And perhaps that was why he didn’t go to the theater as often as he would have liked. For both his father and his mother had been great patrons of it when they had been much in love and happy. They’d attended at least once a week and invited playwrights and actors into their salons almost nightly.
He shook the painful memory away.
Beatrice laughed, a rich, bell-like sound, and he smiled to himself.
He daren’t look at Lady Beatrice. Bloody hell, he was there to watch the actors. And yet he kept trying to sneak glances at her from the corner of his eye.
Her sensual yet witty lips were parted in a smile, her eyes wide, and her whole face glowing, rapt with happiness as she watched the antics below.
Could anyone love anything so well as Beatrice seemed to love the goings-on onstage?
Did she truly love the theater that much?
Perhaps she loved the freedom that the theater brought. Actors could play many parts. One day a king, a queen, a warrior, a lover, and sometimes men pretended to be women and women pretended to be men.
One could be whomever they wished to be.
And given Lady Beatrice and her longings for a more just world, it was not surprising that she would adore a medium that allowed her to see people transform from mere actors to heroes and heroines.
He thought of her impassioned longing for breeches.
What in God’s name had possessed him to invite her to his estate to wear breeches? What the devil had he been thinking? What drivel had come out of his mouth?
It wasn’t drivel, though, really. He had understood her. She longed to climb mountains but was relegated to rooms.
It wasn’t because he was opposed to the idea of Lady Beatrice in breeches that he was suddenly recriminating himself. No, now that she had made him aware, he could completely understand why she might wish to experience such a thing so completely out of her sphere.
But as uncomfortable as it made him feel, the idea of seeing her in breeches and a linen shirt, without the armament of the female costume…well, he did not know what he’d do with himself.
He would have to go to the farthest reaches of his house, or go down to the lake and take a bath in it, and hope that the cooling water would work this time, though it had not before.
Seeing her in such garments would be a torment. For as strange as it was, he found himself longing to see the curve of her calf and the length of her thigh leading to her hips.
He placed his hands on his knees and tried to relax, but as he did so, he realized that his hand was exceptionally close to Lady Beatrice’s.
She leaned forward, peering at the stage as she joined the riotous laughter of the audience. They all marveled at the witty quips between the enemies to lovers below them.
He marveled at her and the play of the candlelight on her face, her breasts, the golden leaves embroidered into her gown.
If he moved just a breadth to his right, his hand would touch hers. For her hand, too, was resting on her knee. Did he dare? Would she think that he’d done it on purpose, or could he perhaps…
Before he could stop himself, he angled himself so little that it was a feather’s breadth of movement. The edge of his hand touched hers ever so slightly. So slightly that it might have been but an illusion.
She did not seem to notice, and he felt a wave of ridiculous disappointment. Of course she hadn’t noticed. What a ludicrous fool he was.
Lady Beatrice felt nothing for him except disdain and a fleeting amusement, just like the Beatrice in the play did for Benedick.
Beatrice. It truly was an apt name for her. She was so wonderful and intelligent and capable. She went slipper to boot with him without flinching. And in a world that kept her from being her full self, she seemed determined to keep trying.
Despite all odds.
How could he not admire her?
How could he not wish to take her hand in his and do everything that he could to help her?
And as he sat there, he realized that’s exactly what he had to do. He had to do everything he could to help her, and he would. He would stop being so stubborn and so caught up in all his rules and engagements. He would listen to her, and he would do as she asked, and then she would feel as if he truly was her ally.
Instead of doing it his way, he would try doing it hers.