No Mistress of Mine by Laura Lee Guhrke

Author:Laura Lee Guhrke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

If bending like a reed in the wind was to be his strategy in weathering the storm that was Lola Valentine, Denys knew he’d have to be quite a flexible chap in the coming days.

Their meeting had been a necessary first step, and thankfully, it hadn’t been as tortuous as he would have predicted. They’d had tea, discussed business, and made small talk for a full hour, and the notion of ravishing her on the settee had only crossed his mind three times. That wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

Still, as flexible as he was willing to be in regard to Lola, there was one rule he knew he would have to adhere to at all times. He could not touch her.

That particular maxim was one no gentleman ought to find difficult, he thought with chagrin as he sat in his seat at the Royal Opera House. But when he’d unthinkingly put his hand over hers this afternoon, the effect on his body had been immediate, nearly destroying his control before he could even begin to prove he had any. Touching an unmarried woman’s bare hand was one of those things a gentleman simply did not do, but with Lola, all the rules of propriety he’d been raised with never seemed to matter much.

As if to prove that contention, Denys suddenly realized the view through his opera glasses was no longer the stage but the seats below. He’d begun looking for her without even realizing it.

Does she, indeed?

Her question and the prickly tone of her voice as she’d asked it came echoing back to him, and he couldn’t help a sense of satisfaction as he appreciated its cause.

She was jealous.

His smile widened into a grin as he savored this quite unexpected turnabout. In his infatuated youth, he’d paced outside her dressing room at the Théâtre-Latin countless times—along with all the other stage-door johnnies—and he’d nearly driven himself mad wondering if he would ever be allowed through her door. Every time he had returned to Paris, he’d observed the besotted faces of his friends as they’d watched her dance or listened to her talk. Hell, Henry had stolen her right from under his nose. So when it came to Lola, jealousy was an emotion he’d often had cause to feel. The notion that the tables might be turned was a sweet one to contemplate.

There was no cause for Lola to be jealous, of course, not on this particular night. He lowered the pair of opera glasses, his gaze sliding to his companion for the evening. There was no doubt that Belinda, the Marchioness of Trubridge, was a beautiful woman, but she was also the wife of Denys’s best friend.

Lola wouldn’t know that, however, having never seen Belinda, and he felt a hint of regret that she had declared an intention to remain in her seat. Still, it was probably for the best.

He raised the opera glasses, but his view of the stage receded almost at once, replaced in his mind’s eye by Lola’s face, the proud lift of her chin and her burning cheeks.

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