Page 93 of The Duke and the Lady in Red
“What’s he doing?” Harry whispered.
“Waiting for someone to answer his summons. We seem to be in an alleyway.” She saw the door open, heard voices, although she couldn’t decipher the words exchanged. Then Avendale was heading back toward them.
A footman opened the coach door as he neared. Reaching in, Avendale took Rose’s hand. “All is arranged.”
He handed her down before assisting Harry. He led them up the stairs and through the doorway into a small, shadowed room that opened onto stairs.
A finely dressed gentleman holding a lamp greeted them. “If you’ll be so kind as to come with me.”
With Avendale providing support for her brother, Rose followed the gentleman up the narrow stairs. At the top, they waited with bated breath while he parted heavy draperies and peered between them. Holding the fabric aside, he stepped out into the hallway and indicated they should precede him.
They made their way to Avendale’s box with no incidents. Releasing a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, Rose settled on her chair between Harry and Avendale, very much aware of the excitement thrumming through Harry as he took in his surroundings.
“It’s just as you described,” he whispered, “only better.”
“I knew my descriptions wouldn’t do it justice.”
“How can you capture its soul? It can only be experienced.” Harry leaned forward slightly. “All the people. They can’t see me?”
“Not as long as we stay back here,” Avendale said. “But even if they do see us, they shan’t disturb us.”
Harry looked over at him. “Because you’re a duke?”
Avendale gave a confident grin. “Precisely.”
But Rose realized it was more than that. It was because he wouldn’t tolerate it. He would stand his ground just as his ancestors had on battlefields. She did wish he’d never learned about Harry, because everything was changing, because she’d been so worried about shielding Harry that she had failed to take precautions to protect her heart. Avendale had slipped beneath the wall, made his home there. Yet she could not seem to regret it, even knowing the pain their parting would cause. But that time was not yet.
Reaching over, she folded her hand over his where it rested on his thigh. Shifting his dark gaze to her, he lifted her hand and very slowly peeled off her glove, inch by agonizing inch. Everything within her went still. When he was finished, he removed both his gloves before interlacing their fingers. This man feared nothing, not Society’s censure or doing things one ought not. For the briefest span of a heartbeat, she dared to dream that he might claim her. That he would move to the edge of the balcony, pull her against his side, and shout that he loved her, that she would become his duchess.
In the next heartbeat she imagined Tinsdale in the crowd, jumping to his feet, pointing at her, and revealing her for the fraud she was. A thief, a swindler, a charlatan. No better than her father with his magical elixir. The shame her trial would bring to Avendale. The pain it would bring to her if he didn’t stand beside her, the agony if he did.
A duke’s wife could not disappear into shadows.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
Shaking her head, she lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “I’m just grateful for tonight.”
His eyes narrowed, and she knew he didn’t believe her. It made it all the more difficult that he could read her lies so easily.
Hearing a gasp, she looked over to see Harry leaning forward and the curtains below drawing back to reveal the stage. She almost cautioned him to take care, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to risk squelching his excitement. Tonight was an incredible opportunity, another that she could have never given to him. But Avendale had the power, the wealth, the influence to make almost anything happen. So Harry was attending the theater.
As the performance began, she leaned toward Avendale. “Is your actress on the stage tonight?” She didn’t know why she’d asked, why she felt this spark of jealousy that he might spend his evening reliving moments with another woman.
“No,” he said quietly.
“She must have been very beautiful.”
“To be quite honest, I barely remember what she looked like.”
Years from now, after their time was over, would he say the same of her? “That does not speak well of your feelings for her.”
“A month ago, I could have described her in detail, but now she pales. They all pale, Rose.”
He was striving to reassure her, to imply she was somehow special, but she knew that someday, for him, she would pale as well. While in her mind, her memories, he would always remain strikingly vibrant. She could not imagine, no matter how many years she lived, no matter how many men she encountered, that she would ever find anyone to fill the niche he had carved in her heart. Unfair perhaps to any future gentleman whose fancy she might catch, but then she’d long ago learned that not everything was fair.
Squeezing his hand, she didn’t release her hold as she returned her attention to Harry, who was enthralled, absorbed by the pageantry, the action, the grandeur. Not once did his eyes stray from the tableau before him. Not once did he speak. He made nary a sound. She wished for a portrait of him lost in this world of make-believe.
When the curtains finally drew closed, he stood with the rest of the audience, clapped madly, smiled brightly. Leaned over and hugged her as though the gift of the night had been from her.
