“Reed,” he muttered under his breath, and let her go. “Not oak.”
She frowned, not sure she’d heard him right, for her dazed wits couldn’t see what reading and oaks had to do with anything. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing.” He rubbed a hand over his face and glanced at the clock. “We’re out of time.”
“Yes, of course.” She jerked to her feet, relieved, and glad to end this meeting before she did something truly stupid.
He also stood up, but strangely, neither of them moved. He wasn’t touching her, but he might as well have been, for she could still feel the imprint of his palm over the back of her hand.
“I hope you enjoy the opera this evening.”
The opera? For a moment, she could only stare at him, then she remembered. “Oh, yes, the opera,” she said with a forced laugh. “Of course.”
He frowned a little, studying her far too closely for her peace of mind, but when he spoke, his voice was perfectly natural. “Have you ever been to the opera before?”
Not with you.
She almost said it aloud, but checked herself in time. It was true that Denys had never taken her to the opera, or the theater, or anywhere else where his family or his friends might see them together, but there was no point in bringing that up.
It doesn’t matter now,she told herself, but that was a lie. It mattered. Even after all these years, it still mattered. It still hurt.
She felt cold, suddenly, afraid he’d see, and she forced herself to paste on a smile. “Of course I’ve been to the opera. I know America is terribly uncivilized, Denys,” she added, making her voice as light as she could manage, “but we do have opera there, you know.”
He smiled, responding to the teasing. “No need to spring to your country’s defense, Lola. I wasn’t being snobbish. And I know you have opera, for I attended one there two years ago. At the Metropolitan.”
“Yes, I’d heard you were in town.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back, for now he might think she had been keeping track of his doings, and she hadn’t been, not really. “Jack was living there at the time, I remember. I never saw him,” she added at once, “but I’d often see his name in the gossip columns. And yours, too, of course, when you came. You and James. And Nick. Some Knickerbocker who’d swindled you—it was in all the papers. I couldn’t help hearing about it.”
She broke off, aware that these completely unnecessary explanations were only reinforcing her fears of what he’d think. Hoping she could at last escape, she retrieved her gloves and bent to reach for her portfolio. “I hope you and your family enjoy yourselves tonight,” she said as she straightened.
“Oh, I shan’t be with the family. I’m—” He stopped, took a breath, and let it out. “I’m attending with a friend.”
The friend was female; his hesitation made that clear, and Lola was suddenly assaulted by a new and different sort of hurt—the sharp, quick sting of jealousy.
She tried to quash it at once, for she’d no right to it, no right at all. She’d always appreciated she wasn’t right for him, aware of the vast difference in class between them. In the end, she’d left him because of it. There was nothing to be jealous about now.
And she could not fault his choice of companions. Unlike her, Lady Georgiana Prescott was born and bred to the world he moved in, just the sort of girl she’d hoped he would find when she left, the sort who could sit beside him at the opera without being a slap in his family’s face. She was glad for him.Glad, damn it.
Keeping her smile in place, she edged toward the door. “I hope you enjoy yourselves.”
“Thank you,” he said as he walked with her to the door. “I expect we shall see you and your companions strolling about the foyer during intermission?”
Lola felt a pang of alarm. “Oh, but surely you and your friend won’t want to come down for refreshments. The concession stalls are always so crowded, and the lines are so long.”
“True, but I like to stretch my legs during intermission. And my friend likes milling about the foyer at intermission.”
“Does she, indeed?”
The acidic question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she wanted to bite her tongue off.
“Why, yes,” he answered, looking at her far too closely for her peace of mind, and when he began to smile, Lola’s cheeks grew hot, and she felt as transparent as glass. Cursing this damnable inclination to jealousy, she worked to again force it away as he went on, “She enjoys seeing who’s with whom, what the ladies are wearing—that sort of thing. I thought all women enjoyed that. Don’t you?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t stroll about. I like to remain in my seat.”
“I see.” He moved to open the door for her, and she breathed a sigh of relief that she was finally escaping. Her relief, however, proved premature, for he stopped, the door half-open. “You’re in a box, I hope? That way, you can have refreshments brought to you.”
Lola had to bite back a sigh of exasperation. One harmless lie, and suddenly she was in a tangle of them. “Oh, no,” she answered. “A box is far too grand. We’re in stalls. You know,” she added, forcing a laugh, “where all the plebeians sit.”
He didn’t laugh with her. Instead, his smile vanished, and he tilted his head to one side, studying her. “You always did have quite a chip on your shoulder about the difference in our position,” he murmured.
