How to Tame a Lady. Кейси Майклс

of the study. “For now, since you’ve offered to help me, I’d like you to watch over the two of them tonight at the theater when I slip away to meet with someone. Don’t turn your back on Lady Nicole while I’m gone, not for a moment. All right? And then, tomorrow, I may be able to tell you more.”

      “She’s only a young woman, barely out of the nursery, and fresh from the country at that. I’m sure I can manage her.”

      “Yes,” Lucas said, turning away from his friend to hide his smile. “I’m sure you think you can.”

      COVENT GARDEN WAS A MARVEL of architecture and size, dwarfing the small regional theater near Ashurst that Nicole had attended a few times in the company of her brother and Charlotte.

      She attempted a sophisticated disinterest in her surroundings, but couldn’t maintain the pretense for more than a few minutes. There were simply too many people, too many beautiful people, over-dressed people, ladies whose beauty astounded her or whose sausagelike bodies stuffed into corsets and garish silks amused her, gentlemen whose dark, formal clothing distinguished them, youths whose outrageous high-heeled patent shoes, outrageously exaggerated shirt points and dangling lace handkerchiefs made her bite her lip so she wouldn’t giggle.

      Jewels sparkled on every neck, even when some of those necks looked to be better suited to horse collars. Some laughed too loudly, some appeared desperate, while others seemed to be extremely comfortable in their skin, their clothing and their place in the world.

      They sauntered along the flagway in front of the theater. They pranced into the lobby and as they headed toward their assigned seats, their leased boxes. They minced and they dawdled. Everyone was looking at everyone else, measuring the crowd with their eyes. Quizzing glasses and lorgnettes were raised, fans were unfurled and fluttered, expressions ranged from bored to interested to openly curious.

      Nicole decided she loved all of them. Caught between her admiration of the heavily gilted carved wood and the brocade wall coverings highlighted by massive crystal chandeliers and unabashed interest in the exotic birds of Society that flitted all about her, she leaned closer to Lucas.

      “It’s like stepping into a fairy tale,” she told him. “Who are all of these people?”

      Lucas nodded to yet another couple walking past them, but didn’t stop. “Just that, Nicole. They’re people. I’d like to tell you they’re here to take in the entertainment, but they’re not, at least not most of them. They’re here to see, to be seen and then to gossip about all they’ve seen. Which is a pity, for Marie Therese de Camp’s play, Smiles and Tears, is on the bill for tonight. Would you like to meet her? Does that come under the heading of adventure for you?”

      Nicole smiled up at him. “It does, certainly. Is it proper? I mean, to meet a woman of the theater.”

      “Entirely acceptable, yes, if I send round a note and ask her to join us in our box during one of the intermissions. Not quite as proper if we go to her.”

      “So of course we’ll go to her. Leaving Lydia and Lord Yalding nicely chaperoned in your box by Renée,” Nicole said as he gazed down at her rather intently, clearly having dropped into his role of adoring swain. “That is what you meant, isn’t it?”

      “Thus providing you with another adventure to keep you amused. I do remember my end of our bargain. You look beautiful this evening, by the way. Heads have turned with each new step you’ve taken.”