George refused to look. She knew what the men were talking about. Picking out opera dancers—they had a reputation as notorious light-skirts—as if they were going shopping. She didn’t care what the men did, she just wished they would do it silently. Preferably somewhere else.
Beside her, Aunt Dottie sighed and shifted restlessly. The men’s conversation was disturbing her too.
George tried to fix her eyes and ears on the stage and the glorious music coming from the singers and musicians, but the men’s discussion—loud and annoying—continued until she was almost at screaming point. She turned to face the men over the low wall that divided the boxes. “Hush!” she said in a low, vehement voice. “Some of us want to listen to the music!”
“Well, who’s stopping you?” one man said. He’d clearly been drinking. “That fat woman is loud enough to wake the dead. Can’t hear myself think.”
“You and your friends are ruining our evening with your inane conversation,” she hissed. “So be quiet or leave.”
“Inane? Well, I like that. I’ll have you know that—”
“Leave? This box belongs to my mother.”
“Georgiana,” Aunt Agatha said in a quelling tone.
George didn’t bother to answer. It would only be some kind of reprimand, something like Young ladies don’t talk to gentlemen in the next box, or Young ladies don’t tell gentlemen to be quiet. She snorted. Gentlemen indeed. Young ladies should only insult gentlemen to whom they have been introduced.
Besides, she never answered to Georgiana. She turned back to the stage. The aria began, and, oh, it was glorious. For about half a minute.
“Oh, I say, it’s Lady George.” It was one of the men in the next box. A different one. “Evenin’, Lady George.”
She refused to look. The aria had started.
“Lady George,” the voice continued, louder. Another one who’d drunk too much. “Doncha remember me?”
“Shush!” she hissed.
“But we danced together last week, at the—dash it all—forgotten which ball it was.”
George clenched her fist around her fan, wishing it were a pistol. Or a club.
“Sinc, do you recall whose ball we went to last week? It was the one where—ouch!” He blinked at George in shock and rubbed his shoulder. “You hit me. With your fan.” He glanced down, where the fan had fallen onto the floor in his box. “Broke it too. Pity. Looks like a pretty thing.”
“I’ll break something else if you and your friends don’t shut your mouths!”
“Georgiana!” Aunt Agatha snapped.
George sat down again, but Aunt Agatha persisted. “Georgiana, I’m speaking to you.”
George gritted her teeth, waited pointedly until the soprano had finished and then turned to her great-aunt. “Yes, Great-aunt Agatha?” Aunt Agatha hated being called Great-aunt Agatha, especially in public. Great-aunt was the correct form of address for George to use, but it was oh, so aging.
Aunt Agatha glared through her lorgnette, her lips thinned almost to invisibility, then jerked her head in a subtle sideways direction. George frowned, unsure of what she was signaling. Aunt Agatha rolled her eyes, then with a palpable effort, she forced them into a smile, turned and bowed graciously in the direction of the next box. “Good evening, your grace.”
George followed her gaze. A dark shadow leaned forward, picked up her fan from the floor and stepped forward into the light.
She stiffened and swore under her breath. The Duke of blasted Everingham. She hadn’t noticed him, lurking there in the background. He was dressed, as usual, in severe black evening clothes, the only gleam of color about him an emerald tie pin. The candlelight threw half his face into shadow and gilded the rest: the proud nose, the chiseled lips, the stubborn jaw. He stood there, all born-to-command and superior, looking down his nose at her.
His eyes glinted, dark and unreadable tonight, but she’d noticed them before, when he was betrothed to Rose, and she thought them the coldest eyes she’d ever seen.
“Georgiana,” Aunt Agatha prompted.
George knew she wouldn’t stop, so she gave the duke a reluctant nod.
He inclined his head at her. His lips twitched slightly as if he found something amusing. Found her amusing.
No doubt he was amused by the little provincial’s insistence on an audience actually listening. Not to mention her inappropriate behavior in addressing people in the next box—gentlemen in the next box.
Or perhaps the amusement came from Aunt Agatha’s offer of George as a potential bride. And his rejection of her. An ill-trained, boyish, impertinent hoyden.
She put up her chin. She didn’t care what he thought.
Well, actually she did—she wanted him to know she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in him, never had been, and that the idea of offering her to him as a potential bride was nothing to do with her and wholly Aunt Agatha’s preposterous and insane idea. Made entirely without George’s knowledge or permission.
But she couldn’t exactly explain that, not here, not now, especially in this company. She crossed her arms and eyed him coldly, fuming at the thought that he might assume she was angry with him because he’d refused her. She was not a woman scorned! He was a man scorned—only he didn’t know it.
So infuriating.
“Good evening, Lady Salter, Lady Dorothea, Lady Georgiana,” Hart said smoothly. “Enjoying the evening, I hope?”
He’d decided to accompany Sinc and his friends at the last minute. His mother’s less-than-subtle queries the day before had convinced him that Lady Georgiana would be attending the opera tonight, and though he had no interest either in the opera or in courting her, he was very interested in obtaining her horse.
Her note of curt refusal had annoyed him, but he’d taken it as the opening salvo of a negotiation, female-style. Or some kind of blasted flirtation.
Lord, but he was fed up with women and their tricks. From his mother, to his first and subsequent mistresses—even the first girl he thought he might love—it had been nothing but deception, lies and devious female stratagems.
He’d planned to step into her box at the next interval, bringing champagne for the ladies, and then sit down and discuss the sale of her horse. Monty and his friends had probably spoiled any chance of a civilized conversation tonight, at least, but Hart might be able to salvage something from the evening.
He’d watched her from his shadowed corner and been intrigued by her rapt expression as she gazed down at the stage. Had she been feigning interest in order to attract some musical gentleman?
Women did that, he knew. He’d lost track of the various interests females he’d known had claimed, only to learn that they were almost invariably false. One young lady who’d declared she had a passion for hunting—because he was known to be a bruising rider to hounds—hadn’t even been able to ride. Unless to bounce along on the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes was to ride.