Page 28 of The Wicked Duke's Convenient Bride
“Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris,” she muttered.
Misery loves company.
Matthew smiled despite himself. “The company is pleasant,” he said. “It is nothing that you need to worry about. I shall handle it.”
“Of course, you shall.”
Something about the statement seemed accusatory, though Matthew could not determine precisely what. He supposed that she ought to be vexed with him, though. Of late, he had been unkind to her. That was a bitter realization.
The curtain rose, and Matthew straightened in his chair. While many attendees talked throughout performances, he preferred to remain quiet, devoting his full attention to the show. Besides, the troupe was performing The Taming of the Shrew, which had been Rosemary’s favourite play. He had not quite understood her fondness for it, but he liked it because he enjoyed seeing Rosemary’s smile when she watched it.
“Are we meant to read this choice of play as a rhetorical choice, Tabby Cat?” Lord Mayhew murmured so low that Matthew barely heard him.
Tabby Cat?
He glanced at Tabitha, who smiled slyly at that precise moment. The pet name oddly fit her.
“It is not. How dare you?” Tabitha whispered, her voice playful.
Matthew felt a strange flush of embarrassment. He had not considered how the choice of play might appear to Lord and Lady Mayhew. Shortly after wedding their daughter, he decided to take her to a play about a man taming a shrewish woman and eventually marrying her, and it was surely apparent to Tabitha’s parents that she was not the usual lady of the ton. Matthew would not call her a shrew ever, but some men might interpret her that way. Tabitha was direct and brazen in a way that young ladies often were not.
“My husband has no control over what this troupe performs, or we would be watching Titus Andronicus,” Tabitha said, grinning.
Titus Andronicus? That was the least popular Shakespearean play because it was filled with so much blood and violence that it bordered on indecent. How had she become exposed to such a violent play?
“I do not know that one,” Lady Mayhew murmured.
“Nor do I,” the Dowager Duchess said. “Is it any good?”
“Not really,” Tabitha said. “It is, I think, an early work. Shakespeare makes some errors, as all writers do.”
Matthew had to admit that Titus Andronicus was not the Bard’s best work; it was more of a spectacle than anything else. Still, to hear a lady say so that brazenly was another thing entirely.
He shook his head and tried to focus on the play before him. The Taming of the Shrew opened with a drunkard named Christopher Sly being tricked into believing that he was a nobleman. The scene opened as flamboyantly as Matthew had expected. Sly—being played by a tall, thin man with bright red hair—stumbled about the stage, waving what was clearly meant to be a bottle of spirits.
“Except for Marlowe,” Lord Mayhew said. “Everything that Marlowe wrote was perfect.”
Tabitha laughed. “That unfashionable man?”
Matthew glanced at them in time to see Lord Mayhew give his daughter a look of mock offence. “Unfashionable? Underappreciated talent!” her father declared.
“I find them both rather dull,” Lady Mayhew said, tilting her head towards Matthew’s mother. “I think we ought to try and have some more French performances. I heard about the loveliest showing of Pamela in France.”
“Oh?” His mother, a great admirer of Pamela and every other work written by Samuel Richardson, looked at Lady Mayhew with interest. “What did you hear of it?”
“Excuse me,” Miriam murmured. “I will be back in just a moment.”
His sister left before anyone could ask why. Matthew frowned.
“Clarissa is the superior work,” Tabitha said. “That is the novel that proved that Mr Richardson is capable of understanding the female mind.”
Matthew looked incredulously at her. “I would have never imagined that you would say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because the novel is about a young lady suffering,” Matthew said. “How could a woman like you possibly find anything likeable about it?”
“A lady like me?” Tabitha asked. “Whatever do you mean?”
