The duke made a slight bow. "Good day to you all," he said. He turned and proceeded into the theater with his coquettish courtesan, causing Arabella to breathe a sigh of relief, but then the aggravating Neville swiveled on his booted heel and faced them, smiling with complete composure. "We shall miss the beginning of the play if we do not enter soon. I shall be most delighted to offer you the hospitality of my regular box."

"Your regular box," his father sneered. "I should have known. We will sit where I say we will sit."

"It will have to be the pit then, for I think there will be no other available seats."

"Not the pit!" Lady Lippet cried, as if the pit would be filled with snakes instead of those who could not afford box seats.

"No, you ought not sit in the pit," Neville seconded. "Lady Arabella's gown might be damaged. Or her fine cloak. Or her splendid little shoes."

"I think the pit will be acceptable," Arabella replied with a hint of defiance.

"Amongst the rabble? Surely not! How will you find a husband there?"

Arabella flushed and did not answer.

"It would have been quite a coup to be invited to the Duke of Buckingham's box," Lady Lippet noted in a whine, giving Neville a peevish look."Since he made no effort to do so, you will have to wait for another time."

"He might invite us to sup with him after the play," Lady Lippet proposed hopefully.

"I should remind your ladyship that the duke already has a wife."

"He is an influential man," Lady Lippet declared defensively.

"He was, until even Charles could not overlook certain... how shall I put this so that it is fit for women's delicate ears? Until the king could not overlook Buckingham's proclivities."

"That whole family is a disgrace," the earl announced. "His father was the most disgusting sodomite-"

"Now there is one sin that has never been laid at my door," Neville interjected, "but really, Father, I believe discussing the late duke is upsetting Lady Arabella."

In truth, Arabella was finding the entire situation distressing.

"I should point out that if you intend to see this play today," Neville continued, "we should go inside without further ado."

"If it's so late, perhaps we should return home," Arabella murmured, trying to decide what would be worse: missing the play or sitting near Neville Farrington.

"After going to all the trouble to get here?" the earl demanded, his goatee quivering. "I should think not!"

Neville suddenly stepped close to Arabella. "Come along, then, my dear."

Before she could protest, he took her hand in his strong grasp and placed it over his arm; then he pulled her along beside him through the doors and into the theater itself, leaving the earl and Lady Lippet to follow behind.

As he led Arabella into the building, Neville told himself he had had little choice but to intercept his father, Lady Lippet and Arabella as they spoke with George Villiers.

The duke hadn't gotten where he was because he was completely without some attractive points. He was handsome, he was rich and he could be charming, especially to women.

Yet it was Villiers, it was said, who had instructed the king in various vices during the long years of exile.

It was also rumored that the duke was familiar with more decadent practices than most men knew existed.

Now this infamous debaucher of women, notorious libertine and reputed royal pander had discovered Arabella.

Neville realized that if his goal was merely to engineer Arabella's fall from her virtuous pedestal, an intimate relationship with Villiers would accomplish that. But Villiers was a disgusting lecher, and Neville would see no woman, not even his rival, sacrificed to that man's depravity.

And besides, he would lose the bet with Richard and Foz if Buckingham seduced her.

As they moved toward the boxes on the second level of the theater, they were crowded on all sides, the pressure of the mob forcing them together. The hood of Arabella's cloak caught on a tall man's shoulder.

She emitted a little shriek of dismay as it fell back, while he took the opportunity to study her.Her glossy brown hair was dressed and curled in the latest fashionable style, so that teasing little confidantes grazed her pink-tinged cheeks in a most becoming manner.

As yet, her face bore no cosmetics, and she had not adopted patches. Given that Lady Lippet was now involved in this hunt for a husband, it was probably only a matter of time before she did.

A plump gentleman squeezed past them, and they pressed against the wall that formed one side of the corridor. On the other was a part.i.tion, with entrances every few feet leading into the separate boxes.

Arabella clutched Neville's arm so that she wouldn't stumble.

He would never have guessed that so simple a thing could be so arousing, yet so it was.

It was as if he were an inexperienced, virginal youth again, but one with a detailed and extensive knowledge of what a couple might do in bed together.

At that notion, a hundred different things he would like to do with and for Arabella leaped into his brain with astonishingly vivid clarity.

Then he noticed that Arabella's cloak had slipped back even more, giving him a most tantalizing glimpse of cleavage as her body was forced against his.

It would appear her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were as naturally wonderful as her face.

The memory of their soft weight in his palm immediately proved even more distracting than any imaginary activity.

What would she have done that night if he had slipped the nightgown from her shoulders and put his lips where his thumb had been, flicking his tongue until she cried for mercy, or more- "Is it always so crowded?" she asked with obvious frustration.

She was not the only frustrated person here.

A pox on such ruminations in so public a place! Any person looking at him would know which way his thoughts were tending.

He forced himself to regard his companion with all the dispa.s.sion he could muster-and suddenly took note of the fine cloak over the even finer gown. How had she come by such garments? More important, who had paid for them?

Any lingering pleasure he felt from her proximity and his graphic imaginings disappeared. He would do better to remember that she could disinherit him.

"Richard's plays are always popular," he replied quietly, giving her his most seductive smile. "And then, this building was not designed to be a theater. It used to be a tennis court."

She made no effort to move on. Neither did he, especially when he realized that his father and Lady Lippet were nowhere nearby.

"Perhaps we should wait for this crowd to thin," he said.

"If you think so."

"I do."She nodded, setting those delightful little curls to dancing.

"I must confess myself surprised to meet you here," Neville remarked. "I never would have expected my father or you to choose The Country Cuckold."

Arabella started and stared at him. "The country what?"

"Cuckold. You know, a fellow whose wife takes a lover."

"I know what a cuckold is."

"Ah, but do you know the circ.u.mstances likely to produce one?"

"I am sure you are well versed in that knowledge, my lord, and will be delighted to tell me."

The n.o.bleman raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated gesture of innocent incomprehension. "I only meant that Richard's play should prove instructive on the true nature of women."

"To you, too?"

"I had that lesson long ago," he replied evenly.

Her brow furrowed slightly, then she looked back the way they had come. "I do not see the earl or Lady Lippet."

"Perhaps they have gone astray in this den of vice and iniquity."

Arabella pursed her lips. "I think we may continue toward your box now."

"Very well," he said, for in truth, the crowd had thinned out considerably.

"Ah, here we are," he said after a few moments, indicating where she was to enter.

He followed her inside, to find her regarding the interior of the theater with wide-eyed wonder. Her face glowed, her eyes shone and her perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell with her excited breathing.

She looked as he must have looked the first time he had been in a theater, although his attendance at his first play had also come with an element of risk. Theatrical performances had been against the law in Cromwell's England.

Still, he remembered the excitement and the fun, the banter and the boos when an actor missed his cue, the insolent remarks of the orange girls, who sold their fruit at the foot of the stage during the play, and themselves afterward.

Even now, the theater filled him with a curious mixture of antic.i.p.ation, excitement and dread.

Rather like the way he felt being with Arabella, although why he should feel dread he didn't stop to consider.

He realized that several men in the crowded pit and boxes seemed to find her fascinating, the Duke of Buckingham in particular.

If was all Neville could do to keep a scowl from his face. "I suppose it was the bewitching Lady Lippet's idea to come to the theater. She is a great patron of the arts."

He moved in front of her, screening her from other men's prying eyes.It would be difficult for any spectators to know exactly how close he was to her or what they might be doing. Given some of the performances he had seen in this very building-and not upon the stage-it could be almost anything.

He must and would stake his claim on her tonight, so that all gentlemen of rank would understand that if they pursued her, they would have to compete with him.

"Your father agreed."

"But you did not?" he suggested, waiting for her to say something about the base nature of the theater or to condemn such harmless entertainment in the very best Puritan manner.

"I have long wanted to see a play, my lord."

"A shocking confession, Lady Arabella."

"As Lady Lippet also thought it necessary, I did not object."

"Sitting in the dark surrounded by strangers is hardly conducive to finding a husband, I should think."

Her eyes seemed to sparkle, but that could only be a trick of the light. "Since you have yet to engage in finding a spouse, I think your opinion the subject are not necessarily valid."

"If I did want a wife, I would not seek her in a theater."

"Where would you go?"

"To the country. Grantham, perhaps."

"Surely not," she protested gravely, "for it is such a dull little place, only b.u.mpkins must live there, and I am certain your lordship would never be happy with a b.u.mpkin for a wife."

"That is quite true," he said softly. "Yet you come from Grantham, and I would never call you a b.u.mpkin."

She deftly side-stepped him. "Nor will you ever call me wife."

Suddenly, as if a signal had been given, the whole audience rose to its feet and turned away from the stage to face the middle of the gallery.

"What is it?" Arabella asked as Neville bowed in the direction of the elegantly dressed group who were entering a previously empty box in the center.

"The question you should be asking, my dear," Neville replied, "is, who is it?"

"Very well. Who is it?"

"The king."

Chapter 7.

Like a ripple upon the surface of a calm pond, the entire audience bowed toward its ruler.

"The king!" Arabella murmured excitedly as she performed a low curtsy, all the while keeping her eyes on the dark-haired, mustached man in the center of the box.

His Majesty's clothing was of a deep and l.u.s.trous purple embroidered with silver thread, and his hair was long, dark and curling. He turned this way and that addressing the beautiful woman and magnificently attired courtiers who attended him, yet she could see that his features were as comely as people said, although he was not nearly as handsome as the man at her side.

As King Charles gestured grandly in acknowledgment, Arabella smiled to think that she was seeing him so soon after her arrival in London. This stroke of luck almost made up for every other discomfiting thing that had happened since they had come.

Then she realized the king was looking directly at her.

Nonplussed, Arabella instinctively curtsied again. When she rose, she saw that the king had turned his attention to the beautiful, bejeweled woman beside him, wearing a luxurious gown of peac.o.c.k blue.