Regency Improprieties: Innocence and Impropriety / The Vanishing Viscountess

With one more refrain, her song ended, and, as she curtsied deeply to the applause that erupted all around him, he roused himself from this ridiculous reverie.

‘Bravo!’ shouted Tanner, nearly shattering Flynn’s eardrum. ‘Bravo!’

A moment later she had vanished as if she’d been only a dream. Tanner clapped until the principle performer on the programme, Charles Dignum, began singing.

Flynn stared at Tanner, feeling suddenly as if this man who employed him were Cromwell come to seize his lands and take his woman, an even more ridiculous fancy. Flynn’s mother was English, though she’d spent most of her life in Ireland. He had as much English blood in his veins as Irish. What’s more, Flynn embraced his Englishness. England was where his life was bound. England was where his ambitions lay.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of this madness. Rose O’Keefe had been a mere fleeting reminder of home, nothing more.

He pressed his fingers against his temple. He would soon recover his sanity and return to serving Tanner with dispassionate efficiency.

But as Tanner grabbed his arm and led him back to the supper box, the sweet voice of Rose O’Keefe lingered in Flynn’s ear, an echoing reverie:

List to me, ye gentle fair; Cupid oft in ambush lies …

Chapter Two

Rose peeked through the curtain at the throng of men outside the gazebo, some carrying flowers, others waving their cards, all calling her name. There were so many, she could not see them all. If he was there, the man who had watched her with such rapture, she could not see him.

She turned to her father. ‘There are more tonight.’

‘Are there now, Mary Rose?’ Her father placed his oboe in its case.

The woman at his side, a robust creature with ample dé-colletage—the woman who shared his bed—added, ‘We have our pick, I’d say.’

Rose frowned. ‘I do not wish to pick, Letty. I am content merely to sing.’

She had known nothing of Letty Dawes when Rose had surprised her father by appearing on his doorstep four months ago. The letters her father had sent to her at the school in Killyleagh made no mention of Letty, but then his letters had never been very informative.

Her father had been very surprised and perhaps somewhat disappointed to see that Rose had come to London with the ambition to sing. He had always told her to stay in Ireland, to remain at the school he’d sent her to after her mother died, the school that had kept her on as a music teacher. But teaching was not for her. Rose burned with the passion to perform, to sing.

Like her mother.

Rose’s most treasured memories were of sitting by her mother’s sickbed, listening to her tales of the London stages, the excitement of the music, the lights, the applause, the glory of her finest hour, performing at the King’s Theatre. Even seven years of schooling and four more of teaching could not extinguish the fire that had been ignited so early within Rose to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Rose had saved her pennies until she had enough to make the journey to London.

But any fantasies she’d had about a loving reunion with her father had been thoroughly dashed in those first few minutes of his surprised hugs and kisses. Letty Dawes had appeared from behind him, lamenting the sacrifices they would have to make to house and feed her, laughing at her desire to sing on the London stage. What theatre would employ an Irish country lass? Letty had said.

At first Rose thought her father had married again, but her father explained that entertainers lived by different rules from those she learned in school. He and Letty did not need marriage to share a bed. Then her father offered to pay Rose’s way back to Ireland, and Letty exploded in rage at how much it would cost. A huge row broke out between them, and Rose walked out to escape hearing it, knowing she had caused it. She was glad now that she had walked out, because otherwise she would never have met Miss Hart.

It was Miss Hart who brought her to Vauxhall Gardens that glorious night when Rose had another tearful reunion with her father, and he introduced her to Mr Hook. Mr Hook let her sing one song and, seeing as she was not yet twenty-one, asked her father if he might hire her. So when it came time to leave Miss Hart’s house, Rose returned to her father and Letty, who suddenly perceived her as a source of more income. To sing at Vauxhall, Rose would endure anything, even living with Letty.

It seemed she must also endure this frenzy of interest from gentlemen, all pressing her father to meet her. It was all part of the profession, her father told her.

He glanced out of the window. ‘Perhaps there will be some titled gentlemen among these fellows. That is who you must court if you wish to move ahead.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Letty added, putting an arm around Rose’s shoulders as if in affection. ‘A titled gentleman would be grand. There is no telling how much you might make, Rose. Why, some men even buy houses for their.’

Rose wrenched away. She knew much more about what men expected of women who performed on stage than she had when she first arrived in London. But what of love? Of romance? That was what Miss Hart had found with her Mr Sloane. That was what Rose coveted for herself.

‘What men are expecting in exchange for those houses, I have no wish to give,’ she told Letty.

Letty broke into shrill laughter. ‘Give? If you don’t give it, men will just take it anyway. Better to profit, I always say.’

Her father walked up to her and tweaked her chin. ‘Never fear, Mary Rose.’ He spoke gently. ‘Your papa will make certain you are set up like a fine lady. I wouldn’t let my little girl go with some penniless rogue, now would I?’

Rose pressed her hand against her throat. All part of the profession, her father had told her.

He hurried away, and she heard him shout, ‘Give me your cards, gentlemen.’ before the door closed behind him.

Letty shook a finger at her. ‘You obey your father. He has your best interests at heart.’

To escape having to talk to her further, Rose peered through the curtain. The men outside flocking around her father appeared spectre-like in the dim light, like a flock of bats in a moonlit sky. She shivered. She loved her newfound singing success. After Vauxhall’s season was over, she was certain she could find more employment. She could support herself. She could afford to wait for love to find her.

Rose gripped the curtain in determined fingers. Until she discovered for herself the sort of true love she’d witnessed at Miss Hart’s, she must merely sing her songs and fend off all other plans her father and Letty had for her.

As she stared through the gap in the curtain, she wondered if one of the shadowy figures would materialise into the man who’d drawn her attention when she’d performed. Would he be the one? she wondered. The one who might love her? But as her father collected the cards and gifts, she didn’t see anyone who could be him.

Letty walked up behind her and opened the curtain wider. ‘Your father is a smart man to put them off. They’ll be willing to pay more if they must wait to win you.’ She paused as if wheels turned slowly in her head. ‘But not too long. Too much waiting and they will lose interest.’

Her father’s arms were filled with small packages and bouquets of flowers. One hand was stuffed with cards. He turned to come back in, but another man stepped forward. Rose could not make out the man distinctly in the dim light, but he was dressed in a dark coat and seemed of similar size to her man in the audience.

She had a melting feeling, like when she’d watched Miss Hart with her Mr Sloane.

Her father and the shadowy gentleman spoke a few words before the man bowed and walked away, and her father re-entered the gazebo.

He dropped the heaps of fragrant flowers and small, ribbon-wrapped packages on to a nearby table and turned to Rose. ‘Mary Rose, pull this last card from my hand.’

She pulled the card sticking out from the stack and read, ‘The Marquess of Tannerton.’

He let the other cards cascade on to the table. ‘I told the fellow he could call tomorrow at four o’clock.’

Letty’s eyes lit up. ‘That was the Marquess?’

‘I’m not sure of it.’ Her father smiled sheepishly. ‘I was half-stunned, to be sure. Didn’t heed what the fellow said, but I heard “marquess” and told the man he could call.’ He gave Rose a patient look. ‘You must see a marquess, Mary Rose.’

It should hearten her that the marquess might be the man who so captivated her, but somehow it did not. Whatever could exist between a marquess and a songstress would not be love.

Rose sighed. She would just have to discourage this man. She was confident she’d learned enough about gentlemen to fend off unwanted attention. Her priority at the moment was to finish out her summer singing at Vauxhall, and to have Mr Hook put her forth with the highest recommendations to others who might hire her. Rose wanted to keep singing, perhaps on a proper stage this time, part of a real theatre. She wanted to rise some day to the principal roles, to have her name always in the newspapers, her image on playbills, theatre managers clamouring for her to sing for them.

In the meantime, she wanted coin enough to pay her keep so Letty would not complain that her father allowed her to stay. Until she found where she truly belonged—or with whom—she would not settle for less. She would not engage her heart to a marquess who wanted her for mere amusement. Even if he was handsome. Even if her blood stirred when he looked upon her.

She merely would let her father believe otherwise.

‘I will receive the marquess, Papa,’ she said.

Flynn stepped out of the hackney coach and walked the short distance up Langley Street to the lodgings where O’Keefe had directed him, a plain enough building from the outside. He took a deep breath and nodded, telling himself again that the previous night’s infatuation with a Vauxhall singer had been due to too much arrack. He was clear headed now.

Rose O’Keefe, like Tanner’s many other conquests, would be a woman of business, savvy enough to work out that making herself into a hard-won prize would drive up the price. It was Flynn’s job to see that Tanner did not pay one pence more than she was worth—and she ought to be worth no more than the others had cost the marquess.