It didn’t sound as though either of the men meant to ask the lass with whom she preferred to spend the night, or what her husband might have to say about it. “The lad asked ye to be quiet,” Coll pointed out in his lowest voice, facing them.
“Oh look, Waldring, it’s one of the Highlanders,” Brumley commented, his eyes narrowing.
“Has no one explained to you, Glendarril, that plays are generally watched from the seats out front?” the second one, Waldring, put in. “I’m certain I saw Lady Aldriss in her box out there earlier. Are you lost?”
“Gentlemen,” the stout man repeated, putting his hands together in a prayer. “Please be silent, or you will have to leave.”
Out on the stage behind Coll, the lass was speaking again. He wanted to watch her, but he wasn’t about to turn his back on these two buffoons. “I’m nae lost. I’m right where I want to be. Now, that wee man there asked ye to be silent. I reckon ye should listen to him.”
“You know what I think, Brumley? I think this heathen has his own sights set on Mrs. Jones. The—”
“That’s ‘my laird heathen’ to ye,” Coll interrupted, his mouth curving in a grim smile. Ah, battle.
The bigger of the two men, Waldring, put a finger in the knot of his cravat to loosen it, a sure sign of a coming brawl. “I’ll have you know, sir, that I train at Gentleman Jackson’s,” he said, coiling his arms and making fists at the ends. “What say you, Brumley? Shall we?”
The dandy hopped from one foot to the other in a prancing half circle while Coll watched, amused. When Waldring finally lunged forward, Coll ducked the flailing swipe easily and flashed out with his own fist, catching the dandy with a solid punch to the jaw. Waldring dropped to the wooden floor with a puff of exhaled air. Cocking his head, Coll turned his attention to the other one. “Ye want the same, Sassenach? If ye do, then step up. If ye dunnae, then get this sack of potatoes out of my sight.”
“But—that it is to say—I didn’t arrive with Mr. Waldring,” Brumley sputtered.
“Well, he cannae stay there on the floor. Someone’ll trip over him. So drag him out of here and be glad ye showed more restraint than he did,” Coll suggested.
“I … yes.”
Facing the stage again, Coll folded his arms. The difficulty with using words as weapons was that words couldn’t knock a man on his arse. That took fists. He would have to point that out to his dialogue-preferring brothers the next chance he got. Of course, who the devil knew when that would be, what with Niall so occupied with bedding his wife, Amy, that the household practically had to remind the two of them to eat, and with Aden gone down to Canterbury for a special license so he could wed his Miranda before the lass found her common sense again and changed her mind.
“That was efficiently—and quietly—done, sir. Thank you.” The small man drew even with Coll, his own arms folded over his barrel chest.
“Ye look like ye could have held yer own.”
The man grinned briefly. “In my prime, perhaps. But I can’t go about punching theater patrons. That makes for very poor attendance and less patronage. So again, thank you.”
Coll shrugged. “I’ve punched two men tonight, and both deserved it. Ye dunnae need to thank me for that.”
“Even so, I’m glad this is Persephone’s last night playing a romantic lead. We always have more wolves at the door when we perform a romance. After tonight, we’ll see ten days relatively wolf-free before we open Macbeth. And I daresay most men wouldn’t dare even dream of bedding Lady Macbeth. Not if they value their lives.”
That seemed peculiar—Persephone Jones was an actress, not the actual murdering lass. But then he’d just seen her transform herself into a boy with but a few shifts in the way she held herself. If she could become Lady Macbeth as efficiently, bedding her would seem a mite dangerous. He did like dangerous things, though. And she … Well, he could admit to himself that this was the first time he’d found a lad desirable, knowing what lay beneath those trousers as he did.
“Those werenae wolves,” he said aloud, just remembering to whisper. “Ferrets, more like, scavenging for an easy meal.”
“If they think of Persephone Jones as an easy meal, they’re very stupid ferrets.” Unfolding his arms, the man stuck out one hand. “Huddle,” he whispered. “Charlie Huddle. I manage the madness that is the Saint Genesius.”
Coll gripped his hand. “Glendarril. Coll MacTaggert.”
“Ah. You’re that Scotsman.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Coll freed his fingers from the firm grip. “Which Scotsman would that be?”
“The one seen a few days ago running naked down Grosvenor Square with a large sword in his hands. Viscount Glendarril.”
“Aye. And if I’d caught the bastard who threatened my family, ye’d be telling a different tale about me, I reckon.” It had been a close race; even with Captain Robert Vale on horseback, Coll had nearly managed to take an ear off the vulture.
“I’m not one to judge. When you spend as much time around theater folk as I do, naked swordplay doesn’t seem all that scandalous. Or unusual.”
“Ah, you’re still here, Macbeth,” a voice came from in front of him in a soft lilt.
He refocused his attention on the lass dressed as a lad standing at the edge of the curtains as Huddle went to chat with his overly exuberant Duke Senior. “I’m still nae Macbeth, lass.”
“Duncan, then? Banquo?”
“MacTaggert will do. Or Coll. I’ll answer to either of those.” He wasn’t certain why he didn’t add Glendarril, except that the two rutting pigs whose arses he’d just kicked had been aristocracy, and they hadn’t shown very well. He wasn’t English aristocracy, of course, but at this moment pointing out the difference just seemed petty.
“And I answer to Mrs. Jones.” She bowed with a flourish. “Or Persephone,” she said, her grin deepening as she straightened again. “Now that we’re acquainted, MacTaggert, whatever shall we do next?”
Chapter Two
“Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten.”
MACBETH, MACBETH ACT I, SCENE III
Athing or two they could be doing together came to mind—and they would be naked while they did it. Lasses didn’t wear trousers where he came from, Coll reflected, but then he was in a kilt—which had been called scandalous and barbaric by more Sassenachs than he had fingers to count. Given that, he had no complaints at all about her appearance. Not a one.
With her long legs and slender waist, her bosom half-concealed beneath a superfine shirt, waistcoat, and a blue coat that sat just a bit too large across her shoulders, Persephone Jones looked like a well-dressed waif. A very attractive, brown-haired waif with large blue eyes and a grin that made them dance, but a waif nonetheless. “Before I answer that, I have to ask ye where Mr. Jones might be,” he said, already better than halfway to hating the man.
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, somewhere about. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m nae a poacher.”
“Ah. A hunter, then. You’re assuming, though, that I can be caught.”