Page 24 of The Lady Plays with Fire

“He already knows,” said Julia, with a flicker of annoyance. “Everyone does.”

“Then you must have had other reasons for coming.” Lady Clearwater sounded absurdly hopeful.

“Must I?” said Graham. “Then let us say that tonight, I merely wished to assuage my curiosity.”

“And have you?” Julia asked boldly. The question was accompanied by an increasingly familiar—and undeniably attractive—lift of her chin.

Had she overheard enough of his conversation with Mrs. Hayes to guess the direction of his interest?

“Not by half, Miss Addison,” he answered softly.

Then he bowed again, this time to each of them, taking the Misses Clearwater together and, in defiance of good manners, saving the last for Julia. “Until the day after tomorrow.”

Chapter 8

For the second day in a row, Julia woke to bright, clear skies and muddled, turbulent thoughts. The interest Lord Dunstane had shown at the theater played right into her plan to use him to learn more about the mysterious Ransom Blackadder.

But what had inspired his strange, sudden desire to learn more about her?

Whatever Lord Dunstane intended by such attention was unlikely to be either serious or proper. His granite-faced expression and proud posture as he’d surveyed his box the night before last had conveyed his disdain for those assembled there more clearly than words. He’d accepted Lady Clearwater’s invitation with obvious reluctance, as if the baronet’s family was unworthy of his company.

Julia knew better than to be flattered by the notice of a taciturn, mercurial man who considered himself above her touch—even after Mrs. Hayes’s nattering had revealed that Julia’s family connections were not so lowly after all. Julia had overheard her brother’s title dropped more than once. He must realize, she was hardly friendless.

But given the present inequality of their stations, would Lord Dunstane scruple to share stories about her with Blackadder? If she were not careful, would she find herself in yet another of his awful plays, this time as a caricature of a naïve country clergyman’s daughter and lady’s companion?

She had no desire to be the target of the playwright’s satire twice over, once as Miss on Scene and once as Miss No Sense at All.

Still, the fact remained. Something about her intrigued Lord Dunstane. And the staff of the Magazine for Misses was counting on her to make use of his interest, even if she would rather not.

Throwing back the coverlet, she swung her legs out of bed and inserted her feet into her waiting slippers. The day promised to be fair, but the morning air was cool—a blessing, really, when her blood was prone to boil every time a certain Scotsman intruded into her thoughts.

Before she could determine how best to behave toward him tonight—for, of course, Mrs. Hayes had accepted Lady Clearwater’s grudging invitation, though the intimate gathering of friends had surely been invented on the spot to attach Lord Dunstane—she must devise some excuse for another afternoon jaunt. Lady Stalbridge had sent word that her stepson, Lord Manwaring, wished to speak with her in person about the rumors he had heard concerning Blackadder’s play. They would meet her at one o’clock on Clapham Common.

As Julia dressed and arranged her hair, she racked her brain for a solution. If Lady Stalbridge and Mrs. Hayes had been acquainted, it would have been an easy enough matter. But Lady Stalbridge had spent half her life the near prisoner of her late husband, Lord Manwaring’s father, and had remarried and returned to society only recently. She and Mrs. Hayes did not move in the same circles.

And a mention of Lord Manwaring’s invitation to take her out for a stroll would not increase the likelihood that Mrs. Hayes would grant her her freedom for the afternoon. The young viscount was, to use the phrase she heard most often bandied about, outré in both appearance and manner. Everyone who was anyone disapproved of his refusal to settle to anything serious. He dressed flamboyantly and wore his hair in unfashionably long curls. Some said he spent all his time with low women. Others whispered that all the ballet dancers and opera singers were mere decoys, to disguise the fact that he preferred the company of men.

Whatever other secrets he kept, the ton would be most scandalized to know that the viscount wielded the pen behind the famous domestic doyenne, Mrs. Goode.

Even if Mrs. Hayes were inclined to try to marry off her companion—and thus far, she had shown no such inclination—she was not likely to throw Julia in the path of Lord Manwaring.

So, Julia would just have to concoct her own excuse. Not another trip to the theater, or the bookshop. She had visited both too recently. Daniel retrieved the post. A pity Mrs. Hayes didn’t have a large dog that required regular walking. Or a pet parakeet that could conveniently “escape” every now and then.

Perhaps the apothecary? Mrs. Hayes did indulge in various remedies for her rheumatism, and Julia might be able to persuade her that the contents of one of those precious jewel-toned vials had dwindled dangerously low.

With a sigh, she rose from her dressing table, hoping that some better plan might occur to her over the course of the morning.

The next few hours were taken up, as usual, with correspondence and whatever gossip could be gleaned from the newspapers. Neither task required her full attention, which ought to have given her ample opportunity to devise a better excuse for meeting Lord Manwaring and Lady Stalbridge.

But this morning, the tasks were also insufficient to occupy Mrs. Hayes. Julia had all she could do to steer the conversation away from Lord Dunstane, where lately her own thoughts had also been all too inclined to wander.

“When he appeared in his box last night, you could have knocked me over with a feather,” Mrs. Hayes said, tossing aside a letter. He required no further identification.

“Indeed, ma’am, it was a surprise to see his lordship there.” Especially when he knew the box had already been taken.

Lord Dunstane had ascribed his presence to curiosity.

The question was, curiosity about what?