Page 37 of To Pleasure a Prince

Her voice had risen enough over the clamor to make her heard by their companions. Miss Tremaine turned to shoot them both a wary glance. Marcus stared hard at her, until at last she coughed and returned her gaze to the stage.

“Come sit down,” he told Regina, growing irritated by her determination to keep him from touching her. “It’s about to begin.”

The door behind them opened, and a male voice said, “I thought that was you over here in Iversley’s box. Didn’t I tell you that was Regina I saw, Henry?”

“Indeed you did, Richard. Indeed you did.”

Henry and Richard turned out to be men about Regina’s age. At her amiable greeting, they squeezed into the box, along with a younger fellow they called Tom.

As Marcus stood, Regina introduced the gentlemen with her usual serene grace. Henry proved to be Lord Whitmore, heir to the Earl of Paxton. The other two were his brothers. Apparently the three were also Regina’s cousins. Very adoring cousins, judging from how they looked at her.

Insolent pups. Now they were crowding round her, complaining about the small quarters and urging her to join them intheirbox. As if Marcus were invisible.

When she refused, and they continued to press her, Marcus rose to his full height. “The lady said no, so if you value your necks, you’ll take her at her word.”

Louisa rose swiftly. “Now, Marcus,” she said in a placating voice, “I’m sure the gentlemen don’t mean anything by it.”

“Come, Draker,” the one named Richard chimed in, “we’re merely concerned for the lady’s comfort. How can she enjoy the opera in this tiny box?”

“She’d enjoy it better without a lot of chattering idiots swarming about her,” Marcus retorted.

Whitmore stepped up to him. “Now see here, you overgrown—”

“Henry,” Regina put in swiftly, laying her hand on his arm. “I’d like some refreshment before the opera begins. Would you accompany me to the lobby?”

Triumph gleamed in Henry’s face. “I’d be honored, cousin,” he said, with a smirk for Marcus.

The four of them vacated the box, leaving Marcus standing there seething.

As soon as the door shut behind them, he whirled on Miss Tremaine, who was sitting quietly in her chair. “Well? You’re her chaperone. Do you generally let her go off alone with any Tom, Dick, and Henry?”

Miss Tremaine shrugged. “They’re family. She’ll be perfectly safe with them.” She fixed him with a baleful glance. “They’re also gentlemen.”

Yes, he could tell what sort of gentlemen the asses were. “Fine, then I’ll go.” He hurried out the door, ignoring Louisa’s and Miss Tremaine’s protests.

All right, so he was behaving like an idiot, but he hated the idea of Regina alone with those three. He hated how they looked at her. He hated how they spoke to her. And he damned well hated that she’d rather go off with them than spend one more minute in his presence.

She’d made a bargain, confound her, and now she wanted to bend the rules by running off with those other fools. If she wanted to end their bargain, she’d better tell him to his face, where Louisa could hear it. If not, she had no business hiding their courtship from the world.

He wandered the theater for a few minutes with no success. Then, while pushing through a throng of people standing near some pillars, he heard a voice on the other side say, “Good God, Regina, I can’t believe you tolerate that devil.”

He froze, instantly recognizing the Eton clip of one of her cursed cousins.

The man went on in a snide voice. “We were shocked to see you here with the man. What does Foxmoor say about it?”

“My brother has no say in whom I allow to accompany me to the theater,” she said. “And neither do you or your brothers, Henry.”

Marcus scowled. She hadn’t used the word “court,” had she?

“We’re your cousins. We’re concerned.”

“Lord Whitmore is right, Lady Regina,” a female voice put in. “The man is appalling. Aren’t you simply terrified to be near him? You know what they say—”

“It’s all nonsense. Trust me, he can be perfectly amiable when he wants.”

Marcus stood there flabbergasted. She was defending him? To her friends?

“Draker must not have wanted to be amiable when we were upstairs,” another of her cousins said, “because that was the rudest lout I’ve ever met.”