Page 33 of An Unwanted Widow for the Duke
“I-I need to powder my nose,” she mumbled, fumbling for her purse and quickly dabbing at her nose.
He could have chuckled at her nervousness, but he saw the calculation behind her wide eyes. She was a widow, yes, but one who guarded her reputation fiercely.
He knew he should step back. And so he did, retreating toward the lobby.
As he walked, he overheard Lady Slyham speaking softly to her sister.
“Lizzie, I was about to return to our box.”
“Oh. I was worried. I thought I saw a man walking this way.”
“I didn’t see anyone,” Lady Slyham said quickly. “Not a soul.”
Chapter Nine
“You’re here for the play,” Gerard muttered to himself, his voice low enough to be drowned by the music.
You are not here for a widow. Not for her.
It was useless. His eyes kept finding her, crossing the gilded gulf of the theater to her box.
There she sat, illuminated by the soft wall lights, effortless in her attention. No artifice, no posture for effect. Just her, fully absorbed in the play.
Gerard tried to look away, tried to focus on the actors, but each subtle shift in her expression drew him back: the flicker of amusement, the arch of an eyebrow at a clever line, the curve of her lips. She wore her emotions openly—rapt attention, delight, occasional shock—and unashamedly.
Focus,he chided himself.
For a moment, he thought he’d succeeded. But then his gaze wandered to a loose tendril escaping her coiffure.
The crowd laughed at some line, but he barely heard it. All he saw was her laughter, her head tipped back, the sound not meant for him but somehow monopolizing his attention.
He could recount her reactions in greater detail than anything on the stage.
His frustration flared. Of all women, why her? A widow, yes, but a dowager countess who was scrutinized. Yet here she was, so alive, so genuine, so unguarded in her delight.
No pretense. No calculation. Just her genuine self.
When the curtain fell, Gerard clapped with the others, mechanically, though his eyes never left her.
Every cheer around him felt hollow; she was the only one who mattered. He waited, hoping she would turn, share the moment, catch his eye.
She did not.
Gerard was bored.
At his own event.
By all accounts, the evening was a success. The drawing room buzzed with conversation deemed clever enough, laughter polished to the right pitch, and the usual parade of gently bred ladies and their ambitious mamas. A perfect specimen of a fashionable night.
And Gerard wanted to flee.
Still, he made an effort not to scowl at everyone. He smiled at the right time, gave polite answers, and even endured a lecture on harp-playing from a debutante who could scarcely disguise her exasperation with the topic.
Another attempted to converse about hunting, no doubt pushed into it by some strategist of a mother who assumed he would perk up at the mention of hounds. The poor girl visibly wilted as she forced out the words.
Gerard, suppressing the urge to apologize for her suffering, responded with immaculate civility.
Lady Silverquill’s handiwork was everywhere. She’d barely written a line about him when she replied to a letter from a debutante seeking advice on what to wear at his event.
