Page 49 of A Lady of Means
Devyn bowed gallantly as his brother made introductions.
“Oh yes, I forgot you had a younger brother while we were at Harrow, Lord Clairville,” The other Earl said.Moria couldn’t keep up with all the Earls of her acquaintance, in this conversation even.Throughout the exchange, the Countess was looking at Devyn, at Moria, where her hand rested on his arm.His taut bicep flexed underneath Moria’s fingers and her mouth watered.
Music sounded from inside the theater.A call to find their seats.Peregrine placed Miss Kelley’s hand in the crook of his arm and made their excuses, ushering the group to their box and leaving the awkward tableau behind.Moria admired the way that Devyn led troops into battle, and Peregrine was astute with the battles of social niceties and politics.They were two shiny, handsome-profiled sides to the same coin.
When they reached their box, Devyn took a drink from his flask.Before he could redon the cap, Moria took it from him and tipped it back herself.He looked at her with his mouth agape and then a laugh bubbled from his barrel chest.Devyn laughing was so rare, like a laugh of his was something he kept in a china cabinet and only set out on rare occasions; but in that moment, she wanted to make his laugh and his looking at her with mirth-filled eyes something fit for daily consumption.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Devyn watchedthe way her lips wrapped around the flask, the way her throat bobbed, and had to flex his fingers and count his breaths to master his control over his lust.
“I thought you were good at this sort of thing, my lady,” Devyn asked, taking the proffered flask from Moria.
“I’m good at providing entertainment, but bores like those two prigs?They require a stiff drink to tolerate.”
“I’m glad we agree,” he said, replacing the flask in his pocket and ushering her to a seat at the front of the box.When she was in front of him, his eyes fell down her exposed back and the curve of her hips.She looked over her shoulder and smirked when she caught him staring.Devyn coughed and looked away, studying the theater instead of the shape of this woman in a perfectly fitted dress.
The packed theater was enormous, all red and gilt and renaissance paintings on the ceiling like the ones in the ballroom back at Wintersea Manor.Devyn had spent so many hours in that ballroom on dancing lessons, his mother determined her overly large, athletic son not embarrass the family honor by being a terrible dancer until she’d smoothed down all his rough and jerky movements.His mother would have loved Lady Moria, actually.She’d have set her up with Perry, but still.
When Lady Moria sat down in her seat, he felt rather than saw the eyes that trained in their direction.Devyn sat next to her, angling his back in view of the exit, but her chair was so….far away.She was wearing a dress in shades of blue that looked like moving water at night and he loved her in blue.
She was unreachable in more ways than one.He supposed that theater boxes were designed that way.Propriety and reputations and all that.
As the curtains opened, the music started, her attention was rapt on the stage.She played the piano, loved talking about music, clearly wanted to come tonight not for the theatrics off stage…but the ones onstage.He could see the excitement in her bouncing knee.Her head was held high and her shoulders painfully straight, but she had a tell.
The play began and everyone trained their attention on the stage, until the female character was introduced as a stunning blonde….named Marina.
She was simpering and flirting with a young lord, the male hero of the play.And the eyes and binoculars trained in her direction.Intheirdirection.
Devyn’s heart fell down a flight of stairs.Peregrine heard it or sensed his brother’s plight—he always had—and touched his arm for the briefest of moments.Their father didn’t do simple affection like that—but Peregrine did.
“Well, this is rather…unexpected,” Moria said, leaning over to his chair.
Devyn’s knuckles pressed tighter against each other.
The sounds of the dialogue, the gasps and laughter of the audience, he barely even heard what was being said on that stage.He was trained on her.He wasn’t the only one.Peregrine pointed out the Duke of Andover staring in their direction.The Bloody woman had to also be courted by a Duke.
You could give her a title too, weakling.That dark voice that sounded like his father’s, invading his head whenever he least needed it to, irked.
The woman next to him smiled tentatively in his direction, but it didn’t reach her eyes.Devyn only cared about her.
So, he did what any possessive and domineering man like himself would do.
He dropped his flimsy program at her feet.Little matching satin slippers just barely there peeked out from her too-many-skirts.He muttered something under his breath.Made a grand show of picking it up from the floor.And he hooked one strong arm around the foot of her chair and dragged it closer to his own.Her chair made a little scraping sound on the carpet that caught others’ attention.
The air whooshing out of her lungs was enough to make him smile like an idiot.Then he took her hand in his and kissed her gloved knuckles.Onlookers and Dukes gasping in shock be damned to hell.
* * *
The playthat night was about a society princess who breaks many hearts, including that of the main character who says he will never love again.Then, she introduces him to a shy and confident girl who is not after his money, she is a princess in disguise.It was like a backwardsAdelaide.
Drysdale and Fitz had called on her the day before and explained that Drysdale and his brother were behind it, and that Fitz was publicizing it in thenewspaper he’d inherited.She didn’t hate the story, it was the kind of thing she was sure would be a massive success.
“Does she have to be called Marina?”she’d asked Drysdale, poking him in the shoulder.
He’d blinked a couple times.“Well, no, actually.It’s just already printed on the programs.”
“And you didn’t run that bit by her first like we discussed?”Fitz had said, crossing his arms.Drysdale had looked at her apologetically.The dolt.
