Carole Mortimer - Regency Scandal

He gave a hard and humourless smile. ‘You, my dear Pandora, are expected to be here, ready and waiting, and suitably attired for attending the opera, when I call for you at seven-thirty this evening.’

A reply which did nothing to answer Pandora’s question, as was no doubt deliberate; Rupert appeared to feel no qualms whatsoever in intruding and commenting on the privacy of other people’s lives, whilst at the same time refusing to reveal anything about his own.

Still, she couldn’t help but privately believe his unexpected invitation to the opera was somehow connected to his stepmother, that in being seen in public with the notorious Duchess of Wyndwood, it would somehow distract attention from his other scandalous relationship.

Whilst Pandora’s every instinct was to continue to refuse his invitation, her sense of fairness dictated otherwise; no matter how much she might wish it were not the case, his actions in rescuing her so dramatically yesterday evening meant that she was indeed obligated to Rupert.

She sighed and forced herself to straighten her shoulders. ‘Very well, your Grace, I will accept the Countess of Heyborough’s kind invitation to attend the opera this evening.’

‘Why could you not have just said that five minutes ago?’ Rupert glared.

‘But only on the understanding,’ Pandora continued firmly, ‘that I won’t be expected to accept a second such invitation from you.’ She met his narrowed gaze unblinkingly.

As technically the invitation had not come directly from him, but from the generous heart of his Aunt Cecelia, after he had called upon her earlier this morning and explained what had happened last night, he now felt no hesitation in agreeing to Pandora’s condition.

Besides which, having to spend one evening in a decade attending the opera would no doubt prove to be more than enough for his own jaded sensibilities!

‘I sincerely hope you are pretending an interest in this drivel rather than actually finding any enjoyment in it?’

Pandora did not show, by so much as a twitch of her bared shoulders, that she had overheard Rupert’s hissed comment next to her earlobe, as she continued to stare down upon the stage where the hero of the opera was currently—and rather loudly—lamenting his lost love.

As promised, Rupert’s ducal carriage had duly arrived at her home at seven-thirty that evening, that gentleman looking suitably and—Pandora admitted inwardly—breathtakingly handsome in his black evening clothes and white linen, a cloak draped about those broad and muscled shoulders, his rich gold curls revealed as being fashionably dishevelled once he had removed his tall black hat.

Pandora had coolly accepted his polite compliments on her own appearance: a deep-blue and feathered confection adorned her own fair curls, her silk gown of matching blue, its short-sleeved style leaving her shoulders bare, the high waist emphasising the full swell of her breasts, with pale-blue lace gloves covering her hands and arms to just above her elbows.

She had maintained that cool detachment as the two of them travelled to the opera, only thawing slightly under the Countess of Heyborough’s genuinely warm greeting and her husband’s twinkling blue eyes as he bent solicitously over her gloved fingers. A melting that had faded the moment Rupert took a proprietary hold of Pandora’s elbow in order to escort her into the theatre. He had nodded and bowed imperiously in acknowledgement of the greetings he had received—several of them markedly startled once they realised the identity of the woman at the Duke’s side. But, as he had promised, not a single one of those ladies or gentlemen had dared to offer her the cut direct in his presence.

Even so, Pandora’s legs had been trembling so much by the time they reached the Heyboroughs’ private box that she had been relieved to sink down on to the seat Rupert pulled out for her, before stepping back to fold his own lean length on to the seat directly behind her. A proximity he had just taken advantage of, the warm brush of his breath having felt almost like a caress against the bareness of Pandora’s skin as he spoke so closely to her ear.

‘Unless it has escaped your notice, your Grace, the heroine has just died and her lover is heartbroken,’ she whispered discreetly, aware as she was that there had been much gossiping behind fans and sidelong glances made in their direction during the course of the evening, as many people watched the two of them rather than the performance taking place upon the stage.

‘Then more fool him,’ Rupert drawled uninterestedly. ‘Personally I would consider myself well rid of such a weak and mewling creature! Why is it that you never wear jewellery, Pandora?’

Those smooth and bare shoulders appeared to stiffen momentarily at this sudden change of subject before she brought her reaction under control and answered Rupert with that same infuriating coolness with which she had been treating him all evening. ‘I have, on occasion, been known to wear my mother’s pearls.’

‘But not yesterday evening or tonight?’

Her mouth firmed. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Could this conversation not wait until the opera has come to an end, your Grace?’ She shot a meaningful glance in the direction of his aunt and uncle sitting in the box with them, the Earl and Countess giving every appearance of listening intently to the caterwauling rising up from the stage below.

Rupert affected a yawn. ‘I might have expired from boredom before that happens.’

Pandora bit her top lip in order to hold back the chuckle she almost gave in response to his irreverent comment. In truth, this truly was one of the most depressingly morbid operas she had ever attended—and she had attended many of them during the years of her marriage to Barnaby. ‘I believe your suffering is almost at an end,’ she assured him.

‘Thank God for that,’ he muttered with obvious relief. ‘I cannot believe that people actually attend such things with any idea of actually being entertained.’

‘Perhaps their idea of entertainment is not as exacting as your own?’

‘I believe I might find more to entertain me at a wake!’

This time Pandora could not hold back her smile of amusement. ‘Then it is to be hoped you do not attend many of them.’

‘More than I have the opera, thank God!’

Pandora frowned slightly. ‘Why did you bother coming here at all this evening if you hate the opera so?’

There was silence behind her for several long seconds before Rupert answered quietly, ‘Perhaps to see and be seen?’

She stiffened. ‘Might one ask whom you wished to see, and be seen by, your Grace?’

‘One might ask it, yes,’ he said blandly.

Pandora allowed her gaze to drift away from the stage, where it was to be hoped the hero was in the latter stages of his lament, in order to surreptitiously observe the other members of the ton who had attended the opera, believing—no, expecting—that she would espy the Dowager Duchess of Stratton amongst their number.

Pandora was not a particular friend of Patricia Stirling’s, the other woman being several years older and her friends much racier than any of Pandora’s acquaintances, but she had met the other woman on several occasions in the past, and so knew her appearance to be exactly as Dante Carfax had yesterday evening described Rupert’s preferred taste in women: tall and statuesque, with dark hair, eyes of pale blue and set in a classically beautiful face.