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The Theatre-Royal, Covent Garden

Two Weeks Later

Legs and arms crossed and a half-smile curving his mouth, Tobias leaned back into his chair in the corner of the Duke of Pennington’s theater box. Pennington had generously offered his box to him and San Sebastian, neither of whom retained one as they spent most of their time in Scotland.

“Isn’t it grand?” Avery leaned forward for a better view of the audience.

Ladies draped in the first stare of fashion fairly dripped in stunning jewels—although many of the pieces were likely paste or glass rather than gemstones. The gentlemen were only slightly less flamboyant with formal black, jeweled stickpins glittering in their neckcloths.

He and Emily had picked tonight for Avery’s official, if somewhat late, introduction to Society. It had taken this long to see his niece appropriately garbed for the undertaking. Meanwhile, there had been numerous private dinners, outings to various attractions, rides in Hyde Park, strolls in Green Park, luncheons, and teas.

Baiting the hook, Emily had called it. Giving teasing glimpses of Avery here and there in the company of the right people. They’d succeeded in luring the haut ton into the net.

As Emily had intended, the upper salons buzzed with Avery’s name.

Invitations had poured forth, satisfying in their numbers but also annoying, as Tobias loathed opening them.

Emily had come to his rescue, spending two mornings a week after their daily walks together. She sorted his correspondence, going through the invitations and setting aside those she deemed most beneficial for Avery to accept.

Tobias had been correct about ignoring the gossip rags. The top lofty denizens of High Society appeared to have eschewed the tattle of the Hyde Park incident. It helped that Lady Pooferhatch had run off with an Italian artist, after selling the family silver and jewels.

“Avery, don’t gawk, dearest. Use your opera glasses,” the Duchess of San Sebastian whispered surreptitiously from behind her fan. “Everyone stares—’tis expected. You mustn’t, however, be obvious. It’s considered gauche.”

Yes, do stare, but don’t be obvious in your gawping.

Avery unfurled her brisé fan and, waving it before her face, whispered back, “It would seem gaucheness is all the rage then.”

She wasn’t wrong.

From his vantage point in the shadows, Tobias observed several prestigious peers directing their opera glasses toward Pennington’s box. More than one gentleman trained his lenses upon Emily.

Bloody blackguards.

Widows, particularly beautiful young widows, were always objects of licentious attention. Unexpected and foreign jealousy tunneled through Tobias’s blood, stirring a possessiveness he refused to subdue.

Mine. She is mine.

Emily mightn’t know it, and he couldn’t formally claim her yet, but by holy God above, she was his. She would be his duchess if there was a God in heaven. After her confession a fortnight ago, she’d warmed to him significantly.

There’d been no more stolen kisses, not for his lack of desire. He’d caught Emily observing him numerous times, her hungry gaze dipping to his mouth before she averted her attention.

He was baiting the hook, and Emily was very close to taking the lure.

Clement Grenville was a bounder of the worst sort—God rot his unrepentant soul. When Tobias considered how Emily suffered, the fear, humiliation, and poverty that had shadowed her for over a decade, it cleaved his heart in two.

If she would permit him to, he’d show her what it meant to be truly loved and adored. Cherished and revered. She’d never know another second’s humiliation as his duchess.

Still, he would not rush her. Patience and persistence were his weapons.

Eyes alight with excitement, Avery clutched his arm.

“Isn’t it magnificent, Uncle?”

Was this elegant, polished young woman truly the same imp who’d run barefoot through the fields at Ballyleigh Court? Who’d fought him tooth and nail to stay in Scotland and had loudly and vehemently condemned his soul to Hades for forcing her to come to London?

Any doubt that she’d be a success, a diamond of the first water, had dissipated. Although, if the young blades wanted to keep their teeth and sport unblackened eyes, they’d best look upon her with respect and nothing else.

“Uncle?”