The man’s elegant clothing fit well, his wigperfectly brushed and powdered, yet there was an expression offorced civility in his comportment.
He took Alexandra’s proffered hand, bentover and kissed it. His touch owned the infiltrating cold of aserpent. She shivered. She drew her fingers back, but he held fast,scrutinizing her like she was a misplaced ghost. Countless emotionsflashed across his face. Adoration? Resentment? Why? He held heroverlong for what was appropriate. She tugged her hand.
At her movement, the Duke of Westbrook cameto life and, eye refocusing, he released her fingers, and thenturned, clapped Nicholas on the back. “Been trying to catch up withyou since your return, but you’ve been on the run. Know that I’malways available to help you, Nicholas, and I understand there isto be a wedding.”
“Yes, Sir. Alexandra has agreed to honor meas my wife, but that is not for public review yet. Not until acoming out has properly taken place.”
“Well done,” said the Duke of Westbrook, hisgaze assessing Alexandra over from head to toe.
“I came to pay my respects to you, Nicholas,and must leave. But I do want to hear every detail of yourjourney.”
Alexandra did not like the private nature ofthe innuendo, nor the fact that Cornelius kept staring at her. Hisvoice troubled her. Almost as if she had heard it before. Shefiddled with her glove and blew out a breath. Since Nicholas wasn’tbothered by Cornelius’s strange behavior then she should not beeither.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Nicholas said.“Why sit alone in your box when you can share ours?”
Alexandra fanned herself. The two men weredeep in quiet conversation, but beneath veiled lids Rachel watchedCornelius. So did Nicholas’s father. A whisper of unease goadedAlexandra’s senses again. Memories assailed her from the island andtheir discussion of who might have been behind the attack on theRutland’s. As Nicholas seated her, nerves rattled down her spine,warning her she had not been wrong to suggest to Nicholas that hisuncle may not have the purest of intentions.
Rachel gave Alexandra a slight nod,confirming a silent communication that Alexandra’s uncertaintieswere not irrational.
In a flat tone of voice, Rachel said, “Wemust talk later…” She indicated Cornelius with a discreet nod.“…about accessories for your new gowns.”
“That would be lovely,” Alexandra said.“Your opinions matter to me.”
As she spoke, Nicholas sat on one side ofher and gestured to the Duke of Westbrook to sit on the other sideof her. Sandwiched between the two men, she leaned over and peereddown at the pit, anywhere she would not meet Cornelius’s eyes.“Looks like we have arrived just in time since it appears the operais about to begin,” she said, lowering her voice.
“Is something wrong, Lady Sutherland?” theDuke of Westbrook whispered into her ear.
“Why do you ask, sir?” Alexandra said.
“You are tapping the blades of your fan onyour knee in iambic pentameter.”
Alexandra gulped. “How careless of me,” shesaid, mortified that she was nearly flogging herself. “I offer mysincere apologies, Lord Westbrook.”
“None to be given,” he said, his expressionfilled with warmth. “Although I like your rhythm.”
Alexandra cringed.
She opened her fan and stirred the airaround her face. “I often have too much energy to sit idle, and Itend to dispel it in peculiar ways.”
“I can empathize,” Lord Westbrook said,leaning so their faces were inches apart. “When I’m distracted, I’minclined to hum.”
“Oh,” she said, pretending interest.
“Badly,” he added, and Alexandra laughed athim. The man was disarming.
The Duke of Westbrook whispered anotherhumorous anecdote in her ear. His shoulder brushed hers in anintimate fashion that did not seem accidental. “Lucretia, I’m sohappy you are here this evening.”
Alexandra narrowed her gaze. “Pardonme?”
Cornelius pulled back. “Please, accept myapology. You look so much like Nicholas’s late mother, yourcoloring, your eyes, your energy, that for one moment I was inanother time and place.”
She blinked. Was Duke Cornelius caughtbetween hallucinating and the world of reality? He gave her thesame feeling she experienced of a forest pool she had come upon inDeconshire, half-hidden by an edging of deadly nightshade andleaning prone across it at a despondent angle was a lifelesswillow, strangely halted from falling into the foul waters.
Alexandra leaned into Nicholas. Had he seenthe Duke of Westbrook’s odd behavior? Nicholas’s smile washed awayher anxiety.
The rumbling D-minor cadence of the overturefilled the theater, commanding silence from the spectators.Alexandra took a deep breath and switched her attention to thestage in anticipation of enjoying the opera.
Handel’sRinaldowas magnificent,staged with a dramatic setting of an enchanted palace with blazingbattlements and with monsters spitting fire and smoke. Alexandrawas so moved by the vocally elaborate long arias that were designedto display the virtuosity of the castratos. Soon, the excitementchurning in her faded to the suffocating heat and oppressive smokeemitted from candles.
