Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“Your mother mentioned how you went to the Duchess of Whitestone’s musicale the other night,” Lord Birchwood said, “so bringing you to see an opera seemed the most reasonable thing to do next, don’t you think?”
His bushy eyebrows scrunched as though he was waiting for her to contradict him.
When she did not reply, the Marquess shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“You must surely be happy, Lady Phoebe.”
Sitting next to Lord Birchwood, Phoebe felt like she was shrinking.
His hand rested firmly on her forearm, all but pinning her to theatre seat she sat in, staring down at the expanse of the ton below them, filling up the rows of London’s most acclaimed opera house. The stage, in comparison, was shrouded in darkness, and would be for another few minutes.
“I am,” she answered distractedly.
She was not truly engaged, particularly in his presence, despite her passion for the arts and theatre. The circumstances were unsuitable for attending an opera, especially with Lord Birchwood, whose understanding of music lacked both technical and aesthetic depth.
This man is nothing but an oaf. One that tells me one lie after another.
She glanced sidelong at her companion who had slackened his hold on her just a bit so that he might adjust the lapels of his jacket.
He preens and primps, hoping that someone, anyone, will look up here and see us sitting together.
She sighed heavily.
What must the ton think of me?
Birchwood.
The truth was that Phoebe could not truly bring herself to care what any member of the ton thought. Unlike the man sitting so close to her she could smell the remnants of his pungent shaving soap, she hoped that no one looked up and saw them sitting in the box together.
No one… except for the Duke of Talwyn.
Since she had left the Duchess of Whitestone’s musicale, Phoebe had found it difficult to concentrate. When she was by herself, she recalled the sound of the Duke’s singing voice and nearly fell into a swoon.
When she encountered him days later at Lord Birchwood’s dinner party, it had taken a great deal of strength to remain in her seat and not lunge forward every time the Duke opened his mouth to speak to someone sitting nearby. She had longed to hear his voice again.
At one point, their eyes had met during the dinner and Phoebe had to school herself so that she might remain seated and not stand and beg him to sing for his supper.
If the Duke is here tonight…
She leaned forward in her seat and sought to catch a glimpse of the other members of the peerage in the box to the right but stopped herself short.
She could not afford to let her thoughts linger on the Duke of Talwyn, not when she sat next to her awful betrothed.
“You are happy?” Lord Birchwood asked, chuckling. “Then smile for me, Lady Phoebe. Let me see some joy on your face, for I am tired of seeing it so sullen.”
And I am tired of seeing you altogether. Phoebe wished to mutter this in return, but she remembered that her mother was in the box to the left of theirs, and she could not say anything untoward, no matter how much she wanted to.
Forcibly, she lifted her mouth into a smile that ached, but Lord Birchwood hummed at her. He grasped her chin roughly, yanking her face up. Phoebe inhaled in fear, her eyes widening, but that only seemed to please the Marquess further.
“Good,” he drawled. “Keep that smile on your face whenever I look at you.”
Her stomach curdled horribly, and she tugged her chin out of his grasp. When she turned her attention back to the auditorium, her eyes snagged on one familiar face.
Her heart kicked into a faster beat as she found the Duke of Talwyn’s eyes already fixed on her from where he sat in his own private box, directly opposite. He must have only recently arrived, for she swore he had not been there earlier.
Now he was, and his green eyes fixed on her from afar.
His sultry gaze pinned her in a far different way than Lord Birchwood’s hand on her wrist did.
Her breath thinned as she did not take her own gaze off the Duke. With the distance creating a chasm between them, she indulged herself by staring at him openly.
No one would know that their eyes had locked or that she had been intent on seeing him this evening. Not a soul would realize that beneath Phoebe’s calm exterior there beat within a heart that was moved by the mere memory of the Duke’s softly spoken words and sweetly sung melodies.
She dared to get lost in his eyes and stayed in that pose for much longer than propriety allowed.
But who can stop us?
Like this, it almost felt like being back at Lord Spencer’s party, hidden and separated, yet strangely bared.
She had missed that feeling and didn’t realize how much she wanted to be his Thisbe once again.
The lady she had been that night, the one in the shocking red dress, and the fox mask had been almost entirely free.
No one at Lord Spencer’s Masquerade knew the timid lady who followed the crowd down the hall before stopping in the last room was really the third daughter of the Earl of Tripleton. No one suspected what she and the Duke, the serpent, had discussed behind those closed doors.
The anonymity of the low opera theatre’s lighting made her feel as though she was masked again.
She felt as if, within the shadows, waiting for the opera to start; she was discreet, concealed, and was at liberty to share her own private moment with the Duke of Talwyn.
“Be happy, Lady Phoebe,” Lord Birchwood murmured from her side. “Be. Happy. We are seen, do not forget.”
Phoebe had allowed herself to entirely forget that the Marquess was still by her side. When he spoke, she shimmied away from him, moving as far in her seat as she could manage with his hand still poised possessively on her forearm.
“What?” she snapped, slightly annoyed at how he had interjected on the moment she’d been sharing with the Duke.
“People are staring at us,” he said sharply as his mouth moved into a thin line and he spread his lips in a weak imitation of a smile.
“Yes,” Phoebe muttered thickly. “I imagine they are looking over here. You have your hand clamped on my forearm as if you fear that I might run away at any moment. Certainly, people must think we look strange.”
Lord Birchwood made a discontented sound in the back of his throat.
Slowly, he peeled his fingers off Phoebe’s arm, and she immediately laced her hands together and placed them in her lap.
She knew this would not keep him from reaching for her again, but she felt better having this sort of autonomy than she had a moment before.
“We are engaged to be married,” Lord Birchwood said quietly. “While I concede you might have a point, I should not have been gripping your arm thusly, people will expect us to look pleased with one another. Content, even.”
“How can I forget?” she countered, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. “We must always rise to meet the expectations of others.”
Phoebe turned her head slowly from left to right and found that many pairs of eyes, not just the Duke of Talwyn’s, were indeed looking toward their box. Faces turned to one another, and mouths moved, and she knew she was being spoken about behind those gloved hands.
Phoebe had long been known as the poor girl who had turned down too many proposals; the unfortunate young lady who had been sent out of London for two years, only to return on the arm of the Marquess of Birchwood.
She knew her story was gossip-worthy, and she despised the way the others gobbled up her misfortunes. Phoebe wanted to be inconspicuous. She wanted to remain unseen, wanted to be masked.
“The play is beginning to start.” Lord Birchwood’s elbow nudged into her side.
Phoebe startled into composure, her spine straightening as she looked at the stage.
Try as she wanted to, she could not entirely block out Lord Birchwood at her side, a man who would not appreciate the arts, because he could not focus on the performers when he was so engaged of giving a performance of his own.
For one last time before the lights extinguished, her eyes drifted back to the Duke and right before he looked back at her, she saw his attention fixed on the stage.
There was a simmering excitement to his expression.
A fidgeting in his posture that suggested that he, too, had found where he belonged just like Phoebe did.
She enjoyed that.
She enjoyed that he liked the arts as much as she did, just like at the musicale.
No.
No, I should not care about or enjoy anything about the Duke’s interests. I might have shared a moment with him during Lord Spencer’s Masquerade, but going forward, the Duke must be nothing more than my acquaintance.
She sent a look across the divide, hoping to catch his eye once more.
This is ridiculous! I cannot sit next to my fiancé while craving the attention of another man.
Finally, she tore her attention off the Duke, but the heat of his stare remained on her until the first notes of the opera began. She had already forgotten the title of the performance, but everything faded into nothing when the singer sang her first note.
Black curls spilled down her back, and, in a white gown that resembled a wedding dress, she looked out at the audience with tears in her eyes.
Already, this was a tragedy, and Phoebe leaned closer, her fingers wrapping around the balcony before her seat. The opera had begun with a lady singing the opening song about a wedding day she had never wanted…
Phoebe felt the heartbreak of it in her soul.
Over the course of the first half of the opera, Phoebe’s focus strayed to the Duke, sometimes finding him already watching her, other times finding him just as enthralled as she was.
There was a looseness to him that had not been present at the dinner party that Lord Birchwood had held several days ago, and Phoebe liked seeing how his shoulders were relaxed.
How, in this place, he seemed in his element, as she was.