She was watching him. 

It made him flinch a little, the knowledge of it, as Peaches stood by his shoulder with her fixed, ironic expression. Edward affected the odd, fashionable yawn while the orchestra thundered their way through the score, but he could not relax. The tenor sounded simply stunning, but for once his wife seemed to have little interest in the music, instead staring at him from behind her fan as though she could not force herself to look away.

It made concentrating a rather hard. 

Edward had intended to write home to Stevens tonight, and to his mother, letting them know how the opera fared this season, but he could feel her appraisal and it was damned unsettling. She was not coy, although damn him if there wasn’t a touch of flirtation there.

There was also fear, a kind jittering nervousness which made her flinch every time he turned to her. 

So: she was watching him, and he knew it, and she knew that he knew.

Dear Lord, this was a mess. They were married. He should just bed the girl and have done with it.

Edward had never really thought himself the marrying type. 

He had always known it would be inevitable at some point, but always assumed one day he’d find himself right kind of saucy, younger daughter, who would welcome his attentions while not caring for him a fig. The kind of girl who’d grown up vowing she’d dress up as a boy and run away to sea, the kind who’d would put up with his predilections provided that he spoiled her rotten and was entirely attentive when he troubled himself to be at home. 

Essentially, he’d envisioned Peaches with a dowry and a string of despairing governesses in her past. 

Serafina, on the other hand, would have made an excellent wife for Dickie. 

She was obviously charming enough to coax him away from inveterate boorishness, and with enough spirit to keep him on his toes. She was also, Edward got the impression, the sort who was naturally faithful and would cheerfully deny herself in order to keep herself pure for her lover. 

Dickie always had been sentimental like that. 

It was the easiest way of hurting him. 

That kind of thing would probably hurt Serafina, too, although only if she actually cared for her straying husband. Certainly, she used her pre-existing affection as a barb, expecting it to injure him somehow. In his pride, probably. 

How was she to know that Edward had sacrificed that many, many years ago? 

Then again, how was she supposed to know anything about him? 
He thought of her, crushed in his embrace, yielding to it. He had not wanted to push too hard – she was just a girl, for God’s sake, not a his usual kind of woman who was happy to set her price and her limits. 

And now she was looking at him in that dangerous way. 

“What are you going to do about it, my Lord?” Peaches bowed and whispered in his ear.

Edward tapped the programme against his knee, “Haven’t the faintest. Help?”

“Tried,” whispered Peaches. “No luck.”

“Damn.” 

He tried to concentrate on the music, but there she was, fidgeting. 

Once, when he’d been the Honourable Teddy Valence, he’d seduced someone in an opera box – nothing much in the way of nudity, but some smart work with hands out of view of the baying crowd. She’d been a French girl, some sort of marquise, and her chaperone had been charmingly discreet. He’d stopped when the soprano finished her encore, because he’d wanted to applaud and the marquise had hit him with her little gloved hand. Quite hard, all things considered.

Edward raised his hand, and a flunky brought another glass of champagne, which did not last the aria. It barely lasted the bar. 

“Do you enjoy the music, my dear?”

A twitching of the fan, a barely polite nod.

“Nourrit is on fine form tonight, is he not?” he pressed the charm home, “Always nice to hear one avoiding falsetto.”

The fan folded with a soft series of clicks and settled, with her gaze, upon her lap. “I thought my Lord was no judge of music.”

“Perhaps I’m developing a taste for it.”

“Please, my Lord, do not.”

“Do not develop a taste for the opera, my dear, or mar your enjoyment of it by speaking?” Well, there was the soft tone getting away from him.

“In truth, both are distasteful to me.”

“My dear, where would I be without your generous appraisal of my abilities. But, pray, my love, how can I satisfy you? One moment you insist that I speak, and the next you urge me to silence. Which it to be? How might I best oblige you?” He spoke low so as not to disrupt anyone else’s chance of hearing the music – or her own, really. 

But tonight, it was enough, and her hands clenched and unclenched about the gilt and painted silk of her fan, her teeth were set, her face quite a way from endearing serenity. 

Oh, he could have liked this girl immensely. 

“By missing your step in the darkness and plunging headlong down a well.”

“For a champion of propriety, my sweet, you pay the most delightful compliments.” And, because the devil took him, with the swell of the music soaring up towards them, he leaned across and kissed her, pinning her hands down in her lap. 

When released she tore her hands free and seemed about to launch in to a tirade.

“Not before the masses, my dear, if you would be so kind.” 

A crimson blush stained her skin as though she had just spent, her whole posture changing, spine growing stiffer, shoulders back. 

Beneath that admirable self-control, the girl was quite wild.

“Now, now. All I ask is a little patience, sweeting. Save the venom until we are quite alone.” He squeezed her hands, affectionate.

“How dare you?” she whispered at last. “How dare you?”

“Well, we are wed, in case that slipped your notice.” And he signalled for another glass of champagne. The grapes were singing inside him now, hot and wonderful.

She looked aside, as though she did not care to be reminded of their nuptials.

“Come now,” he pressed, “you did not resist me in the carriage.” Did it surprise him that it was so easy, to play the part of the men he had always hated, the ones who trampled over girls’ feelings in order to get what they wanted?

“I believe that I did, sir.”

He wrapped one hand about her wrist, pulled it to him, and kissed her upon it, there, where the pulse beat. 

“Is that so, my dear?” he asked, as her skin went to gooseflesh.

And she did not pull away, and her eyes begged him, positively begged that he take this further. He shifted in his chair, laying her hand down upon his thigh, beside the place where his prick was swelling obligingly. He felt her flinch, her fingers curl about themselves, but she did not attempt to escape. He let go, and stroked the back of her palm, and still she did not resist him. 

“Speak as freely as you like, my dear, I believe you know how to make yourself agreeable.”

Serafina stared at her hand, as though she could not quite believe it was there. “I’m afraid I do not know what you mean, my Lord.”

“Then enjoy Nourrit’s encore, my sweet,” he told her, looking ahead, “although kindly keep your hand where I have left it.”
 
And he leaned back in to his seat whilst she sat stiff and uncertain, and he felt it as the tension left her fingers, one by one by one.