Page 66 of The Lady Plays with Fire

“Then who would?”

“Keynes told me he bribed a former clerk from a bookshop—Porter’s, I assume?” he added as an aside, cocking one brow—“to reveal what he knew. Perhaps my secretary wasn’t the only one the fellow told.”

“Perhaps. But we’re clearly meant to assume the letters came from Ransom Blackadder.”

“Yes.” He had resumed studying the much-folded note from every angle, testing the weight of the paper and examining the ink. “Someone who expects to command an audience at my play.”

“It could be anyone. Someone could pay the boys on the street to hand out leaflets,” she cried, then glanced around at the boxes. “Or someone might stand up in the middle of a scene and shout.”

But Graham, who was looking about the stage, shook his head. “Neither of those things is likely to get the sort of attention this person seems to desire. May I keep this?”

She nodded, and he began to refold it. “Do you think it could be a reference to what happens in the play itself?” she asked. From what she’d seen, things still went badly for Perpetua in the final act.

“If so, this person’s plans can still be thwarted,” he insisted, “because the play can still be changed.”

“But you’ve only a few more rehearsals before opening night!”

He waved a hand to dismiss her concerns. “Why not send Blackadder out with a flourish?”

“You still mean for this to be the end of him?” she asked, thinking back to what he’d told her at the cottage.

“Yes.” He slipped the letter into his breast pocket, but did not immediately withdraw his hand, as if reaching for something else. “I’m more certain than ever that Blackadder must give way to make room for a new beginning.”

“A new beginning . . .” she echoed. “I’ve been thinking. About what else you said at the cottage. Your proposal.” The movement of his hand inside his coat stilled. Unable to meet his eye, she dropped her gaze, focusing instead on the table and the copy of the magazine. “It was made under false pretenses, before you knew the whole truth about me. You might regret—”

“Do you?”

His voice was strange, harsh. Hopeful? He was too much of a gentleman to jilt her. But she might yet call off the engagement. Surely, in spite of what had transpired between them, it would be the right thing to do.

Why, though, if freedom was the thing she had always wanted most, did the prospect of freeing herself from him make her heart ache anew?

She parted her lips, but he spoke before her words came. “Don’t answer that.” He caught her hand, and she watched as he dragged his thumb across the back of her knuckles, unable to lift her eyes to his face. “For the next week, I’m going to be very busy with revisions and rehearsals—and these, I must handle myself. But on opening night, after you’ve seen the play, when all this is behind us, I’ll ask you again. You can give me your answer—your real answer—then.”

She managed a stiff nod, fighting the impulse to launch herself into his arms instead.

He released her hand and picked up the magazine, evidently having followed the direction of her gaze. “In the meantime, it seems I’ll be devoting myself to saving . . . what did Keynes say everyone calls this blessed thing? Ah, yes,” he said, holding it out to her. “Mrs. Goode’s Guide to Misconduct.”

As she reached out to take it from him, she looked up at last to search his face.

The familiar mockery was there, perhaps, in the curve of his lips. But his eyes were clear and warm, his gaze as intense as she had ever seen it.

“Don’t look so surprised, lass.”

They were not the eyes of a man who intended to let her go.

Nor had he released his end of the folded periodical. “I won’t let aught happen to it.” To you, his eyes added as they stood together, not touching one another but linked by what had once divided them, what only moments before she had believed would be the last issue of the magazine. “I’m too eager to read your next review.”

Chapter 20

Graham squared the small box where it sat on the corner of his blotter, reached for a penknife to sharpen a quill, then picked up the box instead. A flick of his thumb revealed the ring in all its quaint perfection. The purple of Highlands heather, encircled with creamy pearls that seemed to capture all the variegated hues of clouds in a summer sky.

Would Julia accept it? Accept him?

Or would he be torturing himself thus forever?

He snapped shut the box and slid it away from him, though not far enough that he was spared glimpses of it in the corner of his vision as he spread his papers across the desktop and picked up his pen.

Yesterday evening’s tweaks to the opening of the play had been easy enough. But this morning, he intended to write the entire third act anew. The actors would be fit to be tied when he presented them with more last-minute changes this afternoon. He could hear Fanshawe grousing already, could picture the roll of Mrs. Cole’s eyes.