Every visible surface in the box was gold or fringed or gold-fringed. There were six marble sculptures lining the back wall, all of which featured nymphs and satyrs in various states of frolic and undress. The wallpaper was aubergine, the carpet oxblood, and the chairs so heavily gilted that Winnie was actually afraid to sit upon them.
“It is rather. I think Percival inherited it from his father.”
“Who was… an appreciator of the bacchanal?”
“I believe he had it kitted out this way to impress a certain Italian opera singer for whom he harbored an infatuation.”
“Did it work?”
The corner of Spencer’s mouth quirked. “Is it working on you?”
She pressed her face into a glower, and he laughed.
She moved to the front of the box, gazing out into the milling audience. Her fingers traced the spangled reticule she’d guiltily borrowed from one of Spencer’s sisters. The performance had not yet begun, but Spencer had told her people would continue to promenade and gossip and purchase tiny buns to dip into their cups of sweet wine and fruit liqueur.
He came up beside her, his hand coming to rest at the small of her back. “Just there,” he said, inclining his head in the direction of the boxes near the back of the theater. “The one with the columns and the green draperies and the chairs pulled all the way up to the balustrade. That’s where Roxbury will be. He is truly a devotee—he’ll be here on time and with his opera glasses at the ready.”
“What do we do until then?”
“Wait,” Spencer said. His thumb brushed against the buttons on the back of her dress, the smallest caress. “Watch.”
Before long, Roxbury and his party arrived, clearly visible from their vantage. Spencer named the people in the box—Roxbury’s wife, his dowager mother, a tufty-haired adolescent son.
An employee of the theater came at some point to press champagne and tiny ginger-cream tarts into their hands. The orchestra hummed to life, and though, as Spencer had predicted, the general din of conversation remained, the music still swept through Winnie.
She had never been to the opera before. Her mother had gone—and often—but it had been an opportunity to display herself, a chance to ensorcel some new gentleman. An adolescent daughter would not have aided that project, and so Winnie had remained at home.
She loved it. She would never have guessed how much she would love it. There was no social whirl to participate in, no endless pitfall of conversation to guard against. There was only the music, and the gaslight, and the taste of cold sweet champagne on her tongue.
The gulf between herself and Spencer was nothing and everything. He was beside her—his thumb idly grazing the back of her neck—and she could touch him if she wished. Reach out and link her gloved fingers with his.
She could do it—she meant to do it, meant to savor every moment of their intimacy while she still held it in her hand. But no matter how close she felt to him in this moment, none of it was real. This was not her life. She was a pretender—after all this time, she was not so terribly different from what her mother had been.
But she would not take from him. And she would not—would not—hurt him.
She wrapped her fingers in a lock of her own hair. Tears pressed hotly at the back of her eyes, but she did not let them fall. “This is lovely,” she murmured, her voice soft enough that she did not know if he would hear her over the sound of the soprano’s clear, agile voice.
But he did. He brought his thumb around to her chin and tilted her face toward his. “Lovely,” he agreed. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She felt hot, wary, uncertain of his words. Wanting was a greedy tide in her, rising to her skin. Not just for the touch of his mouth to hers or his body pressed against her own. No—God, she could never do things by half-measures, could she?
She wanted more and more. She wanted forever.
The soprano’s voice slid delicately into silence, the air vibrating with absence. Spencer broke his gaze from hers.
“Intermission,” he said. “It’s time.”
She took a breath and wound her fingers harder into her hair, once, twice. And then she made herself let go. “I’m ready.”
Spencer let his hand trail down the side of her neck, her shoulder, all the way down her arm, and then made for the door. He captured the attention of a uniformed servant and passed a note and small weight of coin into the man’s hand.
They had composed the note together the previous evening. Spencer had proposed an anonymous offer to meet to discuss Roxbury’s political ambitions, but Winnie had shaken her head.
“Write that you have gossip to reveal about his most intransigent political enemy. Something shocking, which you can only reveal in person. Initials only—no names. And whatever you do, don’t sign it.”
Spencer had dimpled at her, and her heart had leapt to see it. She supposed she ought to feel a trifle embarrassed—that she was tempting this decent, upright man into her world of deception—but she could not quite find it in her heart to feel so. He looked bloodyhappy.
And their intentions were good. She thought it would be all right.
