“What are we seeing tonight? I know you chose something we’ll enjoy,” Sapphire said flirtatiously, remembering Angelique’s advice.
“One of de Pixerécourt’s melodramas,” Lord Thomas said, jumping in. “I’ve already seen it twice and it’s quite charming. I’ve reserved a box, of course. And then, if you ladies would be so inclined, Lord Carter has reserved a private dining room above our favorite tavern, the Cock and the Screw.”
Sapphire lowered her lashes, demurring at the words, but she had to be careful because she had not actually told any of these men she was searching for a protector. Since all was insinuated and nothing stated outright, it would be easy to wiggle out of the situation when the truth was ultimately revealed.
“Or elsewhere, if you prefer,” Lord Thomas went on quickly, patting her gloved hand with his. “And of course, Mademoiselle Toulouse and Mr. Stowe are invited, as well.”
Sapphire found it all very amusing how this game worked, as Lucia had explained it to her. Women could let it be known they were need of a protector who would keep them in apartments, pay their lavish dressmakers’ bills and escort them to the theater and balls. In return, a woman was expected to be the man’s lover, at his beck and call day and night whether he was married or unmarried. In Sapphire’s eyes, this was clearly a form of prostitution, yet a kept woman still behaved as if she was a pillar of genteel society.
“I think a late supper with these handsome gentlemen would be divine, don’t you, Miss Fabergine?” Angelique piped in as they passed between the marble pillars into the theater’s extravagant entrance hall.
Sapphire tightened her hold on both gentlemen’s arms, smiling at one and then the other. “I agree entirely, Miss Fabergine.”
“And you two are sisters?” Mr. William Hollington asked, hurrying to catch up with the group. He looked at Sapphire and then Angelique. “Or are you cousins?”
Sapphire smiled coquettishly. “Tell me, Mr. Hollington, what do you think?”
The Earl of Wessex leaned back in his velvet chair, propped his ankle on his knee and let his gaze drift lazily over the crowd of theatergoers settling into their seats in the mezzanine below. The play had just begun but he was no more interested in the story line than the rest of the audience. The English theater, he had learned, much like the theater in Boston or New York City, was not so much a place to see a play as a place to see and be seen by others.
Blake had been practically kidnapped and dragged to the Drury Lane Theatre on the insistence of the Countess Wessex and was now seated next to her and found that her only talent seemed to be her ability to whine incessantly.
Blake shifted his attention to the elaborate set on the stage below and to the lovely actress presently speaking. She was tiny, appearing to be no more than twenty, and had a full head of pale blond hair and remarkable green eyes.
He thought at once of another young woman with green eyes—one green eye, actually—and a familiar sensation rippled through him. He felt his groin tighten. He could almost smell the scent of her hair and could have sworn he heard her voice.
Blake groaned and shifted in his seat, redirecting his focus to the actress below. When she finished her line, she looked his way, lifting her dimpled chin, meeting his gaze. She smiled.
Blake smiled.
Twice more he caught her openly looking at him, and when the intermission came, before he could excuse himself and make his way downstairs to purchase a double scotch, a boy brought him a note and Blake unfolded it with amusement.
My dressing room after the show was all it said in a woman’s flowery script.
He crumpled the note in his hand with a wry grin as he took the stairs down to the foyer.
A few moments later, Blake was turning from the bar, idly sipping his scotch, when a commotion of laughter behind him made him turn around with curiosity. A group of young gentlemen in expensive frock coats surrounded two young women as they laughed gaily, pushing each other as young men do, mocking, retreating and advancing as they jockeyed for positions closest to the two beauties.
Damn! It was the chit with the red hair. Sapphire Fabergine, he had learned when she had sent him a note after that night at Lady Wessex’s party. He had returned the message without reply because he would not play her games or entertain her false hopes. Not even as lovely as she was.
Sapphire, a remarkable name for a young Englishwoman, he mused. He could still taste her lips on his. And now he could hear her voice, husky, deep, filled with seductive promise. So it had not been his imagination when he thought he had heard her earlier in the theater. Amid close to a dozen swains, with no chaperone anywhere to be seen, it was obvious she was some variety of exactly what he had accused. She was remarkable, all right, a woman out to extract whatever wealth or prestige she could from unsuspecting males.
He drank from his glass and savored his scotch, and the smoky flavor somehow reminded him of her, of the taste of her mouth. He was just about to walk away when she turned.
He drew a breath. She was even more lovely than he recalled, dressed in an exquisite blue gown the color of her name, filled out in all the right places. She had good taste, he would give her that. With that rich auburn hair, her unusual eyes and that full, sensual body, she was a woman begging a man to make love to her.
She met his gaze directly, almost in challenge.
He smiled lazily, lifting his glass in toast as if to commend her for her achievements here tonight. The redhead stared at him for a moment longer, then turned her back to him in an act of dismissal.
Blake felt his jaw suddenly tighten. Women didn’t usually turn away from him, though he had no idea why he cared about this one. She was a cheap adventurer.
He strode away, leaving the glass half-finished on a waiter’s tray, and walked out onto the street to smoke a cigar. He couldn’t stand another moment of the cloying theater, the countess, her daughter or the play.
More than an hour later, men and women began to pour from the theater. Voices rose in the early summer night air, now scented with perfume. Blake entered the alley along the side of the theater and took the first open door inside, which led him down a long hall. When he bumped into one of the players, the young man pointed him in the direction of the lead actress’s dressing room.
“Whatever took you so long?” she said when he knocked on the door and walked in. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“I would never keep a lady waiting.”