LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t know,” Darby said. “Coop, do we dare?”

      “I’d ask you to go away,” Dany said in some heat, “but that would only amuse you, my lord. Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be following Mrs. Yothers?”

      “Ah, dear lady, but I am. Or at least I was. I followed her directly here from her shop. She purchased a ticket, stepped inside, ignored the staircase to the highest balconies and made her way to a box situated directly across from this one, as coincidence would have it. Conveniently, at least for us, she extracted a folded paper from her reticule before stepping inside the box. She tarried inside but a moment, and is now on her way back to same said shop, I’d imagine, having delivered her missive to her—I suppose I should say employer?”

      “Tipping him to the carefully fed gossip about you.” Coop took a step toward his friend. All right, they were making progress. “Good, at least something is going as planned. Who occupies the box?”

      “Yes, that’s where it gets a bit sticky. I suppose now I have to reveal that I was using the royal box as a vantage point, to see who occupies that box, and that you shocked me all hollow when the two of you stepped in here and began— Well, that’s enough of that.”

      “I knew you weren’t that perceptive,” Dany said with readily apparent satisfaction. “But you are lucky, I will admit to that.”

      Darby touched his fingertips to his patch. “That’s me, Miss Foster. I’ve been basking in good fortune all my life.”

      “Oh. I’m so sorry...”

      “Don’t fall for that one, Dany,” Coop warned her. “If the ball had been an inch lower we’d be putting posies in front of his headstone once a year.”

      “But that’s not lucky, it’s only less unlucky,” Dany pointed out in what Coop had come to understand to be typical Daniella Foster logic. “Again, I’m sorry, my lord. But if I may admit to a concern I’ve had ever since my trip to Mrs. Yothers’s shop this morning? What if Clarice and I weren’t as convincing as we supposed, and all Mrs. Yothers wrote in her note this evening is that we’re onto her?”

      “Does it matter, Miss Foster?”

      “No, I suppose not, unless you’ve set your heart on being blackmailed, but it would be disheartening to believe we were that unconvincing. Now, tell us who is sitting in the box.”

      “Doesn’t cling to things until they become maudlin, does she?” Darby joked, and then suggested they vacate the royal box before someone else got the bright idea for a quick assignation at the king’s expense.

      They exited carefully, Coop and Dany both, and were followed a few moments later by the viscount, who promptly propped himself against the wall, so that Dany and Coop had no option but to become his audience.

      “Prepare to be amazed, my friend, although I suggest you don’t so forget yourself as to exclaim, ‘Aha! Now it all makes sense!’ Which, by the way, it does, even as, considering the objects of his blackmail, I suppose my secret is safe with him. In case you still were worried, Miss Foster.”

      “Could you just please get on with it,” Coop said, shaking his head. “I’ve realized you’re only amusing when you’re teasing someone other than me.”

      “I never tease. I build anticipation. But very well. The box itself, to the best of my recollection, belongs to the ancient and revered Lanisford family, with Ferdinand Lanisford serving as the current marquis. You remember Ferdie, don’t you, and a certain event?”

      It didn’t take long for Coop to jog his memory. Ferdie had been at school with them for three terms, and a more repulsive specimen would be difficult to imagine. He whined, he bullied, he snitched on his mates. He screwed his badly dyed hair into a near corkscrew at the top of his head; he dressed rather like a circus clown, brayed like a donkey when he laughed and often smelled like one, as well.

      “Oliver was with me that night, and a few others,” Coop said, nodding. “Yes, Darby. Aha.”

      Dany looked from one to the other, clearly frustrated. “Is anyone going to explain any of this to me? Why are we suddenly talking about Mari’s husband?”

      “Later, Dany, please. For now, who else was in the box?”

      “Ferdie, of course, his lovely fiancée, Sally Bruxton—you once thought her a pretty little thing, I believe. That was before the frown lines, I’m sure. Knowing her father’s gambling debts, I imagine this is not a love match.”

      “Just the names, Darby,” Coop said as Dany looked ready to open her mouth yet again.

      “Now you’re forcing me to admit I don’t know the name of the other person present. However, after observing the box through a slight gap in the draperies, I believe the gentleman seated behind the happy pair could be Miss Bruxton’s brother. I seem to remember him only as being vastly unmemorable. The sole other occupant is a maid, sitting in the shadows at the rear of the box. And now, just to prove that our dear Miss Foster is not the only one who can flit from subject to subject—do you happen to remember who else was with you and Oliver that night? We may want to have small chats with them tomorrow.”

      “I don’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about,” Dany said, tugging on Coop’s jacket sleeve, “but I want to chat, as well. Now. My lord, you are excused.”

      “I beg your...”

      “I don’t think begging would work,” Coop said, laughing. “But don’t depart in complete haste, if you please—at least not before stopping by the duke’s box and informing Minerva that Miss Foster has developed the headache and I’m escorting her home.”

      “I don’t have my reticule. Besides, she won’t believe that obviously trumped-up story,” Dany pointed out.

      “No, but she won’t kick up a fuss, either,” the viscount countered. “None of them will, or haven’t you already noticed that adhering to convention isn’t of paramount importance to any of them.”

      “Well, I like them, my lord,” Dany replied staunchly. “I like them all.”

      “As do we all, Miss Foster,” Darby said, bowing in her direction. “Sometimes, however, not all in one bunch, at least when not armed with a large bucket of cold water. And yet, friend to the end, I’ll now take myself off to do as I’m bid. Coop? Until later?”

      Coop felt Dany’s gaze on him and turned to smile at her. “What can I say? He’s my friend.”

      “And a good friend,” Dany answered, slipping her arm through his as they made their way through the throng of theatergoers on their way back to their boxes as Intermission was signaled to a close. “But he does see a lot for a man with only one eye, doesn’t he? At the very least, he could have said hello, or at least cleared his throat or something when we entered the royal box.”

      “Until I spoke, I imagine he didn’t know the identity of his fellow occupants,” Coop pointed out as they made their way down the first long flight of stairs to the street. “It was nearly dark as pitch in there.”

      “He heard what you said. He heard the sound of my slap.”

      “What I said was inexcusable. Your response was quite in keeping with the gravity of my indiscretion.”

      “Oh, piffle. I only slapped you because otherwise I would have had to answer you, and I didn’t have an answer. Not that you should have asked. You might want to stop doing that, asking decidedly personal questions I can’t answer, at least until I can think up another way to divert you.”

      “I can think of several, just off the top of my head.”

      How strange. His friends hadn’t been able to corrupt him, as it were, in all their years together, yet Dany had managed to strip away whatever starch Minerva had always complained about in less time that it took for a cat to lick its ear.

      She looked up at him,

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