The Marriage Ring (2 page)

Chapter Two

G
o back out onto that stage and
sing another song
,” John Drayson, the stage manager ordered. He was a dark-haired man with distinguished gray at the temples. Many women found him attractive. Grace didn’t. He lacked sincerity and had a touch of the bully in his demeanor. “Listen to them,” Drayson continued. “They are mad for you.”

Grace shook her head. She was trembling she was so angry. “Mad for me? They didn’t hear a word I sang.”

“Oh, yes they did! They heard that last song clear as a bell. Tomorrow, that ‘hi diddle hey’ refrain will be on everyone’s lips. Go out there, Gracie. Give them more of what they want,” he ordered, taking her arm to steer her back onstage.

Grace dug in her heels, but before she could answer such an outrageous command, Chester, one of the stagehands, interrupted. “Excuse me, Miss MacEachin,” he said, his arms full of bouquets he’d pick up off the stage. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“Burn them,” Grace instructed, yanking her arm free of Drayson’s hold. She’d had enough. She needed privacy, a place to think and evaluate the public humiliation she’d just experienced on the stage. Some women might covet such attention. She did not. She started for the stairs leading down to the dressing rooms.

“Collect them all. Take them to her dressing room,” Drayson countermanded as he fell into step behind her.

With an impatient sound, Grace moved away with every intention of outdistancing him, but as she walked past the other actors waiting in the wings, she overheard one of the other new actors, Mr. Holland, opine, “So, we have a new Grand Doxy of London.”

Grace came to a halt.

The “Grand Doxy of London” was a name the actors had for the actress who would become the next big rage in London. It was not a compliment Grace wanted. It meant the woman had more looks than talent and would soon be sought after as a mistress by London’s most powerful men. It was assumed she would accept this protection.

The actresses surrounding Mr. Holland, especially the ones who had been so
un
helpful since Grace had been promoted from a dancer to one of their company two weeks ago, sniggered over the comment.

“Shut your mouth, Holland,” Drayson snapped, taking Grace’s arm before she could comment. He guided her forward. “Don’t listen to him. That cabbage should have hit him in the head and spared us all from his nonsense.”

But Grace knew Mr. Holland spoke aloud what was whispered everywhere she went. Wagers were being placed in betting books all over the city linking her name with a host of rakes, scoundrels, and idiots. Claiming her had become a game. Men seemed to rush at her from every direction when she was in the theater, including Mr. Holland, whose advances she’d spurned earlier that afternoon. So, his surly comment shouldn’t have surprised her. There was no man more dangerous than a rejected one.

But Holland was the least of her worries. She’d been informed the notorious Lord Stone was placing the highest wagers. The stories she’d heard of him were unsettling.

Grace had taken action to avoid offending him and all the rest. She was refusing all callers save for Fiona. Rumor had it that Stone had offered a hefty purse to the watchman and several of the porters and stagehands for access to her. Fortunately, she was well liked in that quarter and his bribe had been rebuffed—for now.

If the attitude of Mr. Holland and her fellow players was an indication, it was only a matter of time before someone would sell her out.

Thank the Lord that Fiona had
not
been in her box tonight. Grace had left word with the watchman to let the Duchess of Holburn pass, but was now so glad Fiona had stayed away.

“My temper found the best of me,” Grace murmured, now mortified at the way she’d set that wigged man in his place in front of everyone in the theater.

“Your temper knows how to put on a show,” Drayson answered. “Go out there again, Gracie,” he coaxed. “Sing another one. They are still waiting. Can’t you hear them stomping their feet?”

How could she not? The floorboards trembled with the clamor.

And in that moment, she feared she’d sold her soul.

Fiona had tried to warn her. When they’d first come to London, Fiona had taken work as a seamstress, but Grace had wanted more. In spite of her friend’s warnings, Grace had pursued the stage…

“Don’t call me Gracie,” she answered. “I’m Grace. Grace, Grace,
Grace.
” She grabbed the stair rail and went charging down the narrow, winding steps leading to the dressing rooms.

Drayson was right on her heels.

He caught up with her at the foot of the stairs, grabbing her arm and whirling her to face him.

“Grace, listen to me. We are giving you your own place on the bill. And I want you to continue wearing this costume. We’ll put people out in the audience to rile them all up. There won’t be an empty seat in the house—”

“
No
,” Grace said, attempting to shake off his arm. “I’ll not parade myself around.”

He gave her arm a vicious shake. They were alone here. Everyone else was still upstairs dealing with the muddled mess the show had become.

“Now, listen here, we lost a lot of money during the riots and you can make it up. You are becoming famous in London. Every day more people hear about you—”

Chester, his arms still full of flowers, poked his head down and over the railing. “Miss MacEachin, they are lined up outside and howling to see you. Mr. Kemble said for you to come greet them.”

“She’ll be right there,” Drayson answered.

“Very good, sir.” Chester left to pass the word.

“I won’t go out there,” Grace said.

“You have no choice, if you value your place in this company.”

“Then I
quit
my place in this company,” Grace answered. She shoved him out of her way with her shoulder and charged toward her room. With her growing popularity, Drayson had given her a private dressing room, another thing the actresses could hold against her. She now ran in there to hide, slamming the door behind her.

At last she could breathe.

So there it was: she was out of work.

It was just as well. She hated London, and she’d wanted to leave anyway. She and Fiona had thought to find their fortune here. Fiona had succeeded. She’d married Holburn, but Grace had not been so fortunate. She’d thought she could handle the stage, this way of life. She couldn’t. After all was said and done, she was Scot.

The wave of homesickness for the Highlands almost brought her to her knees.

She wanted to go home.

Grace dug out a valise from a corner of the room and began throwing clothes into it, slowly at first and then with increasing urgency.

When she’d run away from Inverness five years ago, she’d thought of never returning. For the past month, it had been all she could think about. She’d started to wonder if things truly had been how she’d imagined them or if, perhaps, she’d overreacted, made more of what was happening than should matter. Funny how life’s twists and the tricks it played had finally brought her to her senses. She wanted to go back—and she wanted to make amends.

Sitting at her dressing table, she began washing off the paints she’d used, silently vowing to never use them again. The woman in the reflection appeared apprehensive. Grace reminded herself she had enough money to see her through to the end of the month, but old worries died hard.

How different her life would have been if her father’s path had never crossed that of the Lynsted twins. They had accused her father, a vicar at St. Ann’s Church, of stealing funds from the estate of Dame Mary Ewing, the widow of a well-known soldier who’d made a fortune during his service in the Indies. On their testimony, he had been sentenced to a penal colony for ten long years, years during which Grace and her mother had gone from being important members of Inverness society to outcasts living hand-to-mouth as best they could.

She set aside the washcloth, not wanting to think about her mother. The woman was dead to her.

But her father…he’d done nothing wrong save disappoint her mother. And Grace hadn’t the maturity to understand all that was happening between them. She’d blamed him for her mother abandoning her. The poor man. He’d suffered so much, and upon returning home hadn’t even had his wife to comfort him…or his daughter.

But now she had a chance to right not only an old wrong but to prove her loyalty to her father. Perhaps her running away five years ago was God’s hand bringing her to London so that she could demand justice for her father and her family name.

Who else but the Almighty could have led her to learn that the Duke of Holburn’s uncles, Lord Brandt and Lord Maven, the family members no one liked and avoided, were also none other than the villainous Lynsted twins?

Grace had put it together when she’d met the twins while out shopping with Fiona. Their stern demeanors, slashing black brows, and hooked noses were etched into her childhood nightmares. She’d recognized them immediately and since that day had plotted ways to find justice for her father.

She’d not told Fiona or Holburn about what she’d planned to do. Blackmail was a touchy thing. Fiona might not understand Grace’s motives.

Their lordships were now very wealthy, probably from a fortune that built on Dame Mary’s once sizeable estate. Meanwhile, her gentle, educated, kind father was nothing more than a caretaker, living off charity in a tiny cottage on St. Ann’s grounds. He’d never left Inverness. She didn’t know why, but he’d stayed…without benefit of family or friends.

Her father deserved a portion of that fortune.

Grace had threatened to take her charges against them to a magistrate if they did not pay twenty-five thousand pounds for her silence. She didn’t worry about whether or not the magistrate believed her story. The twins were self-made men and society frowned on that sort of thing. Rumor had it their own father, Holburn’s grandfather, had disinherited them. No one knew why, but it spoke volumes against them.

For all Grace knew, there was a host of crimes they were guilty of and she was doing the world a favor by making them pay up.

She wondered what her father would say when she reappeared in his life with enough money to make him comfortable and begged forgiveness for the hurtful words she’d hurled at him five years ago. The image gave her peace—

A knock sounded on the door. Before she could answer, it opened and Drayson stepped inside.

Grace rose from her seat. “I did not invite you in, Mr. Drayson.”

“We need to speak,” he answered, closing the door behind him. “You will not quit this company.”

“I have said all I am going to say, Mr. Drayson,” Grace answered, reaching behind her for the hand-sized dirk in its leather sheath she had placed there. “I appreciate the opportunity to be part of such a fine company, but I regret I must leave.”

He shook his head. “No, you won’t.” He moved toward her.

Grace found the knife. Keeping her hand hidden behind her, she slid the dirk from its sheath. “Whatever you have to say can be saved for the morning,” she informed him. “I’m tired. I wish to go home.”

“You know, there is quite a bounty on your head, Miss MacEachin. And many men wish to claim it.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she lied, the dirk now in her hand. She grasped the handle, ready to fight. She was a petite woman, no more than five foot three. He would try brute strength. They all did. He’d be surprised.

“You do. You know very well. And you may put on airs and keep your distance, but you’ve been had before, Grace. Probably by more than one man. It’s there in the way you walk, the way you talk to us. I’ve seen the way you look at each of us. You know men.”

Suddenly, he lunged for her.

She whipped the knife around and plunged it into his forearm without so much as a blink of an eye.

He yelped in pain and fell back a step. “
You she-bitch
.” He pulled the knife out of his arm. Looking at it in the candlelight, he tossed it aside and picked up one of her scarves to wrap around the wound.

Grace wanted to leave but he stood between her and the door. Her only hope was to run for it.

She dashed toward the door. He stuck out a foot and tripped her. She landed heavily on the ground. With a shake of her head, she scrambled to her feet and would have made it to the door except he took hold of her hair and yanked her back.

The wind left her as he threw her against the wall. “Stabbing me is going to cost you dearly,” he said and laughed, the sound angry and mean.

Grace reached out, blindly searching for something else to protect herself with, but he was on her in a blink. He shoved her against the wall, pinning her there with his body weight. His lips slobbered over her cheek, her ear. He squeezed her breast so hard she cried out.

“This is what happens when you flaunt yourself,” he said against her ear. “And the best part of all is that I will claim those wagers,
after y
ou’re here tomorrow and singing exactly as I say.”

His hand was fumbling with the buttons of his breeches. Grace attempted to lift her knee, to kick him or hit him in any place she possibly could. He shoved his knee between her legs, blocking the move.

He pressed his open mouth against hers. She sealed her lips shut, fighting back with everything she had, but he was too strong. She’d had her one chance with her knife and she’d failed—

Mr. Drayson’s body came off of hers. Unprepared for such sudden freedom, she lost her balance and slid down the wall to the floor. She looked up, dazed, not knowing what Mr. Drayson was going to do next, until she realized he was being held in midair by the scruff of the neck, his feet dancing as they tried to touch the floor.

And holding him up was the tallest, biggest man Grace had ever set eyes on.

His dark hair almost brushed the low ceiling of her dressing room and his brow was furrowed with righteous anger. His nose was long and straight, his jaw square. He wore black evening attire under a black, caped greatcoat, the cut so severe it gave him a parson’s air.