“Charlotte, dearest,” she said in her half-laughing, mischievous tone that drove all the men behind her mad with desire, “this play is simply not Shakespeare, is it? But Lord Winkle has a delightful suggestion … that we eschew the second half and go to Vauxhall instead.”

“Oh,” Charlotte said rather stupidly, her eyes instinctively meeting Alex’s. What she met there made her feel feverish. She knew without question that her mother would forbid an excursion to Vauxhall in company with the earl. Vauxhall had far too many dimly lit pathways and shadowy arbors.

“What does your mother say?” she finally asked, looking up at Sophie.

“She doesn’t like it, but she has agreed.” Sophie bent over, ringlets brushing Alex’s cheek. “I think my father fancies that he has an amour with Miss Boch,” she said softly, “and my mother would like to leave the theater.”

Charlotte rose immediately. She felt as if she had been ridiculously naive before the conversation with her mother. It would never have occurred to her that the marquis might try to fix an interest with a young lady, even if she were French. She never would have given a second thought to a lively conversation between them, or guessed that the marchioness might dislike watching her husband laugh genially at Daphne’s French witticisms.

Will looked questioningly at Chloe van Stork, who had watched all the traipsing around the box with rather wide eyes. She looked at him quickly and then down at her hands. Will thought he would rather like to lure Chloe into a dark avenue and kiss her again. He thought of her soft lips under his.

“Shall we join them?” he asked, his tone smooth as honey.

“Vauxhall,” Chloe said. “My mother would not like it.”

But when Chloe appeared at the van Stork’s box, flanked by her huge blond cavalier, her mother surprised herself by nodding agreeably. Katryn cast a loving look at her serious daughter. There was pink in Chloe’s cheeks and her eyes were shining. She had watched Chloe in the Brandenburg box and felt a little guilty. Chloe looked like a crow, surrounded by gaily fluttering gowns. Perhaps she was too prudish in her notions of dress. She certainly didn’t want Chloe to marry one of the solid, plump Dutchmen who thronged into her husband’s workrooms. While this Lord Holland was undoubtedly a fortune hunter, her shrewd assessment was that he was also an honorable man. And she was starting to think that he and her daughter might even make a genuine marriage.

“Will you be properly chaperoned?”

Will explained that the Marquis and Marchioness of Brandenburg would accompany the party.

“Yes, go, daughter,” she said, and nodded at the baron. He bowed politely to Chloe’s abstracted father. Her father was properly dressed, an elegant evening coat straining across his plump stomach, but he looked distracted, as if he was thinking of his work.