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If he wasn’t running, he was going to fight.

Chapter Eighteen

The Saturday night crowd in Rafferty’s Music Hall was roaring with laughter at a verse of doggerel Hamlet as Lucy maneuvered between tables toward the orchestra pit. She tried to make herself as small as possible, lest a manager spot her as she slipped backstage.

She needn’t have worried. No one paid her any mind. She pushed through the stage door into pandemonium. Singers trilled scales as magicians leapt about, swinging their chimney-pot hats at a pair of escaped doves. She found herself pressed to the wall where a comic duo ran their lines. She screwed up her nerve and interrupted their patter.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Nixon,” she said, and the henpecked husband turned. Before he could answer, the wife, played by a far larger man in bonnet and apron, menaced him with a rolling pin. That was that. Lucy moved on. A dapper fellow in bright check trousers and a frock coat crouched in a corner, fastening an Elizabethan ruff around the neck of a poodle that sat with an uncanny air of long-suffering patience.

“Pardon,” she began, but man and dog both looked at her as though she had interrupted the toilette of the queen. She retreated and questioned a comedian who’d never heard of Mrs. Nixon but was effusive regarding his ignorance on the subject. She had no luck with the pantomime dame, and less with the musical clown who responded to her question by shrilling on his tin whistle then capering over to a juggling troupe to summon them to the front of the house.

Another wasted effort.

One of the leaping magicians trampled her toes, and she gasped, turning smack into another poodle, her yelp mingling with the dog’s.

Her face felt hot, as much from humiliation as from the close, rancid air. She was the real comedian here, a clown burlesquing as a savior. Why was she still doing all she could for Anthony? To what end? She hadn’t chosen him. She’d recognized the trap when he’d begged her to run away. But here she was, at Rafferty’s, like a fool in love.

He was going to marry Lavinia. Take solace—take pleasure—in her arms.

She’d told him to do it. She needed him to do it. And yet, she couldn’t endure the thought.

Her ungenerosity of spirit accused her.

She fought her way to the back door.

On the street, she heard the door bang again, the sound of hurried footsteps. Her heart skipped a beat. Someone was following. She spun around on a breath to confront him.

A young woman in a cloak stopped just short of a collision, surprised by Lucy’s sudden reversal.

“Oh!” she gasped. Her head was bare, the strident red of her dyed hair emphasized by a sparkling headpiece plumed with purple feathers. The feathers wobbled dangerously.

“You was asking for Effie Nixon.” Her accent was nasal. American.

Lucy’s throat tightened. It was too soon for hope, though. She coached herself against it, gave a cautious nod. The young woman nodded back. The heavy greasepaint on her face exaggerated her features. Her eyes looked unnaturally wide as her red lips frowned.

“And what’s she to you?” she asked.

“She’s a friend’s sister,” said Lucy with barely a breath of hesitation.

Now the girl looked disappointed. “You? A friend of the family? She told me she had all grandees for relations, earls and princes. I should have known it for bunkum.”

Lucy folded her lips, souring slightly despite herself. She’d tarnished Effie’s image by association. Even an American could recognize that she wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the earls and the princes.

As she’d stared at Lucy, the girl had risen onto her toes. She sighed, slowly settling her slippered feet back on the cobbles; then she rose again onto her toes. A singular habit.

“I’d hoped it was her family,” she said, as though to herself. “Come to take her home.”

Lucy felt the hair rising on the back of her neck.

“What do you mean?” She took an involuntary step forward. “What happened?”

The girl dropped her heels abruptly, flinging out her arm.

“There.” She pointed. “We were leaving after the show, and the carriage was right there, at the end of the street. A big, fancy one. Two men grabbed her and forced her into it.”

“When?”

“October,” said the girl, shivering. “Late October. It was a cold night.”