AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sighed. There was no point in waiting here, stewing in her own bile. He would only take it as a sign of cowardice. So, with one final adjustment to her hair, she went to face the enemy head-on.
I shall be cordial and sweet, she resolved. After all, I can afford to be nice. Only a little while longer, and I’ll be free of him forever. The moment she saw him, however, she wanted to throttle him, for he looked her up and down with deliberate slowness.
“How enchanting you look this evening.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Leave it. Say nothing more!
“The shade quite becomes you,” he added softly, igniting her with his gaze.
The look, along with his compliment, made her pulse jump. “My mother selected the fabric,” she lied.
His lips lifted in that slanted smile, the one that sent heat down the backs of her thighs. “She must have known how fetching you would look in it.”
/>
Thankfully, her mother swept in at that precise moment, preventing her from having to reply.
Sabrina tried her best to ignore Montgomery as the carriage rolled along toward their destination, and prayed she would not be required to make conversation with him, polite or otherwise. Unfortunately, heaven seemed not to be listening to her at the moment.
“I hear Fairford called last week,” he said.
Damn. “Indeed. He was in the area and stopped by to pay his respects.” She hoped she sounded nonchalant.
“I hear he also paid a visit to Miss Bidewell,” he added.
She had not heard about that. “May not a gentleman call upon a lady without the immediate assumption of impending nuptials?”
“Well, certainly,” answered her mother before Montgomery could speak. “He called upon you, didn’t he? However, Lady Sotheby told me yesterday that his visit to the Bidewells was a bit more than a simple social call. Apparently, Lady Bidewell has reason to hope for a match.”
Sabrina looked at her suspiciously. She’d known about this since yesterday and had not breathed a word of it to her. How convenient that she’d waited until now to mention it! Her gaze swung over to Montgomery. Were they collaborating, she wondered?
It didn’t matter. She would see Fairford tonight and discern his intent for herself. “If he has decided to court Miss Bidewell, then I wish him—and her—the very best, of course.”
They arrived at the theater and made it to Montgomery’s box without further discussion on the matter. She would have liked a bit more distance between herself and their escort along the way. Everyone who saw them smiled that smile—the one that said, “We expect a wedding invitation!” They would indeed receive an invitation, but the groom would not be the man beside her now.
Once seated, she began to scan the crush for familiar faces, searching for one in particular. When she at last espied Fairford, she was most displeased indeed, for Lady Bidewell and her daughter flanked him. She watched as he offered Miss Bidewell his opera glasses.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were setting out to seduce someone tonight,” Montgomery murmured at her ear. “Tell me, did you wear that luscious velvet for me?”
A wave of gooseflesh rippled across her skin, causing her to shiver. Taking a deep breath, she struggled for composure. “I did not.”
He leaned closer. “Then for whom, might I ask, did you wear it? Certainly not for a man sitting all the way across the theater? A man who can hardly appreciate it at such a distance? A man sitting with another woman?”
“I wore it to please myself!” she hissed, glancing at her mother, who appeared oblivious to the goings-on a mere pace away.
Again he chuckled, once more raising the hair on her neck. “I think not. A woman always dresses to be admired, Sabrina, and not by her mirror. Therefore, it would be rude of me not to comply with your wishes and…admire you.”
The lights dimmed and the opera commenced.
She spent the next half hour painfully aware of the man beside her. His clean scent acted on her senses like an intoxicant. Every detail seemed to jump out at her: the way his jacket’s sleeve tightened across his arm and shoulder when he moved, the strong tendons in his hand as he adjusted his opera glasses. She found herself wishing he would touch her, giving her a reason to slap him silly and run away.
But he did not. He behaved like a perfect gentleman, save for the way his gaze caressed her from time to time. Each time it roved across her skin, heat suffused her flesh as if it were a physical touch. When the curtain fell for intermission, she fairly leaped from her seat.
The hall was filled with people, the stifling, warm air redolent with every perfume known to womankind. Escaping both the crush and the miasma, she made for the outside steps. To her delight, Lord Fairford was there, enjoying a pipe and taking in the night air.
His eyes lit at her approach. “Good evening, Lady Sabrina. A pleasure to see you once again.”
“Likewise,” she said, meaning it. After the disturbance upstairs, his presence was like a cool bath to her raw, heated nerves. “Are you enjoying the opera?”
