Page 16 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
“Well, as much as I understand how you feel, Kit, we can’t have someone naming you the Monster of Mayfair, running about tearing people into pieces. Besides, we’ve only just had the most excellent wardrobe tailored for you. It would be a pity to wreck it with the blood of your enemies.”
“He’s right,” Warren added. “Now, the rending of bodies aside, I say we go after Walsh’s shipping company first. Lord Lennox has made comments to me that he is interested in owning a shipping company rather than simply hiring freelance ships. What if we bring him in on this scheme and see if he won’t help us? He might even buy the shipping company.”
“Walsh won’t sell.” Kit shook his head. “When I partnered with him, he was obsessed with his legacy, and that company is it. He wanted everyone to know that he would control London’s import trade.” Killing his enemies wasn’t an option. He’d lost seven years of his life to these men—he wouldn’t damn his soul in his pursuit of revenge. But it seemed taking the company away wasn’t an option either, which left him feeling hollow with frustration.
“So we destroy his legacy,” Felix suggested.
“How so?” Kit wasn’t sure what his friend meant to do.
Felix leaned forward, his voice dropping as if what he was about to say was a secret. “We could buy up all his debts and call them in one by one.”
“I rather like the symmetry of that,” Warren agreed. “You suffered for years. This would be far quicker, of course, but we would still cut him down piece by piece through his pocketbook until he has no choice but to sell. Lennox will pay a pittance for it.” They all shared dark smiles.
Kit nodded. “Walsh will become bankrupt and lose all of his business goodwill.” Kit began to feel hopeful once more. “And what do you suggest for Balfour?” he asked.
Felix sobered. “As a magistrate, he’s almost untouchable.”
“Almost,” Darius emphasized. “I imagine Balfour has sent more than one innocent man away for false crimes, as he did you. If we research his old cases, we might discover other innocent victims. If we find the proper evidence and proof that he was paid to have innocent people put away, we could have him stripped of his magistrate’s position and possibly imprisoned himself,” Darius said.
“What do you think of that, Kit?” asked Felix.
All Kit could think of in that moment were the lives Balfour had ruined simply to line his own pockets. Innocent people. People who weren’t as strong or stubborn as he was to survive. People who hadn’t deserved the beatings, the whippings, the illnesses that came with life in remote colonies. The fury returned to him, but this time he kept it under control. His friends’ warning hadn’t been forgotten. If he wasn’t careful, he might find himself back in Newgate Prison.
“I think it’s a good place to start.” He had to admit his friends’ plans made far more sense than his own. He was still too blinded by rage to think clearly about the most effective path to revenge, but that rage was slowly hardening into steel. Someday soon he would be able to wield it with cold effectiveness.
“I wish to meet Townsend’s daughter tonight,” Kit said with a heavy finality. She was the last piece to this plan. He had to discover what she’d known of her father’s false testimony. How complicit she had been, and if she’d lived on the ill-gotten gains born of Kit’s conviction.
* * *
Suzannah hung backin the wings offstage, watching the rehearsal and admiring her sets. She was proud of her paintings. They looked magnificent in the lamplight with the actors moving about in front. The creative tableau of the theater spoke to her whenever she watched a rehearsal or a performance. It meant even more to her when she could see her art behind the actors. The reviews of each play always mentioned the fine quality of the backgrounds, and she rode that wonderful wave of accomplishment for weeks.
Her father had told her long ago that she had a gift, but it was easy to forget that when the expense of living alone as a single woman became too much. She would have given almost anything to paint portraits, to tell the stories of people’s lives through her canvases and brushes. But no one would hire a woman for their portraits, and those who would hire her would never pay the same price they would a male artist. It seemed her fate was to paint sets at the theater and scrape by with her earnings as best she could.
The rehearsal ended, and the actors and actresses left the stage, passing by Suzannah.
“Excellent rehearsal,” she said to them in congratulations. Each of them beamed back at her, their faces shining with the joy of a job well done. There was nothing quite like the excitement of a good rehearsal where you knew everything was going to work, except for the wild rush of a perfect performance in front of an actual crowd.
“Ah, there you are.” Flory came up behind her. “Suzannah, there’s a gentleman asking after you.” The stage manager’s face was a ruddy color for some reason. He licked his lips nervously.
“A gentleman to seeme?”
“Yes, he says he wishes to pay his compliments to Suzannah Townsend. He said your performance was superb.”
“My performance? I’m not an actress.”
Perhaps one of the gentlemen who had paid to see the rehearsal tonight had mistaken her for an actress?
“He asked for you by name,” Flory added.
“What sort of man is he?” she asked, more than a little concerned. She imagined some gentleman who wanted to pinch her bottom and offer her a ride home in his carriage.
Flory cleared his throat. “He’s a good-looking one. Tall, dark-haired, not like the usual young bucks haunting the lobby in hopes of bedding an actress. He’s finely dressed too, but not a dandy. I’ve never seen such a finely cut coat on a man before.”
Despite never having taken a lover, Suzannah was not unaware of the practice of actresses becoming the mistresses of wealthy gentlemen. Some even married them.
“Perhaps he mistook my name on the program?” she wondered out loud, still confused as to where her name, usually near the set design on the playbills, could have caught this mysterious man’s attention.
“Well, he’s waiting for you a few rows back in the theater,” Flory told her.
