Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

His inflection made a mockery of the revolutionary ideals.

His French accent was much better than hers. It would be, Mary thought inconsequentially. If he were the son of the exiled Stuart pretender, he would have spent his childhood kicking about France and Italy. No wonder his Italian had been so fluent.

"Does Bonaparte know all this?" asked Mary carefully.

"Of course," said St. George, baring his teeth in a feral grin. "It works out very nicely for him, don't you agree? A monarch with right of blood on the throne, and he's spared the trouble of ruling England himself."

Put that way, it did seem rather a bargain for Bonaparte. If not necessarily for England.

There was one glaring flaw to St. George's plans. Mary wondered if St. George had spotted it. True Stuart pretender or not, there was no reason men would flock to his standard, just because the immediate royal family had been assassinated. There would be plots and counterplots, factions and cabals, and at least a dozen other claimants to the throne, all pressing their right. In short, civil war.

Wonderful for Bonaparte, not so wonderful for either England or the latest Stuart pretender.

Had St. George realized that, or was he so consumed by the thought of the throne that it never occurred to him that he might be Bonaparte's dupe? From the noble glow on his face, Mary suspected he hadn't. Like all exiles, St. George seemed to believe that at the sight of their rightful king, the people would fling down their arms and follow him, strewing rose petals and singing hosannas. Other monarchs had made that mistake before. Including his father and grandfather.

Through the fabric of the backdrop came Lady Euphemia's voice, raised insistently, "And then one dark night, there came a poor princess in perilous plight."

"Ah," said St. George. "There's our cue. After you, my dear."

Using the spear as a prod, he sent her reeling in the direction of the backdrop. They were supposed to enter stage left, but with a spear in her back, even a wooden one, Mary wasn't about to be picky. Grasping the folds of the curtain, she scrabbled for the break in the middle.

" — came a poor princess in perilous plight!" Lady Euphemia repeated loudly, as Mary stumbled out onto the stage through the gap in the curtains, blinking in the sudden glare of the footlights.

Lady Euphemia gave her a look that clearly indicated that Mary wasn't going to be offered starring roles in any future productions.

That was the least of Mary's worries.

In front of her, the theatre was a sea of swollen faces, distorted by the glare of the footlights. What would they do if she walked calmly to the center of the stage and announced that there was a madman who thought he was the Pretender to the throne in the back of the stage, and that the King's head was packed full of explosives? Nothing. Well, not nothing. There would be whispering and laughing and no one would do anything at all.

St. George, hidden behind the curtains, would have plenty of time to shove his infernal machine into the audience, light its fuse, and blow as many people as possible into tiny bits. In the audience, Mary could see a slew of familiar faces, yawning, laughing, whispering, sleeping. Innocent. Unsuspecting. Her mother and father were in the first row with Letty, her mother's mouth open as she prattled on into her husband's ear, while her father nodded, not hearing a word of it. He had clearly taken the precaution of donning his earplugs before the performance.

Frowning, Mary tried to catch Letty's eye, indicating with a jerk of her head that she should get their parents out of the theatre. Letty tilted her head and opened her eyes wide, indicating confusion. Mary's lips pressed together in frustration.

She wasn't the only one feeling frustrated. A loud harrumphing noise echoed from the prompter's pit.

Mary hastily struck a tragic pose, one hand outstretched in supplication in the general direction of the audience, eyes lifted to the heavens — or where the heavens would be, if there wasn't a large dome in the way. There was no need to feign desperation.

"Oh, is there no hero, no valiant knight, / Who will charge out and put the dragon to flight?"

Lady Euphemia bobbed her head up and down in time to the lines, beaming in open appreciation of her own poetry.

Pat on his cue, St. George strode onto the stage. Good. On the stage she could see him. On the stage he was away from his infernal machine. Mary's brain churned with fevered schemes, including "accidentally" tripping him as he crossed downstage. If he took a tumble off the platform and just happened to land head first, that should put him out of commission long enough to dismantle his infernal machine and use her brother-in-law's influence to bring the conspirators to justice. St. George and Rathbone would be hanged for treason, and Vaughn would finally be safe. Married, but safe.

There was one slight hitch. St. George didn't cross downstage. Mary could hear the restless shuffling and whispering from the audience rising to new heights. Still in her pose, Mary twisted her neck to peek over her shoulder. St. George stood like a stone effigy of a medieval warrior, looking as shocked and unsettled as Hamlet confronted with his father's ghost. Lady Euphemia emitted a veritable chorus of harrumphs, but to no avail. St. George's eyes were fixed in disbelief on something, or someone, in the audience.

Blinking against the glare of the footlights, Mary followed his gaze. At first, she saw the figure haloed through the red haze of the lights, so that he seemed lit by supernatural fire as he advanced purposefully down the central aisle, the red light catching the hilt of his sword, dancing along the silver lace on his cuffs, scintillating off the great diamond on one hand.

Mary's blood rang in her ears like a fanfare of trumpets as Vaughn strode up to the stage, a sword at his hip and retribution in his gaze. He grinned, a daredevil expression that issued as clear a challenge as the traditional glove.

In one well-practiced motion, Vaughn drew his sword, the steel sliding smoothly out of its scabbard to glitter with deadly luster in the glare of the footlights.

"Good evening, St. George. Or shall we say…en garde?"

"Damn you, Vaughn!" exclaimed St. George, rattled out of role. "You were supposed to be dead by now."

"No, no!" intervened Lady Euphemia, stomping onto the stage. "That's not your line. You were supposed to say — "

Elbowing Lady Euphemia out of the way, Vaughn sprung up onto the stage. "A common problem, it seems. A good corpse is so hard to find nowadays."

Bracing his spear in both hands, St. George sent it whipping through the air with the competence of a man who knew his way with a stick. "Not so hard as you might think, Vaughn. If one knows how to make them."

Vaughn regarded St. George's fancy spear-work with a jaundiced eye. "Haven't we had enough of theatricals? Drop that spear."

St. George brought his spear up in a defensive angle. "Never."

"Never say never," replied Vaughn suavely. His sword sliced through the air in a silver arc.

Unfortunately, the blade connected with the wooden end of the spear and stuck there, like an axe in a chopping block. The shock of it reverberated straight up Vaughn's sword arm. It didn't do his wounded shoulder any good, either. Favoring his left side, he stumbled back a step, cursing.

A broad grin of satisfaction illuminated St. George's face, lighting it to devilish handsomeness. "What was that you were saying, Vaughn?"

With some difficulty, Vaughn wrenched his blade free, taking a chunk of wood with it.

"I say, Vaughn," called out a loud voice from the audience. "Are you meant to be the dragon?"

"Can't be," replied the unmistakable tones of Percy Ponsonby. "Green, y'know. Dragons, I mean."

"Dragons," said Vaughn, his eyes locked on St. George as they circled one another on the stage, "come in many different colors. Eh, St. George? Or should I say…Jamie?"

"You can call me…Your Majesty." St. George jabbed with the spear.

Vaughn leapt lithely out of the way, opening a long rent down St. George's sleeve with a quick side slash.

"I don't think so," Vaughn retorted, his silver eyes glistening dangerously. "Not for the by-blow of a second-rate pretender."

"No, no, no!" protested Lady Euphemia, waving her arms about in the prompting pit. "The Pretender doesn't come on until the second act when we do the reenactment of Culloden."

"By-blow?" demanded St. George. "I advise you to watch your words, Vaughn."

"I don't see why," Vaughn drawled, feinting at St. George's shoulder. "A bastard is a bastard by any other name."

A shocked murmur ran through the audience, who were paying far more attention than they had to any of Lady Euphemia's carefully planned verse. Most seemed to be laboring under the delusion that the production had taken a shift for the better, and were loudly applauding every insult, with speculation on how it was meant to turn out.

"Five pounds on the dragon winning!" someone called out, setting off a flurry of competing wagers.

At the back of the room, Mary caught sight of her brother-in-law, following Vaughn's path to the stage with a look of grim determination on his face.

Sliding off the stage, Mary grabbed her former fiancé by the arm. "St. George has an infernal device behind the backdrop."

Geoffrey's brows drew together. "Explosives?"

Mary nodded. "Packed inside the King's statue. Can you get the audience out?"

"I'll deal with the audience if you clear the wings," said Letty promptly, squirming around her husband's side.

No further words were needed. Geoffrey made for the wings, hauling Lady Euphemia out of her pit with ruthless efficiency. Letty's methods were rather more conspicuous, but just as effective. Scrambling up onto a chair, Letty shouted over the din, "The Prince of Wales has refreshments on the lawn!"

The words "Prince of Wales" and "refreshments" worked their magic. Both the social-climbing and the hungry stampeded to the exit, wanting first crack at the heir to the throne and the lobster patties, respectively. There was much elbowing and shoving and poking with canes as London's elite displayed the savage spirit of their Saxon fore-bearers.

Leaving them to it, Mary hurried back towards the stage, where Vaughn and St. George exchanged blows and insults. She didn't like the way Vaughn's jacket seemed to be clinging wetly to his left shoulder. If the idiot would insist on fencing with a fresh bullet wound…St. George, on the other hand, was in prime fighting condition, his cheeks flushed with the exercise and a grin lifting the corners of his mouth. He was more broadly built than Vaughn, more heavily muscled. Vaughn was leaner and quicker — but for how long? The loss of blood was already taking its toll. He managed to jump over the sweep of St. George's spear, designed to trip him up, but there was a sluggishness to the movement, and he staggered as he landed on his feet again.

Taking advantage of his momentary imbalance, St. George raised the spear with deadly efficiency and dealt Vaughn a powerful whack on his wounded shoulder.

Going gray, Vaughn doubled over, his breath whistling sharply through his teeth. The point of his sword scraped the boards of the stage. Mary didn't think; she acted. She sprinted forwards, intent on throwing herself between them. If she couldn't stop St. George, at least she could slow him down.

"Sebastian!"

The hoarse cry hadn't come from Mary's throat, but that of another woman, fighting her way against the horde of departing guests. Breaking free from the throng, she struggled up onto the stage, using her elbows to lever herself up. Mary could hear the sharp screech of tearing fabric as a splintered edge of wood pulled at her dress. Her blond curls were disarrayed with her exertions; the porcelain prettiness of her complexion marred by red splotches on her cheeks, but Mary knew her instantly.