“All right, I’ll stop badgering you. Tonight is to be a night of enjoyment. Your first night at the theater.” Her brother put down his spoon. “I am thoroughly ashamed you are just shy of thirty and this is your first outing to the theater.”
She would have loved to have gone to the theater during those years alone with her father. But it’s hard to miss something one has never had.
“I’m glad to g-g-go n-now.”
“I’m glad for you to go now, too, Caro.”
And perhaps at the theater, she would have a chance to meet a lady for her brother. One with some mettle. One he wouldn’t frighten with his large size, his frowns, his thundering voice. One who could see the good man Caroline knew Edmund was and the good husband and father he would be in the future.
Eleven
The theater was not what she had expected. The audience talked during the play! Why would you pay money to come to a play and then talk during it?
The actors spoke loudly, thank goodness. And she knew the play from reading it.Much Ado About Nothing. She marveled at the Beatrice, so cuttingly clever, so fiercely intelligent. Such crystal clearesses. And Beatrice, like Caroline herself, did not intend to marry.
But then Beatrice melts, of course, after matching wits with her Benedict.
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
Caroline did not think much of the Benedict, however. A little haughty. Calves too slender in his hose. Benedict should be warm and mischievous and his legs should have some roundness of muscle, some meat to them.
When she realized whom she had conjured as her perfect Benedict, her face got hot. Would every man for the rest of her life be held up to Phineas Edge and found wanting?
Why not? Hadn’t it been so for the last thirteen years? Why should things change? In fact, wasn’t it even worse now since she had bedded him? She had thought having him once, kissing him, touching him, would quench some part of her yearning. But it hadn’t. It had only inflamed her imagination and desire.
She had not slept during her supposed nap after seeing him this afternoon. She had passed the hours in her bed thinking of him downstairs in the drawing room and how he might come to her bedchamber and find her with her hands on herself and murmurdarlingandlovelyandsweet girlto her before showing her his cock and taking her again.
During the interval between the Shakespeare and the pantomime, her brother pointed out the Burchester box to her. She did not see Phineas, but there was an angry-looking woman in the box with another man.
“Who?” she asked her brother and gestured with her head toward the box.
“Oh, that’s one of Burchester’s mistresses, the Dowager Viscountess Starling.” Her brother scowled. “And that good-for-nothing Rhys Vaughan. She’s probably added him to her string. For her to bring him into Phin’s box when he’s not here? Unconscionable, damn it.”
Caroline suddenly could not get a breath in and her gut twisted.
But why should she have pain over this? She felt only lust for Phineas. He was not the man for her, if even such a being existed in the world. He was a man who would always have many women. She had no claim. There was no competition. This woman was not a rival.
But she couldn’t help turning her head back toward the Burchester box. She must see the viscountess. A mistress. She had never knowingly looked on a mistress before.
Lady Starling was a pretty, rouged woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties. How sad that she was a dowager already while still so young.
And then the comparisons started. Blonde hair, curly and a trifle wispy, not thick and straight like her own dark hair. But, of course, what did hair matter? The woman had breasts. Abundant breasts. A bosom of wonderful size, lifted high, straining her dress. A dark shadow between the tops of her breasts, hinting at further pleasures once the dress was removed.
Caroline’s very straight shoulders bowed a bit. Her little lumps were nothing to that. Of course, Phineas would want a woman who was the epitome of femininity when he was the epitome of masculinity. And Caroline was sure that when the woman stood from her seat, she would see evidence of rounded hips, a pair of buttocks matching her bosom.
And this Lady Starling was short. Phineas likely towered over her. She probably fit into his arms perfectly. He could pick her up easily and there would be no dangling legs sticking out everywhere. Like if Phineas ever picked her, Caroline, up.
But that would never happen.
She did not enjoy the pantomime at all. But she clapped when others did. She must show her brother how much she appreciated her outing.
She stole furtive glances at the Burchester box several times during the pantomime. She never saw Phineas there. But had he been there earlier, duringMuch Ado? No, she would have felt his presence, she was sure.
The young, pretty viscountess continued to look angry. Mr. Rhys Vaughan, the man next to her, at one point caught Caroline’s eye and grinned and inclined his head to her. She looked away quickly and forced herself to direct her gaze toward the stage for the rest of the pantomime.
The next afternoon, she was summoned to the downstairs drawing room again.
Phineas was the caller. His full lips were not smiling. Serious, for a change. But now she thought about his lips pressing against that woman, that viscountess, kissing the tops of her breasts.
