Page 49 of One Perfect Dance
Never before, though, had she been a guest in such a capacious and well-appointed box. The Dellborough box was to the right of the stage and consisted of a spacious room with an apron front at the same level of the stage, and a retiring room behind, where servants waited with refreshments for the guests.
Rex presented her to the Duke and Duchess, a stately couple some twenty or more years older than Rex—indeed, their son had been born just three years after Rex; he was present with his Countess, the mother of the next generation of Dellborough heirs.
The box’s inhabitants were of nearly as much interest to the audience asThe Bride of Abydos, which was the main feature of the evening. An adaptation of the Byron poem, with the tragic ending switched for the happier closure of Byron’sCorsair, it soon had Regina forgetting the sea of watchful eyes.
The play leant itself to the modern innovation of gas lighting, with both dawn and dusk scenes profiting from changes in the lighting. The scenery was beautiful, the costuming gorgeous, and the music pleasing. Edmund Kean played the hero, Selim, and he was always worth seeing, especially when playing opposite the beautiful Charlotte Mardyn.
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Ash paid littleattention to the performance. His attention was totally caught by Regina. She stared enchanted at the stage, her expressive face showing every emotion the actors and the music induced. He could not look away.
In the tiered galleries along both sides of the theater, denizens of the fashionable world preened and postured for one another. Far above, those who could not afford admission to the galleries looked down from their high perches, enjoying the spectacle of the audience as much as what happened on the stage. And from the floor of the theater, working-class men and women rubbed shoulders with young gentlemen out on the town.
Here and there, others focused on the actors and their enactment of Byron’s romantic tale but few with the concentration of his Ginny.
He loved her. He wanted a lifetime with her. He wanted that focus directed towards him as he made slow deliberate love to every portion of her delectable anatomy. Small as she was, he might have to worship some places more than once to draw out the time.
When the curtain closed for the intermission, Regina roused only slowly from the spell the show had cast. Servants passed around glasses of wine, and Ash took one for her and placed it in her hand. “Thank you, Elijah,” she murmured, her eyes still far away.
People crowded into their box to pay their compliments to the Duke and Duchess of Dellborough, and to meet the two adventurers. Regina responded with perfect courtesy to greetings from those she knew and introductions from those she didn’t, but Ash sensed she was simply waiting for them all to go away and for the play to return.
She roused when one of the visitors condescended to Rithya, speaking loudly and slowly as if she thought Arthur’s wife to be deaf or stupid. “You must be very glad to be in England, Lady Arthur. Lord Arthur was kind to bring you here.”
“To the theater?” Rithya asked, with perfect English enunciation, her eyes glittering. “Yes, my husband is very good to me.”
The interlocuter drew back, and then commented to Regina, “Her English is quite good, is it not?”
“Certainly, far better than my Hindi,” said Regina. She smiled at Rithya. “As you explained to me, my lady, in your country, ladies of your class are expected to master several languages—written as well as spoken—as well as musical instruments, dance, and artistic endeavors.”
Rithya returned the smile. “And science, mathematics, politics, geography, and the like. It is to make us better companions to our husbands and mothers to our children.”
Regina nodded, decisively. “We English could learn from that example. Many of our girls have little education and must bore their husbands to tears.”
Rithya’s smile turned wicked. “We also study the arts of the bedchamber,” she said. “Boredom in that area of marriage is fatal to one’s happiness, or so I have been told.”
Rex must have also been listening to the conversation, for he turned away from his own, picked up his wife’s hand, kissed it, commented, “I am not bored,” and returned to what he had been saying.
At that moment, the orchestra began playing again, and the red-faced lady stammered to her own husband that it must be time to return to their seats. He obliged, offering her his elbow, but mouthed to Rex as he left, “Lucky man!”
The box swiftly emptied of its visitors, several of them casting approving glances at Rithya or envious ones at Rex. As they took their seats again, Regina bent closer to Ash and whispered, “Rithya’s comments and Rex’s will be repeated all over the theater, and most of theTonwill have heard by noon tomorrow that Lady Arthur is an accomplished and educated lady.”
“Better still, they’ll all be talking about how Lord Arthur is a very happy man.” Ash smiled and reached out to press her arm, delighted that the lady he loved shared his appreciation of Rithya’s deft management of her detractors.
As the lights went up on the stage, she sat back in her chair and composed herself to sink into the story again. Regina was an accomplished and educated lady herself, and if that did not yet include an education in the arts of the bedchamber, Ash knew he too would be a very happy man, if she allowed him to amend the lack.
Chapter Nineteen
Lady Conley’s VenetianBreakfast was a crush, which was no doubt gratifying for Lady Conley, but set Regina’s teeth on edge. Her size meant all she could see before and behind her were the torsos of other people and, if she looked up, the underneath of their chins. She had been trying for half an hour to find Arial, who was supposed to be here this afternoon, but the inability to see through the crowds was impairing her search.
The event spilled over all seven rooms on the first floor of Lady Conley’s townhouse, and Regina had been into every one, though Arial might have been on the other side of any of the rooms she passed through, and Regina would have missed her.
In the final room, a doorway connected to the gallery that formed a bridge over the front hall and a landing for stairs down and up. The gallery offered a quicker path back to the first room than the tortuous route from room to room across the front of the house.
Regina slipped out of the crowd and took a deep breath in the privacy of the gallery. She stopped partway across the bridge to look down into the front hall, currently occupied only by a footman who stood by the door.
On either side of her, the hum of voices and clatter of crockery continued, cresting and sinking in waves, with the lulls allowing her to hear a bar or two of music. In one of the front rooms a trio of musicians on pianoforte, violin and cello did their poor best to entertain a crowd more interested in conversation and gossip.
Here, though, she was in an oasis of—if not silence—at least calm.
