The Opening Night Murder by Anne Rutherford

Author:Anne Rutherford [Rutherford, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Published: 2012-12-31T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Three weeks after the incident with William, Daniel came to the Globe to see after its progress. One misty morning when the fog was low over the nearby tenements, his carriage arrived at the entrance and everyone attended as he stepped out of it. The crew whitewashing the outside of the building stopped to gawk at the well-appointed blue carriage with its matched black horses. Suzanne saw it from the stage through the front entrance doors and knew well whose it was. The workers’ enormous brushes dripped onto the cobbles and went unheeded. The muralist inside the theatre, painting the pale-blue, puffy-clouded heavens onto the ceiling over the upstage area, continued with his work, engrossed by it and uninterested in the outside world. He was the only one who didn’t take the momentous arrival as an excuse for a break from work.

Suzanne hurried to meet Daniel and intercept whatever he might have to say to anyone. At the moment Piers was high in the third floor gallery, measuring various areas with a knotted string and calculating the number of new benches they would need. In a wealthier theatre, those galleries would have required folding chairs, but the Globe’s anticipated audience might not be so gentle with expensive, fragile seating, so benches were thought to be the best choice for these galleries. Particularly since benches would increase the Globe’s capacity of about three thousand by nearly a third, and that would make up for the lower admission price. The audience in the pit, of course, would stand as always, and for that they would pay even less than those on benches.

Somehow, the last time she’d seen Daniel slipped from her memory and she found herself happy to see him. It was as if he hadn’t shamed her last they’d met, and his presence here made up for the embarrassment she’d felt then. She dashed through the entrance and came to a staggering halt next to the carriage as Daniel debarked. “Good morrow, my lord,” Suzanne said, cheerful and a bit tongue-in-cheek as she performed an elaborate curtsey to the earl. It was easy enough to act as if their last meeting hadn’t happened, for they were in her territory today. She was the one who would send him away if she chose. He was the earl, but she was the one who lived there.

At the moment she was attired in breeches and tights with a ruffled shirt she’d embroidered with flowers and butterflies to make the outfit just a little less masculine. With no stays tight about her midriff, it was a joy to breathe like a man, and her mood was light. Her hair hung down around her collar, utterly scandalous and only for the premises. Were she to venture outside the theatre she would want to change her clothes and restrain her hair, or be gawked at even in London, where it was becoming the style to never be shocked by anything. But here in her theatre, where

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