Potent Pleasures (19 page)

He looked down at the box he had just left. Really, Miss van Stork had a very sweet, upturned nose, especially given the fact that her father’s nose was rather large. The candlelight was catching her hair, making its red highlights gleam. She looked at the stage, not at him. He wouldn’t mind going back, he thought. Except she had shooed him out of their box as if she knew that he was just fortune-hunting…. Well, of course she does, a voice said in the back of his mind. Look at her! She’s an intelligent woman, dressed like a dowdy in the midst of London’s most elegant women. She knows you only want her fortune. I wonder why she’s wearing that gown, Will thought. He caught himself. What the devil was he doing? He was sitting next to the most beautiful women in the
ton
and he didn’t even feel like being amusing. He couldn’t think of a single seductive metaphor. He was thinking about a frumpy woman in a corset. Charlotte’s pearly shoulder gleamed next to him, a soft expanse leading the eye irresistibly down to the creamy mounds rising from her slight bodice. His breathing quickened. Will banished the thought of Miss van Stork, sitting alone in her box. The hell with it! Didn’t he vow to stop fortune-hunting?

Down in his box Alex’s fists curled with rage. He had risked one more look at Charlotte only to find his old friend Will Holland hovering behind her and leering down at her breasts, unless he was grossly mistaken. He turned to Daphne Boch and, leaning intimately over to her, complimented her fan. Daphne looked at him a bit ironically. She had no particular aversion to flirting with this so-handsome earl, even if he was really just interested in that tall beanstalk of an Englishwoman.

The play was starting, trumpeters blowing an entrance, signaling the presence of the king—King Lear, that is. Charlotte’s thoughts were tumbling over each other, but she felt calmer now that Will had joined their box, as if he were camouflage somehow. She didn’t feel so naked, so certain that everyone in the audience knew that her eyes kept straying to the right.

Slowly she was drawn in to the story of an old king gone foolish, demanding that his daughters swear they love him more than anyone or anything else in the world or they would inherit no money, no land, no part of the kingdom. She didn’t pay much attention as the two elder sisters hysterically barked their inability to love anyone beside their father, even with their husbands standing right beside them. That was life, life in London anyway. People would do anything for money. Look at Will. She’d summoned him from a tradesman’s box, unless she was greatly mistaken. Charlotte’s eyes wandered down to that box. A young woman sat in the front, staring directly at the stage. From where she was sitting, almost directly above her, Charlotte could see that her hands were clenched into fists in her lap. She studied her profile for a second, but then her attention was jerked back to the stage.

The king’s youngest daughter was flouncing about, refusing to answer her father. Or perhaps she said something he didn’t like? Charlotte started to listen, her ear first rejecting the old musical lines as too difficult. Then they suddenly fell into place and became easily intelligible. The audience calmed, listening intently, and when the first act ended and a buxom Spanish singer began singing of cherries and lemons, there was a moment of silence before chatter rose into the rafters.

Charlotte looked back into the box below. There was something she liked about that tradesman’s daughter’s face.

“Will,” she said softly, turning her head a bit. She gave him her most charming smile. Will visibly softened. Really, Charlotte thought. Men are such boobies. “Why don’t you ask your friend to join us?” She nodded down toward the woman in the box. “It must be most uncomfortable down there alone with just her parents for company.”

Will’s spine grew suddenly cold. He didn’t want Chloe laughed at, or mocked in a way she didn’t understand by seasoned society women. His mouth tightened.

Charlotte put a hand on his sleeve. “I would truly like to meet her, Will.”

Will’s deep blue eyes met hers and he relaxed. He had never heard of Charlotte Daicheston doing anything shabby or cruel … so why not? He stood up and a minute later reappeared in the van Storks’ box. Chloe’s parents courteously moved out of the way for him, although he knew that unless they were totally impervious they must be seething at the affront dished out to their daughter when he visited another woman’s box.

He stooped next to Chloe’s chair. “Would you like to join the Brandenburgs?”

Chloe turned astonished eyes on him. Her eyes are blue, he thought, as blue as mine. “Why?” she said bluntly.

Will couldn’t think of a good lie. “Lady Charlotte requested it.”

Chloe’s eyes darkened. “It’s not like that,” Will said urgently. “Charlotte is not that kind of person.”

Chloe looked down at her hands involuntarily twisting the dark twill that her mother insisted her dresses be made out of. How could she go up to that box and sit with this beautiful woman he carelessly called Charlotte? She longed to be home, perhaps adding up a column of figures for her father, or watching her mother pack up boxes of shirts for the poor.

Her mother leaned forward suddenly. “It is acceptable to us, dearest,” she said in her Dutch accent. Chloe stood up. She hardly had a choice if her own mother was ready to condemn her to be laughed at by a bunch of … of peacocks! Tears stung her eyes but she walked steadily out of the box and down the red-carpeted corridor. People were pacing up and down the corridor, defeated by Act One of the play and simply waiting for intermission. Chloe walked with her head down, certain that they were all staring at her.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Will pushed open a door adorned with an elaborate coat of arms. The door led to a brief corridor which was very dark since the entrance to the box proper was hung with heavy curtains. He stopped for a moment in the velvety darkness. His hand pushed up her chin and a voice said, “Courage!” And then a mouth touched hers, very lightly. Chloe gasped. There was a brief instant of silence and then she heard Will’s voice again, sounding rather surprised. “Let’s try that again,” he said, and she felt rather than saw his head descend. His lips touched hers and then she jumped as his tongue smoothly slid into her mouth. Chloe jerked her head back.

“No, don’t,” Will said rather thickly, dropping his arms around her back and pulling her against his chest. This time his lips were forceful, demanding, and she opened her lips. Even through her whalebone stays Will felt the little shiver that traveled over Chloe’s body. His breath was warm against her lips and then, he couldn’t help it, he took her mouth again, unable to believe how a simple kiss affected him. His hands moved down her back. “My God,” Will finally said roughly. He turned Miss van Stork sharply about and pulled open the curtains leading to the box, half-pushing her through them.

They emerged just as Act Two began. Will pulled Chloe down on a chair, allowing silent, smiling nods to serve as introductions for the moment. Chloe was surprised: both Charlotte Daicheston and Sophie York were watching the stage intently, completely ignoring the rustling audience around them, even though many of those people were looking only at the two women. She would have thought people like them—people whose names were always in the gossip columns—went to the theater only to see and be seen. But Charlotte, in particular, was so absorbed that her knuckles were white on the box railing. Chloe turned her own attention to the stage. The king, or ex-king now, was hulking about his eldest daughter’s house, demanding to keep a hundred armed men.

Chloe felt a certain amount of sympathy for Goneril, the king’s eldest daughter. Who would want to keep a bunch of feckless soldiers about? Look at the problem her father had with their servants, and they weren’t even armed. The footmen were always in brawls of some sort or another, and her father had a separate butler’s fund just for use in bailing the servants out of prison. Still, it was heartbreaking to watch the old king divested of all his trappings, all his kingliness….

For his part, Will couldn’t keep his mind on the play at all. He felt absolutely astonished. Chloe was watching the play, her chest quietly rising and falling as if nothing at all had happened in the corridor. Whereas he was distinctly uncomfortable in his tight pantaloons. Even sitting with his legs crossed wasn’t helping, given the proximity of Chloe’s round arm. At least her dress didn’t cover every single inch of her body. He looked speculatively at the part of her arm that was visible. Her skin was a flat, creamy white, and her wrist so delicate that he felt as if it might snap at any moment. He shifted his legs again. This was not the right thing to be dwelling on at the moment.

By the time intermission finally came around, Alex, for one, was thoroughly bored. Shakespeare was one thing. For God’s sake, they had acted
King Lear
themselves when he was a schoolboy at Eton. But this wasn’t
King Lear
. This was a stupid, adulterated muddle. He couldn’t believe his own eyes when the Fool started dancing an Irish jig. It was clear already that this Cordelia was not going to die, not if the theater manager had anything to do with it—and he already had had entirely too much to do with the whole play. Who were these new characters, for example? And some had definitely disappeared. He knew damned well that Gloucester used to have a bastard son, because that was the role
he
played at school! He felt nothing but relief when the curtain finally fell on the end of the third act.

Without conscious thought Alex smilingly raised Daphne from her seat and suggested a stroll in the corridor. Daphne showed no sign of surprise when they headed directly for the stairs leading to the next level of boxes.

“I would be happy to meet Lady Charlotte again,” she finally said, tired of walking next to a silent companion. Now they were not being watched by the entire audience, the earl seemed to feel no need to speak to her at all.

Alex came to a halt. “Am I so obvious?” he said with a charming, ironic smile.

“Oui,”
said Daphne. “You do not hide your feelings so well. But then, that is not an English trait,” she said meditatively.

Alex began walking again, albeit more slowly. “And Lady Charlotte?” he asked.

“Well.” Daphne gave a very Gallic, dismissive shrug. “She too has no ability to disguise herself.”

They arrived at the Brandenburg box, only to find that the hallway outside was filled with men trying to jostle themselves into a position to get through the door to the box. A little hush fell when Alex and Daphne appeared, however, and as if by magic the gentlemen pulled back slightly. Alex walked gently through the crowd. The footman guarding the door doffed his hat and Alex and Daphne disappeared through the door, pulling it decisively closed behind them.

They emerged into the glare of the theater slightly blind after the silky darkness of the corridor. The Marquess—or Marquis, to use the preferred spelling—of Brandenburg turned around sharply. He had distinctly told Pierre not to allow any more men into the box. There were already more than enough young bucks in here, breathing down his daughter’s low dress. He groaned inwardly when he saw who had breached the footman’s defenses. Lord! This would make Eloise breathe fire.

But the Earl of Sheffield and Downes was bowing pleasantly enough and introducing the lovely Frenchwoman who accompanied him. The marquis’s eyes brightened. He had a distinct tenderness for all things French and this young lady, he saw at a glance, was as distinguished as his own wife and far more beautiful. So Alex walked forward without Daphne, who was laughing kindly at the marquis’s rather worn jokes. It was pleasant to hear her own language at least. People had no idea how difficult it was to set up a flirtation in a foreign tongue, especially one as graceless and unnuanced as English.

As Alex slipped between chairs there was a sudden flurry at the front of the box. Sophie York rose with a twirl of flimsy skirts, laughing up at the four men surrounding her, each of whom had attempted to help her stand.

“Now!” she said gaily. “We are going to take some air. You”—she emphasized her choices with a tiny rap of her closed fan—”you, and you. Will you accompany me?”

The three beaux she had chosen stumbled over themselves to clear a path through the chairs scattered around the box. As Sophie passed Alex she raised her head, nodding a greeting.

“My lord,” she said demurely. He could swear that the small smile trembling on her lips was a conspiratorial one. An answering gleam lit his eyes.

Sophie continued out of the box, a little startled despite herself at Alex’s sensual appeal. Charlotte
was
lucky, she thought almost wistfully. Then she emerged from the corridor, causing something of a riot, and all thought of Charlotte flew from her mind.

With one eye Alex noted that Will was talking quietly to the young woman sitting beside him, rather than hanging over Charlotte’s bosom. He cast a minatory glance at the young bravo who had his hand on the back of the chair Sophie had just vacated, about to sit down, and the man snatched his hand back as if the chair burned, sinking his red ears into a high starched collar. Alex smiled at him kindly and sat down himself. For a moment Charlotte didn’t turn her head. She knew, of course, that he was there. She knew the minute he entered the box.

Alex stretched out his long legs, ignoring the loud reaction of those theater patrons who had not left their seats, hoping to see precisely something like this. Lady Charlotte Daicheston and the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, seated side by side! Sarah Prestlefield, who had just entered the Brandenburg box to greet her dear friend Eloise, felt a glow of satisfaction. This was such an interesting tangle. The only shame, thought her scandal-loving soul, was that Charlotte’s parents weren’t at the theater. She would love to see the so-calm Adelaide put out by her daughter’s obvious penchant for the Ineligible Earl, as everyone was calling him.

Finally Charlotte could not pretend to be listening intently to the flimflam of the young man on her right any longer. She turned to Alex, an involuntary smile lighting her eyes.