“That’s enough—there’s hardly going to be time left to do up your buttons.” With brisk, efficient hands he peeled her off the wall and turned her around, his fingers effortlessly finding the small buttons even in the darkness, popping them back into their loops and sliding her sleeves back up her arms properly.
The wave of sound outside the box crashed over her, and she started as she realized that she had quite forgotten where they were. In public. Separated from hundreds of other people, many of them her peers, by only a damask curtain.
He had not forgotten. He had somehow judged the time, broke away from her with enough of it left to make her once again presentable. How was it that he could do that, when she yet shivered with the aftereffects of his kisses? Suspicion settled heavily in her mind, the wariness of a woman who had been betrayed by an inconstant suitor once before and had no desire to suffer the same thing again.
He framed her face with his hands—gloved once again—and bent to kiss her again, sweeping the suspicion from her mind with the slow stroke of his tongue. And as he slid the lock open once more, he murmured in her ear, “Don’t fret. There’s four acts left.”

Chapter Thirteen

By the time the second act finished, Jilly’s tension was palpable, and yet James was uncertain whether or not her good sense had taken hold of her once again. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortably aware of the tightness of his breeches—a tightness that had not alleviated at all since he had held Jilly in his arms. He found he could not concentrate on the production. His attention was reserved only for Jilly’s beautiful face in profile, the pursing of her kiss-bruised lips, the delicate flush that had yet to fade from her cheeks.
If Lord and Lady Ravenhurst had noticed anything amiss when they had returned, they had tactfully said nothing—and he comforted himself that had Jilly wished to escape him, she would have requested to leave the theatre before the play had resumed. But she had not. She had said nothing to her friend, except a mumbled greeting, hiding her mouth behind her glass of champagne. As Lady Ravenhurst stood once more, ostensibly to seek out some friends she had missed during the last interlude, Lord Ravenhurst climbed to his feet, his gaze traveling between Jilly and James speculatively.
“Adagio,” he said.
James waved a hand. “Done.”
With a short nod, Ravenhurst seized his wife’s hand. “Come, Nora—I think I saw Lord and Lady Appleby.” And he dragged his wife after him.
“Did you—did you just give him another horse?” Jilly asked, her brows arching into her hairline.
“Yes.” He lifted the champagne flute from her fingers, setting it aside on the table. “I’m buying privacy—it was a worthy sacrifice.”
“With a horse.” She looked mildly offended, a moue of displeasure settling on her lips. He longed to sear it away beneath his. He settled for clasping her hands in his and lifting her to her feet, tugging her once again behind the curtain into the cover of darkness.
As the sound without faded once again to a dull roar and he crowded her back against the wall, her nails prickled his shoulders even through the thick wool of his coat. She drew a breath and said, “Wait. I don’t want—I don’t want you to unbutton my dress.”
“Oh?” He scraped his jaw across her cheek, heard her breath catch in her throat. “May I ask why?”
She took a breath and then paused as his lips touched her temple, coasting down and across her cheek. When she forged ahead at last, it was with a sort of desperation, as if she had to get the words out before she could forget what she had meant to say. “If anyone should see—if you don’t do the buttons back up properly…”
She would be properly compromised. And she didn’t want that. At least, not yet. And a forced marriage would be the ruin of all of his plans.
“Don’t you trust me even a little?” he asked.
“No,” she said promptly. “You bought me with a horse.”
“You should be flattered,” he said. “Adagio cost me nearly a thousand pounds.”