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“It’s sparkling!” Torie exclaimed.

“Diamond-cut navy-blue glass,” Dominic said, turning the hilt so she could see.

“You thought my gown was garish?” She couldn’t help laughing. Before he could respond, a brisk knock sounded on the door to the box, and the Duchess of Huntington and her husband surged into the small enclosure.

“Hello!” the duchess boomed.

Torie jumped to her feet and curtsied. “Your Grace!”

“We’ve finished the steam engine tour and are taking a few days in London to relax,” the duchess said, dropping into a seat.

“How gracious of you to join us,” Torie said.

“Lots of fool gossip going about saying this and that,” Her Grace commented with disdain. She pulled out a lorgnette and surveyed the theater. “Course, now they’ve seen you in that gown, they’ll know precisely why Kelbourne—and any other unattached male—would be lucky to marry you.”

Torie straightened her back, suddenly wishing there were a few whalebones between her breasts and the eyes of the audience.

“I like it,” the duchess said. “Wouldn’t suit me, of course. I couldn’t do without stays.”

“I couldn’t wear more than a small corset,” Torie confirmed, thinking that perhaps she should take up the duchess’s offer to bring the twins to the country. It would be refreshing for them to spend time with someone who scorned a Prohibited List of conversational topics.

“This play is Shakespeare at his most ridiculous, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know more than its reputation,” Torie admitted.

“That’s right, you don’t read.” Her Grace glanced over. “Take that expression off your face, girl. Do you think I bother with feeling belittled just because I can’t see without a lorgnette?”

“No,” Torie said.

“I’ll give you a sense of the plot, so you can follow along. Two fool adolescents meet and fall in love while dancing. A ball can be dangerous for headstrong youngsters. I’ll watch my gals carefully once they reach that age, not to mention my eldest, Silvester. I’ve an inkling that he could be as idiotic as Romeo when it comes to women. Entirely too charming for his own good.”

“I shall do the same with the twins,” Torie said.

“You’ll have to. Your Florence will be trouble. At any rate, the boy ends up killing the girl’s relative. Then there’s a lot of crying and carrying on. She pretends to be dead, ends up in a tomb. He kills himself, and so does she.”

Torie turned to her other side. “Dom, did you know that this play is a welter of violent deaths?”

“Welter. Good word,” the duchess grunted. “Despite your illiteracy, I expect your vocabulary is better than most. Likewise, I can see better through my lorgnette than other people do with both eyes. People don’t bother to look carefully, because it’s so easy for them.”

Torie had a feeling that she was making a friend, perhaps her first friend after Clara—though Dom had become a friend as well. She gave the duchess a beaming smile.

Her Grace squinted through her lorgnette. “Can’t imagine why all London isn’t at your feet.”

“A duke was,” Dominic said from her other side.

“Just look how they’re craning their necks now,” the duchess said, waving her lorgnette over the audience. “There’s a fool rumor going around that Sir William owes Kelbourne here a gambling debt, and that’s why he’s handing over another daughter.”

Torie sucked in a breath of air.

Dominic’s warm fingers curled tightly around hers under the edge of the box, where no one could see. “I would never take a wager from Sir William. In fact, I never gamble.”

“Neither do I,” His Grace put in. “Idiotic way to lose money.”

“If you must lose money, why not throw it away on a steam engine?” his duchess agreed.

That started a lively discussion of the future of travel. Torie thought that the entire United Kingdom would be connected by steel rails in a decade; Dominic was more cautious. “A network of canals already exists,” he pointed out. “I believe in steam, but in addition to current means of travel.”

“Locomotives will be faster than canal boats,” Her Grace told him. “Once we solve a few more mechanical problems.”