“I do require your time, ma’am, unless you are ready to fall into our old comfortable routine. That will require all of your time, for the rest of our days.”
The intensity in his stance radiated. It reached to the ceiling and heated my cheeks.
Yet this solid canvas hanging between us was emblematic of us. We were never in the same place once we came to these shores, not for very long. One of us had to look over the barriers or around them to enjoy the other.
He tapped the scaffold, making it rock. “Cecilia, please come down.”
There was something ironic about this private man sharing his frustration in this showy space. “I love it up here in the quiet with just my thoughts and the colors. Please return another time.”
He moved to my side of the canvas, squarely to the front of the stage. “Are you done with your adventure? Tell me about it. Please, please come down and share every detail.”
His voice was low at first, then grew with volume and power.
“You missed your calling, my lord. Your voice is lovely, but I’ve no time for you today.”
“I’d like to think I was missed. I certainly missed you. Oh, come down. Your husband, David Felton Lance, wishes Cecilia Charity Thomas, his Lady Gantry, to come down.”
His words echoed in the vast hall. The noise of it made it hard to think, to balance. I clutched the scaffold. “Formal perfect speech, my lord. Drury Lane was designed for such direct addresses but ones with more passion. Just tell me what you wish and be gone.”
“You want more passion? Come down and I’ll do my best.” He ran a hand through his hair, loosening it from its cinching ribbon. “Please.”
With the canvas secured by knots, I lowered it but held the rope. “The curtain has closed. This new performance of a somewhat understanding husband is no longer required. Definitely not one who’s embarrassed by his wife’s antics.”
“Embarrassed by you—no. Embarrassed that it took you leaving me to understand your art—yes.” He stepped back and craned his head toward the canvas. “I’m in awe of the shading, the selection of the hues. The luminosity of the colors. You’re a savant.”
What?
Rubbing at my eyes, I looked at him again. “Are you indeed David Felton Lance? I assumed he cared not for my squiggled lines.”
“I went through the canvases you left in London and at Warwick. They’re amazing. They show your heart and even how it was breaking.”
Warwick.
Felton knew I hid there.
He didn’t sound angry or accusatory, but then my ears heard noises, rushing air.
The doors were sealed. No breeze at all cooled my skin.
This was my panic, my guilt. I eased down on my knees and hands, trying to steady myself. “Please leave, my lord. I’m working. That concept is anathema to the ton.”
“Until last December, I had a profession too. I suppose we’re both to be outcasts.” He shed his greatcoat, a deep chocolate brown weave, and grasped the shaky scaffold. “Since the King’s Theatre, I’ve been made more desperate. I’ve waited, given you time, but our business is urgent.”
“Your short note didn’t state a date.” The ringing in my ears continued.” I suppose a letter without specifics is better than none.”
“Cecilia, are you alright? You sound breathless.”
“Fine.” Liar. I lied and clutched more tightly to my perch.
He tapped the board I’d nailed up to keep the scaffold stable. “I was a spy. Not much time to write home when I’m trying to be invisible. Cecilia, my pulse is racing. Can’t you still feel us?”
“That sensation is the onset of gout or whatever ailment your Aunt Nelly complained of. You must’ve caught it.”
He glanced up with a smile. “I miss the sound of you, your voice. Come down, or are you practicing becoming a pretty parrot, plaything for a jaguarete?”
My mobcap let a few braids fall as I eased my swirling head to my platform. “I think a jaguarete would eat a parrot. It’s safer up here.”
“You’d make a delicious meal, Cilia.” Felton climbed on the scaffold. The whole platform shook.
