A Curse of the Heart

The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted.

An icy chill seeped into Gabriel’s bones, his body frozen by the thought of impending doom. Rebecca had been on her own with Pennington for more than an hour.

“The playhouse is closed,” he repeated, trying to suppress a shiver, trying to focus on the only thing that mattered. “Come,” he said gathering all the evidence. “There is no time to waste.”

Chapter 26

Rebecca glanced out of the carriage window, surprised to find only a handful of people wandering the streets of Covent Garden. Not being particularly fond of jeering crowds and bawdy antics, she could not recall the name of the play showing or knew why the sinister gentleman sitting opposite had stooped to such lengths to secure her company.

“Are you going to tell me what we are here to see?” she said casting a dubious look over their inappropriate attire as the carriage stopped outside the playhouse.

He looked up at her, his eyes like small black buttons. “We are here to witness a tragedy,” he said cryptically.

Rebecca doubted such a play could equal the terrifying events she’d experienced this afternoon. Yet the thought that every tragedy ended with a disastrous climax caused a strange sense of foreboding, an overwhelming need to prolong her time in the carriage — despite the faint whiff of dirt and urine clawing at the back of her throat.

“It’s one you’re familiar with,” he continued, “Anthony and Cleopatra.”

He did not give her time to contemplate the coincidence. Without any further explanation, he jumped from his seat and opened the door. Her heart skipped a beat as he yanked her up by the arm before pulling her down to the pavement. With the tip of the blade pressed to her back, he forced her to walk through the wrought-iron gate, to a side door situated on the left.

His free hand snaked up to the inside pocket of his brown coat. “A key in exchange for a promissory note,” he said waving it about with an air of arrogance. He rolled it into position with the tips of his fingers and then thrust it into the lock. “My skill at cards is the only good thing to come from all my years in Scotland. Your brother, Frederick, can testify to my claim as I have recently acquired all of his notes. Although I doubt he expects me to call them in.”

She wondered how well he knew Frederick, wondered if conveying a level of familiarity was part of the game.

“You mean to call in his debts?” she asked with a contemptuous snort. “You mean to ruin him?”

“I mean to show him what it’s like to feel the earth fall away beneath his feet. To know how it feels when the evil hand of fate deals a losing card.”

Pain lay hidden beneath a veil of bitterness. What had happened to rouse such depth of anger and resentment? Was it something her father had done? Was she to pay the price for someone else’s crime?

“Get inside,” he said jerking his head by way of reinforcement.

Rebecca looked beyond the door, to the long dingy corridor. There had been a nervous hitch in Gabriel’s tone this morning, an anxious look in his eye that prompted her to carry the pistol.

If only she’d taken the time to load it.

Clutching her reticule to her chest, she took a hesitant step over the threshold, her gait unsteady and clumsy. There would be other people in the building she told herself, breathing a sigh of relief. There would be actors preparing for tonight’s performance, sourcing costumes, searching for props. She would get lost amidst the bustling activity, providing the perfect opportunity to escape.

Finding the courage to continue inside, he led her down a narrow passage, to a flight of stairs that took them up to the grand lobby. The place was deathly silent, with no sound of laughter, no echo of footsteps on the wooden stage, not even the rambling mumbles of those rehearsing their lines.

“In here,” he said pushing her through the double-doors into the auditorium.

The smell of charred wood hit her immediately. Her nostrils twitched in response as her wild eyes scoured the empty room. Panic flared as she searched for some sign of movement, her chest growing tight as she shuffled past the rows of seats, the dry dust in the air making her cough.

Annoyed at her dawdling, he stepped in front and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the burnt-out orchestra pit, to the crude flight of steps.

“If you run I will catch you,” he said, dragging her up onto the stage.

Her gaze fl

itted about the abandoned set and then down into the pit. “We’re obviously not here to see a play,” she said, trying to push aside her fear.

“Oh, there will be a show, but tonight we will be the performers.”

“We will perform? You said we were here to see a tragedy.”

He ignored her, forced her to walk backstage to a room halfway along the corridor. “You will find everything you need in here, costumes, powder, rouge. You have ten minutes to transform yourself into a likeness of Cleopatra.”

“Cleopatra?” He wanted her to dress like an Egyptian queen. The man was a raving lunatic. “Surely you’ve not abducted me off the street to satisfy your love of a Shakespeare play,” she said, her body growing hot, her pulse quick, as anger stamped out every other feeling and burst to the surface. “Just because my mother was an actress, it doesn’t mean I know anything about acting. I don’t know what strange, fanciful notion has possessed your logical mind, but you cannot just expect —”