stirred and held out her hand. “I see my brother across the way. Will you accompany me to greet him?”
“Yes, of course.” Megs rose, staring worriedly at the retreating backs of her husband and brother.
“Don’t fret.” Hero drew her hand through her arm as they began strolling companionably toward the opposite side of the theater. The corridor behind the boxes was crowded as everyone took the opportunity during the interval to find acquaintances or to simply parade to show to best advantage their costumes. “Griffin and Godric will come to terms.”
“I wish I were as certain as you.”
Hero squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Griffin loves both you and me, and Godric is very fond of you, I know. They both have incentive to make up this little quarrel.”
Megs slanted a glance at her sister-in-law, strolling serenely in a mist-green frock trimmed in blond lace. “Godric is fond of me? However can you tell?”
Hero looked at her, amused. “By the way he cares for you, silly. He made very sure you had the best seat when you arrived—next to me so we might gossip. He filled a plate for you with cakes and grapes—no walnuts, as he knows you aren’t particularly fond of them—and the very fact he’s come to the opera tonight … well. I half expected him to decline, I must tell you. He’s been a veritable hermit these last couple of years. Hardly anyone has seen him about in society. No, everything he’s done tonight, small matters as they are, has been for you, sister.”
Megs blinked. Was it true? Did Godric have feelings, however small, for her? He had, after all, conceded to her wish to try to make a child. The mere reminder made her body flush with heat, but she felt a pang of disquiet as well. When she’d been back at Laurelwood, dreaming up this plan to come to London and seduce her husband, he had been a mere cardboard figure. She’d known him only from his infrequent, curt letters. Bedding a cardboard man had seemed straightforward enough.
Bedding Godric was an entirely different matter.
He was real, flesh and blood, a man with powerful feelings—though he did his best to hide them from the world. Only now, at this terribly late date, did it occur to her that her emotions might be endangered if she lay with Godric.
Megs bit her lip. Emotional entanglement was not something that she’d accounted for. Roger was the love of her life, his loss a pain she felt every day. She had no other way to make a child for herself but to lie with Godric, but to feel for him as well—that seemed like a betrayal of her love for Roger.
A betrayal of Roger himself.
Hero suddenly squeezed her hand. “There she is.”
Megs blinked. “Who?”
“Hippolyta Royle,” Hero murmured. “The lady there in that delicious shade of dark coffee brown and pink.” Megs followed the discreet incline of Hero’s head. A tall lady stood by herself, watching the crowd with hooded eyes. She couldn’t be called beautiful, but with her tawny complexion, dark hair, and regal bearing, she was certainly striking.
“Who is she?” Megs wondered aloud.
Hero huffed softly beside her. “You’d know if you hadn’t been hiding yourself away in the wilds of the countryside for two years. Miss Royle is a rather mysterious heiress. She appeared in London out of the blue a couple of months ago. Some say she was raised in Italy or even the East Indies. I’ve thought that she must be a very interesting person, but we’ve not been introduced yet.”
They watched as Miss Royle turned and began strolling away.
“And it looks like I won’t have the opportunity tonight either,” Hero said ruefully. “I see no one to make the proper introductions. But here’s Maximus’s box. Shall we?”
Megs nodded as Hero led the way into the splendid box. It was directly opposite Griffin’s rented box and so was over the other side of the stage from where they sat.
Inside, the box was as luxurious as Griffin’s—perhaps more so. Two ladies sat by themselves, and the elder of the two held out her hand at their entrance.
“Hero, how lovely to see you, my dear.” Miss Bathilda Picklewood had raised both Hero and her younger sister, Phoebe, after their parents’ death. A plump lady who wore her soft gray hair in ringlets across her forehead, she held a small, elderly King Charles spaniel on her lap.
Hero stepped gracefully forward and kissed Miss Picklewood on the cheek. “How are you, Cousin