Orlando had proved to be the true villain of the piece. Diablo, as all proper heroes must do, rescued the heroine, retrieved the Rose of Thebes, and killed the villain.
And the hero and heroine lived happily ever after.
At Ainswood House, the concluding chapters were read aloud in the library.
With the assistance of her cousin the Marquess of Dain, Her Grace did the honors before an audience comprising her husband, Dain’s wife and son, Elizabeth, Emily, Tamsin, Bertie, Jaynes, and those servants fortunate enough to be posted within earshot.
Dain had arrived in London and reached Ainswood House in time to see his cousin’s apparently lifeless body carried inside. He’d kept Ainswood quiet in a corner of the bedchamber while the physician did his work. When that was done, Dain had slipped out with the doctor, leaving Ainswood to quarrel with his wife.
The following evening, Dain quarreled with his own lady, who, contrary to orders, had left Athcourt and proceeded with suicidal haste to Dain’s London townhouse. She’d brought the Demon Seed with her, because, she said, he was worried about his papa and howled blue murder when Jessica tried to set out without him.
Today, though, Dominick was miraculously well-behaved. He sat mute on the carpet between Emily and Elizabeth, listening with riveted attention to the story. Even during the half-hour rest and refreshment interval preceding the final two chapters, he only played quietly with Susan and allowed the girls to stuff him with more sweets than were good for him.
Vere wasn’t sure whether the child understood the tale or was captivated by the readers. He worshiped his father, and so naturally believed everyone must be absolutely quiet and pay complete attention while Papa read. One might expect the boy’s attention to lag when another took up the reading task.
This other was Grenville, however, and she didn’t simply read. She impersonated each character by turns, giving them individual voices and mannerisms. In short, she acted, though she’d solemnly promised Vere she wouldn’t leave the sofa.
Dominick remained entranced throughout, and at the end, he cheered and clapped as hard as the adults did, and jumped up to join the standing ovation.
Grenville accepted this tribute with a sweeping bow. It was the same extravagantly theatrical one she’d vouchsafed the Duke of Ainswood after her performance in the Blue Owl, complete with imaginary doffed hat.
Only now, finally, did Vere realize why that bow had nagged his mind. He’d seen its perfect replica before, long before he’d ever clapped eyes on her.
He’d seen it for the first time when he was a schoolboy at Eton.
He turned to Dain, whose black brow was knit as he watched his cousin.
“Recognize it, do you?” Vere said.
“You told me she was a fine mimic,” Dain said. “But I can’t think when she could have seen me do that.”
“Do what?” Grenville asked as she finally returned to the sofa.
Vere frowned at her until she put her feet up and settled back upon the cushions.
“The bow,” he said. “The theatrical bow.”
“My father was an actor,” she said.
“Dain’s father wasn’t,” he said. “Yet Dain had the knack of it when he was but ten years old. I saw it for the first time after he’d emerged victorious from a battle with Wardell, a boy twice his size and two years older. When we were at Eton.”
“I saw it for the first time in the innyard at Amesbury,” said Lady Dain. “After Dain and Ainswood pounded each other. It is quite distinctive, isn’t it? Dain does have a theatrical streak. But the Ballisters have always liked to make a show. They seem to have a fine flair for drama—one of several characteristics they don’t scruple to use to get their own way.”
“The first Earl of Blackmoor often amused his king with impersonations,” Dain told Grenville. “Your mother’s grandfather and his brothers were exceedingly fond of the theater—and actresses—in their youth. Before my father’s time, acting troupes were often invited to Athcourt to entertain the houseguests.”
“Naturally, Grenville, you can’t have inherited a single talent from anybody but the Ballisters,” Vere said. “All beauty, intellectual gifts, and virtue flow therefrom.”
“Not virtue,” said Dain. “That’s never been our strong suit. We’ve had our share of pious hypocrites—my father, for example, and Lydia’s grandpapa—but we’ve produced at least one devil in each generation.”
At this point, the devil Dain had produced began showing signs of restlessness. The girls invited him to play in the garden with them and Susan. Tamsin went to supervise. Whither she went, there also went Bertie.
“I’m all amazement,” Dain said, when the younger contingent was gone. “I’ve never seen Satan’s Spawn keep still for so long.”
“He was under the spell of a master storyteller,” Vere said. “There isn’t a man, woman, or child who can resist it.”
“The gods must have given you the talent, cousin,” Dain told her. “I’ve never heard of any of our lot who had it. We’ve some fine letters in the archives, and any number of stirring political speeches. But what poetry I’ve seen is abominable. I’ve never come across a Ballister-written tale spun out of thin air.”
“My wife holds that talent cheap,” Vere said. “She refers to The Rose of Thebes as ‘sentimental swill’—and that’s the kindest epithet she bestows upon it. If Macgowan hadn’t let the cat out of the bag, she’d never have admitted she wrote it.”
“It serves no useful purpose,” Lydia said. “All it does is entertain. With simple morals. The good end happily, the bad unhappily. It has nothing to do with real life.”
“We have to live real life, like it or not,” Vere said. “And you know, better than most, the sort of lives the great mass of humanity lead. To give them a few hours’ respite is to bestow a great gift.”
“I think not,” Grenville said. “I begin to think it socially irresponsible. On account of that wretched story, girls take it into their heads to bolt in search of excitement they can’t find at home. They’ll imagine they can dispatch villains with sharpened spoons. They—”
“You’re telling me the members of your sex are imbeciles who can’t distinguish fact from fiction,” he said. “Anyone fool enough to try one of Miranda’s tricks is either reckless by nature or doesn’t own a grain of sense. Such people will do something stupid with or without your suggestions. My wards offer a perfect example.”
“Your wards prove my point.”
“‘Dreadful girls,’ you called them, before you’d ever clapped eyes on them.” Vere’s voice rose. “They’re Mallorys, Lydia, and the Mallorys have been spawning hellions since the dawn of time. You will not use Lizzy and Em as an excuse to stop writing those wonderful stories you please to call ‘romantic claptrap’ and ‘rubbish.’ You are a talented writer, with the knack of communicating with readers of both genders, of every age and background. I will not permit you to throw that gift away. As soon as you’re well, you’ll start another story, dammit, if I have to lock you in a room to make you do it!”
She blinked once, twice. Then, “Lud, what a fuss you make,” she said. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about it.”
“I do.” He left his chair, walked to the fireplace and back. “I should be illiterate were it not for romantic claptrap and sentimental swill and improbable tales. I cut my teeth on The Arabian Nights and Tales of the Genii. My father read them to me, and they made me hungry to rea
d more books, even without pictures.”
“My mother gave me storybooks,” Dain said, his voice very low. “They provided me some of the happiest times of my childhood.”
“We read them to Dominick,” his wife said.
“You saw the lad,” Vere said. “For the time you read, nothing else in the world existed but your story. Not a peep out of him, for half hours at a stretch. It was the same with Robin when I read to him. He would have loved your story, Grenville.”
The room became very still, heavily silent.
His wife’s cool voice broke the tension. “Then the next one will be for him,” she said. “And it will be ten times better than anything in The Arabian Nights.”
“Naturally it will be ten times better,” Dain said mildly. “A Ballister will have written it.”
Vere didn’t know why it nagged at his mind, only that it did.
…grandfather and his brothers exceedingly fond of the theater—and actresses.
…virtue…never been our strong suit…devil in each generation…
…a Ballister will have written it.
That night, the Duke of Ainswood dreamt about Charles II. Grenville was entertaining His Majesty with an impersonation of the third Marquess of Dain, who stood among the courtiers, wearing only a plumed hat, with the actress Nell Gwyn draped on his arm.
Vere awoke as the sky was beginning to lighten. His wife was sleeping soundly. He left the bed, moved noiselessly to the other side, took up her mother’s diary, and went to the window to read it.
It didn’t take long, and when he was done, he was as dissatisfied as he’d been the first time. The gaps between the entries…the sense of too much unsaid…the pride that wouldn’t let her complain. The nearest she’d come was in the first entry, in her scornful description of her husband…the bitter undercurrent when she spoke of her father.
…memory submits to no will, not even a Ballister’s, and the name and image persist, long after death.