Unraveled (Turner #3)(53)

But Miranda’s eyes were not alight with pleasure now. They were narrowed on the stage in front of her, and she sat back in her seat.

“Oh dear,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“If they brush that castle wall the wrong way, it’s going to topple over,” she said under her breath.

He followed where she gestured with her chin. He hadn’t noticed it himself. But now that she mentioned it…the wall swayed in a light draft. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. It had never occurred to him that she might criticize the theater.

It should have.

As the first act proceeded, she muttered about the acting, the execution of stage directions, the costumes. Miranda apparently took the business of putting on a play quite seriously.

If she’d been writing scathing commentary for the Bristol Mercury, she’d have had an adoring readership.

“It’s a ghost,” she muttered. “You’re scared! You’re acting as if you’re speaking to a passing dairyman.”

Then, a moment later: “Oh, no wonder. That has to be the least frightening ghost in all of England. Could he deliver his lines with any less feeling? ‘Avenge me. Has the post arrived yet? Pass the saltcellar.’”

Smite choked back an outraged laugh.

Not so successfully. The man next to him nudged him with his elbow and glared at him pointedly. “Shhh!” he warned.

The other man hadn’t noticed Miranda’s commentary. Indeed, Smite could scarcely hear her himself. It was Smite’s poorly-suppressed response that he was condemning. But Miranda didn’t stop, and the theater seemed more and more absurd with every whispered remark. She drew his attention to people walking in before their time, lines got wrong, speeches mangled. She mocked costumes. He actually did laugh out loud. Twice.

Perhaps that was why, as the curtain fell on the first act, the man beside him jostled his shoulder. Smite turned, and found himself looking up and up into the narrowed eyes of a behemoth of a man. He was burly and dressed in laborer’s clothing.

“That’s the Bard you’re laughing at,” the man rumbled.

Smite considered explaining that he was, in fact, laughing at the woman who sat next to him, but something about the glint in the man’s dark eyes made him hold his tongue.

“I saved my wages for a month to come,” the behemoth continued. He flexed his arms; beneath the dirt of his coat, heavy muscles rippled. “And I’m not going to have my play ruined by some frivolous fleabite of a man. Get out now, or I’ll throw you out. Quick, before the next act comes on.”

There were a great many things that had never happened to Smite in his life. Getting into a brawl in a theater was one of them. If the man had known who he was—if he’d been sitting in a box overlooking the stage—he would never have interfered. But for tonight, Smite had chosen to be as close to anonymous as possible. He wasn’t worried that the man could do him any harm: big men hit hard, but they moved slowly. Still…

“Oh, dear,” Miranda was saying, looking as if she were truly sorry. “I do beg your pardon.” She’d matched her accent to the man’s—broad and ponderous. “My man, he’s a little thick sometimes. Can’t appreciate good Shakespeare. I’ll take him off, and no more trouble to you.”

The man touched his head. “Sorry, little miss,” he said. “I could tell you were enjoying it. Paying close attention, you were. If you want me to send him off, I’ll see you home.”

He’d never found himself in a brawl over a woman, either, but Smite felt his fists clench.

But Miranda’s eyes simply danced as she stood up. “No need to worry yourself. I’ll take him out of your way, then.” She gathered up her things, and Smite trailed after her in bemusement. She whispered to him the entire way, but he couldn’t make out her words until they slipped through the double doors into the vestibule.

“…cardinal sin,” she was saying. “It doesn’t matter how bad it is, I shouldn’t have disrupted the proceedings. If others are enjoying themselves, who am I to cause trouble?” She sighed and looked forlorn.

“Did I hear you right?” Smite echoed. “You think that interfering with someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin?”

“Yes,” she said, with no indication that she exaggerated. “And we deserve to have been tossed out. Although I do wish we could see the rest.”

“You want to see the rest?” he asked. “I had the distinct impression that you thought the players were inept.”

Miranda shrugged. “Even so. I was enjoying myself. It was that kind of awful.” Her face lit. “Oh, I know. There was a box upstairs that was empty,” she said. “We could sneak in.”

Smite simply stared at her. “You think that disrupting someone’s enjoyment of a play is a cardinal sin, but have no qualms about sneaking into a box that we didn’t pay for?”

She gave him a saucy smile and turned to head up the stairs for the boxes.

He lunged after her, grabbed hold of her hand. “I mean it. No. That would be wrong. I won’t be party to that.”

“Nobody’s using it. Where’s the harm?”

“Maybe someone is using it. Maybe he’s just late to the theater.”

She took another few steps up the stairs, and looked back at him. “Then he can oust us when he arrives. We’ve already been pushed out once; what’s a second time? Besides, whoever he is, he deserves it. What kind of booby is late to the theater?” She spoke the last in scathing tones, as if she could think of no greater failing.