His jaw tightened; the leather of his glove creaked as his hand clenched in his lap.
“And if I mean to kiss you,” she continued, softer still, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, “I shall not wait for moonlight to grant permission.”
A sharptskfrom the duchess sliced through the dark.
The pair sprang apart with the guilt of two pupils caught whispering during prayers. Jasper cleared his throat and fixed his eyesupon the stage; Miss Tolliver, with immaculate composure, snapped open her fan.
They behaved themselves, more or less, until the interval.
When the curtain fell at last and attendants began bustling through the aisles with lemonade, ratafia and sugared confections, Miss Tolliver turned to Jasper once more.
“Well,” she said lightly. “What is your verdict on the play thus far, Mr Deverell?”
“I find it tolerably entertaining,” he said, accepting a glass of lemonade from a passing attendant. “A little wit, a great deal of shouting, and quite a lot of longing disguised as contempt. Altogether very familiar.”
“Familiar?”
“Indeed. An entire act spent denying one’s affections, followed by another spent failing to conceal them.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, accepting a glass of her own. “I suppose it must seem familiar to you.”
Jasper lifted a brow. “How so?”
“Well,” she replied, “you are very like Benedick.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You did suggest the comparison. And now I find I cannot unsee it.”
“In what respect am I like him, pray?” he asked, feigning affront. “Is it my wit? My charm? My unmatched verbal dexterity?”
“It is your pride,” she replied, sweet as a sugared plum. “And your maddening conviction that you are far more desirable than you truly are.”
He took a measured sip of lemonade before turning in his chair, enough to regard her with renewed interest. “That seems a severe judgement.”
“Oh, I have not yet begun judging you, Mr Deverell. Shall I proceed?”
He took another slow sip of lemonade, never looking away. “By all means.”
“Benedick is simply insufferable. All that swagger and sulking. I cannot imagine how Beatrice restrains herself from striking him with a candlestick.”
“I daresay she is biding her time. And besides, women are not generally encouraged to strike men, no matter how thoroughly they may deserve it.”
“Indeed. We are encouraged to endure men in silence, and faint prettily at the first sign of distress.”
He smirked. “I cannot picture you fainting prettily, Miss Tolliver. Threatening prettily, perhaps—but never fainting.”
She inclined her head in mock gravity.
Jasper leant back in his chair, letting his gaze drift over the glittering sea of patrons in the theatre below. “Still, one must allow Benedick some forgiveness. He does possess a certain wit.”
“Wit, yes. But always wrapped in self-importance. He struts about Messina so assured of his own excellence—because, naturally, he is a man.”
Jasper bit his cheek to stifle his smile. There were, certainly, advantages attached to his sex, but Miss Tolliver could not possibly understand the expectations that attended them. That, of course, was far too revealing, and so instead he sipped his champagne and arranged his expression to one of easy superiority. “Well, there are certain privileges attached to the condition.”
She turned very slowly to look at him, her posture composed to perfection, the graceful angle of her neck revealing the pale column of her throat. “Ah,” she said softly. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
