Free Wicked Company by Ciji Ware Page B

quietly.
    “What a question!” Hunter replied, startled by her directness.
    “You didn’t answer. Is she?”
    Hunter stared silently out the shop window for a long moment and then looked at Sophie and sighed.
    “Sometimes I wish to St. Ninian she wasn’t… but yes, Jean Hunter Robertson spawned me and kept me alive in the face of everything,” he answered cryptically, his jaw clamped, as if to prevent himself from commenting further.
    Just at that moment, William Creech and James Boswell burst into the shop. Gesturing at Hunter, Boswell gave his companion a sly wink. “If he’s not at his lodgings, or in the feathers with Gwen, ’tis always a likely bet we’ll find this lad lounging around these dusty tomes, eh, Creech?”
    “Why, you insolent swine!” Hunter responded with mock indignation. “I was just telling Sophie my bit o’ good luck, getting a berth with Beatt’s players for the new season.”
    Sophie had flushed at the mention of the name of Hunter’s apparent new amour, but no one seemed to notice her chagrin.
    “We’re going to change your life… or at least help you along in your new profession,” Boswell proclaimed grandly. “The great god of elocution, Thomas Sheridan, has come to this fair city to offer lessons in the art of speaking the king’s English, my lad!” Boswell pronounced. “He’s being sponsored by the Select Society of Edinburgh to help us bumpkins purge Scottish colloquial speech from fashionable Edinburgh. You, Hunter, he will teach to speak English.”
    “’Tis a guinea a head for the series of lectures,” confided Creech excitedly to Sophie, “and we’ve enrolled the three of us.”
    “’Tis a chance to speak our native tongue without being the subject of ridicule in London!” Boswell declared.
    “Sheridan sounds like an Irish name,” Hunter replied doubtfully.
    “He’s Irish, all right, but that makes what he teaches all the more remarkable,” Boswell enthused.
    “Tell me truly, lads,” Hunter demanded, “who gives a newt’s nose if some London knave dinna like the roll of your R s?”
    “A theater manager gives a newt’s nose,” Sophie interjected sharply, her dismay concerning the unwelcome confirmation of Hunter’s liaison with some actress named Gwen translating into a caustic tone. “Remember Mr. Beatt? He claimed he could hardly understand half your participles and his mother was from Inverness!”
    “You three understand me well enough!” Hunter protested.
    “Ah… but we’re used to you!” she rejoined. “You may know every Scottish ditty ever invented, but when you speak, your accent is atrocious.”
    Hunter shot her an injured look and then asked quietly, “When do Sheridan’s classes begin?”
    “In a week’s time,” Boswell answered, “and they run through August.”
    “I’m told his style gives the great Garrick pause,” Creech chimed in, referring to David Garrick, the most famous actor-manager in all of Britain and the titan of the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, in London.
    Sophie noted the stubborn expression that had invaded Hunter’s features, and she sensed it had more to do with his being a Highlander than a Scot.
    “Come ye now, Hunter,” she coaxed, valiantly trying to regain her good humor by adopting the burr that made his speech unintelligible at times. “’Twould be excellent training for the stage. And you kin speak your barbaric tongue with me privately whenever you fancy,” she added, struck by the thought of how much she would enjoy attending such a series of lectures. To hear one of the finest actors and playwrights in the land expound on a subject that fascinated her—
    She sighed. The Select Society of Edinburgh was decidedly men only.
    “You’ll need lessons to speak my way, lassie,” Hunter chided her, “so I suppose ’tis sensible for this fledgling player to learn his craft so he can challenge this Sheridan, or perhaps even that fellow David Garrick for parts in London