Laurel Ames - Playing To Win

The most sickening feeling was that men pretended to like her. She could wish she was not acute enough to detect this, but it would be worse to be married to someone who lied in such an insidious way. Eventually she got rid of them, but it was not always easy. In Cairnbrooke’s case she did not look forward to the experience because she had a feeling she could like him.

* * *

The next day threatened rain, so Sera passed up her morning ride to pick up some items Marie, her French dresser, assured her were essential to her wardrobe. Marie was invaluable in this way. She took all the work out of dressing for society. She scouted the fashionable shops for just what would suit Sera.

“ Mademoiselle has but to try it on to discover that it is perfect,” Marie said in the carriage.

This was almost always the case. Sera admitted to herself that she had no turn for fashion. When complimented on her elegant attire, she merely thanked people and took all the credit for Marie’s talents. Clothes scarcely concerned her, unless they were costumes for one of her beloved plays. Her father had interested her in the theater at a young age, going so far as to invite Armand Travesian, actor turned theater owner, into his circle of friends. Sera had been his devotee ever since, had had more than a hand in this season’s production, Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, and was even now putting the finishing touches on the script for next season. She was still mulling over the proper costuming for The Count Recounts when they arrived at the shop.

Today it was a hat to go with her pearl gray riding habit, just such a small one as she wanted, close-fitting, with a point dipping gently over the brow, and with a plume not large enough to carry the thing off her head when she cantered in the park.

They purchased the hat and, upon inquiring after antique clothes, ostensibly for a masquerade, got Madame Lupy to admit that her predecessor had left a number of wigs in a trunk, with a ball gown made thirty years before but never so much as worn. Marie was careful not to exclaim too loudly over the find. Sera bought the lot and had it loaded into the carriage immediately.

“We’ll stop at the theater on the way home. Armand should be rehearsing actors for The Count. ”

Sera’s coachman and footman thought nothing of delivering a trunk full of clothes to the Agora Theater. Only Marie knew that Sera’s involvement with Armand Travesian and his theater was less than respectable. But then, Sera had so little fun. In Marie’s opinion, it did no harm.

* * *

The Agora, on Stanhope Street, was not a new theater, but it was newly refurbished and renamed, thanks to Sera. It was tall and narrow, with two tiers of boxes between the pit and the balcony seats. The gold damask hangings between the boxes, and the newly recovered chairs, echoed the richness of the gilt scrollwork. Perhaps it was all paint and illusion, Sera thought as she made her way toward the stage, but the theater fairly glittered by candlelight.

The building gave up a fourth of its precious ground to the front portico and anteroom, above which were Travesian’s office and living apartment. There was no backstage to speak of. Behind the last scenery backdrop was the wall fronting on the next street. All the dressing rooms, and the prop room, were located in the rabbit warren under the raised stage.

Seating four hundred, it was not the smallest theater in the area by any means, but Travesian had frequently to fall back on Sera’s resources for costumes and even salaries when they had not enough patronage. That was mostly a matter of the past now. Since the opening of Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, the Agora had been paying its own way.

* * *

“We have to take out the sword fight,” Travesian complained to her in front of the two men who had been practicing on the stage.

“But the fight carries the scene. How can we do without it?”

“I cannot find an actor who can fence.”

“Nonsense. You can fence.”

“I’m too large for the role of DeVries. You could play it better than I could— Now there’s a thought....”

“Don’t be absurd. I have to prompt the actors. I can’t do everything myself.”

“I was joking,” Armand said, with his expansive smile.

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” Sera said petulantly. “What about a fencing master who can act?”

“Who do you think they are?” Armand pointed to the men on the stage, who shrugged and waited.

“The villain hasn’t many lines. Hire an actor for the count, and a fencing master for the villain, to make the count look good.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try. You two, wait here for me. Come back to the dressing rooms, Sera. There’s someone I want you to meet.” He led her to the cramped dressing rooms under the stage, which always seemed to her like the cabins on a sailing ship.

A handsome young man with hazel eyes looked up from a script he was studying.

“Count DeVries!” Sera said.

“If you think so, then we had better hire him.”

“Albert Brel,” said the man, with the faintest trace of an accent.

“This is Miss Serafina Barclay, one of my...patrons, but that is to be kept in the strictest confidence.”

“Of course,” said Brel, seeming surprised to be trusted with this secret.

“I’m pleased to meet you.” Sera seated herself and listened to Brel read a scene. He needed some work, but the script was new to him, and he would sound ever so much better onstage, rather than in the cramped dressing room. Sera approved Travesian’s choice on the spot and went contentedly home, feeling the morning had been well spent.

* * *

“And what are you studying today, child?” Barclay asked as he entered his library. The foolishly fond smile that he reserved for his only child masked an acute business mind, but matched his lack of adroitness when it came to women.

“Just the papers. Not much going on just now. Shall we go out to Gott Farm for a week?”

“I must have been neglecting you, if you are that bored with town.” Barclay pulled his waistcoat down over his slight paunch, and Sera smiled at this new habit of her father’s.

“I am never bored.”

“But you scarcely go out, except to the libraries or galleries.”

“Nonsense. I go to the theater several times a week.”

“Always to the Agora—the same play.”

“Travesian does it so nicely, though—I never tire of it. Wait until he tells you about next season’s production,” she teased. “I have asked him to dine with us Sunday.”

“I’m almost sorry I ever invited him here.”

“That’s not true. You find him entertaining, too.”

“As Henry VIII, not always as a dinner guest.”

“But he can enliven the dullest party.”

“Precisely!” Her father began pacing, hands behind his back. “You should not be throwing dull dinner parties for me. You should be going to balls and routs and whatever those other things are.” He fluttered an impatient hand. “You should be meeting people your own age.”

“But I do go to balls and parties with Lady Jane, and I meet a great many people my own age.”

“You do?”

“You know it is insulting of you to be so transparent, Father, dear. You are leading up to something. I can tell. And it must be disagreeable, or you wouldn’t be at it so long.”

“I do underestimate you. I hope what I have in mind will not be disagreeable. A dinner party for some...friends of mine.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? You know I love to entertain your friends. Who is it? Mr. Southey, or Lord Grenville perhaps?”

“No...no, I don’t think that would do,” Barclay said after a moment’s thought. “Why did you—?”