Page 8 of Loving Mister Stratford
“Well enough,” Simon replied brusquely, deliberately choosing not to elaborate.
“I think he was more intrigued by the crowd backstage than the actual performance,” intoned George, to which Simon rolled his eyes–his brother’s ribbing hadn’t been lost on anyone in their little corner. Unfortunately.
Glancing between the brothers, Meredith perked up.“A woman caught your attention?” Meredith’s indigo eyes twinkled in interest.“Who is she?”
Simon swore silently. This line of questioning made him instantly uncomfortable. He didn’t like brushing Meredith off because she never did that to him; but if anyone could pry information out of him, then it was his sister-in-law…and George likely knew that.
Were Simon a man prone to irrational violence, then he would have liked to have throttled his brother right then and there. This had been precisely what he’d been trying to avoid. An interrogation had not been on his list of tasks to survive that week.
Instead, Simon opted for an easier explanation and scanned the room, spotting Odette. Quite remarkably, she seemed to be the center of quite a bit of attention at the moment. She was lively and graceful in her dewdrop-blue gown, its gossamer overskirts embroidered in silver thread and dotted with brilliants. The low neckline accentuated her generous curves, the soft pale slope of her throat and shoulders beneath more layers of filmy, fluttering fabric flowing like waves lapping at the pristine shore of her arms as she moved. She wore a delicate silver chain and a large, bright blue gem at her throat that danced as she breathed and glittered when she laughed. Her hair was piled atop her head in an artful sculpture of curls and silver ribbon. In a word, she looked breathtaking.
Simon tilted his chin in her direction as she was spun in the arms of the Prince Regent, himself.
“There,” he said.
Meredith stood on her toes to peer over the crowd.“Where? What is she wearing?”
“Do try not to be so obvious, dear; we wouldn’t want to mortify poor Simon in front of his first real paramour.” George chuckled and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“She’s not a paramour,” Simon commented drolly;“and she’s wearing blue and silver.”
“Blue and silver?” Meredith mumbled to herself over and over as her eyes scanned the crowd in the direction to which Simon had gestured.
“That’s not her with Prinny, is it?” George asked suddenly, his green eyes widening as they fell upon Odette.
“Indeed,” Simon said, a tone in his voice rather close to smugness. They’d probably believed he’d been lying or she had a hunchback or a fifth limb—to be fair, he didn’t know with complete certainty that the last wasn’t true, but he could make a reasonable guess that it wasn’t.
There were several moments where all three watched as Odette moved in the center of the dance floor.
“Good on you,” George finally said with a note of disbelief he wasn’t quite able to disguise. Meredith placed a chiding hand on George’s arm, likely hoping to stave off any further brotherly taunting.
“She looks like a very lovely young woman,” she added to soften her husband’s comment.
Simon smiled in return but said nothing, settling instead for watching Odette from afar.
Sensing his unwillingness to elaborate, Meredith skillfully steered George to another topic.“Are you up for taking another turn around the room yet, George? The evening is still young and there are yet many more hours of standing and milling and mingling ahead.”
“Oh lovely,” George replied dramatically but willingly held out his arm to his wife. His leg prevented him from partaking in the dancing, but he and Meredith had worked out a sort of routine over the past few years. She would dance when invited, but he would stand as a statuesque presence on the periphery of the dance floor, ready to scoop her back up as soon as the set was finished. Simon knew it was far from what George would have preferred, but it worked for them.
Both their bodies and their voices were swallowed up in the swelling crowd as Simon continued to watch Odette spin in the arms of the Prince Regent.
There was a becoming color high in her cheeks and her pale blue eyes were glittering. He felt inexplicably drawn to her, like a magnet with an opposing charge. He’d never experienced such a sensation—he’d only ever viewed women as a natural urge which he’d routinely resolved with the occasional visit to a high-end bordello catering to London’s elite. Never before had he enjoyed speaking so casually with a woman, and he excluded Meredith from that number only because it didn’t seem fair to include one’s sister-in-law. Odette was amusing, slightly clumsy and charming. She seemed not to find him the least bit boring and had yet to make him feel like he was unpleasant to be around. It was…nice.
He was sincerely doubting it at that point, but, even if Blackwood was right and she might take after her mother’s carnal appetites and looser morals, who was he to push her away? She fascinated him. She drew him in. She possessed some indefinable quality Simon simply couldn’t ignore. Ever since their meeting at the theater, a tiny seed had been planted and taken careful root in the caverns of his mind…and ignoring it was not an option for him.
Odette was nearly breathless when the dance was finished and she dipped into a low, carefully rehearsed curtsy to her partner. She had hardly believed it when the Prince Regent interrupted her conversation with another guest and asked her to dance (the word“ask” was used loosely…a prince did not ask for a dance, one simply accepted without question or hesitation when he held out his hand). While they’d spun with all the eyes of thetonupon them, he’d actually peppered her with little inquiries—about her life, her education, whether she was enjoying herself at his party. She’d never expected him to see her or notice her, let alone ask her to dance or make polite conversation with her. It had been a heady interaction, indeed.
He was tall—taller than he’d looked from afar or when he’d been reclining negligently in his chair at her debut—and the iciness of his eyes set deep in his paunchy cheeks was unexpectedly keen. The whole of England knew of this man’s excesses and his mercurial temperaments, his trend toward overindulgence, and the harsh treatment of his wife, Princess Caroline, but he moved with surprising ease and carried himself with the mien of a man who’d been born to staggering privilege. There was no hint of cruelty or lasciviousness or volatility in his interaction with Odette, only polite (if shallow) conversation and the twists and turns of the dance as everyone else looked on. He didn’t smile at her and she would have feared he found her halting answers unbearably dull, but his countenance was not unkind. It was intimidating to be sought out and then become the unwitting center of attention; to be yanked from the natural state of existence as an unremarkable wallflower and deposited into the arms of the most powerful man in the country. But Odette had done it. And she was rather proud of herself.
With the dance completed, he deposited her once more at her mother’s side. The Prince Regent very shortly thereafter took his leave to replenish his energy for more dancing with food and drink, and Odette didn’t see him up close for the rest of the evening. He danced several more times, though those were less graceful as his drinking increased.
Her mother, on the other hand, had acted quite unexpectedly. Odette hadn’t expected her to be so reserved, especially after her daughter had been so very much on prominent display while in the arms of the guest of honor. She was oddly quiet, in fact.
That was, until Mr. Stratford emerged from the crowd, head and shoulders above the other men.
He bowed over Odette’s hand and asked if he might pencil in his name for a dance—if she had any available, that was. To say Odette was stunned was an understatement. Other than the Prince Regent, her dance card was, as yet, entirely empty. Too taken aback to reply, she could only dumbly hold out her arm with the card and string wrapped around her wrist. As he used the dangling pencil to write his name in his chosen line, her mother caught her eye. Seemingly much recovered from whatever had struck her, there was a definite look of triumph on her face—markedly different from the mask she’d donned after the Prince Regent had taken his leave.
Unaware of the silent conversation between mother and daughter, Simon held out his arm to Odette and led her to the dance floor, moving with an uncommon grace and an elegance she hadn’t expected.
