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“Interesting,” Torie said. “I don’t always see line drawings very clearly,” she added, folding up the sheet as the butler returned with a second course. “I shall look again tonight.”

“My drawing skills are extremely poor.”

“Your motive is generous,” she said, smiling. “People say that you are uncaring and unkind, but that isn’t true, is it?”

Personally, Dominic thought that judgment wasn’t incorrect, so he changed the subject. “I also have this.” He pulled an emerald ring from his breast coat pocket and placed it on the table before her.

“Was it your mother’s?” Torie asked, picking it up.

He couldn’t tell from her expression whether she hated it. “No. I bought it this morning.”

She pushed it on her finger and held it up to catch the light. Dominic had a surge of pure male satisfaction. She was his, and now everyone would know it.

“Did you give your mother’s ring to Leonora?”

“My mother didn’t wear a betrothal ring, since my parents’ marriage was arranged when they were still in the cradle.” It occurred to him that she might be comparing the rings—of course she was comparing the rings. “I bought Leonora a diamond, but I found you an emerald because I thought you’d love the color. It’s not just green. There’s blue as well.”

“And a touch of purple,” she said. Then she leaned over and initiated a kiss of her own volition for the first time.

“We picked it together,” he said, reining in a wave of lust. “Valentine and Florence and I.”

Her smile was like sunshine, warm and blessed.

Dominic Kelbourne rarely did anything without a plan. He didn’t trust things like instinct. In his experience, people used instinct to explain ill-thought-out impulses with the potential to harm others.

But pulling his fiancée onto his lap? Kissing her in between bites of food, and sending the butler away because privacy was all the dessert they could ask for?

Instinct.

Pure instinct.

Chapter 17

May 1, 1802

Theatre Royal Haymarket

The opening night of Romeo and Juliet starring Mr. Mylchreest as Romeo drew a crowd of hundreds, given the growing notoriety of the handsome actor.

That morning Emily had read aloud a report that predicted Mylchreest would remove his shirt. “I cannot wait!” she squealed. One of the underfootmen had cleverly managed to buy tickets in the pit, winning his first evening in Emily’s company.

“Are you sure you don’t wish to accompany me in the box?” Torie asked. “I shall be chaperoned by the Duchess of Huntington, but you are more than welcome to join us.”

Emily scoffed. “With all of you sitting up there looking so high and mighty? The pit only costs six shillings, and it’s so much fun. Everyone is talking, of course, and sometimes throwing veg, though no one would dare throw anything at him.”

“Him” was Mylchreest, the talk of London.

Torie waited until she was in the center of the crowded theater entry before she removed the swath of silver silk around her shoulders and revealed her French gown. After that, it was hard to say whether startled faces had more to do with her costume or the man beside her.

Ranks of boxes covered the walls of Haymarket; Dominic had taken one in the very best position, on the lower level close to the stage where anyone looking to the front would see them. She seated herself and saw with satisfaction that the dot-lace was sparkling before she flipped open a fan of mother-of-pearl inlaid with silver.

A marquess and his wife sat to their left. The marchioness was one of Torie’s friends; she waggled her eyebrows and cried, “Ooh, la la!” To the other side was an elderly couple; the lady was apparently offended by Torie’s gown, as she made a point of turning her head away. When her husband showed no signs of following suit, she forced him to move his chair until both their backs were to the stage.

When Dominic sat down, a ripple of excitement went through the theater. Torie glanced at him from behind her fan. He was dressed impeccably in black, with touches of white to indicate that he was now in half mourning.

“Are you wearing a different rapier?” she asked.

“Yes,” Dominic said, drawing out the blade.