She swallowed. “What about fencing? Does Roxbury enjoy sport? I could sneak into the parlor and wrap it about his saber.”
Spencer’s lips clamped down, a gesture of suppressed amusement. She pondered what she had said, heard the double entendre of her words, and pretended not to notice the way her face grew very hot.
“Ah,” he managed finally, “I have never seen him at the fencing parlor.”
“Boxing? Dog-fighting? Boating?”
“No,Godno, and probably not in November.”
She groaned and put her face in her hands. “Have you any idea what hedoeslike?” she mumbled around her fingers. “He certainly has not been in attendance at any of the dinners and parties we’ve gone to.”
“He’s quite active in Parliament,” Spencer said abstractedly. “Which is not in session at the moment. Likes opera.”
She lifted her head. “Is that right?”
“Mm. I believe he keeps a private box at the Theatre Royal.”
“Does he?” Her brain leapt into action, spinning out possibilities for herself, the theater, and a chain of pink topaz stones each nearly the size and color of a cherry. “I could disguise myself as a servitor, perhaps. Bring the necklace in on a tray with a bottle of champagne. Or—no—I could slip in early and place it under his seat cushion. Or—wait—doyoukeep a private box?”
“No.”
“That’s all right.” She waved a hand. “I can work it out. Perhaps I can hire a hack this evening and go perform some reconnaissance—”
“I’ll take you,” he said.
She looked up.
The corner of his mouth lifted. His dimple emerged. “You don’t need to hire a hack, Win. Give me a day—let me pour the butter boat over some fellows at the club tonight. I’ll procure an invitation to someone else’s private box for the weekend. We’ll go together.”
“We… will?”
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t dress like a servitor. Dress like the Countess of Warren.”
She dressed like a bloody countess. Spencer had encouraged her to wear one of his sisters’ gowns, but a quick perusal of the twins’ wardrobes suggested that Margo and Matilda were at least four inches shorter than she was and decidedly larger in the bosom—thus proving that men were idiots.
Instead, Winnie picked the floral embroidery out of her white crepe dress, overdyed it a luminous glass green, and sewed a pattern of iridescent spangles in between her breasts. Whilst returning to the carriage from the draper’s shop that sold the spangles—alongside a handsome display of Mrs. Halifax’s Handmade Thread—she found herself drawn to an elegant hosiery. In the window nestled a pair of white silk stockings with openwork lace all up the back, from ankle to thigh.
She bought those too.
When Spencer handed her up into the carriage that evening, she lifted her skirts in one hand just high enough to reveal the bare skin on the back of her calf, crisscrossed with fine silken threads.
He swallowed audibly.
She expected him to tug her toward him in the carriage—to kiss her, perhaps run his hands up the back of her legs beneath her skirts. But he did none of those things.
All the way to the theater he did not move or speak. He looked at her—only looked, slow and lingering. She could feel his eyes upon her form, and her skin hummed with restless desire.
By the time they arrived at Drury Lane, she felt as though she were the one who had been seduced. Her belly was tight, anticipatory and fluttering. His fingers beneath her elbow felt like a promise.
Inside the Theatre Royal, Spencer led her up the stairs and to the private box they’d borrowed for the evening from one of his evidently vast circle of acquaintances. It seemed to her that they could not have been more different—not only the gulf in their social positions, but in the very fabric of their lives. Spencer had his sisters, his collection of friends and fellow peers. He seemed well-known and well-liked; she recalled his ease with Tommy Upholland in Llanreithan before they’d departed.
Winnie had her sheep.
At least, she supposed, peering about the capacious private box, her sheep were not cursed with terrible taste.
“This,” she said distinctly, “is dreadful.”
Spencer followed her gaze.
