The Opening Night Murder by Anne Rutherford Page A

don’t? Nobody?” His wife might have been kept in thedark, but it shocked Suzanne that Daniel had never told anyone at all.
    “I would prefer it didn’t get out, and therefore possibly back to my wife. My position with Anne, and her brother who is now duke, is precarious enough, I’m afraid. He spent the past decade garnering power in Parliament, and that hasn’t changed since the restoration of the monarchy. And he hates me in the bargain, even without knowing about Piers.”
    “You won’t be dependent on the brother for long. Surely the king will restore your lands to you.”
    “If he can.”
    “He’s the king.”
    “And he has just slightly less power than Parliament and astonishingly less money. There are hundreds of loyal royalists climbing all over each other, seeking restoration of their lands taken from them by Cromwell. And equal hundreds of Parliamentarians who have been in possession of those lands for nearly two decades. I’m just one of many petitioners, most of whom are of better rank than myself, and it remains to be seen whether I will have my own income soon or whether I will remain dependent on my brother-in-law.”
    “But you sacrificed everything for loyalty to Charles and his father.”
    “It’s true. Charles is a kind and reasonable king, and he appreciates those who are loyal to him. I may come out well. As I said, it remains to be seen.”
    Suzanne sighed and sipped on her ale. A gloomy frown darkened her face.
    “Don’t look so defeated, Suzanne. You’ve always appeared so sad all the time, even when you were young, and you’re so much prettier when you smile.”
    “Those who complain about my sadness would do well to give me something to smile about.” She offered her tankard with the comment as a toast, then drank and tried not to feel disappointed that Daniel’s only interest in her anymore was curiosity.

Chapter Six

    W hen they parted, Suzanne watched Daniel walk away from the Goat and Boar until he disappeared into the traffic on Bank Side, then she stood alone for a moment and looked around, trying to decide what to do next. She wasn’t in the mood to return home right away and didn’t care to go back inside the public house for another ale, so she went for a walk. Her vizard was gone, having been tossed irretrievably into the Thames, and she felt exposed in public without it but not so much that she wanted to return home for another. There was nothing for it but to press on without the mask. She strolled off down the alley toward Maid Lane, took some random turns that weren’t really so random, and accidentally- on-purpose found herself once again in front of the Globe Theatre, the very venue the great bard Shakespeare had built decades before.
    She loved this place. It had stood empty since Cromwell had outlawed theatre performances, but she’d attended severalplays here as a young girl. Now it was boarded up, poorly, with only two boards crossed over the door frame. She shoved the tall, heavy door, which swung inward, heedless of the boards on the outside. Then she stepped over the lower one and ducked under the higher.
    Loose dirt gritted under her pattens, which tottered on the littered floor, and she held her skirts up to keep from dragging them through the dust and cobwebs. The building had not worn well during recent years, for most of it was open to the weather above even without the gaps in the roof over the galleries. Birds nesting in the rafters sang and flitted from perch to perch, annoyed at her intrusion, and a small animal made a shuffling noise under some debris nearby in an attempt to flee the invading human. Probably a mouse, perhaps a cat chasing a mouse.
    The chairs that had once filled the upper levels were all gone except for some broken ones that lay scattered across the lower level. The pit had a mud puddle, left from a rainstorm the week before. Some birds bathed in it, aflutter with feathers and water drops and chirping away at each other