Heiress Without a Cause

CHAPTER SEVEN

By the following evening, Ferguson needed to escape the mausoleum of his inheritance. He had stayed in the previous evening, but he couldn't spend another night in his study, where his father's presence still lingered. The weight of the place, even after ten years away, had only increased.

So rather than torturing himself by eating with the twins, who had coldly ignored him after leaving Salford House, or lying sleepless in the cavernous ducal bedchamber, he took his coach to the theatre district, giving in to the lure of Marguerite Guerrier. With what he suspected about her, it would be better to leave well enough alone - but seeing her again was the only entertainment he wanted.

As he left his coach, he looked at his watch. It was stupid to flash jewelry after dark, but he was almost itching for a fight. The prospect did not seem likely. There were too many liveried coachmen about, and potential thieves had decamped for less populated areas.

Then he realized the oddity of that - coachmen never loitered in Seven Dials. Only a block from Legrand's Theatre, at least twenty fine carriages waited in the alleys.

Had his first visit to the theatre caused this?

He picked up his pace. He could not prove it, not without seeing her eyes in the light, but he thought he knew who Marguerite really was. If he was correct, then the best actress in London - the woman he had tried to take as his mistress two nights earlier - was the woman who agreed to help launch his sisters.

If Madeleine was the actress, aristocratic playgoers could only bring her to ruin. And any ruin she faced would taint his sisters' debuts. It was ironic that he had sought out her sterling reputation to help with the rumors about his family, when she might ultimately bring even more devastating gossip down on their heads.

He entered the theatre just as the intermission ended before the final act. He had taken the precaution of sending a footman for a ticket earlier in the day, knowing even then that he would not be able to stay away, so there was no need to haggle with Madame Legrand. He spotted her across the room, though, looking immensely satisfied as she conversed with a gentleman and his companion - a much finer couple than any he had seen on his previous visit.

Ferguson took a sharp look around the theatre, his senses alert under his bored façade. The types he saw before were still there - rowdy off-duty footmen, maids and their beaus, shopkeepers, secretaries, and members of the more-respectable middle classes.

But sprinkled throughout the crowd, looking by turns aghast and titillated, were people who could only be part of the ton. He watched a matronly woman swish her silk skirts away from a pair of footmen who were cracking walnuts onto the floor. But where her anger would have sent them their jobs in her own home, here it made them laugh.

This mixture of rich and poor at the theatre was unremarkable. Even the Theatre Royal allowed footmen in the gallery. But his concern grew. With this many members of the aristocracy in attendance, the actress would surely be found out.

And given his role in bringing them here, it would be his fault if she were ruined.

He settled into a seat and tried to force himself to relax. He had only associated the actress with the Stauntons because he followed her carriage. If she was Madeleine, she was well disguised.

There was one fact to take comfort in: if she had been discovered, the play would have already ended. The audience was enraptured, eager for the final act to begin.

He scanned the crowd, looking for clues. Two rows ahead of him sat Viscount Osborne - a wealthy old roué who had kept a string of the most desirable courtesans for the last four decades. Off to his left, the earl of Westbrook sat with Caroline, Lady Greville, on his arm. Neither looked happy, and Ferguson felt a small pang of remorse. He was involved with Caro before his Scottish exile, and it looked like the intervening years had hardened her. He knew Westbrook from the worst of his days as a rake - if Westbrook planned to replace Caro, he would not wait long before finding a new mistress.