Page 154 of The Boxing Baroness

“Carrot?” she repeated, as if she didn’t recognize the word.

That blank stare was an evasion tactic Marianne had noticed the other woman used often. It always worked on Cecile, who’d get so emotionally worked up that she’d forget the original issue.

Marianne was made of sterner, less distractible—stuff. “Henry’s wooden carrot. Did Angus take it?”

“No,” she answered without hesitation.

“I saw him with it,” Francine insisted.

“You need to get ready to go on,” Marianne told Francine. “We’ll find the carrot later.” She gave Jo a pointed look that went completely unnoticed.

“Henry is distraught without it,” Francine insisted. “He won’t be able to perform.”

Marianne looked at the rabbit, whose nose was twitching the way it always did, and then looked at Francine. She liked the magician, but the woman had tested Marianne’s patience in ways she never would have dared with Barnabas. Marianne had encountered such testing behavior often and wasn’t sure if it was because of her gender or her age. Either way, she was getting tired of it after almost a year.

She turned to Jo. “Go look for the carrot,” she snapped.

Jo left without any theatrics.

She turned to Francine. “If Henry wants more real carrots, then you had better get him out on that stage in”—she looked at the watch pinned to her bodice—“six minutes.”

Francine blinked her huge blue eyes—a maneuver that might have worked on Barnabas but was less than effective with Marianne.

“I’m sorry, Marianne. You know how much I hate to be a bother.” She paused and waited for an agreement that would never come. “I’ll go get ready,” she hastily said.

Marianne waited until Francine and her rabbit had disappeared in the direction of the wings before returning to the small room that Barnabas had used as an office.

She slumped into her chair and propped her head on her hand; she was exhausted. Wooden carrots and manipulative employees were the least of what she had to deal with. There were hundreds of things Barnabas had managed without her even guessing they existed. The number of bribes, alone, was staggering.

Most days Marianne came into the theater at six or seven in the morning and didn’t leave until after midnight. At first, she’d worried that she’d need to take over Nora and Lucy’s training, in addition to all the other duties, but Jack had hired two more employees at his boxing parlor.

“That leaves me free to keep an eye on you, ducks,” he’d explained.

Marianne had almost wept; just having Jack’s sturdy presence had made those first terrifying months of managing the Fayre bearable.

Still, there was only one person who could manage employee disputes and difficulties—like stolen pet toys—and that was her.

Marianne sighed, took a deep breath, and turned back to her spot in the ledger.

Less than a minute later, the door flew open.

“A closed door means do not enter,” she said flatly without looking up.

“You will never guess who is in the audience tonight!” Cecile demanded.

Marianne’s heart leapt into her throat. “Who?”

A curly brown head pushed between Cecile and the doorframe.

Marianne held out her hand and Neddy set a stack of messages in her palm. “Thank you, Neddy.”

He grinned. “I’m rich as a lord tonight, Marianne.”

“Yes, well, see that you save some of that meg for a rainy day.”

He ran off, heedless of her advice. He was loving the new method of dealing with lovelorn swains—he could take all the money and notes offered, and all he had to do was deliver the notes to Marianne. If they did not contain anything illegal, she passed them along to their intended recipients.

Already the system had led to her discharging four stagehands—men who’d had a flourishing crime enterprise operating under her nose.