Page 15

The Norris soiree was about as thrilling as watching mold grow on a muffin.

“It’s called a zoetrope,” Lady Norris said, pronouncing each syllable like a governess speaking to an infant. “Can you say zoetrope ?”

It was a cylindrical bowl with figures painted along the inside, set in various poses between open slats. Then their hostess

gave it a spin, grinning as the scene of a horse galloping played before their eyes.

Proud of her accomplishment at setting the bowl into motion, she gave herself a little clap. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

Thea sent Lady Broadbent a beseeching look. Clearly, this was the ideal time to begin her tale of the highwayman. But the

countess stared back with the stern expression of a general ordering his archers to hold... hollld!

So, she held.

“Simply marvelous. I’ve never seen a horse gallop before.” When the countess cleared her throat at the slightly sarcastic

tone, Thea added, “In quite that fashion.”

“Indeed, Miss Hartley. Indeed. It was a gift from my husband. There are some evenings when all we do is gaze into it. Horace

is often surprised when the mantel clock chimes and he realizes that we’ve whiled away an hour or more.” She tittered. “I

must say it is an entertaining way to pass one’s time.”

Well, marriage sounds like an absolutely splendid institution , Thea thought dryly as the hostess and Lady Broadbent walked on to examine another marvel from Horace—a lamp, of all things.

“If the nightly recreation of regarding a revolving bowl won’t drive a couple to the altar, then nothing could,” a man muttered

behind her.

With a laugh on her lips, she turned, surprised to find St. James standing there. Not that he’d startled her, but more that

when he spoke under his breath, his voice seemed lower, deeper in a way that his usual softer tone wasn’t. Or perhaps, she’d

simply imagined it.

“My thoughts precisely,” she said.

But he looked just as startled as if he hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

Then he said nothing. Behind his spectacles, his gaze dipped to her smile and he swallowed.

Interpreting the silence as nervousness or shyness, and not wishing to scare him off again as she’d done in the breakfast

room yesterday, she decided to interject a truth that would put them on equal footing. “Then again, I come from a rather unconventional

family where an evening without a well-executed death scene is considered lackluster at best.”

His mouth quirked.

Foolishly, she felt as though she’d won a prize of some sort. Huzzah! I have amused this man, even if reluctantly . Of course, this achievement wasn’t quite up to par with spinning a bowl... but she would take it.

“I suppose many would find that rather odd,” she continued, eager to encourage conversation with a man who was hardly known

for grand speeches. And it was no wonder considering how he was ridiculed. But she hoped he would feel safe with her.

“At Redcliffe Court, I think many a dinner could be improved upon with a dramatic fatality.”

“Do you spend much time at your uncle’s house?”

He shook his head, the gesture stiff.

She observed that the mention of his uncle was as unpleasant as Kellum was for her. So she quickly changed the topic. “Do

you like plays?”

“I do, albeit in the reading of them. Too often, I’ve found, the performance failed to depict the vibrant world my mind created

from the written word of the author,” he said.

Even though his words were an observation of what he’d seen on stage, there was a wounded part of Thea that felt the weight

of all the failures of which Kellum relished reminding her.

You expect me to hand that rubbish to my actors? The dialogue is wooden. The scene, utterly flat. No audience will be inspired

by that drivel.

Oh, don’t start pouting. After all, what could you possibly write that has not been written a hundred—nay, a thousand—times

before? You haven’t even lived. You’re still clinging to your mother’s apron strings. But, fear not, I am up to the challenge.

Now, be a good girl and copy these pages. You might even learn something.

St. James studied her, his mouth pulling into a frown. “I had forgotten that you are a playwright. Forgive me. I hope you

know that I meant no insult to—”

“It is the same for me,” she interrupted, refusing to let Kellum spoil anything else for her. “After reading a play, I am

absolutely certain about the manner it should be performed. Then I see what someone has done to it, or hear an actor miss

every cue for comedic timing and I want to groan in frustration. I know I should not say such things, especially when I should

be so fortunate as to have the burden of one of my own plays dramatically butchered for a London audience. But I cannot help

it.” She lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “The curse of being a Hartley, I suppose.”

“I admire the ability to create art from thought alone,” he said quietly. “To take from the ether and form a world with your own pen can only have been regarded as a true achievement, whether performed in a London theatre or not.”

Her lungs filled like a Montgolfier balloon. In that moment, she felt as though he’d given her back something she’d lost.

“You are most surprising, St. James.”

“The fact that I can read?”

At his deadpan reply, she laughed. “No. I highly suspect that you are hiding who you really are from society. Oh, don’t look

so alarmed. There’s nothing for which to be ashamed. It’s clear to me that you are a secret romantic. And don’t bother to

shake your head in denial either. I have proof, after all, in a vase on my bedside table. You’ll have to show me how...

you... make...”

The sudden intensity in his gaze caused a flood of warmth to rush to her cheeks, and she forgot what she was saying.

There was something about the way his black pupils expanded, spilling over the brown and leaving only a penumbra of mossy

green that made her breath catch. Her pulse quickened as if she’d just raced her father’s Irish wolfhounds down the towpath

at home.

The reaction puzzled her exceedingly.

Seeking relief, she lowered her gaze, letting it drift past the nose that wasn’t altogether straight, the generous mouth,

square jaw and lopsided cravat. Her perusal skimmed over miles of shoulders and, beneath an ill-fitting black waistcoat, a

broad chest that rose and fell as rapidly as her own.

From the corner of her vision, she caught the slight movement of his arm. Then, almost instantly, his hand retracted into

a fist and he held it to his side once more.

Had he been about to reach for something but decided against it?

Perhaps he was thirsty. Perhaps that was the reason a muscle ticked along his jaw. Yet, there was no passing footman with a tray of aperitifs, nor was there a convenient table nearby with a waiting glass. So he must have been about to reach for—she swallowed—something else.

It was you, fool , her inner chorus shouted.

Her pulse tried to break through the susceptible skin at her throat. She pressed her gloved fingertips over it, wondering

at this wholly unexpected reaction.

Almost at once, Thea became determined to understand it for the purposes of her writing. She became inordinately curious about

those hands and what they might have done if she had not looked. They were so large, broad palmed and long fingered.

It was impossible to imagine that those same hands created such delicate flowers out of colored silver paper.

Thea lifted her gaze and boldly met his, deciding to be direct. “Were you going to take hold of—”

She didn’t have the chance to finish.

Without a word, he turned on his heel and walked away, his long legs eating up the drawing room floor in his haste.

He just walked away and left her standing there. Alone.

Well, clearly, she had misunderstood the entirety of their exchange. She’d thought that expanding pupils indicated attraction.

She’d seen it a number of times in other gentlemen, after all. Then again, pupils also expanded when a room was dark. And

since he did wear spectacles, she might have leapt to conclusions, and his poor eyesight might have been the root cause.

Which still didn’t explain her own reaction, at all.

Not that it mattered because, at the moment, a wholly new sensation was overtaking her—icy annoyance.

How could St. James have been so engaging one minute then rude in the next? And what had he been reaching for?

Perhaps his arm had lifted to stifle a yawn , the chorus jeered.

Thea grumbled to herself, deciding to write a play where the Greek chorus was brutally murdered.

She was just reaching for a ledger to make note of that—before remembering that this dress didn’t have pockets, drat it all—when

she was joined by two other gentlemen.

Lord Bromley and Mr. Handscombe were brothers three and two years her senior, respectively. From having met them last Season,

she knew they considered themselves art aficionados, so their conversation was usually engaging. And, if their ready smiles

were any indication, they appeared to want to be in her company... unlike a certain viscount.

Giving them her attention, she did her level best to put any distracting thoughts from her mind.

“I say, Miss Hartley,” Lord Bromley said, “we just saved you from quite the harrowing ordeal.”

“I’m not certain I know what you mean, Bromley?”

Mr. Handscombe gestured with a jerk of his chin. “St. James appeared to have you trapped in conversation.”

“Though I imagine it was rather one-sided. He was likely one incomprehensible utterance away from resorting to his ape self

and dragging his knuckles on the floor.”

“We heard he nearly crushed you at Beaucastle’s fete.”

She stiffened, disliking their tones. Just because she was vexed by St. James didn’t mean she wanted to hear him disparaged.

“He merely tripped over a rug, as anyone might have done.”

Even so, she was still lamenting the loss of the gown with the velvet pockets.