Alex gave his head a shake and forced himself to continue walking. He strode inside the theatre, quickly locating the pair of young ladies. They stood facing one another, their heads close as they conspired together. He groaned, as all the reservations in being charged the task of looking after his headstrong, often inappropriate for a young lady, sister surfaced. The loud din of guests’ chatter proved nearly deafening. He worked his way through the crush of bodies, his gaze trained on an easy to identify pile of fiery tresses, locks that had been set ablaze by the sun. He recoiled. Bloody hell, what was the matter with him?
A tall figure stepped into his path.
He cursed. “Bloody…” The world trailed off. “Stanhope,” he said blankly, staring at his recently married friend and the other man’s wife, the Lady Anne. Their friendship went back to their days at Eton, a close bond only strengthened when Alex had served as the other man’s second upon a dueling field many, many years go. He stole a glance about for Chloe and Imogen. “Bloody hell.” The crowd of bodies had swallowed them.
“A pleasure to see you, as well.” Stanhope grinned. “I daresay I never believed I’d see the day you’d be spending your evenings at the theatre.”
Yes, they two had made it a habit of visiting gaming hells and some of the more disreputable clubs. Until the other man had wed, leaving Alex to his own, lonely carousing.
“Oh, hush,” Lady Anne said, peering at the chandelier overhead. She turned her attention to Alex. “It is a pleasure to see you,” she said with a smile while making the proper greetings.
Alex sketched a belated bow. “Lady Stanhope,” he said with an almost pained discomfort. “The pleasure is all mine.” When presented with his friend’s unexpected interest in the lady some months past, he’d made no secret his dislike for the woman rumored to be a title-grasping, self-indulgent miss. Just as all the others of the peerage…
That is what you believe, isn’t it? That a lady merely desires a titled lord…?
With a silent curse, he glanced about for Imogen. Rather, his sister. He searched for…
“Are you searching for someone?” Stanhope drawled.
“Yes,” he muttered, searching for crimson curls. Only because it was far easier to identify the flaming locks amidst a sea of pale blonde and not because he was in any way captivated by the chit.
“And do you care to mention who it is you are in fact—?”
“Oh, shove off, Stanhope. It is my sister,” he gritted out.
The other man tossed his head back on a laugh. “By God, I never thought I’d see the day.” Anxiety roiled through him, the fear of his own transparency to this friend who knew him too well. “You are a chaperone?” Some of the tension left his frame at his friend’s erroneous assumption about his disquiet.
“Yes,” he bit out. And he’d gone and lost her and Imogen. “A charge doled out by my brother, the illustrious marquess.”
A somberness replaced Stanhope’s earlier amusement. “Ah, I see.” This man was the only one who knew a piece of the hell Alexander had lived as a child, and the bond he’d shared with Gabriel that had been severed by his father’s manipulations. His friend searched about the hall. “I believe I see her, alongside the column just to the right of the doors. She is with a young lady and Lord Primly—” Goddamn Primly. “Where are you go—?” Stanhope called after him, but Alex continued moving.
He pressed ahead through the crowd, shouldering his way past gentlemen calling out a greeting. Only one gentleman had his notice this instant. He narrowed his eyes on the slender gentleman in a burnt orange, satin jacket to rival the hue of Imogen’s tresses. Every so often, Primly dropped his gaze to her delectable décolletage.
Something tightened in his belly, unpleasant and gripping, something that had he been anyone other than his jaded, cynical self, he would have believed it was jealousy. Which was madness—to be jealous of unassuming Primly—who continued to ogle the creamy white skin exposed above the lace trim of her gown. “Primly,” he snapped, as he came upon them.
The other man glanced up, flushing guiltily. “Er…E-Edgerton. A-a pleasure, I-I was j-just—”
Alex leveled the man with a glower until Primly backed away, his cheeks white. He’d known very well what the illustrious young earl had been doing.
“Poor Lord Primly,” his sister said with stern reproach. “You are quite horrid to the gentleman.”
He gritted his teeth. “May we find our seats?” With that he turned on his heel and guided them through the crowd to their respective box.
Chloe slid into a red velvet armchair and perched herself on the edge. She proceeded to boldly study those filing into their seats.
Imogen shifted back and forth on her feet, studiously avoiding his gaze, avoiding it when she’d held Primly’s and offered the bastard a smile and—
“Sit, Imogen.”
She froze and looked up at him. “I beg your pardon?”
Heat burned his neck and he resisted the urge to tug at his cravat.
“I am not one of your hunting dogs, Lord Alex. I—”
“I don’t have hunting dogs. Now, will you please sit? You are, we are,” he amended, “attracting notice.”
Her gaze flew out toward the theatre. A sea of curious stares was trained upon the scandalous Lady Imogen Moore, nearly left at the altar for her sister. She blanched. With swift, jerky movements she claimed a seat. He searched for a hint of her weakening in front of the merciless ton. Instead, Imogen remained poised as a queen, her chin tipped up, and a defiant glint in her eyes. Most other women would have dissolved into a fit of tears before the scorn now bestowed upon her. Just then, Imogen rose even higher in his esteem.
Alex settled into the chair beside her, so close his leg brushed hers. The subtle movement was made all the more heady by the citrusy scent that clung to her. Did the lady add lemon to her bathwater? Dab it behind her ears? On the heel of such thoughts were imaginings of Imogen, naked, her skin pinkened from the heat of her bathwater.
He drew in a slow, steadying breath as the chore of venturing out into polite Society events became torturous for altogether different reasons that had nothing to do with the role of chaperone.
Alexander was staring at her. Then, nearly every lord and lady within the theatre this evening had at some point stolen a glance at the pitiable, scandalous Moore sister. Except… Alex’s fixed, heated gaze was not the pitying kind. Instead, his nearly jade irises seared her with an intensity rousing wicked thoughts and remembrances of his mouth upon hers.
Imogen closed her eyes and searched for resolve. She would not be weak. She had already been weak where one gentleman was concerned and in that, she’d learned to be wary of a man who stared at a lady as though she were the only woman in the world. When in truth, a rogue such as Alex would never see but one woman. He would take his pleasures where he would and with as many of those ladies wholly uninterested in his heart. Pain scissored through her.
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder
Imogen touched the cold pendant about her neck, a talisman purported to bring its wearer the heart of a duke, but for her it served as a different reminder—the perils from having loved that duke. That grand sentiment of love so many ladies aspired to but never dared speak aloud, a dream she had allowed herself. She’d not make the same folly twice. Not in giving her attention, her heart, or any part of herself to an unrepentant rogue. When she loved again, it would be with an honorable man who’d respect the gift of her affections and put her before all.
Squaring her jaw, she fixed her attention on the actors below. Some of the tension left her as she allowed herself to become lost in the performance. “Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer,” she silently mouthed along with the actress on the stage below. The fair Juliet’s words an unwitting reminder of Alexander’s kiss. She layered her palm against her cheek, hating that a sliver of her soul clung to the romanticism she’d once dreame
d of for herself. The young lady who’d attended finishing school had secretly longed for a life upon the stage. The allure of those plays had tantalized a young girl with a romantic spirit.
Alex leaned close. His breath tickled her ear. “See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might caress that cheek.”
Her heart fluttered and she dropped her hand to her lap, clutching the fabric. “T-touch,” she corrected. “That you m-might touch that cheek.”
“Yes, and yet a caress is so much more meaningful than a mere touch, wouldn’t you say, Imogen?” Alex slid his gloved hand over hers, staying her distracted movement.
Yes, oh goodness, she quite agreed. His touch coupled with his knowledge of Shakespeare was heady stuff, indeed. “You read Shakespeare,” she said, unable to keep the shock from her statement.
He turned the very question she’d put to him that last week, on her. “Are you surprised?” Suddenly, he stopped that gentle stroking and she mourned the loss of that seductive little movement. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from begging him to continue.
“N-not at all.” She was however, surprised he read the romantic words of William Shakespeare. Nor did she care for this side of Alex. This shared love and fascination of The Bard’s works that made him more human than rake.
“I find myself surprised by you.” He slipped his fingers into hers, intertwining the digits. His hand strong and powerful, hers fragile and delicate against it, and yet somehow perfectly paired. “You intrigue me.”
“Why would that be?” Her heart thumped erratically at his touch, his words. With the exception of her broken betrothal and flaming-red hair, nothing had earned the notice of anyone—until Alex. “There is nothing unordinary about me.” William’s fickle interest had proven testament to that.
“There is everything extraordinary about you,” His lips nearly brushed her ear and when he spoke in that husky, mellifluous whisper, she could almost believe it. “You quote Shakespeare, sweet Imogen?” His strong, powerful fingers tightened about hers in a seductively possessive grip.
Here in the midst of polite Society with a theatre full of lords and ladies looking for the next piece of gossip, he’d enthralled her. “I do.” Not always intentionally. Imogen swallowed and stole a glance about, but Chloe sat perched at the edge of the box, engrossed in the show below. She looked about the theatre. How could anyone not see that with each stroke of his hand over hers, Alex threw her world into greater tumult?
“You hate shopping, but you enjoy the theatre.” With infinite slowness, he rolled her satin theatre glove slowly down her arm and then freed each finger from the restrictive confines. Imogen darted her gaze about. Surely someone knew the seductive game Alex now played. Yet even two seats apart, her friend remained engrossed in the production below. Wholly uncaring of who might observe his bold touch, Alex whispered, “What manner of woman are you?” He rested her glove upon his lap.
She sucked in a breath at his intimate caress. “Wh-what are—?”
“Shh,” he whispered. Alex stroked his thumb in small, soothing circles about her palm eliciting all manner of delicious shivers that radiated at the point of contact and spread through her.
Her chest heaved up and down with slow, shallow breaths. His was just a hand and his fingers moved in a really innocuous movement, except… Imogen bit her lower lip as he rubbed his thumb over the wildly fluttering pulse at her wrist. The small, seductive grin upon his lips indicated he knew he’d roused her senses.
“Romeo had the wrong of it, Imogen.” His husky murmur stirred her belly.
She shouldn’t engage in this seductive game with him. It was outrageous and meant nothing to him. “I-in what way do you believe?” She could no sooner quell the question on her lips than she could stop the beating of her own heart.
He studied her through thick, black lashes. “I’d not feel your gloved hand upon me. I’d have your naked palm caressing me, touching me.”
God forgive her. Her lids fluttered madly. She still was the same weak, romantic fool she’d always been. Alex had only opened her eyes to the passion she carried inside, made all the more dangerous by the shred of hope she clung to—to love and be loved.
I do not have a heart…
She met his gaze. He continued to study her in that piercing, penetrating way. As though he knew her secrets and reveled in them. It would be too easy to believe herself in love with him. Only, a man such as he would never turn himself over to love and she would be wise to listen to the mistakes of her past, her not-so distant past, where Alex was concerned. Imogen plucked her glove from his lap, warmth spiraling through her as her fingers brushed his thigh. She made quick work of tugging it into place, just as Chloe glanced over. Imogen mustered a smile for her friend who grinned in return and looked to the stage once more.
“Tsk, tsk, where is your boldness, Imogen?”
“Buried under my sense of propriety, Lord Alex,” she said from the corner of her mouth.
He draped his arm along the top of her chair and leaned back, elegant in repose. “You’d agreed to call me Alexander.” His lazy repose would have been casual by any other observer who glanced over this moment, and yet, his well-muscled thigh went taut against hers speaking to his heightened tension.
She gritted her teeth, hating that she desired him as she did. “I never agreed to call you by your Christian name. I…”
He stared expectantly at her.
She’d merely taken to using it at his urging. “Furthermore—”
“You didn’t finish the first part of your argument, love.”
Love. Ah, what manner of fool was she to crave that endearment upon his lips?
He smiled, a knowing grin. The lout. “Furthermore,” she repeated on a hushed whisper. “You’ve quite conveniently forgotten the second part of Mr. Shakespeare’s quote.”
Alexander sent an eyebrow arching upward.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?” That very important second verse cleverly left out by a lord who’d take pleasures where he would and not give a thought to the heartbreak he left in his wake. She worked her gaze over his face. “What matters is what something is, not what it is called.” And he was a rogue. And she was a lady who’d had her heart broken. Even if she wished it, which she assuredly did not, there could be no more imperfect pairing than they two.
Another seductive grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “And I am what? A rogue? A black-hearted scoundrel?” The faint teasing tone to that handful of words was underscored by a steely hardness.
“Isn’t that what you claimed just last week, Alex?” she shot back with a question of her own. “To possess no heart.”
His body jerked as though she’d struck him. “Indeed, my lady.” Those three terse words were more telling than any other he could have strung together.
And there, in the middle of the theatre, amidst a sea of lords and ladies, Imogen came to the staggering realization—the cavalier exterior presented to the world by Lord Alex Edgerton was nothing more than a show, not very different than the Drury Lane production even now being performed upon the stage.
His was a craftily sculpted image of an indolent rogue when, in actuality, he desired more, craved more—even as he himself likely didn’t know it.
How had she failed to see the carefully presented façade before now? Her heart ached with a desire to tug down all the carefully constructed walls he’d built about him. Imogen slipped her hand over his, expecting she should be beset with terror.
He stiffened and cast his gaze down, meeting her eyes with an unflinching boldness.
Except there was no fear.
For a moment, she suspected he intended to pull away, but then, wordlessly, he placed his other hand atop hers. Imogen’s heart spasmed. This was very bad, indeed.
Swallowing past a wave of emotion in her throat, she picked her head up and wished she hadn’t. Because if she hadn
’t looked out across the sea of theatre goers, she wouldn’t have seen the notorious, recently widowed Viscountess Kendricks eying Alexander as though he were a savory treat in a world without food. Even with the distance of the theatre between them, she detected the glimmer of interest contained within those catlike eyes.
Imogen stole a sideways glance to see if Alex noted the bold widow’s sultry movements. He stared directly out across the theatre at the dark-haired beauty, his expression inscrutable.
A viselike pressure tightened about her heart as the widow toyed with the fabric of her plunging décolletage. Imogen took in the bold display and then with wooden movements, she withdrew her hand from Alex’s. The bold exchange between the notorious Lady Kendricks and the sought after lord, merely served as a much needed reminder—no good could come from caring for one such as him.
Chapter 7
The following morning, in the privacy of her chambers, Imogen reflected on the roguish, Shakespeare-quoting, Lord Alex. Be they gentlemen or noblemen or servants, all men were the same. Every one of them was attracted to a lovely woman and saw nothing much beyond a superficial beauty. Her first lesson of that fact had been dealt by the powerful Duke of Montrose. And really, no other lessons were required after such a betrayal. Alexander’s interest in the stunningly voluptuous Lady Kendricks had only reinforced that now obvious fact.
Standing by the window in her chambers, Imogen turned her attention to the volume of Romeo and Juliet in her fingers. Except, all thoughts of Shakespeare’s bold, beautiful words and the woes of star-crossed lovers were now a mere shadow to the memory of Alexander’s touch last evening, his whispers. With a groan, she tossed the book onto a nearby mahogany side table. It slid off the smooth, mahogany surface and landed on the floor with a loud thump.
What manner of fool was she that she should have had her heart so broken, her trust betrayed by a rogue, and then find herself so completely captivated by another that she’d stand beside a window, like a lovelorn pup, dreaming of him, wishing he could be more, so that mayhap they could be more?
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