last night, but there was no getting near her. Should have had you do it before you disappeared with that mouse. My God, she’s a magnificent creature!”
James stretched his fingers, checking a driving desire to wrap them around Vincroft’s throat. But Vincroft was a lesser of evils, so he reached for a vaguely disinterested tone. “As a matter of fact—”
“Can’t imagine her dressed like a Barbary pirate,” Vincroft interrupted. “Can’t imagine it at all.” James clenched his jaw, and Vincroft lowered his voice. “Fearsome sight to behold, eh?”
“Terrifying.” James beheld her now as she half watched the performance, half chatted with Honoria and Philomena. Tonight she sparkled in a gown the color of the sea at dusk, with her hair frozen in a pile of curls decorated with jewels that winked at him in the stagelight. The baser part of his nature preferred her the way she’d been dressed yesterday morning. But then, the baser part of his nature would prefer her dressed in nothing at all.
The sudden rumble of the theatrical thunder machine startled him. Just then she turned her head straight toward him, and a bolt of an entirely different kind shot through him.
He had to find her a husband. And by God, she would marry the man if he had to hold a pistol to her head. And then he would wash his hands of this whole damned mess. He leaned toward Vincroft. “No doubt you are aware—”
“Winston’s been staring at her for most of the first act,” Vincroft said through his teeth. “I demand that you take me there at once before he makes himself at home in her box. For God’s sake, Croston, have pity on me. You know how I—” He turned in his seat as someone entered their box. “Wenthurst! Good to see you! And Pinsbury!”
“Don’t get up, don’t get up,” Wenny said, sliding into the chair on the other side of James and taking a pinch of snuff. The direction of his gaze told James exactly why Wenny was there.
James got up, anyway, because Pinsbury was crowding into the box with three women—Lady Pinsbury and, James soon learned, Lady Pinsbury’s sister and niece.
“Here from the country, you know,” Pinsbury explained. “Joys of the Season and all that. Not so many diversions in Sussex, are there, my dear?” he jovially asked his niece.
Miss Underbridge offered her uncle what could only be termed a perfunctory smile. “Not of the sort to be found in London, Uncle.”
“We thought some time in London would do her good,” Lady Pinsbury added. Would find her a husband, more like, James thought. Lady Pinsbury beamed at Miss Underbridge, whose perfunctory smile was now pasted to her lips. They were rather full lips, James noticed, set beneath a handsome-enough nose and sturdy cheekbones. The dim theater left the color of her eyes a mystery, but he could see enough to understand the source of Lady Pinsbury and Mrs. Underbridge’s pointed enthusiasm for her presence in London society: Miss Underbridge was quite clearly on the shelf.
He took a closer look.
“Such a miracle, your safe return,” Pinsbury was saying. “Can’t be more pleased.”
“Indeed, I have to agree,” James said. Miss Underbridge had already seen her twentieth birthday—he’d wager Croston Hall on it. She seemed to have a calm enough disposition, with no trace of the eagerness lighting the faces of her mother and aunt. “Have you been enjoying the play, Miss Underbridge?” he asked.
He got the full brunt of that pasted-on smile, along with a moment of surprise at having been noticed. “I have, Lord Croston. It is quite entertaining.”
He applauded her effort, but her tone told him she would prefer to be elsewhere. “Of course,” he added as an experiment, “I generally prefer a quiet fireside read to the noise of the theater.”
“I quite agree.” Her tone lost some of its falsity. “Reading is a most enjoyable pastime.”
Indeed. He wondered whether, unlike Lady Maude, Miss Underbridge had a sensible disposition to match her calm demeanor.
The back of his mind teased that a reactionary demeanor and biting disposition was vastly more interesting, and a shiver slid over the back of his neck as though Katherine was watching him from her box. His senses began to churn, stirred up the way a hard rain roiled a stagnant pond. Everything in him wanted to leave his box and go to hers. Be near her. Listen to her wild, acrimonious opinions about London and its inhabitants. Find out what she thought of the gift he’d sent Anne.
He shoved the longing away and discreetly assessed whether Miss Underbridge appeared built to give him an heir.
“You will have to dine with us one evening,” Lady Pinsbury said to him.
“Yes, yes,” Pinsbury said, breaking away from the conversation he’d been having with Vincroft. “We’d be delighted!”
“As would I,” James replied. If he accepted an invitation in the next week, he could have the business arranged by the time the committee made its decision and be ready to travel to Croston without delay. He could return to London for the ceremony, then let her decide whether to remain in London or come to Croston. The idea’s simplicity was vaguely comforting.
After assuring him that an invitation would be forthcoming, the Pinsburys and Miss Underbridge left the box. James returned to his seat, where Wenny still stared openly at Katherine. James resisted the urge to do the same. He needed to get rid of Wenny so he could talk business with Vincroft.
But just thinking about it edged him a little closer to madness.
“Listen here, Croston,” Wenny said the moment James sat down. “It’s good to have you back—truly it is. But you’ll understand if I get straight to the point. Lady Dunscore, old friend. What can you tell me that will give me an advantage?”
Vincroft leaned forward and looked at him. “You’ll have to climb over me and half a dozen others first,” he said. “You’re not the only one with an eye on her.”
Wenny snorted. “True enough. But if it’s Winston that gets her, I won’t abide it. Now tell me, Croston, will you give me an introduction? Will she think it an affront if I introduce myself?”
“Lady Wenthurst will likely think so.” The frayed edge of James’s control wore thinner.
Wenny snorted. “Good God, she’s a beauty.” He wasn’t talking about his wife. “I want her, Croston. Bloody hell! There’s Winston now, bold as balls.”
James watched Winston enter Katherine’s box without so much as an escort. Another thread snapped.
“She didn’t even curtsy,” Vincroft said. “She’s— My God, I think she’s rebuffing him. Yes—yes, she’s given him the cold shoulder!” He grinned at Wenny. “Perhaps there’s a chance for us, after all.”
“For me perhaps,” Wenny scoffed, pinching more snuff. “There’s little doubt she’ll go to the highest bidder, and you’ve never been one for high stakes.”
James didn’t move. Didn’t sit forward, didn’t take his eyes off the stage. “The next time I hear you imply that Lady Dunscore is for sale to anyone,” he said quietly, “you will meet me on the field, and I will kill you.” Through his rage, he heard his own words as though listening through water.
The
