“Where have you been?” Amelia asked.
“I got your cloak back.”
“Oh, thank you.”
The other chairs for their hosts remained empty.
“Where are our chaperones?” Graham asked with a frown of concern.
Amelia held up a note. “Their carriage broke a wheel. They’ll be late.”
“We’re alone? Unchaperoned in a private box?”
“They think I’m here with my brother,” she shrugged, as if didn’t matter one whit that he and she were unmarried and of the opposite sex.
He stiffened.
Amelia cast a side glance at him. “You can sit and relax. Enjoy the show. We’re chaperoned by the whole theater. No one would suspect you, in all your sainthood, of ravishing me in a theater box.”
A vision filled his head of doing just that.
“This is inappropriate. Anyone could turn and look up here. Rumors don’t have to be true, only entertaining enough to sell papers.”
She twisted toward him. “And what would anyone see if they turned to look? Me, sitting here by a scowling statue. Think of what the papers will say about that.” She raised a brow.
Graham clenched his teeth. This was just like her to throw propriety to the wind at every chance. Even after she’d just beenaccosted by those ruffians. She was smarter than this. He knew she was.
He rigidly lowered into the seat and scooted away, putting more space between their chairs.
She scoffed. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“And you’re being reckless. As usual.”
“You think you know me so well.”
“I do. I’ve known you for years.”
“False. You’ve known my brother for years. Four, to be exact. Hardly a lifelong friendship at that.”
He sighed. “You are an unmarried woman, sitting in a private box with an unmarried man. You must see that it flaunts our society’s ideals and conventions and threatens your reputation.”
“But it’syou.”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“No one suspectsyoumight do something inappropriate. You may as well be a maiden aunt.”
Hot rage bloomed in his chest, along with a confusing blend of ego and lust, driving him to prove just how wrong she was. But he reined it in. He needed this—he needed her to remind him how naïve and ignorant she truly was about the threats in her world. This was precisely why she needed him by her side sheltering her, just as much as her brother had done, though she’d neither realized it nor appreciated it.
“Would your Aunt Ruth mind? She’s no maiden, but she does intend for you to marry her son. She might have some questions about our presence here. Alone. Together. What if she decides she wants an explanation?”
She sat up straighter. “What would you have me do?”
“We should leave.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t seem questionable at all. Leaving alone together. Entering a carriage alone together. Entering my house. Alone. Together.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
