There was a swell of sound from the audience, but Chloe did not even notice it. Her attention was riveted upon the third lady, who was dressed all in dazzling white and who even to Chloe’s own eyes looked like a younger version of herself, complete with a head of piled bright red hair.
Chloe turned her head sharply toward Ralph. She smiled brightly and asked if it was almost time for the play to begin.
“Past time, I would think,” he said curtly. He was looking pale and tense and grim. His eyes were fixed on the empty stage.
And then a buzz of shushing noises from a few members of the audience quelled the swell of conversation. The play—one of Shakespeare’s comedies, As You Like It—was about to begin at last.
Was the older gentleman in the other box the Marquess of Hitching? But Chloe dared not look in that direction again. She would not recognize him anyway. But she felt no doubt whatsoever that the red-haired lady was Lady Angela Allandale.
It was not difficult to predict what the chief topic of conversation in the drawing rooms of polite society would be tomorrow.
The play was beginning, and Chloe set herself the difficult task of concentrating upon the action and enjoying herself. She was not the only one not succeeding, though, she realized after several minutes had passed. Although she did not turn her face away from the stage for a while, she could almost feel the silence of Ralph beside her. Well, of course he was silent. The whole audience was. But he was . . . silent.
Finally she turned her head to look at him. He was gazing at the stage, apparently intent upon what was happening there. But he felt her eyes on him and transferred his gaze to her face. Even in the near darkness she could see that his eyes were blank. He did not smile at her. She set the fingertips of one hand lightly upon his sleeve and leaned a little closer.
“Forget Lady Angela’s presence,” she murmured. “I am not upset about it.”
He frowned at her. “She is here?”
She stared back at him. He had not noticed? He must be the only person in the theater who had not.
“What is the matter, then?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Watch the play. It is why we are here.”
Lord Trentham was looking at them with some concern. Chloe smiled apologetically at him and turned her attention back to the stage. Or, rather, she turned her eyes toward it. Her mind did not follow suit. She had kept her hand on Ralph’s sleeve. Beneath it his muscles were tense.
But he had not noticed the arrival of Lady Angela Allandale.
He was courteous, even charming, during the interval, when several people came to their box to commiserate with his loss and to congratulate him on both his new title and his marriage. He presented Chloe to those who were unknown to her, setting a hand that felt both warm and protective against the small of her back. She met, among others, Gwen’s cousin, the Marquess of Attingsborough, and his wife, and Lady Lyngate’s nephew, the Earl of Ainsley, and his countess.
No one mentioned Lady Angela, and Chloe did not look again in the direction of that particular box. It was impossible to know if the lady had seen her, though how could she not have done? What rotten bad luck it was that she was back in London this year. They were going to be dodging each other for the rest of the Season, yet it was inevitable that they would be invited to many of the same events.
As would the Marquess of Hitching.
By the time the play was over an hour or so later and all the thanks and good-night greetings had been said and Chloe and Ralph were on their way home in the carriage, she felt exhausted.
“It was a pleasant evening,” she said.
“It was,” Ralph agreed.
Gone, it seemed, was the light, almost teasing conversation in which he had engaged her earlier to relax her before they arrived at the theater. His curt response merely deepened the chill inside the carriage. Chloe listened to the rumble of the wheels, the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves. She watched as the interior of the coach was illuminated occasionally by the flare of torches in the streets outside.
“What is the matter?” she asked after a few minutes. “What happened?”
It was not the fact that Lady Angela Allandale had been at the theater.
“Why do you ask again?” His voice was cold and irritable. “I have already told you that nothing is the matter. If I am not forever smiling inanely and laughing mindlessly and chattering aimlessly, must something be the matter? That is not the way I am, Chloe. You must not expect it of me.”
He was being grossly unfair. When had she ever suggested that she expected smiles and laughter and chatter from him? What had she done to incur this irritation?
“Oh, I do not expect any such thing,” she said, her tone as careless as she could make it. “You made it very clear from the start that there would be no emotional bond between us, no friendship, no warmth, no confidences, no real communication. It was foolish of me to imagine that something had upset you merely because you were unnaturally quiet at the theater.”
“One is not expected to chatter and disturb other audience members when a play is in progress,” he told her as though she could not have guessed as much herself. “It is considered bad manners.”
“I suppose,” she said, “you refer to the whispered exchange that I initiated and to the fact that it disturbed Lord Trentham.”
“If the glove fits, Chloe,” he said, “then I would invite you to wear it.”
“Is it ill-mannered, then,” she asked him, “is it idle chatter to show concern for one’s husband and question him when one can sense that he is upset?”