The Captain and the Theatrical Read online

  This would be Ambrose’s lot. A valley of soot and grime, and a pinch-faced wife who spent her days wiping coal dust from her expensive ornaments.

  That world of opulence and theatricality that he had experienced with Orsini was lost to Ambrose forever, like a man given a glimpse of heaven only to be thrown into purgatory. How soft that silk banyan had been against his hands when he had woken, how gentle his friend’s sleeping breaths.

  But Ambrose Pendleton was the base sort of fellow who kisses a gentleman’s brow, embraces him all night and vanishes before breakfast.

  What a dishonorable fellow I am.

  The coach turned in at the gates of Pendleton Hall and rattled along the ruler-straight drive. Ambrose flipped open the window and leaned out to see the house up ahead, a vast Palladian effort which had tried to bring a dash of Italy to Derbyshire.

  But not the dash of Italy that Ambrose longed to see again.

  There, standing atop the steps beneath a monumental portico, framed by pillars that would not have been out of place in Ancient Greece, was his father.

  Barnaby Pendleton would certainly have been out of place in Ancient Greece, no matter how many temples to Diana he commissioned to stud the grounds of his home. As small and round as his son was tall and athletic, he stood with his hands on his hips, master of all he surveyed, master of Pendleton Hall, the self-made king inspecting his realm. Coal had built this house. Coal and hard graft and knowing how to cut a deal before you could even read, let alone sign your own name.

  ‘There’ll never be another me,’ he never tired of telling his family, his plump cheeks red with satisfaction and port. ‘You’ll not see my like again.’

  “Here’s a welcome sight at last!” Mr. Pendleton descended the steps on his small feet, as undersized as everything else about him was oversize, a little toad balancing on dainty toes. “The lad come home to roost!”

  As Ambrose climbed down from the carriage, the family crest on the carriage door glittered in the sunlight. The gold shield crossed with a pickax had cost Mr. Pendleton a pretty penny from the College of Arms, but he was a man with plenty of money to spare.

  Mr. Pendleton seized his son’s finger in his bear’s paw of a hand and slapped his palm down against Ambrose’s shoulder. “Was it a worthwhile trip?”

  Ambrose winced as his father energetically pumped his arm up and down. “Met an old friend, saw my tailor, called in on my brother, slept uncomfortably in a coaching inn.” What more could be said? Slept in a harlot’s bed curled around a beautiful Italian theatrical, who I will never see again? “How goes life at the Hall?”

  “The family Tarbottom are in residence and Miss Harriet has spoken of nothing but when you might return. She’ll make a bonny bride, fortune favor you, young Captain Pendleton!” He squeezed Ambrose’s shoulder and grinned. “You and I have the business of men to discuss.”

  Ambrose clenched his jaw. Couldn’t he come home and collapse onto his bed and not be expected to see a solitary living soul for at least ten minutes? His teeth were still jangling in his head from being jolted about in the carriage. The business of men, indeed—the business of Mammon, more like.

  “Best get on, then.” Ambrose bit off the words, not even trying to sound enthusiastic. He strode up the steps to the front door, his father hopping up each one in Ambrose’s wake.

  “Mr. Tarbottom has much to tell you of his mining interests in America, and it seems his daughter carries with her quite the dowry if her betrothed is a man of wisdom and business sense,” he said. “The lucky fellow will have the management of five establishments and a good many thousands of men. Coal and cash, Captain, coal and cash!”

  Ambrose paused on the step. A small seed of hope stirred inside him, even without Orsini’s plan. “Five, eh? Brave man fixing on me, when I have nary the vaguest idea of how one mine works, let alone five of the dashed things!”

  “Ah, but the husband-to-be will be guided by Mr. Tarbottom in all things, learning his business, but he hopes for a young man with mining in his blood. Cut us Pendletons in half and we bleed coal dust,” Mr. Pendleton told his son with a hint of smugness. “This time next year, Captain Ambrose Pendleton, hero of Waterloo, might be a byword for mining endeavor in America. What say you to that, son?”

  An image of Orsini fluttered before Ambrose, a will-o’-the-wisp that shivered in a heat haze then was gone.

  “I say I’d be bally well surprised, Father!”

  Ambrose grimaced under the heat of his father’s answering glare. Perhaps he shouldn’t behave like a petulant child.

  “You won’t need more than ten minutes to refresh yourself, then along to the east drawing room.” Mr. Pendleton said the words proudly, for the east wing of the house had been years in the creation and was now complete, transforming Pendleton Hall from a mere mansion to a magnificent mansion. “You’ll find the Tarbottoms there taking tea with your mother. Young Harriet awaits the company of her gentleman. She’s a fine sort of filly!”

  Ambrose swallowed every sour remark that was rising up his throat. He couldn’t avoid his duty. But by Jove, it pained him beyond all reckoning. He nodded to his father and trudged off into the house.

  * * * *

  Ambrose paused just outside the drawing room’s doorway. His parents were holding court from armchairs elaborate enough to be thrones. Sitting opposite them, ranged along the width of an overstuffed, silk-upholstered sofa, were the three Tarbottoms.

  Mr. Tarbottom was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a scattering of gray in his dark hair and a piercing stare that reminded Ambrose of a hawk. Mrs. Tarbottom was a poised, confident woman, well aware of her abundant personal charms, whose full lips were frequently home to a lazy smile. And Miss Tarbottom sat between them, smiling sweetly at Ambrose’s mother with the wide blue eyes of a china doll.

  Most men, Ambrose supposed, would look upon Miss Tarbottom and think her pretty. They would look upon Mrs. Tarbottom and be glad that in twenty years’ time, if the daughter followed suit, they would still have an attractive wife on their arm.

  But Ambrose did not have the taste of most men, and Harriet Tarbottom could never please him because she failed on one vital point.

  She was not a man.

  “And fine tea it is too,” came Tarbottom’s answering drawl. How Ambrose had come to resent that drawl and the tall, saturnine figure to whom it belonged. He resented his mirthless smile and his wealthy mines and his daughter, whom Mr. Pendleton intended to call family before the year was out. “Thank you, Mrs. Pendleton, for your hospitality. You have made our little family happy indeed.”

  “Don’t mention it, we’re glad to— Oh, my word, it’s my boy!” Mrs. Pendleton shot out of her chair to embrace her son. “Amby, my darling, back home safe and well. I tell you, last night, I had the most terrible dream—anyway, pour yourself some tea and—”

  She grabbed his lapel and told him, in the least subtle whisper she could manage, “Say hello to the Tarbottoms!”

  Ambrose bowed neatly to them. “Good afternoon, all.”

  Harriet giggled prettily and Ambrose pretended he hadn’t noticed. He turned his attention to the tea table. “I see we have seed-cake, Mama—how splendid.”

  Tarbottom left his stead and moved to stand beside the ornate fireplace as though this was his house, and he was not about to allow Ambrose to ignore him. He advanced on the younger man in a few long strides and extended his arm, seizing Ambrose’s hand whether he wished it or not and pumping it a little too forcefully.

  “Good day, Captain Pendleton. We have just been discussing you!”

  With effort, Ambrose quirked one eyebrow in response. “Have you indeed?” How very tedious.

  “We have been talking of life in Pennsylvania. Of business and entertainments.” He met his wife’s gaze and inclined his head respectfully. “Of worship and good works too. Mrs. Tarbottom devotes her days to her philanthropic works and when Miss Tarbottom is married, good works and raising a fine family will be her vocat
ion too.”

  Mrs. Pendleton nodded with good humor and gestured to the guests as if encouraging her son to offer an impressed response.

  How dreary.

  With one eye on the cake, Ambrose asked, “And what does one do for fun in Pennsylvania?”

  “Fun?” Mrs. Tarbottom gasped.

  “We gentlemen have our clubs just as you do here, and there’s plenty besides,” was Mr. Tarbottom’s reply. “Our city is vibrant, Captain, and would offer any entertainment that you—forgive me—would give the suitable candidate for Miss Tarbottom’s hand more than enough with which to fill his days. Most of all, though, it will give him business!”

  “Business!” Mr. Pendleton echoed.

  Ambrose quipped, “And we all know how fond my father is of that!”

  Mrs. Pendleton laughed, but stopped suddenly as if she wasn’t supposed to find her son’s remark so amusing. Mr. Pendleton nodded keenly though, then instructed, “Tell our guests a Waterloo story, son. Something heroic with our cake.”

  Ambrose picked up the cake knife but as the light glinted from the blade, he heard the thunderous roar of cannon once more. His hand trembling, he returned the knife to the table. Though the battle had been two years before, sometimes it was all too present to him.

  “Gave the French what for! Rode like the wind over that battlefield—chased them halfway back to Paris!” Ambrose nodded toward their guests. That’s what they wanted to hear, wasn’t it, not the story about the soldier who had kicked an advancing cannon ball and had his foot torn off, or the weeping camp follower who had bandaged her injured husband in the churned earth.

  “Is it true you took tea with Wellington on the eve of battle?” Mr. Tarbottom asked. “The captain is destined for great things, Harriet, great things indeed.”

  Ambrose glanced at Mr. Tarbottom in surprise, but turned his head at a discreet cough from his mother. She gave him an encouraging smile.

  “Yes, it’s quite true, we did indeed take tea,” Ambrose replied. It wasn’t true at all, but he was loath to catch his mother out in a lie.

  “How fabulous, to meet a man like him,” Mrs. Tarbottom purred. She patted her daughter’s arm. “My Harriet dotes on heroes—she followed the exploits of your Wellington in the newspapers. Of course, we always got the news some months late, but you were agog, my dear—were you not?”

  “Oh, yes, Mama, indeed. And to know you took tea with him!” Harriet clasped her hands in a girlish fashion and fixed a beaming grin on Ambrose. He responded with a nod and picked up the cake knife again.

  “How handsome your son is in his portrait,” Mr. Tarbottom observed with all the sincerity of a shark. “A hero above all, and soon to be an industrial titan in the footsteps of his father and elder brother!”

  The portrait, in pride of place above the mantelpiece, had been commissioned when Ambrose had entered the Army. His parents proudly showed it to everyone who came into the house, a straight-backed vision of bravery decked out in a red tunic with gold buttons.

  “A Wellington indeed!” Tarbottom declared, earning an obsequious laugh from Mr. Pendleton.

  “A true hero needs a true beauty on his arm, does he not?” Mr. Pendleton asked, clearly seizing the opportunity to be matchmaker. In reply both of the Tarbottoms nodded their enthusiastic response as Harriet continued to grin. “And a true profession, for one cannot be a retired captain forever, when one is so young as Ambrose here!”

  “Why did you leave your commission?” Mr. Tarbottom inquired. “Though I can hardly say that I blame you. A good many men I know would clamor to do business with a genuine hero, it makes good sense!”

  “I…” Ambrose plunged the knife into the cake. He pressed his lips together, stopping himself from saying, I just want to write plays. “I knew Father wished my brother and I to follow in his footsteps. The time had come for me to put soldiering aside—the Army was no longer for me.”

  “He still has his uniform, though.” Mrs. Pendleton’s voice was warm with pride. “He looks so handsome in it, my little Amby a great, brave man!”

  Mrs. Tarbottom and her daughter chuckled gaily at this, while the hero from Waterloo tried to maneuver his slice of cake onto a plate without spilling crumbs everywhere.

  “Anyone else for cake?” Ambrose asked. The slice that had seemed so inviting. The flavor of home and the fond memories it evoked, looked dry now, as if it would choke him the moment he put it on his tongue.

  “Why, we love a hero back home,” Tarbottom told the room in general with a bright grin, ignoring Ambrose’s question. “And how many men can say they saw off Bonaparte? Now, I know there’s a thorny briar between our two lands on the matter of the French, sir, but you’ll hear no talk of revolution from me. I’m just a simple man who had a simple dream and the hard work to make it come true.”

  “As am I, Mr. Tarbottom,” Mr. Pendleton told him approvingly, shifting into his oft-told fairy tale. “A pick and a meadow and a nose for coal can carry a man from one room and an empty belly to the house you stand in now!”

  “Let me tell you about my newest acquisition—” Mr. Tarbottom was silenced by the opening of the door to admit the porter, usually so unflappable yet apparently a little flustered today. He carried a visiting card upon a small tray but, as he passed it to the beaming industrialist, murmured something that left Mr. Pendleton’s grin looking somewhat less sure than it had.

  “Pardon me,” Mr. Pendleton told the assembled group. “I am required elsewhere for a moment or so.”

  Mrs. Pendleton stared after him. Perhaps worried that their guests might find her husband’s sudden disappearance somewhat rude, she clutched her hands together and smiled at the Americans.

  “Amby—would you tell us what you got up to in London? What one can get up to there out of season!” Mrs. Pendleton chuckled. “You’ve been to London, Mr. Tarbottom, Mrs. Tarbottom, have you not?”

  “Only when personally invited by the prime minister.” Tarbottom laughed as he settled into a chair, his long legs crossed at the knee like an insect’s. It was clearly intended to be self-deprecating even as it set out this man’s stall clearly. Influence, money, power, all the things that Barnaby Pendleton held dear, and all the things that Theodore Tarbottom could provide. “Why, as I said to Mrs. Tarbottom, first the president and now the prime minister, perhaps this is the good Lord’s way of suggesting that my little business isn’t so little at all!”

  Ambrose wandered off to the window and stared outside, his back to the room as he nudged the unappetizing slice of cake about the plate. He knew exactly what his father would say if he told him he had no wish to go to America. ‘Don’t you care about your family? Have you no thought for the sacrifices I made, nor the sweat of my brow?’

  “So you’ve met some important people, Mr. Tarbottom! I cannot say that I have, apart from…” Mrs. Pendleton fell silent. The sound of approaching feet and the swish of silks signaled the arrival of more visitors. “I wonder who this could be? We’re not expecting anyone.”

  “We do have other guests at the present moment.” Mr. Pendleton could be heard, his cheer getting more forced the closer it came to the drawing room. Whoever had arrived, Ambrose could already hear that they had thrown Pendleton senior into a confusion. “Not that you are not welcome, of course! Your note did not reach us, I’m afraid—”

  Ambrose put aside his plate and readied himself to bow. He glanced at the Tarbottoms, wondering what they would make of the arrival of more guests, wondering himself who on earth they could be.

  Blushing, Mrs. Pendleton rose from the sofa and caught her son’s glance. Her surprise was palpable. The Tarbottoms rose too, exchanging a rather quick and unreadable look in the moment that their own gazes met.

  “Madame, please—” Mr. Pendleton gave a shriek and ducked to avoid the bright blue parrot that passed over his head in full flight. Pagolo was no longer slumbering on his perch in London, it seemed, but here in Derbyshire, large as life.

  He swept over Mr. Pe
ndleton’s head and made a lap of the room before settling on the mantelpiece and squawking, “Ciao!”

  “That was…unexpected.” Mrs. Pendleton smiled awkwardly at the Tarbottoms.

  Ambrose stared at Pagolo, who stared back at him as he bobbed his head up and down like a boxer preparing for a bout.

  “Madame!” Cosima exclaimed from the hallway then there she was, making straight for Mrs. Pendleton. That beautiful creature whom Ambrose had seen onstage at the Pleasure Gardens, who had transformed into the exquisite Orsini in the blink of an eye. The young woman, artful, innocent, beautiful, who had sprung out of Ambrose’s imagination during that marvelous Italian summer.

  Tall, beautiful, intensely and perfectly feminine, Amadeo Orsini’s always rather pretty face was transformed once again by the magic of powder and rouge into a creature of gentle, unaffected beauty. He—she—looked like a woman, there was no denying it. There were even bosoms beneath the demure pale blue gown she wore, a delicately embroidered shawl draped just so over Orsini’s shoulders. The glossy hair that had brushed Ambrose’s face as he slumbered was hidden beneath an intricate turban, just a few auburn ringlets peeping from beneath, while a vast ostrich feather towered over her head, bobbing with each step she took toward the parrot.

  “Signora Pendleton.” Cosima—no, Orsini—passed the bird and extended one gloved hand as he did, allowing it to hop onto his fingers. Only then did he glance around the room, his gaze meeting Ambrose’s for a moment before it moved on. Orsini fell to his knees before Mrs. Pendleton and took her hand, kissing it. “Mamma.”

  Everyone in the room had been stunned into stillness by the arrival of Cosima and her parrot. Ambrose stammered helplessly.

  This wasn’t meant to happen.

  Orsini must not have seen the note. The plan was still going ahead, it seemed. It was madness, utter madness—Ambrose’s father would put his foot to his rump and send him flying out of the front door, without a farthing.