Wicked Company by Ciji Ware Read Free Book Online

waistcoat. “And now, pray excuse me,” he said, smoothing his bald crown with his stubby fingers. “Put the playbills and sides on the forestage, Sophie, and please print up some new ones announcing this young man’s concert. You know what it needs—the usual ruffles and flourishes to pull in the patrons. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, pointing to the trap door beneath his feet. “The deuced stage machinery has gone a bit wobbly and I must have at the repairs.”
    “I’ll give you a hand,” Hunter volunteered, flashing a sly wink at Sophie as David Beatt stooped to pull up the trap door once again.
    Sophie rolled her eyes at her new acquaintance’s nerve. She suspected Hunter knew as much about the winches and pulley systems that created certain stage effects as he did about acting Shakespeare.
    “Well, I must be off,” she announced, “and I shall count on you to compensate McGann’s for this new order—as well as the other one—as soon as you’re able, Mr. Beatt.”
    “Of course, my dear…of course,” he pledged absently. “Just send me a complete accounting. Now Robertson, lad, if you can just have a quick look at the spindle that threads through the turnkey down here…”
    The pair disappeared into the subterranean maze beneath the stage of the Canongate Playhouse, leaving Sophie no choice but to make her way through the pit, past the lower stalls, and out into the narrow stone close that lead back to the Royal Mile. As she trudged up the High Street and caught sight of the imposing granite tower of St. Giles Cathedral piercing the afternoon sky, she worriedly began to finger the single Scots penny that Hunter had given her as payment for dancing with him.
    When Sophie walked through the door to McGann’s book shop, her father was sitting at his desk staring morosely at the pilfered shelves that surrounded him.
    “They’ve confiscated most of the novels, the volumes on Eastern philosophies, the Shakespeare comedies, and virtually anything we had for sale that wasn’t written in English,” he reported dully.
    Sophie stared dejectedly at the myriad gaps marking the absence of many well-loved books. She dashed over to a row of Bibles remaining on a lower shelf and investigated the space behind the tomes. Empty! The men of St. Giles had discovered her favorite hiding place for novels like Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Haywood and Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph by Frances Sheridan whose recently published book had proved wildly popular with readers and irresistible to Sophie herself.
    “Blast and bother!” Sophie cried. “They’ve practically put us out of business, the swine!”
    “Now, Sophie…” Daniel cautioned, peering furtively out the shop’s square-paned windows flanking the High Street, “you must watch what you say! That Reverend Meeker is full of threats. You mustn’t let him hear you speak blasphemy.” Her father heaved a sigh and shook his head in defeat. “I must admit, I wonder if we shouldn’t just resign ourselves—”
    “Da… no!” Sophie cried, rushing to his side. “We shall simply have to reorganize. I’ll make an inventory of what they failed to steal in the name of driving out Satan,” she added bitterly, “and we shall carry on as before.”
    “But Sophie… to keep our doors open we must buy foolscap and ink and stock items ordered from London…”
    Items from London… those ghastly engravings!
    Daniel McGann seemed so dispirited, Sophie hadn’t the heart to report to him Lord Lemore’s unseemly advances or that the aristocrat had not paid for the vile etchings he’d secured through McGann’s. She also hesitated to reveal that she knew her father’s financial woes had led him to traffic in such scurrilous material. Much as she despised the narrow-minded clerics who had wreaked havoc in their shop, still she found herself revolted by Lord Lemore’s perverse taste and her father’s catering to it. Unable to grapple with the conflicts