Free The Infamous Bride by Kelly McClymer Page B

Shakespearean tragedy, now, can you?"
    "I admire Mr. Shakespeare greatly," he admitted grudgingly.
    "Wonderful." She clapped her hands with delight, and he felt as if she had closed the bars on an invisible cage. "I have just the part for you, then."
    "Which of the tragic plays do you perform? Julius Caesar? King Lear? Hamlet? Surely not Othello?"
    She shook her head and laughed with a soft musical sound that nevertheless sounded ominous to him. "None of those; we have ladies to please." She hesitated with a theatricality that would have served the greatest actress upon the stage and then announced, "This year we will perform Romeo and Juliet."
    She smiled directly into his eyes as if expecting some reaction from him. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach. He had been prepared to find that she had concocted some foolish scheme, but not even his imagination had supplied this. Was she mocking him? Could she know about his misbegotten name? Impossible.
    Annabel would never let the truth past her lips; it embarrassed her almost as much as it did his father. Certainly Susannah, who found it an amusing fact and one to tease him about mercilessly, had not spent enough time in Miss Fenster's company to exchange such information.
    "Who will be Romeo, then?" He could see the eager attention from all at the table as a young woman at his right asked the question. He did not want to hear the answer but could think of no way to interrupt her without bringing attention to his own unease.
    "I had promised Lord Pendrake last year that he might do the honor of the leading role." She seemed not to notice the hush that followed her pronouncement. But he felt strongly that she knew the line she trod so finely.
    He saw her plan clearly; he could not doubt that others who knew her better saw it as well. He could not help goading her. "A promise is a promise. However, he might not insist upon the point now that he is to be married."
    "I do not know. I shall have to ask him." Again, the collective breath was held, and the glances flew down the table, where Pendrake was mercifully oblivious of his fate.
    "I'm certain he would be honored," he said, enjoying the surprise that widened her eyes for a moment. Until he added, "Only if Elizabeth might be Juliet, I suspect." How far would she dare go?
    "Elizabeth does not like our amusements. She prefers the hunt, with the gentlemen," Juliet said brightly, though he fancied he saw a flash of pique in the hazel depths of her eyes.
    He could not tell for certain, because she swept her lashes down and quickly hid any signs of irritation. To his relief, she showed no indication that she had chosen the play because she knew his secret and wished to torment and humiliate him. As long as he spoke to Susannah and warned her to say nothing of it to anyone, he should be safe enough.
    Feeling on safer ground, he baited Juliet again with a careless shrug and a sip of the duke's excellent wine. "Then I suspect Lord Pendrake will choose the hunt as well."
    To his satisfaction, her lips pinched together just slightly. He wondered if she knew that made them eminently kissable and then chided himself for the careless thought.
    He glanced at the men around him, young and old. They could not take their eyes from her face. No doubt she was well aware of every effect her movements had on men and used her beauty to utmost advantage. He hoped she would drop the matter now. Then Pendrake would be safe from her designs for yet another evening.
    Perhaps not, he realized, when she smiled and said, "True. No doubt I shall have to endeavor to find a smaller part for the pair of them — one they can manage even if they do spend a great deal of time at the hunt."
    The young lady who had started the conversation joined in again. "Who else might perform well?"
    A young man to her right suggested, "Shapleigh has a thespian bent."
    Another added enthusiastically, "He made a marvelous Macbeth, didn't he."
    "Certainly he did." He could see in