Page 90 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

“It’s a terrible play,” she said.

“I was speaking of the company.”

“Oh.” Helena fanned herself.

“You look beautiful this evening. Have I told you?”

He hadn’t. When she’d come down the stairs in Half Moon Street, dressed in all her finery, he’d merely looked at her. There had been a brief, unsettling glint in his eyes. Fierce and hungry. Rather like a ravening wolf. It had given her a trembling feeling in her stomach.

“Then again, you always do,” he mused. “You would think I’d become used to it by now, but it strikes me anew every time I see you.”

“You needn’t pay me pretty compliments.”

“Ah. That’s right. I’d forgotten.” His mouth curved in a dry smile. “You’d prefer I refrain from any suggestion of romance.”

“I’d prefer you not tease me and put me to the blush.”

“I’m not teasing,” he said. “But I’ll refrain from romancing you in future, if that’s what you wish.”

“That was the arrangement, wasn’t it? No romance. Only friendship.”

“And something more than friendship,” he reminded her.

Helena searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. “Is romance the something more?”

His expression was unreadable “You tell me.”

It was dim in the theatre, the sound of the play and the audience a steady swell of noise in the background. And yet there was privacy to be found amid so many people. Indeed, at that moment, their box on the second tier felt like a world apart from it all. A gaslit sanctuary in which she could safely give voice to the innermost yearnings of her heart. “No,” she said. “The something more isn’t romance. It’s love.”

Justin stared at her, his stern visage half shadowed in the gaslight. “Love,” he repeated. His deep voice was as expressionless as his face.

Embarrassment swiftly extinguished the brief flare of hope in Helena’s breast. “Speaking in general terms,” she added. “Philosophically, not personally.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

She fixed her attention back on the stage.

Justin sat beside her in grim silence. Once or twice she felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t regard it. The curtain would lower momentarily. There’d be plenty to deal with then. She needed to keep her countenance. To refrain from upsetting herself over something so foolish as a perceived rejection of her burgeoning feelings.

If anyone had a right to be upset in this relationship, it was Justin. She’d upended his entire life. First by marrying him under false pretenses, and then by thrusting him into the middle of a scandal. She had no right to ask him for anything more. Not when he’d already given so much of himself to her and her wretched cause.

After several long minutes of staring at the stage, affecting not to care about such trivial concepts as love and affection, the curtain finally lowered and the lights in the theatre went up.

The restless crowd rose to their feet, the sound of voices talking and laughing swelling to a crescendo.

Helena wafted her fan, watching as the boxes across the theatre emptied. Gentlemen left to bring their ladies refreshment, and ladies left to visit their friends. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Do you see anyone you know?” Justin asked.

She nodded. “Several people.”

A trill of nervous tension quickened her pulse.

Had they adequately prepared to meet the inquiring throng? Moments ago, she’d felt relatively confident. She and Justin planned to say that they’d met while she was on holiday in Devon. That they’d been introduced by a mutual acquaintance. It wasn’t too far from the truth. However, considering the collective curiosity of polite society, she suddenly wondered if it would be enough of an explanation.

Perhaps they should have come up with a more compelling tale for how they’d met and married? Something to explain how an earl’s daughter would find herself wed to a former soldier. A man with no family or connections to speak of.

But there was no time to formulate a new story. Before she could articulate her concerns, the first visitor made his way into their box.