Page 21 of When the Rogue Returns
And Mrs. Franke was no fool.
The past rose up to taunt him.You don’t expect us to believe that your wife, the talented diamond cutter, had nothing to do with the theft of those diamonds. She was no fool, your wife. She left you to pick up the pieces.
Victor gritted his teeth as he entered the theater, an unprepossessing building with only a statue of Shakespeare for adornment on the outside. The very thought of Isa attempting to marry a rich baron made him want to smash a hammer into one of the marble pillars in the theater’s surprisingly lush interior. It wasn’t right that she should berewardedfor what she’d done.
And he was going to make damn sure that she wasn’t—even if it meant exposing his own past.
Though the Theatre Royale was nicely fitted out, only thirty or so private boxes lined the walls, probably half of what might be found in a London theater. It took only one word with an usher, and Victor was promptly shown into the Lochlaw box.
Lady Lochlaw rose to greet him with a kiss to each cheek, making sure he got a good glimpse down her very low-cut gown. Her heavy perfume swirled about his head like steam rising from a harem’s bathing room, but he only had eyes for Isa.
She was standing at the other end of the box under a sconce, perusing a program with the baron. She frowned as the lad tried to explain certain English words.
Lochlaw looked only marginally better dressed than he had earlier. There were no holes in his coat sleeve, but both his cravat and his hair were rumpled, and the creases in his trouser legs had already started to vanish.
But Isa was a goddess in human form. Her hair was ornamented with ostrich feathers and a glittering diadem, probably made of imitation diamonds, though it was no less beautiful for it. If that was an example of her work, it was no wonder she and her partner did well.
Her gown was far simpler than the baroness’s heavily furbelowed one—white taffeta embellished with green piping, short puffy sleeves, and a respectable neckline—but the little it revealed and the way it nipped in at her waist reminded him of the last time he’d taken a gown off of her. Slowly, with the reverence of a hesitant new husband.
Now he wanted to rip it off of her with his teeth. Then cover her soft, pale flesh with his body and explore every inch with his tongue and hands and cock. He wanted to bury his mouth in the enticingly shadowed valley between her breasts, lick his way down her slender belly to the dark brown curls that covered the sweetness below... and drive himself inside her until she begged for more.
He fought an erection.
No wonder Lochlaw had stars in his eyes whenever he gazed at her. No wonder Lady Lochlaw saw Isa as a threat.
Just then the baron looked up and spotted him. “Ah, there you are, cousin!”
Lochlaw headed for him but Isa stayed in place, her eyes widening and her mouth flattening into a tight line that he wanted to kiss until it softened.
God, what was wrong with him? She had betrayed him, left him to deal with the authorities alone, to make apologies forherwrongdoing. She had left him without one look back.
And all of that melted away when he saw her in that gown.
“Good evening,” he said as Lochlaw reached him. He nodded in Isa’s direction. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Franke.”
She nodded, a flush rising in her cheeks.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” Lochlaw said. “The opera is about to start, and you won’t want to miss the beginning.”
“Opera?” He stifled a groan. “I thought we were seeing some play calledThe Iron Chest.”
“They refer to it as a ‘musical play’ in the program,” Isa said. “But some of the reviews deemed it ‘operatic.’”
Her gaze met his, soft with memory, and he was catapulted back to Amsterdam. Gerhart and Jacoba had dragged them to the opera once. He and Isa had only been able to afford the worst seats, and they’d spent most of it whispering together, since neither of them had liked the singing. His opinion of opera hadn’t altered since then, despite attending a couple of them with his relations in London.
A bell rang, and Lady Lochlaw took Victor’s arm to lead him to two chairs sitting side by side behind two more. Lochlaw seated Isa in the chair directly in front of the baroness, then took the one in front of Victor for himself.
As the orchestra tuned up, Lady Lochlaw leaned over to Victor to whisper, “You see what I mean about vulgar? That tiara is the height of bad taste; I daresay the diamonds in it aren’t real.”
Judging from Isa’s stiffened back, she’d heard every word.
“I couldn’t tell,” he whispered. “And as I recall, in London many women wear tiaras to the theater.”
Lady Lochlaw sat back with a sniff. A moment went by, during which time the music began. Then she leaned close again. “Clearly she knows nothing about opera. Why, she pronounced the wordariaas ‘area.’”
Just as he was about to point out that Mrs. Franke wasn’t a native speaker of English, Lochlaw half turned to hiss, “Quiet, Mother. I want to hear the music.”
And that was that.
