The Shamrock & the Rose by Regan Walker

 
    The
Shamrock & The Rose
    “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he
hath.”
    —from The Merchant of Venice by
William Shakespeare
    London, February 1818
    Morgan O’Connell hardly noticed Sophie as
she turned her attention from the stage and artfully tossed her
head of dark curls, smiling at him from behind her lace-covered
fan. He was tired of his companion’s feigned shyness and coquettish
glances, just as he was tired of the play they would be seeing. The Merchant of Venice , though just beginning, held little
interest for him. Once a favorite, he supposed he’d seen too many
bad productions for it to remain so. Still, he liked the ambience
of the Theatre-Royal at Haymarket, which seemed the place he most
often sought entertainment now that he lived in London. Sophie
seemed to be enjoying it, too.
    His gaze drifted to the stage where appeared
the three chests from which Portia’s suitors must choose, her dead
father having left a puzzle to determine which man would gain both
his daughter and his wealth. Gold, silver and lead; only one held
the prize. And the cost to hazard a guess was high, for those who
failed must vow never to wed.
    As the play unfolded, Morgan’s eyes soon
diverted from the chests to the woman acting the part of Portia.
She was beautiful and young, somewhere between nineteen and
twenty-one. Though he couldn’t tell if that luxurious long brown
hair was the actress’s own, the sixteenth-century gown was most
becoming to her curves. Her acting was extraordinary, holding him
enraptured and sweeping him into a story he’d thought no longer
held any allure. Small movements of her eyes, facial expressions
and gestures conveyed much that Shakespeare’s lines did not. If
she’d never spoken a word, he would have known Portia’s true heart.
When she did speak, he believed in a real Portia of long ago.
    Ignoring his female companion, Morgan leaned
forward. “A superb Portia, Roger, would you not agree?”
    “She’s captured my attention,” his friend
whispered, likely so Judith Seaton sitting next to him would not
hear. Judith was a new love interest, and Roger had been trying to
impress her. “I’ve heard she is fresh to the stage but already
drawing many compliments.”
    “Remind me who she is,” Morgan said in a
voice too low for Sophie to hear.
    “Lily Underwood, as I recall the
playbill.”
    Morgan nodded and sat back, relieved that
Sophie had again taken up her study of the audience below. It was
clear she was more a follower of the haut ton than a devotee
of Shakespeare.
    From his box above the stage, Morgan could
see well the actors moving about below. His eyes lingered on the
woman portraying Portia, the one he now knew as Miss Underwood. She
had a compelling voice, one that deepened as the character she
portrayed donned the guise of a man to adroitly argue the points of
law that would save her lover’s friend while cleverly entrapping
the moneylender who demanded Antonio’s flesh.
    Leaning forward, he listened as she spoke
the lines that were his favorites:
    “The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
    Portia was the kind of woman Morgan wanted:
brave, forthright and intelligent, a woman whose spirit was equal
to his own. Unfortunately, these were not qualities he’d find in an
English actress, however comely. And though he might consider a
tryst with such an actress, his Irish family would only be
satisfied with an Irish bride.
    * * *
    The next morning, in a place as far from the
theatre as the nobility was from the rabble, Rose Collingwood
seated herself in the parlour of the Dowager Countess of
Claremont’s home, on the end of the sofa nearest the blazing fire.
She was glad for warmth on the chilly February day. Across a small
oval table set with tea, the dowager countess, elegantly gowned as
always, set down her cup.
    “My dear,”