Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(34)

The actors launched into Act II. Familiar with the tale of a love destroyed and betrayal, Abigail again sought out Geoffrey. Their gazes collided. She offered him a smile.

Unlike the polite smile he’d shared with Beatrice not very long ago, his lips flattened into a hard line, and he returned his focus to the stage below.

Abigail bit the inside of her cheek. Yesterday afternoon, Geoffrey had been stiff, proper, unrelenting…the kind of gentleman she’d never wanted in her life. His harsh revelation yesterday, and then his swift departure, had indicated that Geoffrey, too, carried secrets. She remembered the flash of pain in his eyes, the muscle that had throbbed at the corner of his mouth.

Her cousin, Robert had indicated Geoffrey had not always been the aloof figure who now courted her cousin. And not for the first time since he’d swept onto Lord and Lady Hughes’s terrace and rescued her from Lord Carmichael, she wondered what had happened to Geoffrey, a man who so desperately needed life teased back into him.

She glanced over at Beatrice, thoroughly engrossed in the performance below. Abigail’s heart tightened with unwanted feelings of regret and…envy. Geoffrey had been abundantly clear that he wanted Beatrice to be that young lady.

After all, gentlemen such as Geoffrey Winters, Viscount Redbrooke, did not wed ruined young ladies careless enough as to toss their virtue away. Regret tasted like the bitterest of fruits and it threatened to choke her as she recalled that night she and Alexander had been discovered in one another’s arms, her gown in dishabille…

Abigail swallowed hard. All the humiliation and despair she’d carried crested like a wave at sea and nearly engulfed her, threatening to pull her under.

Abigail stumbled to her feet, nearly upending her chair.

“Abigail?” Robert looked at her questioningly.

“I-ah-I require a moment,” she said. And before he or Beatrice should think to follow, Abigail fled. She registered the moment her maid Sally started after her, and picked up her pace, down the long hall, down a flight of stairs. She wanted to leave.

“Sally,” she said, her voice raspy to her own ears. “Please have the coach summoned, and then return and tell the marquess I have a megrim.”

Concern filled Sally’s kindly eyes. “Are you certain I should leave you alone, Miss Stone? Perhaps I should return for the marquess.”

“No!” Abigail said. “Please, just have the coach summoned.”

Sally hesitated, and then hurried ahead, leaving Abigail at the main stairway of the theater.

Abigail froze, the tip of her slipper at the top step that represented the path to her freedom from the theatre.

Geoffrey stood at the base of the long, wide staircase. One hand rested casually upon the rail. He looked up at her.

Tears filled her eyes.

She blinked, but the blasted drops she’d been unable to shed since her voyage to London, refused to fall; instead the salty pools blurred her vision.

The unshed mementos of despair still could not mask the concern that blazed to life in the green-blue irises of Geoffrey’s normally hard, impenetrable stare.

Abigail dimly registered his long, powerful legs striding up the stairs with marked elegance and determination.

Drat. Must he be so perfect as to even race up the stairs in a regal manner?

He stopped at the step below her, his gaze working a path over her person. “Abigail? Have you been hurt?”

***

The moment Geoffrey had seen Abigail surge to her feet and flee the duke’s theatre box, he’d set out in pursuit. Even with the distance between them, and the dimly lit auditorium, he’d detected the panicky glitter in her eyes.

Geoffrey cursed, and glanced around but with the second act having just begun, the hall remained eerily quiet. “Abigail, what is it?”

She gave her head a shake. “I-I’m fine. Really. You shouldn’t be here. It’s not p-proper.” Her chest heaved up and down, as she drew in gasping, ragged breaths.

To hell with propriety. Geoffrey took her by the hand and ushered her over to a nearby alcove. He shielded her body with his, in the event someone should come upon them. He studied her with a quiet intensity.

She implored him with her eyes. “You must go. If you’re discovered…”

“I don’t care about discovery,” he said, sharply.

His body stiffened as he realized with a staggering shock, in that moment he didn’t care about his image amongst the ton, or scandal, or the threat of impropriety, or his mother’s expectations. He didn’t even care about the crimes of his youth and Emma’s betrayal. Or his courtship of Lady Beatrice. There would be time enough for logic and reason later. Just then, nothing seemed of greater import than driving back the raw pain reflected in Abigail’s eyes.

The distant echo of Othello’s words reached through the theatre into their sanctuary.

If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy; for I fear my soul hath her content so absolute that not another comfort like to this succeeds in unknown fate.

Othello’s words swirled around them, and mocked Geoffrey with their eerie accuracy.

“Why are you troubled, Abigail?” Geoffrey pressed. By god, if one of those callow youths from White’s had dared put their hands upon her person, he would destroy them.

She shook her head. “It’s…” Abigail looked up at him. “It’s…” The hint of unspoken words seemed to dangle upon her lips. Real, and tangible between them.