The Arrangement

They did indeed, a squalid little two-story hovel that barely deserved the name. Its sign, vaguely resembling a starving rabbit, swung precariously from uneven chains. The Hare’s Foot Inn.

Kathryn quickly dismounted, went inside, and secured a room—the only private one available.

Thomas Boddie, her driver, protested in a loud whisper, “Ye can’t be stayin’ here, Miss Kathryn. Look at th’ place! More ’n likely got bugs.” He glanced around again, tsking and scratching his head to emphasize the warning.

“Buck up, Boddie. You’re getting soft in your old age.” Kathryn giggled when he looked indignant and a sight younger than his twenty-four years.

She waited until the innkeeper disappeared upstairs to change the linen before she spoke again. “I want you to bring one of the coach horses around after they’re fed and rested. Oh, and get me your breeches.”

“Breeches, miss?” he squeaked.

“Yes, and the shirt, too. I know you keep a change in the boot for when you stash your livery. We’re about the same size, don’t you think?”

“Ye can’t wear me breeches! That’s scan’lous! Indecent!”

Kathryn smiled at his outrage. “No, it’s necessary. I need to get to that house and do some snooping if I’m to get this story. I can’t ride bareback in an evening frock.” She swatted behind her at her cumbersome bustle.

Thorn groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh, Lord save us. Your uncle Roop will skin us both. I’ll have t’ come, too.”

“No. You’ll wait here with the coach.” When he started to argue, she placed a hand on his skinny arm to silence him. “If I should get caught, somebody has to get me out of this. Agreed?”

“Might as well,” he grumbled. “You’ll sack me if I don’t.”

“Precisely,” she admitted cheerfully. Then she punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Ah, c’mon, Thom. Where’s your sense of adventure? You used to dare me to do things like this!”

“We was children then, Miss Kathryn. Yer father—God rest ‘im—was a sight more understandin’ about yer pranks than yer uncle will be. Stealin’ round a strange man’s home ain’t no game. He’ll have th’ law on ye. Worse yet, shoot ye fer a thief.”

“That prissy wretch wouldn’t know one end of a pistol from the other.” Kathryn hoped he didn’t, anyway. Somehow, the composer didn’t strike her as the type to wield a firearm. In the only duel that she knew anything about, Chadwick had used a sword. Apparently he’d been rather young when it happened, but a French immigrant attending the last concert evening had resurrected the story. Probably embellished it, as well. He’d said Chadwick was the best swordsman in France at the time.

Well, the silly rogue wasn’t likely to run her through without getting close enough to notice she was a woman.

“Calm down, Thorn. He won’t even know I’m there, and I’ll be back before you can blink. All I want is a look around.”

“Lord save us,” Thomas groaned, and went for the breeches.

Kathryn decided the third time would be the charm. Twice before tonight she had attended Chadwick’s performances. And twice she had failed to find out a thing about him other than how well he could compose and play.

He was a genius, and an odd duck all around. Everyone said so. And everyone came to see, as well as to listen. His appearance intrigued his audience as much as the music. The cream of London society talked of little else these days, when the subject of music arose. He could do no wrong, no matter how hard he tried. And, no mistaking it, he certainly did try. Tonight he had been haughty to the point of obnoxiousness. Arrogant, even insulting.

The social scale apparently meant nothing to the man. Kathryn wondered whether she might have been the only one in attendance tonight without a title. Certainly she was the only member of the press, though no one admitted knowing what she did to earn her keep. They did know, of course. If the hostess, Lady Ballinger, was not an intimate friend of Uncle Rupert’s, Kathryn knew she’d have been snubbed at the door. Even then, her welcome had felt distinctly cool. Female news writers, even those who published discreetly under a male nom de plume, hardly qualified as guest-list material in the upper echelons of society.

Given the usual content of her column in Uncle Rupert’s popular gossip sheet About Town, she could certainly understand why the elite kept up their pretense of ignorance in regard to her occupation. They wanted to stay on her good side. So far, her barbs had nicked only those in the professional limelight, but they all knew that could change overnight.

If only she could become self-supporting, she would much prefer doing novelettes or short stories to the entertainment column. But Uncle Rupert insisted on her articles for his paper, and he did pay the bills. About Town rated only a jot above the scandalous rag Tit Bits, but both were avidly read and both competed fiercely for the latest ondit. Kathryn supposed she should be happy for the opportunity to be writing anything so eagerly received.

However, this latest assignment worried her. She had nothing substantial for the article on Chadwick. Apparently he had been the darling of the Continent during his youth, performing privately, as well as in concert halls in Milan, Rome, Vienna, Paris, even Germany. But never in London, until now. She wondered why? As far as she could determine, there were no lurking scandals, and no social life apart from performances such as this one. Rumor had it he was working on an opera.

Kathryn had interviewed a few people who recalled seeing him perform as a child and a young adult. He certainly appeared to be a man of the world now. She’d covered all the back issues of the major publications from around the civilized world, and the last mention of Chadwick had been over five years ago in Florence, Italy. Then he seemed to have vanished.

If she meant to get any kind of story out of the rascal for About Town, she needed a personal interview. He had refused her in no uncertain terms, the belligerent lout.

Who would think a head like his could conjure all that beauty? Well, it was a beautiful head; she had to give him that. That unfashionably long hair looked quite the rage on him, its wild mahogany waves tumbling over his brow as he played, the back locks negligently clubbed with red velvet. Except for that scarlet ribbon and white ruffles at his throat and wrists, he dressed all in black, as had been his custom the two times she saw him. It set off the false whiteness of his skin to a fare-thee-well. That mask of powder he wore only emphasized the stark handsomeness of his features.

His eyes were remarkable; cold and arctic blue, much too light, even for his powdered paleness. One expected them to be black, like his rotten attitude. The nose was noble—it was the only possible description—with its straight prominence and slightly flaring nostrils. And he did flare the things at every opportunity. His lips were slightly redder than Kathryn thought natural, wide and finely chiseled, almost voluptuous in repose. If one could ever catch him relaxed long enough to notice. Usually he set them in a forbidding line that defied anyone to question his overwhelming superiority.

Well, his size would take care of establishing that, even if his looks didn’t. He was enormously tall, with shoulders like a dockworker. She’d bet her last farthing he worked as hard at keeping those muscles fit as he did at perfecting his music. His apparel, the face paint and the long hair only served to underscore his masculinity. He obviously concocted the whole getup as a bizarre private joke on the public. They knew, of course. And they loved it.

She loved it, as well. The thought surprised her.

Considering her attraction to the man, wisdom told her to forget the story on Chadwick. Reason stopped her. She had a job to do, if she wanted to continue life as more than a decoration for Randall Nelson’s arm and a broodmare for his nursery. God forbid she should forget that. Uncle Rupert certainly wouldn’t. If she failed in this assignment, Kathryn figured, she might as well use that wicked little pen of hers to start addressing her wedding invitations.

It wasn’t that she was diametrically opposed to marriage—only to marriage to a man like Randall. Aside from the fact that her skin had crawled the few times he touched her, there was also the matter of his having mentioned all those children he would give her. As though that might encourage her to accept his suit. Ha!

Randall wanted only to use her. Perhaps all men were users; certainly all the men she knew were. Her father had expected her to take her mother’s place in ordering his household at an age when most girls still clung to their dolls. When he died, she’d had to argue with his old solicitor until she was blue in the face for funds to attend college. Thank God the will had provided that she complete her education without specifying where or at what age. They’d had to sell her father’s house to finance it, but she’d won in the end.

Uncle Rupert had righteously insisted on her moving in with him after graduation and put her straight to work editing copy. Until he found that she could write better than his best reporter. Now the only suitor she’d ever had, with her uncle’s eager blessing, wanted to station her in his bedroom and only let her out to push a pram full of babies around the park? Not bloody likely.

Surely, somewhere in the world there lived a man willing to share her life, rather than direct it like a dictator. Love wasn’t a necessary requirement, though a modicum of physical attraction certainly was. If she had to bear the indignities she and her school chums had discussed so thoroughly, it would damned well be with a man who didn’t turn her stomach.

She smiled as an image formed in her head. The man she chose would be witty, above all. And handsome as sin itself. Maybe, he’d fill out his evening clothes as did Jonathan Chadwick. Lord, that man cut a sharp figure! She could well imagine submitting to certain indignities with a fellow built like that. Oh, never Chadwick himself, of course. No woman in her right mind would choose him, a pretentious performer with a penchant for rudeness.

When Thom brought her those breeches of his, she’d go and get that story, all right. She would ride right out to that old estate and find out what the man was really like. By the time she finished with him, Jonathan Chadwick wouldn’t have a single secret left out of print. Make sport of her, would he?

“Damn that female!” As if he didn’t have enough problems right now, without having to dodge her curiosity.

Worrying about that only augmented the familiar roiling in his gut that always followed a performance. Stage fright—his old and dreaded bugaboo. Every time he stepped up to or held an instrument in public, he became that terrified eight-year-old he’d been the first time he played to an audience. He remembered thinking at the time that it must be a bit like taking all one’s clothes off in the middle of Trafalgar Square during the noonday rush. Well, he had decided then that, if forced to do it, by God he would do it with a flair. Did the Wainwright woman suspect it?

He couldn’t stand much more of this. If the past five years as a soldier hadn’t proved such a bloody fiasco, he’d never have returned to performing. Most composers hired the best musicians they could afford to present their work to possible investors. A pity he couldn’t. Every ha’penny he earned had to go directly to his creditors. The army paid better; perhaps he shouldn’t have sold out when Long San died. But the whole thing seemed wrong to him, this killing of men who were only trying to hold on to what was theirs. Too late for second thoughts, anyway. The commission money was spent and there was an end to it.

If he didn’t cultivate some backers soon for the opera, he’d find himself bereft of his precious collection of instruments and taking up space in debtor’s prison. He must get past his damnable shyness and make some real contacts. Rich ones.

God, he wished he had a head for business, or at the very least a compulsion to perform that matched the one to compose. Useless to try to escape that driving need to put down the notes, though. He’d tried that, without success, so he figured he might as well use it. In the best of worlds, he’d stick to composing and live a regular sort of life, whatever that was. Unfortunately, everything hinged on money. Always had.

Discounting the soldiering skills he hoped never to use again, music was all he knew. It was all he had ever studied, all that could save him now. Maman, relentless as she was, had been right about one thing; he couldn’t live without music and the music couldn’t live without him. He wished to hell he’d been born a bloody banker.

The playing should be a private thing, an opening up of his soul. At rare times, he could forget the audience was there—all those fawning, simpering faces, with their cow eyes, staring and judging—but usually, as tonight, he simply endured. Pretended. Held back. Threw up. Suffered And still blushed at applause.

Maman had solved the problem of his beet red face by powdering it white. That had worked when he was eight; it still worked. The dark wig looked a bit much, but it was necessary. His own hair, bleached near-white by the African sun, combined with the white face powder, made him look like an albino. He knew very well that the strange stage image he presented lent a certain mystique, an added attraction.

Tonight it had proved a massive drawback. The Wainwright woman had studied him like a sparrow hawk poised to swoop. A female predator. Those quick brown eyes of hers missed nothing. For the past two weeks, she’d been everywhere he looked. If he didn’t keep away from her, she would pick him apart like the puzzle he was and destroy him with a single swipe of her pen. God knew she was capable. And eager.

Her pieces in the About Town news sheet were caustic as lye, the praise rare as chicken’s teeth. She never even pretended to be other than what she was, either. As though working for that rumor rag were a thing to take pride in.

She didn’t even have the grace to look like a destructive force. That wispy halo of golden curls escaping her oh-so-proper hairstyle gave her heart-shaped face an angelic appearance, despite those dangerous chocolate eyes.

What the hell was a woman doing writing for a newspaper, anyway? And such a beautiful woman, at that. Damned unnatural.

Tonight’s confrontation had destroyed every vestige of pleasure he’d found in her appearance and any hope that she might choose another victim.