Page 1 of The Lady Plays with Fire

Prologue

Castle Dunstane, Scotland

June 1810

Graham McKay sat with his elbows propped on the scarred oak desk that had once belonged to the first Earl of Dunstane, his great-great-great . . . grandfather.

A more sentimental man would have known precisely how many greats.

Despite his present prayerful posture—eyes closed, palms together—Graham was not a man given to displays of sentiment. Or any other sign of weakness. Without looking up, he urged his secretary, Simon Keynes, “Go on.”

“Aye, my lord.” A burr scraped in Keynes’s throat, and papers rustled. “ ‘The scenery has been painted by a skillful hand, and the costumes are well-tailored,’ ” the man read, his voice flat and the words quick, as if he were hurrying through an unpleasant task. “ ‘Very little more may be ventured as praise for Ransom Blackadder’s latest desecration of the stage. Even the best performers of the day could not improve lines so obviously designed to offend and insult, with nothing of humor about them.’ ” A pause, followed by an audible swallow. “ ‘Alas, Mr. Blackadder’s reputation as a playwright does not attract the best performers of the day.’ ”

The crackle and hiss of a fire in the hearth would have filled the awful silence that followed. But it was at least nominally spring, no matter how damp and blustery the day. And coziness had never been Graham’s way.

He ought, however, to take pity on poor Keynes. Bad enough to charge the man with scouring every two-bit, ink-wasting periodical in the British Isles—and they were legion, as it turned out—for any mention of Blackadder’s scandalous, satirical work. To require him to read those words aloud—no matter how critical, no matter how cutting—bordered a little on cruel.

“ ‘Nor,’ ” Keynes concluded, forcing the words over his reluctant tongue when Graham made no sign to desist, “ ‘with so little attempt at decorum or civility, should Vice Is Its Own Reward attract the finest audience, or indeed, any audience at all.’ ”

Splotches of red—mortification, Graham supposed—mottled Keynes’s face, only highlighting his pale, thin features. But really, the fellow ought to be used to it by now. In discussing Blackadder’s plays, the papers always dripped with words like shocking, offensive, disgraceful.

Thanks to them, every seat in the theater was full, night after night.

For his part, Graham felt only relief. If people were daft enough to pay for the pleasure of being spat at and kicked, why shouldn’t he profit from it?

A positive review could set the whole enterprise on its ear. Graham pressed the tips of his forefingers more firmly against his lips, the better to disguise the sardonic smile that had begun to curve them.

“Are there others, Mr. Keynes?” he murmured, once he felt certain of his ability to keep any hint of pleasure from his voice.

He had long since provided a reasonable excuse for his interest in how Blackadder got on. Patron, Graham had described himself. Investor. Interested party. Nonetheless, he wondered from time to time whether Keynes suspected the truth, whether he knew he was, in fact, delivering every scathing review to the playwright himself.

“Surely, my lord, what I’ve read is sufficient to—”

Graham opened his eyes and fixed his secretary with a look.

Briefly meeting Graham’s gaze from behind smudged spectacles, Keynes gulped and began once more to rummage through his battered leather portfolio. Everything about Simon Keynes was thin: his gaunt frame clad in an earthy-gray woolen coat, the precise shade of which blended almost seamlessly into the stone wall behind him; his lips, perpetually pursed; his hair.

At long last, he retrieved what appeared to be a magazine from his satchel. “This is the final item I collected, my lord. Of a rather different character than most.”

A different character? Had Keynes saved the best—or rather, the worst—for last? Graham dipped his chin once to signal the secretary to read it.

Keynes fumbled about for a moment, tucking the portfolio awkwardly beneath one arm and then drawing his thumbnail along the edge of the pages, a hurried attempt to find his place that did not reward his effort. He had to flip back and forth a few pages at a time, until he found what he was looking for. Once more, he cleared his throat sharply before he began.

“ ‘Vice Is Its Own Reward presents a series of vignettes on society’s hypocrisy and double dealing in matters of business, Acts of Parliament, and even marriage vows. One cannot shake the impression that Mr. Blackadder feels himself a man out of time. Perhaps, if he had written at the start of the last century instead of the start of this one, his wit would not have gone so unappreciated by the critics. ’ ”

Something prickled along Graham’s skin, a curious sort of agitation, and his pulse increased by a beat or two. The sensation was akin to the sort of wariness one felt when passing along an unfamiliar wooded path, where the crackle in the undergrowth might be something small and unthreatening. . . or something considerably more dangerous.

“ ‘On the bawdy Restoration stage, or circulating in salons among the great Augustan satirists, Mr. Blackadder would surely have felt more at home—albeit humbled, one hopes, in the presence of their brilliance. Since his lot has fallen to us, however, rather than our great-great-grandparents’” —Graham had the distinct impression the reviewer knew precisely how many greats—“ ‘one might be forgiven for finding it curious that he persists in directing the jibes of an earlier age at the fashionable foibles of his present audience. If Mr. Blackadder wishes to mend our ways by making us laugh at ourselves, he might do better to let us in on the joke.’ ”

Graham could not contain a derisive snort. Every Ransom Blackadder play ridiculed its audience outrageously, duping people into mean-spirited mockery at their own expense. His work never hinted that he believed people might, in a moment of sober reflection, recognize their own flaws and fix them.

He made it perfectly obvious he felt them incapable of improvement.

“Thank you, Keynes. You may go,” he said, with a dismissive flick of his hand.

But Keynes didn’t move, didn’t close the magazine, didn’t even look up. “If it please your lordship, there’s a bit more.”

Again, the prickle of warning chased down Graham’s spine, sharper this time.