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‘Well, it strikes me I did you a favour being out of town. There’s no doubt my good old uncle has come up with a better plan than I could have done.’ At that point there was another rap on the front door and Angelica held her breath, desperate that it should be her father at last.
Prosper Crowe burst into the room, wild-eyed and a little the worse for drink. She started forward. ‘Mr Crowe, Papa!’
With a cry, he grasped her to his chest. ‘Ah, thank ye, Mary mother of God! Now facing disgrace and possible death, me daughter acknowledges me.’ His voice turned mournful. ‘Mr Digby has told me I have to flee once it’s light.’
Angelica struggled to disengage herself from his embrace and motioned to Lord Latimer. ‘You recall meeting my friend?’
‘Yes indeed. Hoping he will become more than a friend.’ His eyes were bleary and unfocussed as he smiled in Lord Latimer’s direction.
‘Papa! Hush. Do not speak thus!’ She felt her colour rise with embarrassment.
‘Don’t be a scold. You’re too beautiful – more suited to being a duchess.’
Angelica shook his arm. ‘You are in your cups, Papa! Stop talking like a spoony drunk.’
‘So now you use the language of the street.’
Her anger flared with memories of poverty and fear in her childhood. ‘Yes! Your neglect of Mama and me meant we lived on the street. I know far worse language than that!’
Lord Latimer was standing beside her and took her hand. ‘Miss Leigh, I know you have important matters to discuss with your father. I am tired and should go home to change. It’s been a long day.’ He bowed over her hand, saluted Prosper Crowe and turned for the door. ‘I can see myself out.’ Mary followed him and at the door turned with a frowning glance at Angelica.
Angelica remembered that the dangers of the present mattered more than the resentments of the past. She turned to Prosper Crowe. ‘Mr Digby has told you what he wants you to do?’
He sank into a chair. ‘Yes. Very good of your friend, Mr Asprey. I had brought over from Paris a box of gold Napoléons for you and your mother but I’ll take one to pay for my passage.’
Angelica knelt by his side and said with some emotion, ‘Papa, unless I come to Paris, this may be the last time we see each other. It’ll be too dangerous for you to return to England.’
He hung his head. ‘I’m sorry to have been such a poor father. I cannot make the lost years better but I want to share some of my good fortune in business with your mother. The gold is in a strongbox in the hall. Perhaps some amends for the past?’ He looked at her, sadness suffusing his face; for the first time since the shock of his return from the dead, Angelica’s heart was touched.
She hugged his knees. ‘Oh Papa, it is uncanny how like our story is to the play I am about to perform.’
‘The Child of Nature is bad enough in the theatre, not meant to be as life, ye know.’ He chuckled. ‘I am hounded from my country, ’tis true, my life may well hang in the balance, but I don’t expect ye to follow me into exile.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I just ask that ye live life as ye wish. Perhaps even live it as a member of the nobility!’ he added with a smirk.
‘“Oh, my father! To be your comfort in a state like this, would be my happiness.” I’ve just been learning my lines in the last act.’
‘Then Papa applies the thumbscrews, does he not?’
‘Yes, my theatrical father answers, “I see my fate, and submit to it. My child, live happy, and forget me as often as you can. Receive my blessing, and my last farewell”. Then he elaborates upon his own suffering and his expectations of the daughter he has neglected. As you remember, she’s a dupe and, despite “dying of despair”, agrees to sacrifice her happiness for his!’ They laughed, their heads together, close for the first time in their lives, just at the point they were to part.
He sat back and looked serious. Emotion had sobered him up and he was focussed. ‘Proud of ye, Angelica. More than I ever hoped for a daughter of mine. And all credit to Mrs Leigh.’ He held her close. ‘All I can say is forgive me. There’s always a warm welcome for me daughter in Paris, whenever she should choose to come. The theatre is reviving and your beauty will secure a place at the very heart, if ye should ever want it.’
‘Oh, Papa. I’m sad that we have to part. For many years I longed for a father and now I have one he has to go.’
‘But we will write. And when you marry perhaps I can come one last time, in disguise?’
‘The pity of it. But at least I have my grandmother’s necklace to remind me of family. Thank you so much for that.’ She hugged him again.
His face lost its humour and he said in a serious voice, ‘It may be valuable, you know. Not paste but diamonds. Don’t flash it about.’
Angelica smiled. ‘I don’t mind how valuable or not it is. I think it beautiful. And to know your mother’s love for it somehow imbues the stones too; her love will combine in them with mine.’
Prosper Crowe rose to his feet. ‘Must be going. I have to pack and get some sleep before rising with the birds.’
Angelica reached up to touch his silvered auburn hair, tied back in the old romantic way. ‘You must also travel in some disguise. Powder that hair, Papa. Like me, you are too easily identified.’ They embraced and then walked into the hall. Martin was not in evidence and it was Angelica who offered her father his coat and helped him into it, then passed over his jaunty tricorne hat. She looked at him, still a fine figure of a man, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. He motioned to a small pirate’s chest, wooden and brass-bound, which was pushed under the console table, put a finger to his lips and winked.
Prosper Crowe took Angelica in his arms. ‘Darlin’ daughter, take care of yerself and choose yer path in life well. I approve of both the gentlemen who love ye.’
Still in his large embrace, Angelica gasped, taken aback by his words. ‘I don’t know which gentlemen you mean, Papa.’ She coloured and gazed up into his face with puzzlement. He surely did not know Lord Rackham?
