Authors: Jennifer McNare
“Tell me, my dear,” she continued, her gaze unabashedly
probing now, “however did you manage it?”
Surprised by the marchioness’ impudent question, Tiffany was
rendered momentarily speechless.
Fortunately however, Alex saved her from having to come up with a
response.
“I can assure you, Lady Danbury, that one has only to spend
the briefest of time in Tiffany’s company to know the answer to that question,”
Alex responded with true gallantry.
“As silver-tongued as ever, aren’t you my boy,” Millicent
declared with a hearty chuckle, causing the purple feathers that adorned her
garish hat to bob and sway atop her head.
“In any event, I’m sure your dear mother is beside herself with glee.”
“Having met Tiffany, she is understandably so.”
“Indeed.”
“If you’ll excuse us, Lady Danbury, we had best get to our
box before the performance begins.”
Tipping his head, Alex abruptly ended their conversation.
“Am I mistaken, or did Lady Danbury’s gaze drop more than
once to focus upon my waistline?” Tiffany queried as they walked away, an
amused expression on her face.
“You’re not mistaken,” Alex said with a shake of his
head.
“And the old bat is sure to be
gravely disappointed, having discerned no telltale bump beneath your gown,” he
continued with a derisive grin.
“Oh dear,” Tiffany replied, raising her hand to her mouth to
stifle her giggles.
As they continued to their box, Alex nodded to several
people in passing, but made no move to stop and converse with any of them.
Though he hadn’t the slightest reluctance to
stroll through the crowd with Tiffany on his arm, he simply wasn’t in the mood
to entertain any more probing questions.
“So, what do you think so far?” Alex asked, turning to
Tiffany as the curtain closed on the first act.
“Oh Alex, it’s simply marvelous,” Tiffany proclaimed,
smiling brightly.
“I thought you would enjoy it,” he responded with a pleased
expression.
The Barber of Seville
had long been one of his favorite
operettas.
“I do,” she said, nodding enthusiastically.
“I cannot wait to see Rosina’s reaction when
she discovers that Lindoro is really Count Almaviva.”
“But wait you must, at least until the second act begins,”
he teased.
“Shall we utilize the pause
to stretch our legs?”
Dreading the thought of making her way through the crowded
lobby once more, Tiffany shook her head.
“I’m fine, but you go on ahead.”
“Are you certain?
I
hate to leave you sitting here all alone.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said with another bright smile.
“I shall be perfectly fine.
Go on.”
“Alright then,” he said, standing up.
“I confess I find these chairs deuced
uncomfortable,” he admitted.
“I won’t be
long,” he promised, pushing the velvet curtain aside as he stepped out of their
box.
Turning her attention to the crowd below, Tiffany leaned
forward, placing her hand upon the edge of the balcony as she casually surveyed
the vast auditorium.
Much to her
surprise, she noted a great number of faces looking upward, with several
curious gazes fixed pointedly in her direction.
Disconcerted, she quickly sat back in her chair.
Hearing the faint rustle of the curtain a moment later,
Tiffany turned toward the sound.
She
hadn’t expected Alex to return so quickly.
Unfortunately however, it wasn’t Alex who’d parted the red velvet.
Garbed in a sophisticated and stylish gown of
jade-green silk, Lucinda Langdon entered the box with a saccharine smile
shaping her lovely mouth.
“Good evening, Lady Marlowe,” she greeted as she approached
Tiffany.
“Baroness Langdon,” Tiffany acknowledged, rising to her
feet.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said, her gaze darting
briefly to the large diamond ring on Tiffany’s finger.
“Of course not,” Tiffany replied politely.
“How fortunate, for when I noticed you from my box across
the way, I knew that I simply had to stop by and offer my congratulations on
your recent engagement,” she said in a tone that revealed the disingenuousness
of her words.
“How considerate.”
“Such a remarkable turn of events really,” she
declared.
“I admit, I was beginning to
wonder if anyone would be able to lure Chesterfield to the altar,” she
continued, her lips reshaping themselves into a malevolent smirk.
“But apparently all it took was the proper
incentive
.”
Incentive?
Tiffany’s brow wrinkled in confusion at the
peculiar comment.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, you needn’t act coy, my dear.
Everyone knows that Chesterfield has been trying
to get his hands on that land your father owns for years now.
And now, thanks to
you
, he finally has.”
Land?
What land?
Tiffany stared blankly at the baroness,
struggling to make sense of the woman’s bizarre assertion.
“You and your father should be quite proud of yourselves,”
she continued, tapping Tiffany’s forearm lightly with the fan she held folded
in her hand.
“Regardless of your method,
you’ve managed to snag one of the most eligible bachelors in England.
It’s quite a coup, and I for one commend you
for it.”
Despite her words, the
insincerity was all but dripping from the baroness’ ruby-red lips.
Completely nonplussed, Tiffany was mercifully spared from
uttering a retort as the velvet curtain was pushed aside and Alex entered the
box, carrying two champagne flutes in his hands.
“Baroness Langdon, this is a surprise,” Alex said, eyeing
Lucinda dispassionately.
“I wasn’t aware
you were in London.”
“Hello, Alex,” she cooed with unabashed familiarity,
flashing him a dazzling smile.
He cringed internally.
“Is Winston with you this evening?” he asked politely.
“Sadly no,” Lucinda said with an exaggerated pout.
“He comes to town so infrequently these
days.”
Alex merely nodded.
“Well, I suppose I should be going,” she said.
“I just popped in to say hello after all, and
to congratulate the two of you on your engagement, of course.”
“How thoughtful of you,” he replied coolly, stepping aside
so that she could pass.
Casting one last malevolent smile in Tiffany’s direction,
Lucinda turned and left the box, the cloying scent of her perfume wafting
behind her.
As the second half of the performance got under way, Alex
noticed a discernible change in Tiffany’s demeanor.
Whereas before, when she’d sat enthralled,
watching the performance in marked delight, her attention now appeared to be
elsewhere.
Damn that bitch Lucinda, he
thought irately, wondering what in the hell she’d said to have caused the
change in Tiffany’s mood.
As Tiffany silently pondered Lucinda Langdon’s disturbing
claims, she couldn’t ignore the unsettling possibility that there was at least
some degree of truth to what the baroness had said.
And now, despite her earlier enjoyment of the
dynamic stage production, the characters presently held little interest for her
as her thoughts remained focused upon everything the baroness had said.
Was it possible that the
true
motivation behind Alex’s proposal was to acquire the land the baroness had
mentioned?
Was she merely being used as
a pawn, as an
incentive
, to
facilitate an intractable business dealing between Alex and her father?
No, surely not, for it seemed an implausible
notion.
But then again, her father’s
reaction to Alex’s courtship and proposal
had
struck her as odd.
She recalled his
incongruous demeanor when Alex had formally asked for her hand and the fact
that he’d seemed not the least bit surprised that a man of his reputation had
so abruptly set aside his reluctance to marry.
With a sick feeling in her stomach, she thought back to the night of her
birthday ball when her father had so boorishly sent her away so that he could
speak with Alex alone.
Could that
discussion possibly have involved her?
As much as she didn’t want to believe the baroness’ vile claims, she was
simply unable to disregard them completely.
She wasn’t naïve.
She
knew that marriages within the aristocracy were more often than not based on
financial dealings between the two families involved, rather than any type of
romantic
feelings, or lack thereof,
between the intended bride and groom.
So
then, if that was the case here, why would her father and Alex have
deliberately kept it from her?
It made
no sense, no sense at all.
But even so…
As the curtain drew to a close upon the second and final act
and the thunderous sound of applause filled the air, Tiffany’s thoughts were
still spinning in a jumbled whirl.
Although she’d tried to set aside the baroness’ comments and focus her
attention upon Rosina’s fate, she had been woefully unsuccessful.
Nonetheless, rising to her feet beside Alex,
she forced a smile to her lips as she lent her applause to the others.
Wending their way through the exiting throng a few minutes
later, they were hailed on two separate occasions by acquaintances of Alex, but
in both instances, the people to whom she was introduced were all exceedingly
polite as they offered their congratulations on her and Alex’s impending
nuptials.
Nonetheless, with her thoughts
still in turmoil, Tiffany was relieved when they finally made their way outside.
“Are you cold?” Alex asked, as they waited for his coach to
advance in the queue at the front of the opera house.
“No, the breeze feels nice,” Tiffany replied, enjoying the
feel of the cool night air after the warmth of the crowded theater.
“The nights will be growing colder before long,” he mused.
He was right.
The
weather was slowly changing with autumn coming just around the corner.
“I don’t mind.
In fact, this is my favorite time of year.”
“Autumn?”
She nodded.
“I love
the crispness in the air and the changing colors of the leaves as they fall
from the tress and blanket the ground.”
“You’ll like Chesterfield then,” Alex replied, smiling.
“It’s surrounded by towering oaks and
flowering maples whose colors range from the most brilliant yellows and golds
to the most vibrant of reds.”
“It sounds beautiful.”
“When I was a boy I used to love scooping the fallen leaves
into huge piles and then throwing myself into their midst.”
“I did that once too,” Tiffany proclaimed.
“But then after my governess spent more than an
hour picking tiny bits of leaves from my hair, I was soundly chastised and
forbidden from ever doing such a thing again.”
“She sounds like a harridan,” Alex said in an exaggeratedly
sympathetic tone.
“Oh, she wasn’t altogether terrible,” Tiffany admitted with
a remembered smile.
“As long as I didn’t
soil my good dresses or muddy my shoes and stockings, anyhow.”
“Mine was no different really, for soiled clothing is surely
the bane of any governess worth her salt,” Alex commiserated with an
understanding chuckle.
“Nonetheless, I
found it nearly impossible to resist the lure of a newly-formed mud puddle,
especially when there was the possibility of frogs to be caught.”
“Oh my.”
He grinned unabashedly.
“Would you be surprised to learn that I was a bit of a scamp in my
younger days?”
“
You
, my lord?”
she queried facetiously, eyebrows raised.
“Difficult to believe, isn’t it?” he countered, winking
playfully.
“Exceedingly.”
As his coach pulled to the front of the queue, Alex was
pleased to see that Tiffany’s mood seemed to have improved, however, once they
were comfortably settled and the horses were set into motion, he watched her
expression grow pensive once again.
“Something is troubling you,” he said softly.
It was both a statement and question.
Looking up, Tiffany could see the mixture of curiosity and
concern in Alex’s penetrating silver gaze.
Dare she ask him about Baroness Langdon’s claims?
What if they had merit?
And if they did, did she really want to know,
she asked herself.
Yes, of course she
did.
Didn’t
she?
“I-” she began, but then
faltered, unable to voice the question aloud.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“A
slight headache, that’s all.”
He didn’t believe her.
Studying her expression, he could almost
see
the internal conflict warring within her.
If this was Lucinda’s doing he was going to
wring her bloody neck.
“Tiffany,” he
prompted.