Rafe was stunned. He looked immediately at Gabe, only to see that his brother looked as poleaxed as he felt.
"Didn't Brinkley tell you that Miss Hawes feels she would be more comfortable taking her meals below stairs?" Miss Pythian-Adams asked Gabriel.
"Of course," Gabe said, and closed his mouth like a trap. "I shall make certain that Miss Hawes is entirely comfortable."
"I'll come with you," Miss Pythian-Adams said, leaping from her chair. "I am most anxious to meet my Mrs. Loveit."
"Miss Hawes can be found in the theater," Brinkley announced.
"In that case I shall come as well," Griselda announced, adjusting her shawl. "I will admit to being quite curious about our guest."
Rafe raised an eyebrow. Apparently the entire household was desperate to meet the young actress who had so aroused Gabriel's sympathy. Of course, now he thought of it, he would quite like to meet Mary's mother as well.
He stood and saw that Imogen was finally looking at him, an eyebrow raised. Without thinking about it, he grinned at her. Her eyes were laughing, and she obviously agreed with him that the rush to the theater was ridiculous.
For her part, Imogen was in a state of what felt very like pure joy. She'd been there from the moment she woke up and stretched, feeling a delicious warmth all down her limbs. Life was… life was good.
It wasn't a thought she had entertained for years. Not, she thought, since the moment she saw Draven Maitland. Because the moment she saw his sweet, petulant face, and his sleek, yellow hair, she'd fallen into a muddled pit of longing and desire that had hardly been satisfied by marrying him. In truth, not satisfied at all.
She liked to tell herself that it might have been, had they years together. But she was beginning to wonder about that optimistic idea.
She'd woken this morning without feeling sharp longing for Draven, and without the anguish that replaced it when they married, and without the grief that replaced the anguish when he died.
In fact, she felt like laughing. All the time.
"Your mother loved theatrical productions, didn't she?" she asked Rafe, smiling up at him.
"I believe that 'obsessed' would not be too strong a word," he said reflectively. "She created the theater, of course. There used to be a supper room off the ballroom"—they were walking through that gracious, cavernous space now—"but she enlarged it into a theater shortly after marrying my father. Unfortunately, he showed no theatrical talent whatsoever, and less interest as the years passed."
The double doors at the end of the ballroom stood open. Imogen paused for a moment on the threshold. "It is beautiful," she said, awed.
"She had it fashioned after the theater at Blenheim," Rafe explained. The walls were entirely covered with vivid murals, bedecked with a frieze of laughing antique masks along the ceiling. The proscenium stage was faced by rows of chairs upholstered in a deep red stripe.
Just then a young girl with a face like an eager flame appeared from stage left. She ran toward them, calling an eager greeting. Then Miss Hawes—for surely it was Miss Hawes—dropped a very pretty curtsy to Griselda, who had just been introduced by Mr. Spenser. And now Miss Pythian-Adams and she were exchanging courtesies.
Rafe was staring at the actress intently. "She's no lady," he whispered to Imogen.
"No," Imogen replied. "She's so pretty." She was the prettiest girl Imogen had ever seen: from her shining curls, to her little triangular face, to her large eyes and trim figure. She seemed the essence of femininity, wearing pink the color of blush roses. It was a costume nicely calculated to be entrancing and yet not vulgar.
"Yes," Rafe said thoughtfully, "a fortunate attribute for an actress."
Miss Hawes was beaming at Miss Pythian-Adams and talking nine to a dozen about the part of Mrs. Loveit. She was apparently illustrating a point about the character she would play because suddenly she fell into a world-weary posture.
"Don't you think so?" she cried, dropping Mrs. Loveit as if it were a cloak she shrugged off.
Imogen blinked. It was the oddest thing she'd ever seen. One moment, Miss Hawes was a rather tiresome, petulant, desirous beauty who was on the verge of losing her delectable lover, and the next she stood before them as a fresh-faced young girl.
"Don't you agree?" she asked Miss Pythian-Adams, who seemed rather stunned by the energy that flowed from Miss Hawes.
"Of course," she said faintly. "You're absolutely right.
I'm afraid I have a small headache. Shall we resume this discussion when we begin rehearsal after luncheon?"
Miss Hawes beamed at her. "I am available whenever you would like me."
"Of course," Miss Pythian-Adams murmured.
"My mother," Rafe said to Imogen, "always stiffened up the amateurs with a good dose of professional actors. You can see why she did it. We will just fumble around and likely fall over ourselves, but Miss Hawes, young though she is, will straighten us out."
"Yes," Imogen said, "although I'm not certain that Miss Pythian-Adams likes being straightened out."
Then Gabe brought Miss Hawes over to them. Her curtsy was a beautifully calculated mixture of welcome and respectfulness.
Only Miss Pythian-Adams didn't seem to like Miss Hawes. Her tone was rather sharp as she ascertained that Miss Hawes knew her entire part. Her voice grew a little sharper when Miss Hawes said that, in fact, she knew the entire play and would be happy to act as a prompter, although—as she said—she had no doubt but what all the gentlemen and ladies knew their parts.
"Not I!" Griselda said cheerfully. "You'll have to help me, my dear." She had obviously realized that Miss Hawes was far from being akin to the kind of immoral actress who lured the Duke of Clarence into setting up an establishment and spawning near to a dozen illegitimate children.
Rafe drew Imogen away from a discussion of where the prompter might stand when she wasn't on the stage to show her the theatrical paintings that lined the walls. "My mother," he said, "was very fond of murals. In fact, she had the hunt of Diana painted in her bedchamber."
"Goodness," Imogen said, staring at a vivid rendering of Prince Hamlet on the battlements. At least she assumed it was Prince Hamlet because the man in question was clutching a shining skull and a dagger at once. "Is the painting still intact?"
"My father painted it over when she died," Rafe said cheerfully.
Imogen frowned. "Why?"
"The picture showed Acteon surprising Diana while bathing," Rafe said obligingly. "If you remember, Diana promptly turned Acteon into a stag, and his own hunting dogs brought him down."
"Your father—"
"Apparently felt that my mother was issuing a veiled warning."
"Your parents must have been interesting," Imogen said.
Since it was Imogen, he told her the truth. "My mother was in love with the theater, of course. But my father was, by all accounts, in love with Gabriel's mother."
She glanced up at him. "That must have been difficult for your mother."
"Hoibrook was always stiff and cold," he said, remembering it. "I do believe that he disliked her… and us as well. Although perhaps he tolerated my brother Peter better than me."