'I-I didn't creep, sir,' she replied. 'Lady Evangeline sent me back for her notes.' She reached quickly past him for the little book, then fled the room with it.
But Oliver was waiting for her in the hall. She hesitated in alarm, then tried to pass him, but he caught her arm. 'Stay now, coz, for we have things to clear between us,' he breathed, keeping a wary eye on the open door of the drawing room.
To her relief there came the sound of Greville's chair scraping as he got up. Oliver released her, and she hastened into the theater with the notebook.
Chapter 17
Everyone was now assembled for the phantasmagoric illusions. The theater was in shadow, and the only light permitted to escape the tent's thick material was through a small hole, from which a bright beam struck the stage curtain as if wishing to burn a hole in it.
Evangeline was secreted in the tent with so many lighted candles and lamps that her face was quite hot and red as she fussed with painted transparencies and complicated equipment. Suddenly she waved a frantic hand outside. 'A glass of water, if you please, Jocelyn! Fosdyke will have left a jug and glass by the stage steps.'
The admiral hurried to attend to it. 'It must be a positive oven in there, Evangeline. Are you sure you are all right?' he asked in concern as he pressed the glass into her fingers.
'All is well, Jocelyn. Besides, it will not take much longer. Please tell everyone to be seated.' The hand withdrew into the tent's fastness, and there came the sound of turning pages as she looked through the notebook Megan had retrieved.
The small party went to sit down, but as Megan tried to place herself well behind the others, Evangeline remonstrated with her from the tent. 'Don't seek splendid isolation, my dear. Sit in that empty chair next to Greville.'
Megan looked at the tent in puzzlement, wondering how on earth Evangeline could see anything from where she was.
'Well, do as I say, my dear.'
'Yes, Lady Evangeline.' Megan had no choice but to obey, for Greville had already risen politely to his feet. She refused to look at him as she sat down, but his closeness affected her. From beneath lowered lashes she noticed how he toyed with the shirt frill protruding from his cuff, how his heavy gold signet ring found light even in the shadows, how strong and graceful he was; how heartstoppingly attractive he would be if only she liked him a little…
From the tent there came more page rustling, accompanied by impatient muttering, but then Evangeline's hand emerged again, this time with a lighted candlestick. ''Rupert? Please be so good as to raise the curtain! You will require a candle to see what you're doing.'
'Certes, Aunt E,' he replied, and got up. As he did so he caught Chloe's glance, and she smiled hesitantly at him. He smiled back, and then hurried up the steps on to the stage with the candle, then vanished behind the curtain.
'I'll give you a hand,' Oliver said, and went after him.
A moment later the drop curtain was hauled up to reveal a shadowy set of rather unrealistic rocks, with a badly painted background of a wrecked ship and a headland topped by a Greek temple, presumably to convey a sense of the Adriatic, for
Rupert's candle fluttered brightly as he and Oliver returned and began to descend from the stage. But then Oliver stumbled, and Rupert was pitched right to the bottom of the steps. The candle went out as it fell from his hand, and Chloe leapt to her feet with a cry of dismay.
As Greville and Sir Jocelyn ran to help the fallen man, Oliver lingered wretchedly on the steps. 'Oh, I say! I say! I do hope you're all right, sir!' he cried, apparently much put out that his clumsiness should have caused such a mishap.
Light flooded dazzlingly as Evangeline thrust back the flap of her tent. 'What has happened?' she demanded anxiously.
Rupert sat up awkwardly to rub his elbow, which he'd struck during the fall. 'It's all right, there's no harm done, Aunt E.'
Chloe rushed to him in a flurry of lavender satin. 'Are you sure, Rupert?' she cried. 'Have you broken any bones?'
'Of course not. It was only a little fall,' he replied nobly, and accepted Greville and Sir Jocelyn's assistance to haul him to his feet.
Chloe was not reassured, so the moment he could, Rupert caught her hand and drew it gallantly to his lips. 'I am perfectly all right,' he said gently, and gazed into her anxious blue eyes.
As she responded with another little smile, Oliver hastened solicitously down the rest of the steps. 'Can you ever excuse my clumsiness, Radcliffe?' he said. 'I completely misjudged the steps, and-'
'It was an accident, March,' Rupert replied.
But Oliver's apology was not good enough for Chloe. 'He might have been badly hurt, sir!'
'What more can I say except that I am truly contrite?' he protested.
Rupert wished the matter at an end. 'Think no more of it, March,' he said magnanimously.
'That's good of you, Radcliffe,' Oliver said with a grateful smile.
Behind Megan, Rollo suddenly whispered another quotation. ' 'O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!'' Her glance flew to Oliver. Did the ghost suspect him of stumbling deliberately?
Evangeline was still anxious. 'Rupert, are you
'Will you all please stop fussing?' he said, but then had second thoughts and turned quickly to Chloe. 'Perhaps I do feel a little unsteady. If you could assist me…?' he asked, a weak note creeping into his voice.
'Oh, yes, of course.' She took his arm solicitously, and he glanced smugly at Oliver, whose immediate scowl was ample reward.
Everyone resumed their places, and Evangeline closed the tent flap again. As the shadows returned, Megan mulled over what Rollo had said. She glanced toward her cousin, whose profile she could just make out in the dim light. Oliver was quite capable of foul play, as she knew to her cost, so it was well within the realm of possibility that he would attempt to incapacitate a rival. He probably regarded the smiles exchanged between Rupert and Chloe as more than enough cause ta act. A few timely broken bones would keep Rupert out of the way…
The thoughts broke off as Evangeline addressed them all from the depths of the tent. 'Very well, ladies and gentlemen, I trust you are prepared. Envisage if you please a storm-swept beach in Illyria, with Viola, a captain, and several sailors struggling ashore, the only survivors of a shipwreck. Viola is distraught because she believes her adored brother Sebastian has been lost overboard, presumed drowned.' Light flickered and lurched, then suddenly the stage was drenched with lurid color. A jagged streak of permanent lightning was caught against skies where ominous clouds jerked to and fro as Evangeline tried unsuccessfully to pull the painted transparency smoothly past the source of light. Seagulls wheeled dramatically, and Evangeline mewed unconvincingly in an endeavor to imitate their cries. Then everyone jumped as she picked up a thin sheet of metal and rattled it to make thunder.
Megan watched with fascination as everything jolted, flashed, and resonated, but then her eyes widened as Rollo suddenly strode on to the stage, clearly visible in the shaft of intense light from the tent. He came to a swaggering halt in front of the shipwreck, and raised his voice above Evangeline's racket. ' 'O my prophetic soul! This is all unworthy flimflam!' “ he cried.
Megan saw and heard him so well that she was sure everyone else could not help but do the same. However, although Evangeline immediately dropped the sheet of metal and poked her head out of the tent to glare at the spirit, the four men did not seem to notice anything. Chloe was a different matter. She had been quite enraptured with the lighting illusions, but then Rollo's translucent figure appeared. That was all, just his vague outline; she didn't hear anything. She rose to her feet with a little cry of fright, then fainted gracefully to the floor in a cloud of
