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pects she had now.
She would have given anything to have stayed in the country. As spring approached, it would be bursting with greenery and flowers. Her favourite time of the year, despite how busy she got around the vegetable gardens, the orchard, herbs, cleaning and such.
Instead, she stood at the theatre entrance for more of the same in town. Added to the strain of having to see Edmund every single day and deal with the effect he never ceased to have on her. It proved to be too much all of a sudden. His forbidding presence hid the power to pull her with a force she did not consider possible.
In the confined space of the carriage, it had been overwhelming. Her body clenched in a concrete-like stillness as she sought to push the consequences of his nearness away but found she did not have the strength. Her eyes must make a cyclopean effort not to stare at him, drinking in his chiselled features, solid body and imposing proximity. She might look at him her whole life and not get over it.
Endeavouring not to succumb to his wretched attractiveness she recoiled to her books at Thornton House, and to her thoughts. Little good did it do her.
At this minute, he stepped out and extended his gloved hand to help her. Dark eyes fell on her and the cool spring evening became too warm all of a sudden. It would be rude to refuse his gentleman’s gesture, so she placed her equally gloved hand on his.
The layers of fabric did not prevent the warmth of his skin to seep into hers, and it produced so intense a shock that she ripped it out from his grasp the instant she rested both feet on the kerb. His stare flashed with a strange glint before he offered his arm.
Oh, bother. She must touch him again.
Her hand steered to his elbow, light and reluctant. Regardless, the rippling muscles moving under her fingers made themselves noteworthy. Too noteworthy. To the point of spreading even more scalding heat through her. As a means of distraction, she busied herself with catching her skirts to climb the steps to the entrance.
She vanquished the steps like an uphill battle with her senses, investing a considerable effort not to trip, but to glide elegantly into the foyer.
“Miss Kendall.” If she did not forget Edmund’s voice for the hot syrupy effect it had on her, she would not forget Lord Darlington’s for the repellent timbre of it.
In his mid-fifties by now, he had been one of the most persistent men to proposition her. He had not truly overstepped the boundaries of politeness, but he always made it clear with disgusting innuendos that he would employ her ‘services’ whenever she gave the word.
Men in this age insisted on trying to show they still were the dashing bucks they had once been, seeming unaware it had long gone. In the worst possible way, she noticed. Lord Darlington made her skin crawl and her stomach roil.
She never realised she had squeezed Edmund’s arm at the sight of the older man. “Lord Darlington.” Her curtsy became clipped, and she feared she would be sick at the sight of him.
Reflexively, Edmund placed a reassuring gloved hand over hers. She darted her gaze to his, surprised with his perceptiveness and soothed with his gesture.
“I must say you were missed,” Lord Darlington continued in that perpetual expression of his. It expressed perversion and a pinch of cruelty that made him even more disgusting to her. “Thornton,” he greeted, his lecherous gaze not leaving her.
“Darlington.” The Earl intoned, his eyes in a suspicious slit.
“I am sorry to hear it, my lord.” A sketch of a smile managed to curve her lips as said lord attacked them with an obscene expression on his vulgar blue eyes. “The country kept me busy.”
“Oh, but London would have kept you busier.” The not-so-subtle reply came dripping in disrespectful tones. The middle-aged villain had become a widower in recent months. Now that his children had grown-up and his time idle, he must be bored to distraction.
“I would not be so sure, Darlington,” Edmund intervened. “The lady cares only to manage the household.”
The smooth criticism did not escape her but helped to divert the degenerate from her feminine shape.
“Is that so, my dear?” Not diverted for long, unfortunately.
“I should confess it, my lord.” She found herself unable to sustain her faint smile.
“How lovely.” He did not seem to take note of her vanishing polite smile.
“It is time I proceeded to my box, Darlington,” Edmund said curtly. “See you later.” And he pulled Otilia with him towards the curved stairs ahead.
“He was—” she started.
“I know what he was doing.” Edmund interrupted her in a glacial voice, and with an even more glacial glare directed ahead. “The improper villain!”
‘Improper’ was the understatement of the century, Otilia thought as she stepped inside his box. She hoped he did not come to know of everything Lord Darlington and so many others were guilty of telling her, or the way they behaved ‘improperly’ towards her. She would be mortified if he ever did.
The Earl of Thornton’s captive box was nothing if not the best in the venue. Entirely decorated in red brocade and Boudreaux velvet, it comprised a cloak niche that opened into the box itself. When she came to London with her aunt and uncle, she naturally frequented the theatre. But her uncle held a simple box on the lower floor. This one stood on a level entirely of its own. Otilia tried not to be too overwhelmed like a green girl, but it was impossible not to admire the utter luxury of the place. He had closed the door to the hallway where people milled around in their finery.
Too distracted with her surroundings, she was startled when two warm hands rested on her shoulders from behind her. Her head twisted back to see Edmund standing less than three inches from her. Their stares challenged each other while her blood rushed in her veins like race-horses.
