"Oliver Goldsmith wrote it," Stanley said. "I wonder you have not heard of it, Martin."
"I don't get to town often," Martin replied. "The last thing I saw performed was The Beggar's Opera. And glad I am that Aunt Jemima did not choose that one."
"Yes, I have it all organized now," the duchess said, raising her head and commanding silence with one glance. "Claude," she looked at her sister's second son, "you always took charge of the Christmas theatrics years ago. I am putting you in charge of directing this play. All the rest of you must accept his authority without question." She stared around the group, daring anyone to contradict.
Claude clasped his hands across a somewhat rotund middle and blew a mock sigh of relief. "Well, Aunt Jemima," he said, "I cannot pretend to be wholly thrilled, but at least I can now relax and not be afraid that I will be called upon to act."
The duchess held up her hand for silence. "Let us not waste time," she said. "The sooner you all know the parts you are to play, the sooner you can get busy on learning your lines. And remember that you do not have a great deal of time in which to do so. Now. There are two pairs of lovers in the play, and several character parts, which may not be as large, but which require a deal of good acting. First of all, to set your mind at rest, Freddie, dear boy, I do indeed have a part for you. There are not many lines involved, but you are required to laugh in a few places and to behave in a very confused manner throughout. The character's name is Diggory."
"Diggory," Freddie said. "I'll do it, Grandmamma. Learn my lines night and day. I can laugh, y' know."
"Yes, I do know, dear boy," she said. "The main pair of lovers are Kate Hardcastle and Charles Marlow, who falls in love with her thinking she is the maid of the house when she is really the daughter. A highly unlikely plot, of course, but it is meant to be a comedy. I want Anne to be Kate and Alex to be Marlow."
"No," Merrick said, rising to his feet and then sitting again when he realized that there was nowhere to go. "I know the play, Grandmamma, and Marlow's is a big part. You know I am far too lazy to learn the half of it."
"Balderdash," she said, raising her lorgnette to her eye and surveying him through it.
"Grandmamma," Anne said timidly from her place on a sofa between the duchess's two young grand-nieces, Prudence and Constance Raine, "I have never acted in my life or seen a play, in fact. I beg that you will give the part to someone else and let me observe for this occasion. Perhaps some other time."
"If you are to be a member of this family, my dear," the duchess said kindly but firmly, "you must learn to act. We all do, you know. And there is no time like the present."
Anne sat very still, completely caught up in her own dismay. She heard none of the other announcements or the comments and protests of the other would-be actors. It was not enough, it seemed, that she had mastered her own terrible shyness and come to this house party, where she would meet all her husband's family. And she had been so proud of herself. She had not cringed from any of the introductions and had made an effort to converse with all of them with whom she had come into close contact. But now she was being called upon to act in a play, and the major role, at that. And they were to perform the play before a crowd of the duke's neighbors and several friends who were coming out from London for the anniversary ball. The very thought made her feel faint.
The worst of it was, though, that she would have to act with Alexander. Their characters were lovers, the duchess had said. That would mean that they would be together a great deal on stage and be forced to speak words of love. Perhaps they would even have to touch. Perhaps kiss? Anne did not know what was permitted to happen during a play. She had never seen one. The only time a traveling company of actors had come within visiting distance of their home, Bruce had refused to allow her to go. To him, acting was a creation of the devil.
She could not do it. She really could not, even to please the duchess. How could she look at Alexander and speak words of love to him when she knew that he hated her so much? He had promised her the day before that he would think of a suitable way of punishing her for disobeying his command to stay away. She did not know if he had yet punished her enough. She really did not know if the night before had been the punishment or not.
He had come to her room when she was still brushing her hair before her mirror, clad in her usual linen nightgown, trimmed at neck and wrists with lace. He had not knocked, and she had gaped at his reflection in the mirror, the brush stilled against her hair.
"Alexander," she had said foolishly, "what do you want?"
He had raised his eyebrows and gazed back at her reflection, his expression cynical. "I wonder you ask," he had replied. "You came here of your own free will, madam. I assume that you came here to perform again your wifely duties."
"No," she had said, putting down the brush with a clatter onto the dresser and spinning around to face him, "no, Alexander, please don't. Please."
His cynical look had deepened. "1 am devastated, madam," he had said. "Am I to believe that my person is not desirable enough to you? I do not remember any words in the marriage service that said you owed me obedience only as long as you found me attractive."
She had shaken her head and pressed against the hard edge of the dresser. How could she explain to him that her reluctance had nothing to with her feelings for him or her attraction to him. She could not bear to be taken out of contempt and even hatred. That had happened to her once before, and the experience had scarred her for a lifetime, she felt. Certainly she had never quite recovered from the feeling of degradation that had followed upon that night of ecstasy. Not again. Please, not again.
His ringers had threaded their way through her hair until her head was his prisoner. "No," she had said, tears springing to her eyes. "Please, Alexander. Please. Oh, please."
The trouble was, she admitted to herself now, that those pleadings had taken on a double meaning. He had kissed her throat as his hand opened her nightgown down the front, and she had become lost in her own desire for the man she had loved almost from the moment when she had first set eyes on him. Passion had flared in her with shockingly little resistance, and finally she had urged him on, pleading against his hair, against his cheek, and against his mouth.
It had not been a shared experience. She had abandoned herself to the passion that his expertise aroused with such ease. She had clung to him, opened to him, arched herself to his invasion, cried out to him, and shuddered against him at the end of it all. And then she had slept deeply with her cheek against his damp shoulder. But she had not known what had motivated him. He had not been tender, she knew that, but then neither had she. Their lovemaking had been too charged with emotion to allow for that. He had said nothing, not looked into her eyes once while he took her or afterward, and had not held her or touched her when it was over. But neither had he moved away from her touch when she had laid her cheek against his shoulder. And he had slept beside her all through the night, rising and leaving her room only when she awoke and moved her head to look at him. He had looked back, unsmiling, got out of the bed, pulled on his nightshirt and dressing gown without any appearance of embarrassment, and left the room without a word or a backward glance.
"It still seems funny to me that Great-aunt Jemima has given me the part of Constance Neville," Prudence Raine was confiding to Anne, "when I have a sister Constance. It is going to be most confusing. But so exciting. I was secretly hoping that I would have one of the main parts, weren't you, Anne?"