Page 27 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)
Chapter Twenty-One
A new performance makes its debut tonight. Who will be the hero of A Lady of Means and who will be the villain?
* * *
“The courtship of your dreams,” he’d said, standing on her doorstep after walking her home from his apartments in time for dinner. “Before I have to ship out. What do you say?”
Standing from a step above him and still not quite eye level, Moria placed her hands on his lapels.
“A ball and a masquerade, a piano, a formal introduction to my family in my ancestral home, and now risking your neck for me,” she tugged on his lapels, and his heart. “I’d say the courtship of any girl’s dreams fails in comparison to the courtship we’ve already started.”
“A proper one, the kind we won’t have to lie about when our grandchildren ask. Isn’t that what you want?”
I want you.
“To be worth the trouble.”
One large hand wrapped around hers and removed it from his jacket, bringing it close enough to kiss. “Get yourself inside before I show you just the amount of trouble I think you’re worth,” he whispered, his lips gallantly hovering over her hand in full view of London’s elite.
The door to her London house was pulled open, to both Olivia and Miss Kelley’s curious faces.
“Captain,” both of them fell over themselves to greet him at once. Moria nearly rolled her eyes but caught herself at the last moment.
“Keep better eyes on this one,” Devyn said, tipping his hat as he let go of Moria and turned to leave.
“You don’t want to stay for dinner?” Olivia asked as Moria turned castigating eyes on her.
“I’m not dressed,” Devyn answered.
“See, he’s not dressed,” Moria said with a helpless shrug.
He lifted a brow up at her from the sidewalk. “I will be. Tomorrow,” he called. “Clear your busy social calendar, I’m taking you to the opera.”
“The opera?” she said, a laugh in her voice.
“My brother has a box,” he pointed to her chaperone and her sister, “You can come with her.”
“I already have plans, but this sounds highly entertaining, so on second thought, maybe I’ll cancel,” Olivia said animatedly.
“No,” Moria ground out, then sighed. “Pick me up, tomorrow then, soldier,” and lifted her skirts as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
* * *
As all the women in her household surrounded her, Moria thought it should be noted that she’d been courted by a Duke for over a year and hadn’t garnered near this much fanfare.
She could point out that they all just wanted a look at the Captain, and she’d probably be right.
There was something more than attractiveness to Devyn.
He was the kind of man you noticed, and you didn’t just move along.
“So…The opera?” Gretchen asked.
“His brother is the Earl of Clairville, he has a box apparently,” Noelle supplied.
“For a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army, he is extremely well connected,” Lady Carina said, tying one of the straps of Moria’s gown.
“I agree. Not a duke though,” Gretchen added, fluffing the dark blue skirt of Moria’s dress. It was so dark blue it was nearly black, embroidered with stars and crescents and Moria thought it was almost as captivating as Devyn’s eyes.
“Will His Grace be in attendance tonight?” Olivia said, that tell-tale storm of mischief in her eyes.
“Heard on good authority he’s taking your little bluestocking protege,” Gretchen added.
“I’m not the Duke’s keeper,” Moria said as Olivia applied rouge to her cheeks.
Moria kept the Captain waiting longer than necessary at the bottom of the stairs at her family’s London mansion.
Over a quarter an hour since Bridget had heard from a servant that he was in the foyer.
Moria was ready, but she’d changed her jewelry and stockings, drunk a glass of champagne and eaten a tray of cheese and fruit just to keep him waiting and gauge his reaction.
“Why are you toying with the man? I thought you were looking forward to this evening?” Noelle asked, tilting her head to the side and studying her like some manuscript riddled with hieroglyphics.
Moria dabbed at her lightly painted lips with a linen napkin and set down her empty plate. “Perhaps I enjoy playing with my food before I devour it.”
“He does look downright edible, I have to say,” Olivia added, peeking her head out the door to look down the stairs at the end of the hall.
“Boo you, whore. Where did you even find such a man?” Gretchen joked.
“Gretchen, we don’t call women whores.”
Gretchen threw her hands on her hips. “It was a term of endearment!”
Moria and Noelle collapsed into each other’s arms in a flood of giggles like adolescents.
“Pretty sure he either heard us or noticed Olivia sneaking glances. You have to put him out of his misery now,” Noelle said, giving Moria a playful shove.
Lady Carina and Gretchen refreshed the paint on her lips and helped her put on her gloves. Moria batted them away, letting Ella help her instead.
When Moria appeared at the top of the stairs, his back was turned. No, it wasn’t just a back, backs weren’t all this broad at the shoulders and tapered at the waist. As she took a step, the sound of her heavy silk skirts announced her arrival, and he turned.
Olivia was right. He was downright edible.
Dark hair combed out of his eyes, black and white formalwear tailored to display all his masculine glory, a damnable smirk holding up one of his kissable lips.
She’d always said men’s formalwear was made for a tall man, but god, the shape of him and his long limbs, defied description.
“I think I stopped breathing for a moment there, you made me forget how,” Devyn said, echoing her thoughts and taking her hand at the bottom of the stairs. He took a step back to take her in, spinning her around in front of him.
“More than worth the wait,” he said with a wink as he tipped her gloved hand up to his mouth for a kiss.
Sparks ignited through her at the slight pressure, the sensation of having this man so close, so in her grasp.
And he was. She knew by now the tells, an experienced player in the game of courtship.
She didn’t know that she had her own tells, written all over her in that moment too. Moria looked over her shoulder with a knowing smile to her sisters, her friends, her lady’s maid, and her chaperone. His was the reaction she’d been hoping for.
* * *
When Moria exited the carriage at the theater on the arm of Captain Winter, she was immediately engulfed in stares and whispers.
When he placed a hand at the silk at the small of her back, the glares concentrated there.
She could feel them all hone in, like bees to honey.
She noticed the tension in his jaw and shoulders and grazed his pinky with her own.
He tensed his digit around hers, before letting it go.
He met her eyes, there was only adoration when he looked at her.
He’d likely insist he was rugged and a brute, but the set of his square jaw and his fathomless dark eyes wreathed by guarded, low brows did things to her.
Devyn took a step back to let his brother lead the way into the opera house.
He leaned to whisper close to Moria’s ear, “Do these people have to look at you like that?”
Moria forced a fake laugh as people started to notice his closeness, then said where only he could hear, “Like what?”
“Like a jewel in a display case.”
“Did you just call me a jewel?”
“You are a maddening woman,” he said, but there was a smile on his face and in his voice.
The Earl of Clairville stopped a few feet ahead, the chaperone that Moria and Devyn needed for multiple reasons on his arm.
The lobby of the theater was like the inside of a kaleidoscope, full of color and movement and sparkle.
From beneath her hand, she could feel the flex of Devyn’s arm.
There were no less than seven acquaintances of Moria’s, all male, who spoke to them as they passed.
She looked for the Duke, but didn’t see him.
If Devyn asked, she would tell him the truth.
Male friends were good to have around when she needed a powerful ally, and she had promised herself that she wasn’t going to be a girl without well-placed allies again.
When a young couple called to her, she gave Devyn’s arm a reassuring squeeze.
“Lady Moria, you look incandescent as always,” A brunette Moria knew to be an insatiable gossip stopped to talk to her under the pretense of close friendship.
“And you! Regal as usual, Countess. I should have known the two of you would be in attendance tonight, such charitable patrons of the arts.”
The Countess of Markham’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t believe I’ve met your…suitor.”
Devyn bowed gallantly as his brother made introductions.
“Oh yes, I forgot you had a younger brother while we were at Harrow, Lord Clairville,” The other Earl said.
Moria couldn’t keep up with all the Earls of her acquaintance, in this conversation even.
Throughout the exchange, the Countess was looking at Devyn, at Moria, where her hand rested on his arm.
His taut bicep flexed underneath Moria’s fingers and her mouth watered.
Music sounded from inside the theater. A call to find their seats.
Peregrine placed Miss Kelley’s hand in the crook of his arm and made their excuses, ushering the group to their box and leaving the awkward tableau behind.
Moria admired the way that Devyn led troops into battle, and Peregrine was astute with the battles of social niceties and politics.
They were two shiny, handsome-profiled sides to the same coin.
When they reached their box, Devyn took a drink from his flask.
Before he could redon the cap, Moria took it from him and tipped it back herself.
He looked at her with his mouth agape and then a laugh bubbled from his barrel chest. Devyn laughing was so rare, like a laugh of his was something he kept in a china cabinet and only set out on rare occasions; but in that moment, she wanted to make his laugh and his looking at her with mirth-filled eyes something fit for daily consumption.