I have fallen in love with my husband. But, God help me, I do not trust him.
People came and went across the stage. The dancers flung themselves around with more flamboyance than grace. A man came out and belted comic songs, earning him roars of approval. Then painted backdrops of Italian gardens were propped against the back wall of the stage, and a clot of actors pranced out, mouthing words of intrigue.
Many times in the past, Anne had sat in the gallery and wondered about the experience of sitting in a box. The unobstructed view of the stage. The even better view of the theatergoers. How marvelous, she had thought. What a rarified place, untouched by deprivation, rich with delight.
Now she sat in one of those boxes. She could see everything, everyone. And she felt herself utterly removed, as if she were encased in glass. She could not smile or laugh. There were only the thorned vines knotted around her heart, piercing her with every breath.
Yet she was not alone in her disquiet. Throughout the theater, the crowds stirred, restless, ill at ease. The theater was never a calm place, but this night, it felt volatile. Voices from the crowd came too loud, people shoved one another. Tears from women, angry words from men, as if everyone tapped into a font of bitterness beneath the floorboards.
“There’s Bram and John,” Leo murmured.
She glanced across the theater and saw the two men come into a box. Heads turned at their entrance, and no wonder. They were striking men, both tall, commanding attention by their presence alone. John escorted a lady in a low-cut yellow gown, and Bram ushered in two women. Courtesans, clearly, by their gaudy laughter.
As Anne watched, the Hellraisers took their seats, the courtesans fluttering around them. Bram whispered something to one of the women and she giggled, nestling closer, while the other toyed with the buttons of his waistcoat. John seemed less engaged in the actions of his companion, spending his time surveying the crowds with an icy, critical eye. When his gaze fell on her and Leo, Anne suppressed a shiver.
Can he hear my thoughts? Does he know what I think, even across the expanse of the theater?
Leo raised a hand in greeting, but kept his seat.
She was glad he did not want to join his friends in their box. For at the Hellraisers’ entrance, the crowd grew yet more restless. The actors could barely be heard, bawling their lines above the growing din.
“An ill feeling tonight.” Leo frowned and leaned forward, scanning the theater. He looked down into the pit. Perhaps he recognized some faces there, for his expression tightened. He stood and placed his hand on her elbow. “Time to leave.”
Anne rose, grateful. She needed out of this place. Yet as she got to her feet, a girl down in the pit shouted.
Two orange sellers struggled. One of the girls had her hands wrapped around the throat of the other, whilst her opponent gripped her hair. Men close by tried to separate the orange sellers, but the girls could not be pulled away. They struggled with each other, knocking into the people around them. Like a pebble dropped in a lake, their violence rippled outward, as men in the pit began to fight one another. Elbows and fists were thrown. Someone drew a sword.
Several men threw a bench onto the stage. The actors scurried back, and shielded themselves as more benches came flying up. The actors fled into the wings as men clambered onto the stage.
Women in the amphitheater screamed. The galleries erupted. People strained to reach the exits, their progress impeded by brawls. What had been, moments earlier, simply a theater now became a scene of chaos. Even the boxes exploded into violence.
“Goddamn it.” Leo wrapped an arm around Anne’s shoulders and urged her back.
A man’s hands appeared at the railing of the box. He began to haul himself up, his eyes glassy and wild.
Leo released Anne, stepped forward, and slammed his fist into the intruder’s face. The man toppled backward, falling into the surging crowd below.
In an instant, Leo was with her again. Grim-faced, he guided her to the back of the box. He paused next to the door.
“Do not leave my side.” He drew a pistol from inside his coat.
Anne stared at the weapon. Her husband looked very comfortable holding it. Her gaze never leaving the gun, she managed a nod.
Leo checked to make sure the gun was primed, then returned it to his coat. Lips compressed into a tight line, he eased the door open. The narrow corridor was full of people, some running, some fighting. An impassable morass.
“We cannot make it,” she said.
“I am getting you out of here.” Resolution hardened his voice.
Intuitively, Anne knew the safest place was beside him. She pressed close and, at his signal, moved with him as he pushed his way through the corridor.
He cleared a path, shoving aside those who got in his way. Around her churned insanity, the thin veneer of civilization shattered like the wood and broken glass beneath her feet. She could scarce believe that these people, many in damask and lace, brawled like beasts. But there was Lady Corsley raking her nails down Mrs. Seaham’s face. And there was Sir Fredrick Tilford, trading punches with a top government minister. These were only the people Anne knew. Merchants, physicians, costermongers. Rank and profession made no difference—everyone had succumbed to madness.
And there were other faces, too. In the hectic blur, she thought she saw twisted, inhuman visages, the flash of talons, the gleam of fangs. Yet she could never gain a better look, for the crowd would surge, and she saw only more rioters.
God, would she and Leo survive the night?
He cut steady progress down the stairs. When a man stepped into his path, fists swinging, Leo rammed his own fist into the man’s chest, then knocked him back with a blow to the jaw. As Leo shepherded her from one level to the next, he continuously beat away attacks. He moved with lethal grace, swift and clean. No extraneous movement, no attempts at showmanship. His was a violence of intent, of purpose, and it was brutally beautiful to see him fight.
Anne felt a sharp tug on the train of her gown. She staggered backward, and found herself suddenly facing a wall and pinned against it, a man’s hulking form pressed into her back.
“Pretty bird,” he said, his breath rank and hot in her ear. Coarse hands fumbled with her clothing.
She did not have thought to scream. Instead, ferocious instinct gripped her. She took her folded fan and rammed it hard into what she hoped was her attacker’s eye. She must have succeeded, for he howled in agony and released her. Anne pushed back from the wall in time to see her assailant fall to the floor. He disappeared from her sight as panicked audience members scrambled around and on him.
A hand closed around her wrist. She spun, swinging out with her fan. But it was Leo, his face an icy mask. He neatly ducked, avoiding her blow. Before she could apologize, he was pulling her behind him.
“When we get out of here,” he threw over his shoulder, “I’m teaching you how to throw a punch. A fan does no bloody good.”
She might have mentioned that her fan had caused a grown man a good deal of pain. Might have, but she could find no words to speak, no thoughts to think other than they must get out of this place before it was torn to the ground, before the candles were knocked over and the building went up in a curtain of smoke and flame.
At last, they made it down to the ground-floor lobby. Chaos was thick here. Anne had never seen so many people brawling before. She caught glimpses of blood on the floor. Men’s shouts and women’s screams thickened the air. There, on the other side of the lobby, were Bram and John. While John ducked and wove through the crowd, Bram had his rapier out, and he slashed at a group of advancing men. As skilled as Leo was with his fists, so Bram was with his sword, and she understood now how he had survived the long-ago attack in the Colonies. Even to her untrained eyes, she saw few could best him with steel.