Madeleine strode to the front of the stage at the end of the play, maintaining Hamlet's mad, wounded air to the end. As she bowed, she reveled in the thunderous applause and hoots of appreciation from the crowd beyond the lights. The theatre was a glorious cacophony of sound, and she let it pour into her, filling the empty spaces she usually tried so hard to ignore.

Aunt Augusta would be outraged to see her before such an audience - but the bigger outrage was that this was her last performance. She knew she should make her exit, but she lingered in adoration of the crowd. Their roars, the uncouth stamping of feet, even the smell of hundreds of warm bodies undisguised by expensive perfumes - it was all so intoxicating. She finally knew why so many lower class girls gave in to the lure of the stage.

She waved a final time. The stage crew shot her dark glances from the wings; they needed to reset the props for the pantomime following the play. She sauntered offstage, never breaking character - until she found her maid waiting for her behind the curtain.

"Josephine!" Madeleine said as she embraced the woman and twirled her around in a circle. "Have you ever heard such an audience?"

Josephine sniffed and patted Madeleine on the head. She was in her fifties, the same age as Aunt Augusta, but her dark hair was almost entirely grey and her once-slim figure was now round - a travesty she blamed on the Stauntons' English cook. She and her husband Pierre had spirited Madeleine out of France at the age of nine, delivering her to Augusta while her parents went to Paris to die. While Josephine did not approve of her charge's first act of rebellion in over twenty years, she did not stop her. "If these two weeks have ended your passion for theatricals, I think it a very good thing."

Madeleine pulled her out of the way as a man wheeled out a Gypsy cart for the next set. "I promised you only two weeks, and now I will never speak of theatricals again. I will go back to being a dull spinster, and you can burn these breeches as you would like to."

She said it lightly, but from the sharp look Josephine gave her, Madeleine suspected she did not sound cheerful enough. Two weeks of freedom had whetted her appetite, not sated it.

And now that her life included chaperoning other girls as they made brilliant matches and left her sitting on the shelf, she would like it even less.

But an agreement was an agreement. With the season starting in earnest, it would be harder to maintain the illusion of illness that gave her these precious two weeks. Her career had to end now, whether she was ready to give it up or not.

She walked behind the stage, past the old painted scenes of forests and castles, to the small, closet-sized room where she stored her clothes. "Stay here, mademoiselle," Josephine said. "I will ask the door guard to find a cab."

Josephine's husband was now one of the Stauntons' coachmen and usually brought them to the theatre. But he was driving Aunt Augusta tonight, leaving Josephine and Madeleine to navigate alone. It felt foolhardy, but it had to be safer than taking another driver into their confidences.

As she waited, she ran a hand over the slightly tarnished mirror leaning drunkenly against the bare wooden wall. With her wig and men's clothes, she barely recognized herself - or perhaps it was the light of triumph in her eyes that she didn't recognize.

It didn't matter, though. While she was hard to recognize and therefore unlikely to be caught, particularly in Seven Dials, Aunt Augusta or Alex would someday catch her if she kept sneaking out. She turned away from the mirror. She was ready to go home, if only so she could mourn privately. But when Josephine returned, Madame Legrand swept into the room behind her.

"Madame Guerrier, darling, you were marvelous!" Madame exclaimed in the contrived French accent that always made Josephine roll her eyes. No one had ever seen Monsieur Legrand, and Madame was definitely not French, but Madeleine admired the woman for starting a theatre alone. Madame opened her arms wide as though to capture Madeleine - and the patrons she brought to the theatre - within her embrace. "All of London is transported!"

Madeleine extended her hand to Madame Legrand. "Many thanks, Madame. What play shall you stage next?"

Madame looked outside the closet, then shut the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Lady Madeleine, please. I know you could only risk staging this play for two weeks. But is there anything I can offer to keep you? My theatre is full for every performance, and with such little time to spread word of your talent. Tonight there was even a party of gentlemen in the audience - think of how well we would do if the gentry came to see you!"

After making their agreement, Madame never used Madeleine's real name - but it was the news she imparted, not the usage of her name, that made Madeleine's stomach rebel. "Who were they?"

"They did not introduce themselves, but I could never forget the red-haired gent. He was a fixture in Covent Garden when I was a dancer there. He's the one what just inherited the dukedom."

"Ferguson? Or rather, Rothwell?" Madeleine asked, closing her eyes against the blow.

"Aye, Rothwell," Madame exclaimed, slipping into the Yorkshire accent she worked so hard to hide. "He was enthralled. As soon as he saw you enter, he only had eyes for you."

"My God," Madeleine whispered. "I am ruined."

"Ruined? No, this is excellent news. We will make a fortune!"

Madeleine had trusted Madame Legrand for five years. Despite her misgivings, Augusta let Madeleine stage holiday theatricals at Whitworth, the Stauntons' country estate in Lancashire. Madame was still a dancer when Madeleine hired her to produce the first performance, since it was customary to let professionals run the show while the amateur houseguests giggled their way through their assigned parts.

The last Yuletide theatrical had been particularly unbearable. Augusta's friends were too well starched to participate, and Alex and Sebastian would only play along for so long before escaping to the billiards room. Madeleine wanted to act on a real stage, with real actors and a real audience. Madame had somehow saved enough to open her own theatre the previous year, and she was the only one Madeleine could trust with such a mad request.

Madeleine tried to reason with her. "We cannot continue. If I am caught..."

"But your talent! You cannot walk away - I have never seen a debut like this. Besides, I've seen you many times as Lady Madeleine. I vow no one would recognize you as Hamlet."

Madeleine could hear the roar of the crowd in her ears again, the sound filling her to the brim. She did have talent, she knew she did - but she also had a reputation, and expectations, and responsibilities.

She had stolen two weeks from her real life. But real life always came back.

"I can't," she said, her voice matching her misery.

Madame pursed her lips. In the awkward silence, Madeleine heard the distant laughter of the audience watching the pantomime. She wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and stay there the rest of her life, reliving the memories of tonight and letting her possible ruin wash over her.

The chance that Ferguson - she had dreamed of him with that name the night before, even if she would die before admitting it - recognized her under her wig and breeches was enough to make her feel ill. How could he not recognize her, despite her disguise?

Madame interrupted her thoughts. In a brisk voice, she said, "I am truly sorry, but I have to think of my theatre. You simply must extend your performance."

"It is impossible," Madeleine said, firmer now, like Madame was a chambermaid banging the tinderbox too early in the morning. "I am not some desperate country girl. Why would I continue now that I have almost been caught?"

"You may not be starving, but I think you would do anything for your reputation. The gossip column of the Gazette would pay richly for my story."

Madeleine's backbone crumbled. "Why would you do that to me?"

"I really do not want to force you, my lady," she said, with such sympathy that Madeleine almost believed her.

Then her face hardened. Madeleine saw the steel that enabled her to rise from penniless opera dancer to successful theatre owner. "You saw the clientele before your debut. Your talent could accomplish in a month what it would take me years to build. We can make a new agreement - just another month, I promise. If you play four nights a week, I will let you go at the end of it and never breathe a word of your identity to anyone."

"How can I know you won't betray me again?"

"My word is good, Lady Madeleine," Madame said, sounding almost affronted. "I won't keep you forever, and I know it is a risk for you. But a sold-out month would be enough for me to lease a bigger venue next season."

Madeleine couldn't breathe. It might have been the bindings around her breasts that still kept her compressed. More likely, it was the thought of Ferguson cutting her in front of the entire ton that made her pulse flutter and her vision swim.

"I could buy you a new theatre. Salford will write you a cheque if it saves me from ruin." She didn't want to tell Alex about her acting, but he would surely help her to end it.

Madame Legrand shook her head. "It is not just the funds. You saw the audiences this past week. The theatre's reputation rises daily. What good would a new building do if I can't keep the audience after you leave? Staging your play for another month lets me improve the next offering. If you quit now, we are not ready to replace you and the audience will trickle away."

Her words struck home, right in the center of the place that secretly wanted to continue. Madeleine looked at Josephine, but the maid looked away. Josephine loved her, but she was still a servant. Only Madeleine could decide. She rubbed her temples, thought through her choices - and realized she had already made her choice.

"Very well," she said. "But if Ferguson recognized me, your blackmail won't bring me back. I will be ruined before the night is out."

Madame smiled. "He will not recognize you. When you take off those breeches and become your prim society miss, he will never guess you could be such a delight onstage. And if he does recognize you, use your skills to convince him that he is mistaken."

Madeleine said nothing, stepping past Madame Legrand and making her way to the stage exit. She would think about her predicament later. At present, it was more important to sneak back to Salford House before anyone noticed her absence.

If she was lucky, she wouldn't see Ferguson again for several days - long enough for him to forget Madame Guerrier.

But if luck was on her side, it had a diabolical sense of humor. She stepped out of the theatre, sought out the waiting cab - and stumbled straight into Ferguson's arms.

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Note to readers: if you want to find out how Ferguson and Madeleine react to running into each other, read on : ) And comments/votes are much appreciated!