Chapter 21 #2
The opera itself left her head spinning with all its grandeur.
Crystal chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, their cut facets scattering light around the room so bright that it seemed as though daylight itself shone within.
Hugh and Persephone’s box was sumptuous, with velvet seats as soft as clouds.
The duke and duchess themselves were nothing but kind, even if Hugh seemed taciturn by nature.
But his sweet-hearted wife made up for it, introducing Letitia to anyone who came into the space as her companion, visiting from Belgium.
The whole thing was so lovely that Letty didn’t even wince at the sound of the country where her worst nightmare resided.
And then there was Ezra.
He was more charming than usual and endlessly attentive. He seemed to treat every moment apart from her as if it were the worst kind of torture, and he returned to her as quickly as he could.
Letitia scarcely even watched the opera. She was sure that later, when this was all said and done, she would be sorry she had wasted her one chance to watch a grand performance, as if she were one of the haut ton.
But for tonight, she didn’t care. She didn’t try to use good judgment or protect her heart. She let her head lean toward his as they whispered through the arias, and she pretended she was a young lady, and he was her social equal, and this was a real courtship, not a facade.
“Have you ever been to the opera before?” he asked, voice pitched low, his knee just grazing against hers as they sat in adjacent chairs.
She shot him a surprised look.
“No, of course not,” she said. “When would I have had the chance?”
“Letty, dear, you may not know this,” he drawled, “but I am mostly unfamiliar with Belgian culture. Maybe it’s required by law that every citizen go to the opera once a week.”
She regarded him dryly. “You will be utterly shocked to find that it is not,” she intoned.
He winked at her, the utter rascal.
“Too bad,” he said. “I was going to ask you to educate me. I am an utter neophyte, I am afraid.”
He batted his eyelashes like he was a particularly missish debutante, just to make her laugh.
“I am surprised that we are here with your cousins,” she confessed during the intermission, while Persephone and Hugh were out of the box, off speaking to some acquaintance or other. “Is it just because we needed a chaperone?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Well, that was one consideration,” he admitted. “You might not know this, but I am a duke.”
She rolled her eyes. He let out a joyful peal of laughter.
“This means, among other things, that I am able to get seats at the opera if I so desire,” he said. “But, I will admit, that I have been more closely acquainting myself with my cousins recently.”
He said it like it was something to be ashamed of, but Letty could not hold back her pleased smile.
“You have?”
He nodded. “It started because I was seeking information about Iris, about some family history. But—and do not tell him I said this, and certainly don’t tell Persephone—I actually like Hugh. He’s not that bad.”
“You say that like it hurts to admit it,” she accused.
“I have never felt such pain in my life,” he said gravely.
Her heart felt full to bursting.
The night was perfect, magical, and seemed endless. But, like all good things, it eventually came to an end, and the four of them—the dukes, the duchess, and the improbable governess—climbed back into the Blackwoods’ carriage.
It didn’t even cross Letitia’s mind to protest until they were already heading back across Mayfair, returning to Rutley House—she had completely forgotten to plan how to get herself back to her small, tidy rooms in Covent Gardens.
She bit her lip as she disembarked with Ezra, wondering if she should ask Persephone to inconvenience herself and lend Letitia the carriage home. But no—surely Ezra would aid her.
As she followed him inside, she knew that she was heading into the pit of temptation. Even so, she could not quite seem to stop herself.
“If anyone from the staff sees me, they will talk,” she said as they slipped inside.
Ezra did not look nearly as bothered as he ought.
“I think they will only assume that I am trying to lure you back to my employ,” he said.
“Iris has quite enchanted the entire household, and she has made no secret of the fact that she misses you quite desperately. I would be widely praised for my clever hiring tactics.”
Letitia smiled because he was being silly and clever, but part of what he said gave her pause.
He would be praised. She would be ruined.
She tried to push away the worry, to let herself enjoy the last of this marvelous night, but apparently, she was unable to hide her disquiet. No sooner had they gotten up to the small upstairs parlor than Ezra looked at her, assessment in his eyes.
“Something is wrong,” he said softly. “What is it?”
She sighed. Damn, but he was perceptive. It was really quite profoundly annoying.
“Tonight was lovely,” she said, laying a hand on his arm because she could. For these few moments more, she could. “It truly was. But it was pretend. And it has to be over now, because I cannot be seen with you.”
“You were seen with me tonight,” he countered, but she could tell from the gleam in his eye that he was saying it out of stubbornness.
She gentled her expression, because reality would be less familiar to him than it was to her. Circumstances had shielded him from truths like this one.
“I was,” she conceded. “But that only worked because my world is so far away from the one that we visited tonight that nobody there would ever recognize me. Governesses don’t go to the opera, so even if I happened to see someone that I had worked for there, they wouldn’t see me.
They would tell themselves that it must have been a trick of the light.
Some other red-haired woman. Because, to them, it would be impossible that the woman who had taught their children was on the arm of a duke. Utterly impossible.”
He frowned, but he didn’t argue. For a long moment, he seemed to think over her words.
“I understand,” he said. “I know that I will never know it the way you do. But I understand. I just…” He trailed off, his lips twisting into a grimace.
“I know it is going to sound so spoiled and selfish, but I just don’t care.
Their rules—Society, the ton—those people are all out there.
And in here?” When he turned to her, his eyes were beseeching.
“In here, it is just us. And that has always felt as though it could not be wrong.”
Lord above, how Letitia wished that his pretty words could change things.
“Ezra,” she whispered, her voice a plea. She simply didn’t know exactly what she was begging him for.
“I know,” he said. He laid his hands on her shoulders, and her eyes fluttered shut, just so she could focus on memorizing this moment. The feel of his touch. The scent of his expensive soap. “I just… Can we have the rest of tonight? Since there is nobody here to see us? Just one last night for us?”
She should say no. Saying yes now would only make it hurt all the more later.
But she nodded, because she had never wanted anything nearly as badly as she wanted just one last night with Ezra Swifton. Whatever pain came next, it would already be coming for her. Why should she not have one last beautiful memory to take with her along the hard path that followed?
So, she nodded. And he kissed her.
Maybe it was the frock, or the night they had spent out on the town together, pretending that what they had was real. Pretending they were equals, that she was the kind of woman his family would ever willingly embrace. Maybe it was that they had promised this would be the very last time.
Maybe it was all of those things—but from the start, this kiss was different.
Or maybe every kiss with him would always be different, she thought as he cupped his hands around her cheeks, drawing her in tenderly, as if they had done this a thousand times before. Maybe it would be different a hundred times, and I will never know.
The thought was heavy in a way that felt a whole lot like grief, but Letty pushed it aside. There would be time for that later.
So she moaned as he laced his fingers into her hair, the pads of his fingertips gently rubbing her scalp.
Her head had been aching for hours from the unfamiliar way her curls were piled atop her crown—there was no sensible chignon for fine ladies at the opera—and the faint scratch of his nails sent a shiver down her spine so delicious that it nearly made her weak at the knees.
Ezra caught her moan in his mouth and returned it with a little laugh of his own.
“Not so comfortable with all those pins?” he asked, peppering her face with kisses.
She shook her head, basking in his attentiveness. “Truly, whatever madman decided this was the height of fashion needs to be pilloried.”
He laughed again and began plucking the pins from her hair, casting them aside carelessly. “Don’t you mean madwoman?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, hissing slightly when one of the pins tugged. His hands went directly to the spot, rubbing the pain until it vanished. “No woman would invent this. This was a man, and I will find out which one.”
“I am quite good at uncovering information,” he told her. “I will help you exact your revenge.”
“Thank you very much,” she said, playing along even though she knew that, after this, there would be no further schemes between them. “I am sure that devious mind of yours can help me think of a suitable punishment.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Ezra said, catching the mass of her hair as it finally tumbled long and free, the last pin finally gone. “Though I was thinking that I might put my devious mind to better uses tonight.”
Well. When he put it like that.
Drawing on a boldness that she had not known she possessed, Letitia arched an eyebrow and shot him a brazenly flirtatious look.
“Impress me, Your Grace,” she purred.