The young lady sitting on the other side of his friend was just out of the schoolroom, and at present, all arms, legs, and blushes. A child, merely.
She looked up from her program, caught his eye, and promptly turned crimson. “Have you seen Mr. K-Kean perform before, my lord?”
St. Clare offered her a smile. “Only last week. And you, Miss Mattingly?”
“Oh, no! This is my first t-time at the theater.”
St. Clare arched a brow in Mattingly’s direction.
Mattingly had the good grace to look sheepish. He mouthed another apology.
St. Clare didn’t regard it. The truth of the matter was that Astrid Mattingly was the least offensive female in the box. The dowager’s granddaughters were a pair of giggling henwits, and the other young lady, a Miss Louisa Steele, had all the charm of a viper that had once crawled into his tent while camping in the Egyptian desert.
According to Miss Steele’s mother, who’d been extolling her daughter’s many virtues since the moment they arrived at the theater, Louisa was humble, sweet, and kind. As skilled at the pianoforte and harp as she was at riding and dancing. And so far superior to other young ladies in both looks and accomplishments that she’d often been the target of spiteful, jealous gossip.
The bulk of this chatter was directed to the old dowager who sat beside her, but St. Clare was in no doubt that Mrs. Steele’s words were meant for him alone.
“A diamond. That’s what the duke called her at her come-out ball. He said that Louisa was the most beautiful girl anyone had seen in five seasons. Can you imagine?”
“No,” said the dowager frostily.
Miss Steele herself, who was sitting at an odd angle in front of him, turned in her chair and whispered, “You must ignore Mama. I’m not interested in the duke.”
St. Clare refrained from asking which duke.
“Although it’s true that he said I was the most beautiful girl he’d seen in years,” she continued. “I don’t know why he would. I see nothing out of the ordinary in my appearance. Do you, my lord?”
What St. Clare thought was that Miss Steele was a remarkably accomplished flirt for a girl who couldn’t be any older than one and twenty. She simpered, she pouted, and she batted her lashes. No doubt her tactics worked on a great many of the men she met. They didn’t work on him. “You look very well, Miss Steele.”
“You look divine,” Mattingly said.
“Flatterer!” She laughed. “I know I do not. Not in this gown. And not with this necklace. I would have worn my pearls, for they look best with my hair, but Mama insisted I wear the diamonds. The duke said I must always wear diamonds because I am a diamond myself.”
While Miss Steele directed her attentions to Mattingly, St. Clare’s gaze drifted around the packed house. He didn’t require a set of opera glasses to see into the tiers of boxes across the theater. It was easy enough to make out the titled and the wealthy, the famous and infamous.
Ladies draped in jewels sat at the forefront, gentlemen in gold and silver waistcoats behind. He recognized women he’d met at balls and parties, and men he’d seen at his club. There was even a famous Cyprian or two.
And then, just as the play began, he saw her.
Margaret Honeywell.
A jolt of simmering recognition shot through him.
She was seated in the front of a box opposite, one tier below his own, in the company of a slender fair-haired gentleman, an equally slender fair-haired young lady, and an elderly female who appeared to be asleep in her chair.
Observing St. Clare’s arrested expression, Mattingly discreetly handed him a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses.
St. Clare took them without a word, training them on Miss Honeywell. The lenses were powerful. Through them he could make out every curve and contour of her flawless ivory countenance. The deep blue of her eyes—like melting sapphires. The straight, elegant line of her nose and the delicate cleft in her stubbornly set chin. It was a face one didn’t easily forget. A face to haunt a man’s dreams.
And not only a face. She had a figure to rival it. One he hadn’t fully appreciated when she’d called on him in Grosvenor Square. Then she’d been clad in a dark, shapeless dress. But now…
Now she wore a gown of champagne silk, with tiny puffed sleeves dropping loosely off of her bare shoulders, and a neckline cut low along the swell of her bosom.
His fingers clenched reflexively on the opera glasses.
Her gown exposed a wide expanse of pale, creamy skin. And her hair, caught up in jeweled pins to reveal the slender column of her throat, was artfully disheveled, looking as if at any moment it might fall down around her in a mass of dark curls. When combined with the rosy flush in her cheeks and the equally rosy hue to the wide, full softness of her mouth, the entire effect was that of a woman rising from bed after a passionate interlude with her lover.
And who the devil was the young gentleman beside her? Some confounded coxcomb who had schemed his way into escorting her to the theater?
The young man turned and whispered something into Miss Honeywell’s ear. She tilted her head to listen, giving the young man her full and undivided attention. And then she smiled.
St. Clare felt a bitter surge of jealousy.
“What are you scowling at?” Mattingly asked in a low undertone. “Haven’t caught sight of another country squire worth calling out, have you?”
St. Clare thrust the opera glasses at Mattingly. “Who is that fellow opposite?”
“Which fellow?” Mattingly peered through the glasses. “Him? In the gold-embroidered waistcoat? That’s Trumble’s heir, George. He’s a tolerable chap. Not a bit like Burton-Smythe. No need to… Ah. Wait a moment. Well, fancy that. I’d heard Miss Honeywell was back in town. Haven’t seen her in—let me think—going on four years.”
St. Clare turned his gaze on his friend. Mattingly was dark-haired, nearly as tall as St. Clare was himself, and generally considered to be quite handsome. “You know her? How?”
“Met her during her come out.”
“Good.” St. Clare retrieved the opera glasses from Mattingly and once again fixed them on Miss Honeywell. “You can introduce me to her at the interval.”
Entering Miss Honeywell’s theater box, St. Clare and Lord Mattingly found her engaged in conversation with a tall, fair-haired young lady who Mattingly identified as Miss Jane Trumble. The two ladies’ elderly companion was snoring softly in her chair, and George Trumble was nowhere to be found.
“My brother has gone to fetch us some lemonade,” Miss Trumble explained after Mattingly made the introductions.
St. Clare supposed he should have felt a pang of conscience at that. No doubt the flock of females in the earl’s box were expecting that he and Mattingly would procure them refreshments as well. But as he looked at Margaret Honeywell, he couldn’t summon the slightest twinge of remorse at abandoning his responsibilities.
Let some other enterprising gentleman tend to the needs of Miss Steele and the dowager’s granddaughters.
“I say, what did you think of the first act?” Mattingly asked, deftly maneuvering himself into the seat beside Miss Trumble. He wasn’t the brightest of fellows, but St. Clare credited him with good instincts when it came to assisting his friends. As easily as he’d lent his opera glasses, he now occupied Miss Trumble, leaving the field with Miss Honeywell open for St. Clare. “Saw Kean in Othello,” he continued. “Not sure his Macbeth is up to the same standard.”
“He seems to be doing an excellent job,” Miss Trumble replied. “But then, I have nothing with which to compare him. Was his portrayal of Othello really as brilliant as everyone says?”
While Mattingly and Miss Trumble discussed Shakespeare, St. Clare approached Miss Honeywell. There was a strangely unwelcoming expression in her blue eyes. “May I?” He gestured at the empty seat next to her.
�
��If you like,” she said coolly.
He sat down beside her in the chair that had lately been occupied by George Trumble. This, too, was the view he’d enjoyed. A diaphanous gown clinging to gently rounded bare shoulders and falling in shimmering folds down to delicately slippered feet. Creamy skin illuminated by the flickering candlelight from the chandeliers. A provocative décolletage accented at its center with a small cluster of wildflowers. And that unforgettable face. Wide eyes, soft lips, and a stubbornly cleft little chin, all framed by escaping tendrils of glossy mink hair.
Up close she was even more ravishing than she’d appeared from across the room.
She was also very much on her dignity.
St. Clare felt oddly off balance. As if he were an impertinent schoolboy soliciting the hand of a beautiful young lady at his first country assembly.
A ridiculous notion.
What had he to be nervous about? He’d dined with nobility on the continent. Had waltzed with a princess and danced the quadrille with an archduchess.
But Miss Honeywell had a frank way of looking at him. As if she could see past his elegant, black evening clothes and intricately tied white cravat. As if she could see straight to the center of his being. “What do you make of me?” he wanted to ask her. But he already knew the answer. She didn’t make much of him at all. And yet…
After a few moments’ consideration, it occurred to him that the rigidity of her spine and the martial light in her eye likely had more to do with some incidental grievance she’d laid at his door than with a thorough indictment of his worth as a human being. Had she heard something about him, perhaps? That he was a rake? An adventurer?
He was immeasurably cheered by the thought.
“Are you enjoying the play, Miss Honeywell?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Kean is a rare talent, don’t you think?”
“As you say.”
“I had the privilege of seeing this very play only last week. Mrs. Bartley’s performance as Lady Macbeth was particularly good. I didn’t think another actress could compare, but Mrs. Hill has done a creditable job of it so far. It will be interesting to see how she handles the sleepwalking scene in Act V.” St. Clare waited for a response. None was forthcoming. “I beg your pardon. Have I done something to offend you?”
She at last turned to address him, her voice dropping to a low, accusing whisper. “You know that you have.”
His brows lifted. “Indeed, I do not.”
“Do you think me a complete ninny, my lord? I knew about the duel, did I not? Do you suppose for a moment that I didn’t promptly learn the result of it?”
“I suppose nothing of the sort.”
“Well, then?” she demanded.
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I begin to think that the results of the duel didn’t please you.”
“No, they most certainly did not!” Miss Honeywell leaned toward him, her voice dropping even lower. St. Clare caught the subtle scent of her perfume. “You shot Mr. Burton-Smythe. You promised me, on your honor that—”
“That I would not kill him. And I didn’t.”
“You shot him.”
“In the shoulder.”
“And did it not occur to you that your shot might have inadvertently gone too high or too wide? In a high wind, I daresay you might have accidentally blown his head off!”
St. Clare failed to suppress a smile. By God, he liked her show of temper. It was a refreshing change from the frailty she’d exhibited when she’d called on him in Grosvenor Square. “My shooting doesn’t allow for accidents, Miss Honeywell. My bullet went exactly where I meant it to go. The place where it would hurt him the most.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “His shoulder?”
“His pride. You know as well as I do that had I allowed him to emerge unscathed it would only have emboldened him. Your Mr. Burton-Smythe needed to be taught a lesson. He needed to be humiliated. I hope he’ll be a much better person now.”
Miss Honeywell bristled. “He’s not my Mr. Burton-Smythe.”
“I’m very happy to hear it.”
“And if you think anything could make him a better person, then you’re very much mistaken.”
“Yes. Perhaps I am. In truth, I suspect he’ll need to be shot a great many more times in order to effect a noticeable change.”
Miss Honeywell swiftly looked away from him. A smile quivered on her lips. She visibly struggled to suppress it. “I think you’re a scoundrel.”
St. Clare grinned. For a moment, he forgot the countless number of opera glasses that were no doubt fixed upon the two of them. “A scoundrel to whom you owe three forfeits.”
“Oh, do I?”
“Come, Miss Honeywell. I refuse to believe that you’re the sort of lady who would fail to keep her word.”
“My word?” she repeated. “How can you expect me to fulfill the terms of our agreement when you have not?”
“I did precisely as you asked me. I did not kill him.”
She occupied herself with straightening one of her long gloves. “You kept to the letter of the agreement, I’ll grant you,” she admitted grudgingly. “But you failed to honor the spirit of it.”
“Tell me then. Are you and I at point nonplus? I certainly hope not. I’ve very much been looking forward to claiming my first forfeit.”
She proceeded to smooth her other glove. “I didn’t think you were serious about any of that. The forfeits, I mean. Indeed, for the last three days I…” She hesitated before continuing. “For the last three days, I’ve assumed you were making sport of me.”
St. Clare’s brows snapped together. “I wasn’t. Nor would I ever.”
“You say that, but—”
“Miss Honeywell, if you don’t stop fidgeting with your gloves and look at me, I shall be compelled to take your hand and hold it in mine.”
Her eyes shot to his. “You wouldn’t dare.”
St. Clare was gratified to see the return of her temper. “Try me.”
She folded her hands primly in her lap. “Satisfied?”
“Not by a long chalk. Now tell me, in earnest, will you come for a drive with me in the park tomorrow afternoon? I have a new curricle and the finest team of bays you’ve ever seen. It would be my pleasure to put them through their paces for you.”
“What makes you think any such thing would appeal to me?”
“Would it not?”
“For all you know I may be frightened of horses.”
His lips twitched. “You? Afraid of horses?”
“I might be.”
“All horses? Even match-bays? With faultless shoulders and first-rate legs?”
At his coaxing tone, the corner of her mouth trembled. But she didn’t smile. Instead, she cast him a thoroughly reproving glance. “Are you inviting me, my lord, or are you calling in a forfeit?”
“Whatever is necessary,” he answered.
She exhaled a breath. “You needn’t waste a forfeit. An invitation will do.” She added quickly, “But only because I’d like to see your cattle.”
“Naturally.” His heart thumped heavily. “I shall come for you at five if that’s agreeable.”
“It is. Thank you, my lord.”
“What a crush it is out there!” George Trumble entered the box. “Oh, I say! Didn’t know anyone else was here.” He handed a glass of lemonade to Miss Honeywell and another to Miss Trumble. “Everything all right, m’dear?”
“Perfectly,” Miss Trumble replied. “George, you’ve met Lord Mattingly, I presume? And Lord St. Clare? They’ve been keeping us company for the interval.”
St. Clare and Mattingly both rose and made their bows to him.
“Couldn’t resist coming to pay our respects to Miss Trumble and Miss Honeywell,” Mattingly said.
“I’m ob
liged to you,” Trumble replied.
“We were just about to take our leave. I’m afraid we’ve been neglecting the ladies in our own box, haven’t we, St. Clare?”
“Whereabouts are you sitting?” Miss Trumble asked.
“Straight across the way. One tier above and a little to the right.”
Miss Trumble raised her opera glasses. “Oh! Is that Miss Steele I see? She’s quite the belle of the season, I understand.”
“Brought my sister, Astrid, too,” Mattingly said. “The young lady in the front. She’s fresh from the schoolroom, you know.”
“She’s lovely,” Miss Trumble responded graciously. She lowered her glasses. “It seems you have a bevy of young ladies waiting for you. How selfish of us to keep you as long as we have.”
“We won’t keep you any longer,” Trumble said.
St. Clare ignored him. His attention was riveted on Miss Honeywell, and unless he was very much mistaken, her attention was equally engaged with him. He reached for her gloved hand and she gave it to him willingly. He bowed over it, retaining it in his grasp a few seconds longer than was proper. “Until tomorrow, Miss Honeywell.”
She met his gaze. “I look forward to it, my lord.”
He reluctantly let her go, and after taking his leave of Miss Trumble and her brother, left the theater box with Mattingly close behind him.
The passage was crowded with people bustling about during the interval. St. Clare navigated through the crush, proceeding toward the stairway that would take them back up to their own box. At the first opportunity, Mattingly drew level with him. “The Honeybee,” he said.
“What?” St. Clare asked, distracted.
“That’s what Margaret Honeywell was called during her come out.” Mattingly chuckled. “Not at first, mind. When she first arrived, all the gents were calling her the Pocket Venus. You never saw a girl so beautiful. And with such a figure! She drew quite a court around her, too. Then the first chap got stung. And then the second.” Mattingly reflected on this with evident appreciation. “Used to deliver some of the sharpest set-downs you ever heard. Rather indecorous as well. Galloping her horse in Hyde Park. Firing a pistol during a country house party. And that temper of hers! More spleen than sense, Miss Honeywell.”
Gentleman Jim Page 7
