Chapter 3

3

O rin opened a side door of the Theatre Royal, surprised to find it unlocked after a late performance the previous night. Stage manager, Ross Castle, stood in the hall speaking with the darling of Edinburgh's audiences. Ella Claire smiled as he approached.

"Ah, Mr. Hume, you've sufficiently recovered from last night's play, I hope?"

"Given all I had to do was occupy a velvet-lined box, the question needs redirecting." He smiled down at her, struck by how petite she was. Beneath the lights her presence seemed larger than life. "Though I did enjoy the exertion of tossing flowers on stage after your performance."

She gave a little laugh. "Far better than orange rinds and rotten eggs." Pushing aside the fabric of her cape, she revealed one fading blossom pinned to her bodice. "Now I must bid both of you gentlemen adieu so I can retire and have my pre-performance rest."

She spun away with a last lingering look, leaving Orin to wonder just where in Auld Reekie she lived. Not too far from the theater, he guessed.

He turned back to a yawning Castle. "So comedies of manners are finally alive and well in Edinburgh."

Castle's chuckle was gleeful as he quoted a well-known verse. " In every distant clime Great Britain knows, The Thistle springs promiscuous with the Rose, While in all points with other lands she vied, The stage alone to Scotland was denied. "

"Scotland is decades behind England's thespians. But in truth I've not ever been so entertained by London's theater as I was here last night. It makes me reconsider my return there."

"Miss Claire is a consummate professional, you mean."

"Aye, but there's a genius of a playwright at its core."

Castle pushed open the door of his office. "'Tis best discussed over a dram."

The shadowed interior bore heavily draped windows and an unlit chandelier. Playbills and handbills, even banknotes, littered a desk. Castle motioned toward a sofa and chairs framing a fireplace. A gilded painting of Shakespeare himself presided over the mantel.

"All I can say is that we performed Parsons and Petticoats thirty-two nights to a packed house who's grown tired of the old Bard, at least for the time being."

"Mayhap after the long winter we've had a little levity is called for." Orin hadn't laughed so hard in months, mayhap years. Therapeutic, that. "Who is this mysterious playwright?"

Castle handed him the whisky. "You've been following Tatler ."

"It is the leading literary journal—and the most reliable." Orin sat, booted feet to the fire. "There's something oddly familiar about the work. A recognizable rhythm to the words. The wit."

He felt a flicker of nostalgia that swept him back to the lad he'd once been—and a lass who never seemed to escape his thoughts. Might the playwright be … Maryn? The performance had the unmistakable ring of her about it. Utter nonsense. Common sense shot down the wistful notion. Would he never forget her?

Castle shrugged. "Few shun such acclaim, though this thespian wishes to remain anonymous and works through a contact here in Edinburgh."

"Intriguing, even admirable," Orin murmured as the burn of whisky cleared his throat.

"Some might choose to remain hidden given the slightly scandalous name of the play. Parsons and Petticoats alone is enough to keep many at bay."

Orin shrugged. "But the production is remarkably chaste. Nary a tawdry line or innuendo, just pure mirth. That's part of its genius."

Castle's gaze was shrewd. "You'd like to make the playwright's acquaintance, I'd wager."

"I'd like to extend my admiration, my thanks for an evening well spent."

"If I learn more I'll send word." Castle set down his empty glass. "What I can tell you is another play is promised from this anonymous thespian, this time a farce."

"A farce in the spirit of George Farquhar or Susanna Centlivre?"

"Not if the literary critics have anything to do with it. Alexander Pope, especially."

Orin held back an expletive. "Pope is a vicious critic of all but his own work."

Castle chuckled wryly. "They're all hostile to newcomers who steal their thunder."

"In this case they have reason to be."

Pondering it, Orin took note of the time. Bidding Castle farewell, he left the theater to focus on his real reason for tarrying in Edinburgh. Relying on a sedan chair, he hied to the east end of the Luckenbooths and the sign of Mercury with winged heels that marked Allen Ramsay's popular bookshop. A bibliophile's paradise, Ramsay loaned books to patrons in a circulating library that Orin wanted to emulate. Here the leading literary lights and wits of the city gathered and he felt at home.

Stepping into the large shop that smelled of leather and paper, coffee and ink, Orin nearly sighed with pleasure. His vision for the future had shifted and sharpened as Ramsay encouraged him to further enlighten the Lowlands, the largely illiterate place of his birth.

But what would that entail? And could sharing his passion for literature be done?

The next morning, Orin took the Great North Road from Edinburgh to the Lowlands. With highwaymen thick as fleas for hundreds of miles, he was glad Lord Lovell rode alongside him. Tall and spare, Lovell, an Englishman, also bore a dirk and pistols beneath his cape. The lengthy journey to Wedderburn Castle gave them both ample time to consider the coming social season.

Friends since their university days in Edinburgh, Lovell had met and formed a tentative attachment to Orin's niece, Lady Charis Hume. But circumstances and distance had wedged themselves between them and they'd lost touch. When he'd learned she was to have a social season, he decided to join Orin at her debut. A surprise if you will.

"I only hope she remembers me fondly," Lovell mused. "I recall our last meeting like yesterday. She performed during a musical evening, and I accompanied her on the violin. Does she still play the harp?"

"I can't say. It's been some time since I've been home."

"I confess my trepidation at seeing her again is only rivaled by my meeting her father, Lord Wedderburn."

Orin checked a knowing smile. "My eldest brother is somewhat intimidating."

"Everard Hume is certainly that. He and the countess have five sons if I remember rightly. I've nearly lost count of your expanding family as they rival a large herd of Lowland sheep."

With a chuckle, Orin didn't refute him. "None of the sons are home at present which makes it somewhat easier for you and is probably why the task of squiring Charis for the season falls to me."

"Best name them anyway lest I commit some unforgettable error."

"Starting from oldest to youngest, there's Alexander, the laird's heir, currently in the American colonies on business. Then there's Alisdair and Marcel and Leander, together on the continent enjoying a Grand Tour. The youngest, Roland, is in Glasgow at university."

"Will the laird object to an Englishman courting his only daughter?"

"Not when he wed a Northumberland lass years ago. Nor," Orin replied tongue-in-cheek, "will he hold it against you that you're heir to a duchy. Besides, courting is not matrimony."

"I suppose Lady Charis has a bevy of suitors." Lovell looked perplexed. "How much society do you think I'll have to endure to pursue her?"

Endure was the right word, at least where London was concerned. "Scottish society is a bit more lax. None of that foolish Court protocol where we're headed."

"Since I'm a sassenach as Highlanders say, I'm at a decided disadvantage. Suppose she'd rather have a Scot?"

Would she? Personally, Orin had never considered marrying anyone outside Scotland's borders himself though that romantic deed was far from done. "She used to ask about you in her letters, though to be honest she didn't mention you last time."

"I've lost my edge then." Lovell sent Orin a sharp look. "Enough about me. Why has no English lass turned your head? You've been in London for years, ever since the—"

The unfinished sentence held the lash of a whip. "Ever since the accident, aye." Orin gestured to a galleried coaching inn at a crossroads. He'd rather talk of anything but the accident. "Let's stop here. The Red Lion is newer and less vermin-ridden than the rest."

Halfway to Wedderburn Castle.

Orin had an odd, swelling suspicion this homecoming might be of far more significance to himself than Lord Lovell.