance you seem to think is so assured appears to have skipped our new patron. This Lord Ashlin is no reprobate."
Though he certainly could be one, Riley thought. She could well imagine the stir he'd cause in his own box on opening night-decked in the latest fashions, his golden brown hair brushed back just so, and his piercing blue eyes scanning the audience.
Her play about a curate suddenly held a new dimension. The vicar with a past-he'd been a pirate before he'd taken his holy vows. A man filled with remorse, driven by his sins...
Perhaps that was the explanation behind the earl's bookish manners. He'd been terribly wicked as a youth, and now he was paying for the sins of his misspent adolescence.
Somehow, Riley doubted it.
Instead, she filed the idea away. If they managed to keep the company afloat, they'd open the fall season with it. And dedicate it to the Earl.
"So I take your silence to mean the man did not fall at your feet, forgive you our debts, and beg for box seats next to Prinny's for opening night?" Aggie asked, his tone light and jesting, the notion of a man who hadn't done so, utterly unthinkable to him.
At this, Hashim made a snorting noise, as if even he felt the insult to his mistress.
Aggie turned slowly in his chair, looking first to Riley, then to Hashim, then back to Riley. "You mean he was impervious to you?"
"Yes. In fact, he hardly seemed to notice me." Riley got back up and paced carefully through the littered room.
The very notion was aggravating. She wasn't foolish enough to think it was her acting skills that were the reason for their theatre's success. No, their ticket sales were fueled by rumors of her past-making the men of London all that more anxious to unmask the mysterious Madame Fontaine.
So they kept purchasing subscriptions, watching her plays, and vying in countless ways for her attentions.
And Riley continued to refuse politely-though that didn't stop the arrogant louts from bragging about their exploits with her. She knew Cousin Felicity's story about her night with the Prince's regiment was only a small tale compared to some of the other grandiose exploits she'd heard bandied about.
She wondered if any of them realized she'd probably be dead if she'd done half the things the ton attributed to her licentious and all too fictional life.
Aggie appeared to be considering the idea that this man hadn't fallen prey to her wiles, when suddenly his mouth curved into his famous sensual smile. "Perhaps I should have gone. Perhaps I would have had more influence with him. Perhaps a lady isn't his-"
Riley shook her head. "No, he would not have appreciated your charms either."
Of that she was positive.
While he might be outwardly bookish and scholarly, there was no doubt in her mind that Lord Ashlin was definitely a man who liked the attentions of a woman.
Just not hers.
Why it rankled her she couldn't be sure, for she'd never considered herself a great beauty. But tolerably pretty?
Why he was probably as blind as his cousin, she told herself. Yes, that was it, he was nearsighted and he was too rolled up to buy new spectacles.
But even that excuse didn't soothe her ruffled vanity.
"So what happened?" Aggie asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Riley continued to pace carefully about the littered apartment. "As we decided this morning, I tried to give him a down payment, as a goodwill gesture. To keep him appeased until we open. But the man would hear none of it. He was more concerned about keeping his papers straight and his harebrained cousin under control."
The mention of a cousin perked Aggie's more Lothario-like propensities. His hand drew up to rest over his heart. "I take it by harebrained, you mean this cousin is a lady?"
"Yes, Aggie, a lady cousin. And don't start getting any ideas." And while Aggie never went out of his way to seek female companionship, he was never one to turn down their fawning attentions or their riches, and often talked of making an advantageous and convenient marriage to secure his retirement.
An activity, Riley knew, that was going to get her friend into a lot of trouble one day with an aggrieved relative or an outraged son. She took the pot of paint out of his hand and passed him a different shade. "I doubt she has any money, at least, any for you."
At this Aggie appeared unconvinced.
Riley shook her finger at him. "If there was any money, I'm sure it's gone by now," she said, hoping to deter that mercantile look in Aggie's eyes. "She's a foolish, silly woman. When this Cousin Felicity laid eyes on Hashim, I thought she was going to have a fit of apoplexy."
Aggie leaned back in his chair. "Oh, let me guess. She wanted to see your friend's tongue.""Of course she did." Everyone always wanted to see Hashim's tongue-or rather lack of one."Did he oblige her?"Riley's brows rose. "What do you think?""Oh, how delicious!" Aggie beamed at Hashim. "Did she faint away? Scream? Beg for a second look?
Oh my, why do I always miss the great scenes?"
Her patience thinning, Riley's hands went to her hips. "Aggie! What you missed was the fact that this newpatron of ours has no intention of continuing to assist us. In fact, he rather expects this loan to be repaid."Her declaration stopped Aggie's theatrics in a flash."Repay our debts?" He rose from his seat, coming eye to eye with her. "How decidedly vulgar of the man! Certainly you're joking? You're teasing me in my dotage. Repay our debts to Ashlin-that would
take..."
She finished his lines for him. "Every last farthing we've got on hand. Then we'd have to scrap the sets and props, pawn the costumes and jewelry, and find a buyer for the furniture to come up with the rest."
Aggie plopped back down in his seat, and for the first time since Riley had met the man, he remained silent and dumbfounded.
But silence and Agamemnon were never an easy mix. "And you couldn't charm him out of this?" "Well, in a manner of speaking, my charms have given us a reprieve. You could say Lord Ashlin and I reached an agreement."
The man's brows shot into an indignant V. "Why that villainous motley-minded pumpion! How dare he! I 'll not stand for it. I'll call the miscreant out for blackmailing you into such a compromising situation. My innocent girl is not a bit of muslin to be handed carte-blanche!" He reached for his sword, a leftover stage prop from Hamlet, and swung it in a wide arc, scattering Riley and Hashim into the far corners. "I'l skewer the flap-mouthed jolthead for even suggesting the notion!"
Riley shook her head. "Aggie! Put that sword down."
Heedless of anything but his own voice, Aggie continued to prod and pummel their poor furniture,
knocking the limbs off his imaginary foe, using every Shakespearean curse in his vast repertoire to decry the new Lord Ashlin.
"Aggie, that is quite enough!" Riley exclaimed. "Whatever are you ranting about?"
"Why, Lord Ashlin! How dare he use our debt as a means to force you into becoming his mistress."
"You old fool, I never said anything about becoming his mistress. The agreement is that I teach his nieces
how to be more charming, like I am on stage. You know, appealing to men so they can find husbands- rich ones."
From his open-mouthed expression, Riley would have thought the truth was more repugnant than her being compromised by the Earl.
"You agreed to do whaaaaat?" he sputtered.
"You heard me the first time. I'm to tutor his nieces."
"Hiring yourself out as a tutor?" He choked on the last word as if he'd drunk from Romeo's vial. "Why, it is unheard of! Sharing your talents outside the boards? With one of them?"
"Cry and wail all you want, but the deed is done and agreed upon," she told him.
Aggie immediately went into a new tirade about the sacred secrets of the stage being given to the audience.
She wasn't any more pleased with the idea of tutoring the Earl's nieces than Aggie, but what choice did she have?
Riley didn't want to consider four weeks in Lord Ashlin's proximity-she found the idea too unsettling. Try as she might to convince herself it was because of his obvious disapproval, she knew what it really was.
She found the Earl of Ashlin rather distracting.
While he found her-well, he'd said it plainly.
He found her tolerably pretty.
A pox and a bother. As if she cared what the likes of Lord Ashlin thought about her.
Riley pushed her fingers up beneath her wig and scratched at her scalp. The towering horsehair contraption always gave her a headache. Not that Aggie's diatribe wasn't contributing a fair share to the pounding between her temples.
She tipped her head toward him. "Help me out of this, would you please?"
"Oh, of course, my love." His great speech forgotten, Aggie sat down beside her and began unpinning the wig ever so gently, so as not to pull her own hair beneath it. "Whyever does Lord Ashlin want you to tutor his nieces in acting?"
"Not acting. He wants me to prepare his nieces for the Marriage Mart. In exchange, he's willing not to foreclose."
Satisfied that all the pins were out, Aggie gently lifted the wig off her head and stared at her as if he hadn' t heard her correctly.
"You teaching them-" His shoulders convulsed. He clutched the chaise for support as he bent over in laughter. "Oh, this is too delicious." He slumped over and continued to quake and howl until great streams of tears ran down his powdered cheeks. "Tell me, whatever possessed you to agree to such a ludicrous idea? I mean, you, of all people, teaching young girls the art of husband hunting."
"I hardly see the humor in all this. I saved our company from ruin. Besides, you're the one who likes to quote the Observer's description of me all the time-'an enthralling and engaging lady who held the audience's enraptured attentions with her enticing and beguiling manners.'" Riley plucked at her lacy sleeves.
Of all the people to be thrilled for them, Aggie should be thanking the stars that she had snatched them once again off the steps of debtor's prison.
"Yes, they did say that, Riley my love. But that is when you act. Offstage is another matter."
"Obviously, I know something about attracting men."
"Harumph! That's a fine bit of nonsense if ever I heard any," he declared, flouncing back into his seat at his dressing table. "Everything you learned, you learned from me. You may attract them, but you repel them just as quickly. This entire idea is foolish."
Riley couldn't agree more, but she wasn't about to tell Aggie that. "Well, if you don't like it, you have no one to blame but yourself. You came up with all that flimflam about me being the incarnation of Aphrodite -whatever that means. And it was you who insisted on spreading those tales that I am the distant daughter of Cleopatra, rescued from a pasha's lascivious clutches and carried fevered and sickened through the desert by my faithful servant!" she said, nodding toward Hashim. "You've got the male half of London delirious to know my 'Eastern secrets' and the female half either secretly curious or appalled that I am allowed out in public."
Aggie made a failed attempt to look contrite. "That 'flimflam,' as you call it, has made our every production since Anthony and Cleopatra a sell-out!"
"That's fine now, but the Earl's addlepated cousin insisted that with tutoring from a living goddess-" Riley paused and shuddered. Aphrodite's Envy, indeed! "These girls would be betrothed before they made their debuts."
"And when are these little angels making their tender entree into society?"
"The night we open."
Aggie looked as if he'd not only drunk from Romeo's vial of poison, but impaled himself on Juliet's dagger as well. "But that's only a month away and we've just started rehearsals."
Riley frowned at her best friend. "Don't you think I'm well aware of that? I told you we should never have borrowed so much money from one person."
"Well, who would have thought a vital young man like Freddie St. Clair would go and stick his spoon in the wall? Why, he and his charming wife were the toast of London. I remember the time they-" Aggie stopped himself in mid-sentence. "But that's it! These girls, they are Freddie and Caroline's, aren't they?"
"Well, I assume so."
"Don't you see, Riley? These girls can't be anything but gifted with charm and grace. You have nothing to fear. A bit of polish, a little practice with their fans, and you'll have them out the door and in front of a parson before this new Earl can swing a dead cat."
"Let's hope so." While Aggie's reasoning seemed sound, Riley wasn't so sure. She had a nagging suspicion the Earl of Ashlin had not only been impervious to her charms, but had also bested her in this business deal.
Really, if they were anything like their gregarious parents, why would they need her help?
A pox and a bother on the man! And this time she really meant it.
"And when are you supposed to start this charitable endeavor?" Aggie asked.
"Tomorrow."