Feeling the need to subdue the other woman’s growing excitement, Thea cautioned, “Please realize that I’ve no notion of Mr. Taft’s itinerary or whether his habits have changed. I do know where he stayed during prior visits, however, and I’ll do my best to reach him tomorrow.”
“That’s perfect. All anyone can expect, really.” Scribbling away, Elizabeth said, almost to herself, “Aye, I like this idea. You’ll tell Daniel to stay at home and ask your Mr. Taft to call, while I—”
“Tell him to stay home? I think you overstate my influence on your brother.”
“Do I?” She paused and turned to Thea, a look of consternation shading her features before they cleared and she flashed a conspiratorial smile. “I’m sure even mistresses become, ah…indisposed at times. If that’s what he believes for a short duration and the end result is his happiness, where would be the harm?”
Where indeed?
The men chose that moment to return, their conversation continuing in hushed whispers before Lord Tremayne resumed his seat beside Thea (only after his sister relinquished it with a bright smile).
Lord Wylde, Thea couldn’t help but notice, chose to remain standing. During the first lull of the powerful singing, he leaned down. “We’ll be going now. Tremayne. Ahh, Mrs. Hurwell, was it?” He straightened and said in a more commanding tone, “Elizabeth?”
Lord Wylde held out his arm as Daniel croaked, “N-now?” evidently as surprised as she that the other couple would leave just as the performance got underway.
“Aye,” Wylde said resolutely, encouraging his wife to her feet when she seemed to hesitate. “We only came for the ballet anyway.”
Ballocks.
Daniel was hard-pressed not to laugh at Wylde’s pronouncement. They were here for the ballet? He knew that to be a clanker of the first-order.
They’d only come to indulge Ellie’s desire for opera but if Wylde wanted to leave him and Thea alone, who was he to argue?
Actually, to his utter amazement, when the two of them had quit the box during the interval, the only thing his friend said in regard to Daniel’s new mistress was that “she appears a fetching little thing” and he hoped they got on well together. That and a cryptic remark that meeting her might be beneficial for Elizabeth and their marriage—of all things.
Not a word on the inappropriateness of it all.
Daniel couldn’t decide if he was thankful on Thea’s behalf or offended on his sister’s. Shouldn’t Wylde take more umbrage over the perceived slight to Ellie’s reputation?
Shouldn’t you be more concerned over your committee commitments tomorrow?
Gads. He’d rather grow horns than think of all the last-minute counsel and wording suggestions Wylde had shoved down his silent throat out in the corridor.
Horns? Pah.
Much, much better to sit here with his sweet Thea, basking in her presence, than to worry about tomorrow.
After the door shut behind the other couple, Thea fiddled again with her purse, tucking something inside. After placing it on an empty chair, she glanced up at him and leaned a few inches closer. “Your sister. She’s a lovely woman.”
Daniel nodded.
“I… We… What you must think of me.” She floundered about, but her gaze never left his.
He reached over and captured her hand, took his time tugging off her dress gloves. Speaking to her elegant fingers, he willed his neck to relax. “Think you’re lovely…too.”
“But we were talking while you were gone.” She sounded as though the offense warranted beheading. “I know I shouldn’t have behaved so familiarly but—”
A slight squeeze of her fingers and her ramblings stilled. He met her gaze again. “She’s…persuasive.”
“Aye,” Thea breathed out on a sigh. “Very. It was awfully forward, I know, even being here with her. I hope you don’t think ill of me.”
As if he could. He brought her bare fingers to his lips. “Never.”
She blasted him with a smile so bright he jerked back.
God, how he needed that smile.
And not just for tonight, he was starting to realize. Tomorrow. Next week, next year. When he was fifty. A hundred.
He might have a driving need to bed her—and oh how he did—but it was that smile he was plain coming to need.
For the next several thousand heartbeats or so, Daniel gave himself over to the unexpected escape. In their private nook, listening to the dramatic levels of feeling being expressed in song, he discovered both bliss and solace.
With his eyes closed, and his senses attuned to the woman at his side, it was an easy thing to forget the strain gripping his neck. An easy thing to relax and simply be.
Without any conscious effort, he allowed the music to wash over him. The sheer pleasure his auditory senses reveled in, thanks to the deeply sung notes—never mind that they were nonsense as he’d never learned Italian—reached through his lugs and somehow touched his soul.
Despite the clash of instruments and the tragic tale being told so woefully, the sounds loosened the tension, softened the muscles, until he was sitting there, staring at the blackness behind his eyelids, seeing brightness everywhere around him, his body suspended somewhere between alert and drowsy, one of the most peaceful, calming things he’d ever experienced.
The mournful, moving voice approached another, more intense, crescendo, bringing the reluctant awareness that the performance approached its end. That realization, in itself, brought sorrow, gathered grief like a shroud into his being. So much anguish, so much euphoria.
To think, he’d missed countless performances such as this, such depths and pinnacles of emotion, all because he avoided people. Avoided possible confrontations, probable conversations.
He’d been doing his spirit a disservice.
As the final notes wound to a stirring, heart-wrenching close, Daniel blinked open heavy lids. As though pulled by a relentless magnet to seek her out, he turned to study Thea. Rapt, she stared at the stage. A single tear left a glistening trail down her exposed cheek. As he watched, she covered her lips with her hand and compressed damp lashes.
Overcome.
Though he felt the same, he couldn’t bear witnessing her reaction.
Startled to
