Still, it felt good to move. They didn’t go far because the hall was a crush of people visiting with each other.
However, the moment gave Clarissa the opportunity to say to Gemma, “I hope we can be friends the way we were.”
Gemma’s smile was grateful. “We still are, Clarissa. We always have been although I’ve been concerned that Ned and I hurt you.”
“I’m the one who gave him up, remember? It was obvious he loved you.”
Gemma leaned close. “I believe Marsden is a lucky man to have you for a wife. And Kate is right. He acts happy.”
“I don’t know if I’m the one making him happy. He adores Dora.”
“I think he adores you.”
Clarissa wished that were true... because she was falling in love with him.
The realization rocked her slightly. She and the Earl of Marsden. They were an odd couple, and maybe, perhaps, perfectly suited for each other.
“Here are the gentlemen,” Gemma said.
Clarissa looked up to see her tall, handsome husband holding two punch cups to keep them from being jostled and spilled by the crowd. He caught her eye and smiled, and, in that moment, she knew her suspicions were correct—she was in love.
It was as if he washerperson. The only one who said exactly what he thought around her and pushed her to do the same. Who trulylistenedto her and behaved as if her wishes mattered to him. Was any woman more blessed?
Gemma spoke as the men joined them. “We had the strangest experience,” she said, taking a sip from her cup. “There is a gentleman in the box directly across from us who was staring to the point we felt we needed to move.”
Clarissa sensed a change in Mars. He seemed to grow tighter, harder.
“The man was staring from across the theater?” Ned asked.
Gemma nodded. “Right at Clarissa. It was obvious.”
“I didn’t see him,” Brandon said.
“I saw him, and they are right,” Mars answered. “He was staring at us.”
“You noticed him?” Brandon asked.
“I always notice Lord Dervil,” Mars answered.
Clarissa almost dropped her punch cup.Lord Dervil had been the staring man? Did he know why Mars had come to London? Was that why he was so rude?
Gemma spoke. “So it wasn’t us he was staring at but you, my lord?”
Mars smiled, the expression cold before addressing Clarissa. “Are you ready to go back in, my lady? I believe the next act is about to start.”
The group all went inside to take their seats. Mrs. Bennington acknowledged everyone, made her apologies for claiming all of Kate’s time, and then left them alone.
Brandon explained to Kate what had happened.
“Dervil? Here?” she said. She looked across the theater to Lord Dervil’s box. He was not there.
Gemma leaned forward. “I don’t like him. He has an unsettling intensity about him. I think you should be wary, Mars. Something terrible may happen.”
“Believe her,” Ned said. “Every time she utters a warning, I listen. Apparently, ominous feelings are something else she received from her Gran.”
“And you call yourself a man of science,” Mars chided. He put his arm on the back of Clarissa’s chair.
However, Clarissa’s enjoyment of Shakespeare’s tragedy of love and politics was dimmed.
