Her husband turned to offer her his arm, quirking an eyebrow at her as he did so. “You’ve been here before—has your memory faded that quickly?”
“No,” Emily said, poking him in the side, “but I was only privy to the public areas of the theater that night—and Lord James did his best to hustle us to our box in record time. I only sawtwocouples engaged in illicit embraces before I was sequestered away, and I must confess it was a trifle disappointing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Julian muttered, but Emily was not finished yet.
“So I assumed the truly interesting things must happen behind the scenes,” she continued cheerfully. She peered around eagerly, half hoping that a door would open to reveal an opium den hosting an orgy in progress.
“I hate to dash all of your wild hopes,” Julian said dryly, “but you do understand that I’ve been making a rather concerted effort to make the Belfry into an upstanding establishment?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “But clearly it hasn’t beenthatsuccessful, ifyou still needed to marry me. So I remain hopeful that there will be scandal lurking around a dark corner.”
“Debutantes need to get out of the house more,” he said darkly, leading her down the hallway. “Clearly all that sheltered time in drawing rooms has a deleterious effect upon—er—”
“Moral fiber?” Emily suggested.
“Precisely,” Julian said firmly.
Emily was, in truth, only half listening to anything he said, so busy was she taking in everything about her surroundings. While the public-facing portions of the Belfry were luxuriously appointed with wall hangings and carpets in shades of scarlet and emerald, backstage was considerably less elaborate. The walls were bare, the floors a plain and heavily scarred wood, and there were exposed wooden beams visible overhead. The corridor, while narrow, was at least well lit, which Emily couldn’t help but think would be a comfort to any actresses or other female employees who might find themselves back here without any sort of escort.
Trying to take everything in, Emily was therefore several feet behind Julian when he rounded a corner and came to an abrupt halt. She barely avoided walking directly into the broad expanse of his back.
They were no longer in a narrow corridor, but in a cavernous chamber, with a ceiling that soared high above them, heavy wooden set pieces obscuring Emily’s view of the stage itself and the seats beyond it. She lifted her head and saw overhead a number of ropes suspended from the exposed wooden beams, many of which were fastened to sandbags. She looked down again, then peered around Julian’s shoulder, curious as to what had caught his attention.
Directly ahead, a young lady about her own age was standing in nothing but a chemise, her dark hair unbound and falling around hershoulders, a sheaf of papers in hand, arguing quite vociferously with the tall, auburn-haired gentleman standing a couple of feet before her. Even before Emily registered the words they were speaking, she noticed the tone—their voices tense and tight with anger—and she felt her shoulders stiffen in an innate response to arguing that she had learned over the long years of her childhood. But after a moment, she relaxed, belatedly realizing that the papers the actress was holding were a script, and that she and the actor—for that was who the man with her must surely be—were running lines.
“I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick,” the actress was saying scornfully, “when your concept of the heavenly sphere so clearly misses the mark?”
“What, my dear Lady Disdain!” the actor replied, a teasing note evident in each word he spoke. “Are you yet living? Perhaps I would wish otherwise, if only to prove your misconceptions to be false.”
“This is rubbish,” the actress said, her shoulders slumping. She was no longer reading her lines, but speaking as herself.
“That’s why I asked you to run lines with me again,” the actor said, sighing; his brow furrowed as he looked down at his script.
“Dragged me out here, you mean,” the actress said with a snort. “Half-dressed.”
“I wasn’t about to let you run home after that awful rehearsal,” he said in frustration. “We’ve only another few weeks before the show opens, and—”
“And I certainly hope you’ll manage to do better than that,” Julian interrupted coolly; Emily glanced up at him in surprise, never having heard him sound quite like that before.
The actor and actress both started.
“Belfry,” the actor greeted. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”
“Oh?” Julian asked, turning slightly so that Emily was visible behind him. He offered her his arm, then took a few steps toward his actors. “Having trouble?”
The sight of Emily seemed to render the others momentarily speechless; Emily resisted the temptation to reach up and pat at her hair, a habit that she’d mostly managed to shed since her debut Season. She glanced down at her dress, which she had agonized over that morning—she hadn’t wanted to seem too high in the instep, since she knew Julian did not like to pull rank at the Belfry, but she also didn’t want to seem shabby. After all, the image she hoped to present to the world was that of the privileged wife of a wealthy and powerful man, who wasn’t at all bothered by what he did for employment (or, indeed, the fact that he had any employment at all). She’d eventually settled on a high-necked gown with thin green and white stripes and lace at the collar, in no small part because her mother had once told her that vertical stripes made her look like a beanpole. Emily didn’t particularly care if she looked like a beanpole—she thought the gown was quite fetching, and now there was no one to prevent her from wearing it.
“Lady Julian,” the actress said, recovering quickest, and bobbing a quick curtsey. “Or so I presume?”
She shot an inquiring look at Julian that was considerably less deferential than the curtsey she’d just offered Emily.
“Apologies,” Julian said lazily. “Emily, this is Julia Congreave and Andrew June. They’re the leads inMuch Ado About Heaven. June, Miss Congreave—this is my wife, Lady Julian.”
“There’s no need for the curtsey,” Emily said, smiling at Miss Congreave, who was eyeing her with some curiosity. Emily supposed that Julian’s sudden marriage must have been a source of considerable gossip at the theater, and wondered what Miss Congreave’s impressionof her would be. Whatever it was, Emily had little doubt that it would soon spread like wildfire among the other actors and stagehands—based on the few anecdotes Julian had shared of his work, she had the impression that the theater world was as bad as thetonwhen it came to gossip.
“I apologize for interrupting your rehearsal,” she added, seeing that both Miss Congreave and Mr. June seemed somewhat taken aback by her presence. “I’m afraid I’ve been pestering my husband for a behind-the-scenes tour, and today was the day I finally wore him down.” She risked a sideways glance at Julian, who had pressed his lips together tightly, no doubt to suppress the urge to correct her not-entirely-accurate summary of recent events. “I understand this show is a… new sort of comedy?”
“Theoretically,” June muttered, more to himself than anyone else; Miss Congreave gave a rather dramatic sigh.
