“A true Tolliver,” Miss Tolliver said cheerfully.
“A Morleigh,” the duke muttered, though one corner of his mouth betrayed him. The duchess reached across to pat his hand with fondness.
Jasper kept his gaze fixed upon the carpeted floor until Miss Tolliver reached him, and only then did he lift his eyes. Her gown was pale gold, embroidered with tiny rosebuds so fine they seemed painted by hand. Her curls were swept high, with a few rebellious tendrils spilling down the nape of her neck.
He rose, as courtesy demanded. “Miss Tolliver,” he said, and to his horror, his voice emerged higher than intended.
“Mr Deverell,” she returned, offering a nod.
Without awaiting further invitation, she swept past him and took the vacant seat at his side.
“How tragic,” she murmured to him alone, as she arranged her skirts. “We are chaperoned.”
“Imagine my disappointment. I had every intention of being thoroughly improper this evening.”
“You still might,” she said, unfurling her fan with a flick, “should you be so bold as to whisper something scandalous during the second act.”
“I am seldom at a loss for a scandal, Miss Tolliver,” he murmured. “Though I confess, I do prefer an audience inclined to admire it.”
“Remind me, what is the evening’s offering?”
Jasper stared at her in dismay. He had spent the past half-hour studying the programme, and could not for the life of him recall a single word of it.
“Much Ado About Nothing,“ Theo supplied grimly from behind them, as though to remind them of his continued existence.
“How fitting,” she replied, without troubling herself to glance over her shoulder.
Beside her, Jasper’s mouth curved slowly, the expression of a gentleman who had just conceived a remark he considered exceedingly clever. He leant a fraction nearer, lowering his voice. “Miss Tolliver—shall I play the Benedick to your Beatrice?”
She laughed merrily at that, and the duke and duchess turned their heads in mild curiosity at the sound. “Only if you are fond of being bested.”
“Relentlessly.”
They subsided as the lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture. The curtain rose upon Messina awash in soft draperies and military finery.
Miss Tolliver shifted in her chair, her sleeve brushing the fine wool of Jasper’s coat. The contact was feather-light—accidental by all appearances—and yet his skin tightened beneath it. A moment later, the warmth of her knee met his.
He attempted, in vain, to fix his attention upon the stage, but it proved impossible. Each time Beatrice delivered a barbed remark, he felt Miss Tolliver’s shoulders lift with silent laughter; each time Benedick blustered with wounded pride, she shifted again—some infinitesimal movement of silk and nearness that rendered Shakespeare secondary.
It was intolerable. It was also, he admitted privately, magnificent.
Midway through the second act, as Benedick lamented the absurdity of surrendering one’s heart to a woman, Miss Tolliver leant in, her breath stirring the hair at Jasper’s temple. “Why have you not kissed me again?”
The question landed somewhere decidedly south of reason. “We are not precisely unobserved.”
“I did not say here,” she breathed. “Though I concede the darkness makes it tempting.”
“There have not been many other opportunities.”
“You might have called. Or tossed pebbles at my window beneath a full moon.”
“Wrong play, my dear,” he replied under his breath. “Romeo and Julietis next month.”
“As is the next full moon. Ought I to expect your arrival beneath my window, sir?”
“Miss Tolliver,” he said quietly, “you are flirting perilously close to impropriety.”
She tilted her head just so, a curl grazing his shoulder. “I do nothing by half measures, Mr Deverell. If I mean to flirt, I shall do so without ambiguity.”
