“Did I?” Her own smile faltered a bit, despite her best efforts to prop it up. “Or did I just have a more realistic view of my place in the world than you did?”
She didn’t wait for him to reply. “Thank you, Denys,” she said, and held out her hand. “I know you didn’t want this meeting or this arrangement.”
“No,” he agreed, shook hands, and quite properly, let go of her at once. “But I’ll rub along. I appreciate the effort you’ve taken to demonstrate your abilities as a partner, and I shall be interested to read your proposal.”
“You’re not just saying that to pacify me and get me out of your hair?”
“On the contrary. As I said, you’ve brought up an idea I’ve sometimes considered myself. We can discuss it in depth at our next meeting. I hope to see you and your companions later this evening.” He bowed. “But if not, have an enjoyable evening, MissValentine.”
With that rather formal farewell, he stepped aside to let her depart, and when she’d crossed the threshold, he closed the door behind her, leaving her baffled by his change of heart, bemused by his new spirit of friendly cooperation, and exasperated with herself for losing her wits so thoroughly.
Why had she ever said she was going to the opera? Denys loved opera. She ought to have remembered that and chosen theater instead. Still, what was done was done.
She’d have to follow through now. The lights were always lit during the performances at Covent Garden so the posh people could see and be seen. If he looked for her and found she wasn’t there, he might conclude jealousy had kept her away, and that notion was just too humiliating to contemplate. And besides, if both of them were seen publicly with other people, Kitty’s prediction about gossip surrounding them might be headed off at the pass.
With that perhaps overly optimistic possibility in mind, Lola tucked her portfolio under her arm, slid on her gloves, and put her wits to work.
If she was going, it was clear she’d need an escort, and if attending the opera was going to dampen gossip about her and Denys, her escort would have to be a man. But as Lola reckoned up the number of single men she knew well enough for such an invitation, she knew finding an escort wasn’t going to be easy. She knew so few people in London these days, although if she were still in New York, she’d probably have had the same problem. On both sides of the Atlantic, she’d been living like a nun.
Lola stared at the panels of the closed door, her mind working frantically. What about James? He might be in town, he was single, and she certainly knew him well enough to invite him to attend an opera. But as she thought of him, she knew she couldn’t ask him. She could not gad about London with one of Denys’s friends even if he’d once been a friend of hers as well. That wouldn’t be right. But there was no one else, absolutely no one.
She might be able to get by with insisting she’d been there, even if he mentioned looking for her and not finding her. Still, he’d no doubt ask how she and her companions had liked the performance. He might even ask her about them, which meant she’d have to invent more lies, and she really did not want to lie to Denys, even about something innocuous—
“MissValentine?”
The voice startled her out of her contemplations, and she turned to find Mr.Dawson standing behind his desk, watching her in some puzzlement, and she realized she must have been dithering here for quite some time.
“Can I be of help?” he asked.
Lola took a quick glance over the handsome, sandy-haired young secretary, and he suddenly seemed like the answer to a prayer.
“Why, yes, Mr.Dawson, I believe you can. Tell me...” She paused, giving him her prettiest smile. “Do you like opera?”
Chapter12
If bending like a reed in the wind was to be his strategy in weathering the storm that was Lola Valentine, Denys knew he’d have to be quite a flexible chap in the coming days.
Their meeting had been a necessary first step, and thankfully, it hadn’t been as tortuous as he would have predicted. They’d had tea, discussed business, and made small talk for a full hour, and the notion of ravishing her on the settee had only crossed his mind three times. That wasn’t too bad, all things considered.
Still, as flexible as he was willing to be in regard to Lola, there was one rule he knew he would have to adhere to at all times. He could not touch her.
That particular maxim was one no gentleman ought to find difficult, he thought with chagrin as he sat in his seat at the Royal Opera House. But when he’d unthinkingly put his hand over hers this afternoon, the effect on his body had been immediate, nearly destroying his control before he could even begin to prove he had any. Touching an unmarried woman’s bare hand was one of those things a gentleman simply did not do, but with Lola, all the rules of propriety he’d been raised with never seemed to matter much.
As if to prove that contention, Denys suddenly realized the view through his opera glasses was no longer the stage but the seats below. He’d begun looking for her without even realizing it.
Does she, indeed?
Her question and the prickly tone of her voice as she’d asked it came echoing back to him, and he couldn’t help a sense of satisfaction as he appreciated its cause.
She was jealous.
His smile widened into a grin as he savored this quite unexpected turnabout. In his infatuated youth, he’d paced outside her dressing room at theThéâtre-Latincountless times—along with all the other stage-door johnnies—and he’d nearly driven himself mad wondering if he would ever be allowed through her door. Every time he had returned to Paris, he’d observed the besotted faces of his friends as they’d watched her dance or listened to her talk. Hell, Henry had stolen her right from under his nose. So when it came to Lola, jealousy was an emotion he’d often had cause to feel. The notion that the tables might be turned was a sweet one to contemplate.
There was no cause for Lola to be jealous, of course, not on this particular night. He lowered the pair of opera glasses, his gaze sliding to his companion for the evening. There was no doubt that Belinda, the Marchioness of Trubridge, was a beautiful woman, but she was also the wife of Denys’s best friend.
Lola wouldn’t know that, however, having never seen Belinda, and he felt a hint of regret that she had declared an intention to remain in her seat. Still, it was probably for the best.
He raised the opera glasses, but his view of the stage receded almost at once, replaced in his mind’s eye by Lola’s face, the proud lift of her chin and her burning cheeks. Lola, jealous? He still found it hard to believe. And yet...
