Juliana glanced across the pit to the boxes opposite. She saw the duke directly opposite, standing behind the chair of a woman dressed in dark gray, almost black, with a white fichu at the neck and her hair tucked severely under a white cap. She was looking up at Tarquin as he spoke to her.

"Who's the duke talking to?"

Quentin didn't look up from his own perusal of the crowd. "Lady Lydia Melton, I imagine. His betrothed." There was something false in his studied, casual tone, but Juliana was too astonished by this intelligence to give it any thought.

"His betrothed?" She couldn't have kept the dismay from her voice even if she'd tried. "He's to be married?"

"Did he not tell you?" Still, Quentin neither looked at her nor at the object of the discussion.

"No… it seems there's a great deal he didn't tell me." All her pleasure in the evening vanished, and the bitter resentment of the morning returned.

"I daresay he thought his betrothal was irrelevant to you… to everyone," he added softly.

"Yes, irrelevant," she said acidly. "Why should it matter to me?"

"Well, it won't be happening for quite a while," Quentin told her, his voice flat. "The marriage was to have taken place two months ago, but Lydia's grandfather died and the entire family have put on black gloves. They'll be in mourning for the full two years."

"Then why's she at the play?" Juliana demanded tartly. "It seems hardly consistent with deep mourning."

"It is Macbeth," Quentin pointed out. "They'll leave before the farce."

"Seems very hypocritical to me." Juliana squinted across the playhouse, trying to get a better look at Lady Lydia Melton. It was difficult to form an impression in the flickering light of the flambeaux that lit the stage and the pit. "How old is she?"

"Twenty-eight."

"She's on the shelf," Juliana stated.

"I should refrain from passing judgment when you don't know the facts," Quentin said sharply. "Lydia and Tarquin have been betrothed from the cradle, but the death of Tarquin's mother three years ago postponed the marriage. And now Lydia's grandfather's demise has created another put-off."

"Oh. I didn't mean to sound catty." Juliana gave him a chastened smile. "I'm just taken aback."

Quentin's expression softened. "Yes, I can imagine you might be."

Juliana stared hard across the separating space and suddenly noticed that the lady was looking directly at her. It was clear that Juliana herself was under discussion when Tarquin raised a hand in a gesture of acknowledgment and Lady Lydia bowed from the waist. Juliana responded in like manner. "I wonder what they're saying about me."

"I imagine Tarquin is explaining that you're Lucien's bride," Quentin observed. "The Meltons were bound to wonder what he and I were doing in a box at the theater with a strange lady."

"But won't they think it strange that the viscount isn't with us so soon after the wedding?"

"No," Quentin said without elaboration.

The orchestra began another alerting drumroll, and Tarquin disappeared from the Meltons' box. A few minutes later he appeared beside Juliana.

"You didn't tell me you were betrothed," she whispered accusingly as the second act began.

"It's hardly important." he returned. "Hush, now, and listen."

Juliana found it hard to concentrate on the rest of the play. She was wondering when Tarquin would have chosen to tell her about his fiancee. She was wondering what would happen to their arrangements when the new duchess took up residence. Presumably, the mistress and her child would be established in one wing of the house and the duchess and her children in another, and the duke would move between his two families as and when it pleased him.

Perhaps her present charming apartments rightfully belonged to the duke's wife. Surely with that proximity, not to mention the concealed connecting door, they must. So presumably she would have to move out of them when the new duchess took up residence.

Juliana opened and closed her fan with such violence that one of the dainty painted sticks snapped. Startled, both her escorts looked sideways.

The duke placed a restraining hand on hers, still roughly flicking the fan in her lap. She turned and glared at him with such fury, he could almost imagine being scorched by the flames in her eyes. There was one thing about Juliana, he reflected ruefully: One always knew where one stood with her. She was so full of passions of every kind that she was incapable of masking her emotions.

"If you wish to quarrel, let's do so later," he whispered. "Not in the middle of a crowded playhouse. Please, Juliana.

Juliana pointedly turned her eyes back to the stage, her mouth taut, her jaw set, her back as rigid as if a steel poker ran down her spine. Tarquin exchanged a glance with his brother, whose response was far from sympathetic.

The Melton party, as Quentin had predicted, left before the farce. They left so discreedy, Juliana didn't see them go. When she looked toward the box as the torches were lit again to illuminate the pit, she saw it was empty.

Tarquin leaned over the box and hailed an orange seller. She came up with a pert smile and tossed two oranges up to him. He caught them deftly, throwing down a sixpence. She grinned and curtsied, tucking the coin between her ripe breasts bubbling over the neck of her gown, which was kilted to show both calves and ankles. "Want to come and get it back, sir?" she called with a lascivious wink. "No 'ands allowed. An' if ye double it, there's no knowin' where it'll end up."

Tarquin laughingly refused the invitation. He took a small knife out of his waistcoat pocket and began to peel an orange. He broke off a segment and held it to Juliana's lips. "Open wide, my dear."

"I am not in the mood for teasing." She closed her lips firmly. But she took the orange segment in her fingers, rather than open her mouth for him to feed her, and offered a formally polite thank-you.

Tarquin gave her the remainder of the orange without further remark, peeled the other one, and shared it with Quentin, who was coming to the conclusion that Juliana was perhaps not quite the victim he'd believed her to be.

Her delight in the farce was so infectious that all previous tension dissipated. Tarquin and Quentin wouldn't normally have stayed for this low comedy that had the pits in hysterics, but Juliana was so entranced, found the bawdiest comments so hilarious, that they sat back and simply enjoyed her enjoyment.

As the curtain came down, she wiped tears of laughter from her eyes with a fingertip. "I haven't laughed so much since I saw Punch and Judy at the fair in Winchester."

George Ridge had also greatly enjoyed his evening, much preferring the farce to the long-winded, ponderous speeches of the tragedy, although he'd been quite impressed with the sword fights, which had seemed very realistic. And Lady Macbeth had dripped chicken blood, and the ghost of Banquo had been horridly gouged and smothered.

He made his way out of the pit, allowing the tide of humanity to carry him. At the door a crowd of gallants was gathered around a painted bawd and her collection of whores. They were bargaining for the women, with the sharp-eyed madam missing nothing as she auctioned off her girls. George hesitated, fancying a particular bold-eyed wench in a canary-yellow gown. Then the bawd shouted, "Ten guineas to the gentleman in the striped weskit," and shoved the girl forward into the arms of the man so described, who eagerly handed over ten guineas, which the bawd dropped into a leather satchel at her waist.

George decided he'd spent enough money on women for one day. He'd return to the Gardener's Arms and take his supper there, then maybe throw the dice a few times. He would set himself a strict limit so that he'd be in no danger of outrunning the carpenter.