They allowed a few minutes for the servant to deliver their note, and then made their way down to the reception room where their message had told Roxbury to appear. This was the most uncertain moment of the plan—they needed Roxbury’s entire party to leave the box, not just the man himself.
They ordered coffee and pretended to be engrossed in conversation while they waited. And then, to Winnie’s intense relief, Roxbury appeared in the doorway, alongside his wife, his mother, and his lanky flaxen-haired son.
Spencer squeezed her hand once, and then they parted. He made for the Roxbury family—he would keep them talking until she returned.
And Winnie walked calmly in the direction of the Roxbury box, the reticule containing the pink-topaz necklace clutched in her fist. She need only pretend confidence, she thought. No one would stop her. She looked like a blasted countess—and if anyone asked, shewas.At least for the moment.
She strolled—briskly, but not suspiciously fast—to the elegant green-and-white box Spencer had pointed out. She peered inside: it was empty, exactly as they’d planned. She slipped through the door, pressing herself against the wall. Which seat—which seat had been Roxbury’s?
The closest to the front of the box, she thought. The one pressed all the way up against the balcony’s ledge.
Of course it would be the one in the bloodyfront.She slipped the necklace from the spangled reticule and held the cool weight of gemstones in her palm. There was no time for hesitation—and the reluctance and grief that had stayed her hand at the Yardsleys’ dinner did not seem half so keen this night.
She walked coolly forward, her head tilted away from the glittering gas lamps, and dropped the necklace into the center of Roxbury’s chair.
A voice came from the shadows—a thin creak, like the sound of two aged, rusted metals rasping against one another. “Is someone there?”
Winnie did not think. She whirled and dove behind one of the green velvet draperies.
There was rustling from the box, as of a wispy body moving against the thick carpet. “I thought I heard someone,” the frail voice quavered. “Roxbury? Is that you? Do you have my ginger biscuits?”
Oh God. Oh hell.
Someone had remained in Roxbury’s box. They had not seen this elderly woman—she must have been too deep in the shadows to be spotted from their vantage across the theater.
Her mind raced. Ought she try to make a break for it? If she ran, the elderly woman might not see her well enough to describe her later.
But her glittering gown, her sparkling reticule—if the womancoulddescribe her, the necklace’s return might somehow come back to trouble Spencer. She couldn’t have that.
Perhaps she could slither out along the ground like a worm. Perhaps she could vault over the ledge—ohhellthis was a disaster—
And then, from her muffled place behind the drapery, she heard Spencer.
“Viscountess Roxbury,” he said, his deep voice pitched just overloud. “Your grandson bade me come up to your box and fetch you down. The reception room is all out of ginger biscuits, and he’d like to know what you want instead.”
“Warren?” said the woman, warmth entering her reedy voice. “Is that you? Good heavens, boy. Are you an operagoer these days?”
He laughed. Winnielovedthat laugh—it was the best sound she had ever heard—she hadno ideahow he had known she was in trouble and she could not possibly have been more thrilled that he had.
“My wife is the opera aficionado,” he said. “Come, take my arm.” He raised his voice even louder. “I’m taking your whole family up to my box to meet her.”
“Yourwife? Since when? Piffle, boy, I’m not that old—I know I haven’t forgotten your wedding. Or did you elope like your parents? Gracious me, what a scandal that was…”
Their voices faded. Winnie waited a slow thirty-count, her heart pounding in her ears. And then she picked up her skirts and her reticule, peeled herself out of the drapery, and ran.
Chapter 12
She made it, barely.
She had her head tipped back against the wall and her hand pressed to the glittering spangles between her breasts when Spencer and the Roxbury clan arrived at the box.
She fixed her widest, shiniest smile to her face and hoped desperately that it was dark enough in the box to disguise the fact that her face was flushed from exertion and her hair was falling down in clumps that tickled her collarbone.
“Ah,” Spencer said, slipping one arm round her waist, “there you are.”
Winnie leaned—helplessly, breathlessly—into him. He introduced her to the Roxbury family, including the very elderly twice-dowager viscountess, whose lively brown eyes belied that quavering voice.
She hardly knew what she said. Spencer’s palm was warm and solid on her hip, and his thumb traced little circles there, around and around. She was dizzy with relief, undone by the press of Spencer’s body against her own.
