The Beguilement of Lady Eustacia Cavanagh (The Cavanaughs 3)

Frederick’s smile faded; he trapped her gaze. “Many who attended your event two nights ago will be present. As your intention is to hold more such events, introducing more of the worthy graduates of the music school to the ton—an aim I wholeheartedly support—then consolidating and maintaining your social position is as essential to your goal and the future of those graduates as me practicing on a piano is.”

Stacie understood the real message in his words. The ton would expect to see them behaving as an engaged couple; if she wanted to establish her musical evenings as she’d planned, she couldn’t afford not to satisfy society’s expectations.

But just being as close to him as she was now was playing havoc with her nerves. Spending hours in a dimly lit box with him seated close beside her…

She glanced at Mary.

Mary met her eyes and arched her brows. “Have you seen Kean play Hamlet?”

“No.”

“In that case,” Mary said, “you should go—his performance is definitely worth experiencing.”

No help from that quarter, yet Kean’s brilliance notwithstanding, she doubted she would be able to concentrate on the stage. Raising her gaze to meet Frederick’s—he hadn’t shifted, and with an armchair behind her, she couldn’t ease away—she said, “Thank you, my lord—Ernestine and I would be happy to accept your invitation.”

He smiled—and despite not being all that happy over being jockeyed into another public appearance, she found herself charmed; when he wished, the man could be diabolical.

“Excellent.” He glanced at Mary and Sylvia and half bowed. “I’ll leave you ladies to your morning.” To Ernestine and Stacie, he said, “I’ll pick you up in my carriage at eight.”

Delighted, Ernestine assured him they would be ready and waiting.

“I’ll see you out.” Stacie waved toward the door—and he finally consented to move.

She noted that he didn’t try to hide his satisfaction as, side by side, they walked into the front hall. When she paused before the door and he turned to her, reaching for and taking her hand, she fixed him with a level look. “Do you always get what you want?”

He met her gaze as he raised her hand. “Almost always.” He held her gaze and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

For a moment, she felt captured, trapped in his mesmerizing eyes—then his smile deepened a fraction, and he released her hand and stepped toward the door, which a round-eyed Hettie promptly opened.

He still held Stacie’s gaze, then with a dip of his head, he turned away. “I’ll see you this evening.”

He walked out of the door and left her wondering what that odd moment of strange connection had been about.

As the curtain of the Drury Lane theater parted on the first act, and the lights dimmed and the patrons quietened, with Ernestine, Frederick’s mother, and her companion, Mrs. Weston, on one side and Frederick on the other, Stacie sat at the front of the Albury box and heaved a silent sigh of relief.

Both Mary and Sylvia had urged her to make the best of the situation and enjoy the benefits of having a handsome nobleman squire her about, yet a niggling reluctance still plagued her. As a rule, she tried not to lie or manipulate others, and what she and Frederick were presently doing amounted to lying and manipulating on a grand scale.

Countering that, she sternly told herself that their actions were all in a good—if not excellent—cause, specifically in ensuring her continued ability to introduce worthy musicians to the ton’s notice. And as Mary had pointed out, as Frederick was more than doing his part, Stacie needed to step up and keep him company.

That hadn’t been quite so easily done as said; just getting through the foyer had been an ordeal. But Frederick had held close to her side and guided her through the crush; she’d glimpsed a certain steely ruthlessness behind his ineffably sophisticated mask as he’d arrogantly ignored most who’d sought to detain them, acknowledging only those whose station made them impossible to avoid, all the while relentlessly forging a path through the melee.

Despite her leaping nerves and the near-constant abrasion of her senses whenever he was close, she’d been grateful.

She slanted a glance at him as he sat, apparently relaxed, beside her. Although his face was wreathed in shadows, she noted his gaze was not on the stage. He was scanning the boxes on the other side of the theater; she glanced that way and realized that many of the occupants, both male and female, were surreptitiously staring at the Albury box.

Of course. She shifted her gaze back to the stage and determinedly kept it there. Much of her reluctance to go about in public stemmed from her aversion of being stared at, of being the focus of that sort of attention. It was inevitable, she knew, and indeed, Frederick had probably been wise to engineer this outing; at least in the theater, unlike in a drawing room, all people could do was stare from a distance.

Over time, the ton’s avid interest would fade; some new scandal would occur, and all attention would deflect to that.

She tried to concentrate on the performance, but too many of her senses preferred to focus on a distraction nearer to hand. She’d circulated within the ton for over eight years; she’d met countless gentlemen, many as handsome and even a few as physically commanding as Frederick, yet none had ever drawn her attention as he did. Why he should possess such an apparently effortless ability to snare her senses, she had no idea.

Yet he did.

She could only pray that, as with the ton’s interest, the effect would fade with time and constant exposure.

Before she knew it, the curtains swept in, the lights flared, and the first intermission began.

As always, that signaled the emptying of some boxes and the consequent filling of others. Naturally, the Albury box was one of those soon full to bursting.