Page 81 of Regency in Color

Andie was still stuck on Shoreditch. She had been to New York, St. Croix, and all over Europe, but although she’d lived in London all her life, she’d never been to the East End. “Frank Creighton,” she repeated. “The Crow’s Nest.”

She could remember that. Her mother often attended Lavinia Creighton-Crowley’s salons, but Andie very much doubted the dowager Lady Bodmin would appreciate such an association, even an imaginary one. The stately old woman had always treated Andie with detached courtesy, but if she knew what she was about to do, she’d drop her petit fours.

With that image in her head, Andie finally smiled.

* * *

Whatever Andie had expected,this wasn’t it.

Across the street from St. Leonard’s, The Crow’s Nest was an Elizabethan behemoth, six stories high, perhaps thirty feet across, and listing ever-so-slightly to the side. Thinking of the plywood shipwreck at the Aquatic, Andie inspected the splintered wood beams for cannon damage. As the sun set behind it, several dozen crows suddenly swooped off the roof and headed for the churchyard behind her.

Across the front of the building, the gas lamps were already lit, and the diamond-paned windows glowed invitingly. Between them, illustrated playbills advertised upcoming acts in Cruickshank-style caricatures and garish letters. Maggie the Singing Moll. The Bearded Boy’s Nocturnal Orchestra. Somnabule the Hypnotist. Frank’s Phantasmagoria of Horror and Mystery.

Not exactly Handel or Haydn. Andie turned the collar of her spencer against the wind and shivered into her cashmere scarf. Twenty years of music lessons, and here she was—not singing in Figaro at the Olympic, but potentially opening for Prospero Pudding’s Talking Poppet.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her mother had offered to pull strings for her. Would it really be so awful to compromise just this once?

Andie sighed. She couldn’t. If she let her mother get her a part now, she’d never know if she could have done it on her own. Her tutors had told her she was good and her performances at parties had always been well-received, but singing on stage was different. And if she couldn’t out-perform Winifred and the Winchester Geese, maybe she should give up and get married instead.

“I think not,” she said to herself, re-pinning her hair in the reflection of a dark window. After the day she’d had, it looked as if lightning had struck it, her carefully pinned chignon giving way to frizz. She looked tired, and her dress was rumpled but still clean. Smoothing a little rose pomade over her lips, she took a breath and straightened her spine.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she strode through the open door.

The Crow’s Nest was surprisingly warm, given its size. It smelled of musty old velvet, fresh tobacco, and oranges. Andie began to relax as she heard a piano playing in the distance. Not exactly the Paris Opera, the wooden floors were covered in rushes, rosemary, and sawdust, and they sloped outward to the wider main hall at the back.

Andie stopped in her tracks when she saw it. There were no seats at all on the ground floor, only an open pit for standing with a long bar to the left. The stage was shallow and high, with trapeze equipment hanging between blue curtains decorated with glittering stars. Six levels of balconies were stacked on top of each other like the layers of cake, the ceiling so high she could barely see it. She couldn’t tell if the balconies had seats, but each was lit by half a dozen mismatched chandeliers.

It was a mess, but it was magic.

The piano stopped.

“Are you lost?”

Bristling, Andie turned toward the voice. “I beg your pardon?”

A man stood behind the upright piano and leaned over the top of it. Tall and lanky, he seemed more liquid than man with an easy posture and a lazy smile. “You’re not the kind of lady we get around these parts, is all.”

Andie folded her arms. She was sick of the implication that she didn’t belong. “And what kind of lady is that?”

He cleared his throat for effect. “The, erm…evening variety.” His smile widened at the play on words as he slunk from behind the piano. “You are very clearly a lady of quality. What are you doing in Shoreditch?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for the last twenty minutes,” she admitted, relaxing. He was just a flirt. She took in his light linen shirt—collarless, open, and rolled up the elbows. It was tucked into a pair of smart if faded trousers. A musician of little consequence, he probably tried his luck with every woman who walked through the door, and a fair few would take him up on it too. Though the charcoal of his hair was rapidly giving way to gray ash, his manner and mischievous expression gave him an ageless quality that made her think of the fae kings in her fairy stories. He shouldn’t be handsome—his chin was too prominent, his skin too pale, his smile too wide—but she couldn’t look away. Worse, his gaze was sharp, focused, and above all, interested. A woman could lose herself in eyes like that.

He knew it too.

Andie looked away with some difficulty. Get it together. You did not turn down a prince, an earl, and three barons to shag an East End piano player.

“You will.” He shrugged, returning to the piano and shuffling his music.

Blinking, she tried to remember what he was responding to. Surely he couldn’t read her mind? Oh, right. Shoreditch. Flustered, she followed him. “I’m looking for Frank Creighton. Is he here?”

“Usually.” He looked up, raising an eyebrow. “What do you want with Frank?”

Andie fiddled with the bottom button of her spencer. Perhaps she should have written first. What if he didn’t like her just turning up out of the blue? It wouldn’t do to get off on the wrong foot. “I’m a singer,” she said. “I had an audition at the Theatre-Royal this afternoon, and an actress there told me I ought to come here instead. Emilia. Do you know her?”

“Emilia?” The man blinked. “Emilia Virtue? Short, Welsh, says whatever’s on her mind faster than you can take it in?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “I believe she plays the harp…?”