Page 42 of If the Duke Demands

“No,” he answered quietly.Only because you’re here…“But this is one of the very best. My favorite, in fact.”

She sighed. “Mine, too.”

“It’s your only opera,” he corrected, unable to help the amused smile playing at his lips.

“That’s what makes it my favorite,” she confided.

He chuckled softly as he continued to watch her watch the opera, entertained as much by the show of emotions playing across her face as by the show onstage. Coming from any other woman, he would have taken the comment as some offhanded remark from an uneducated gel who didn’t possess the maturity to hold the attention of a man like him. Or a hollow attempt at blatant flattery. But from Miranda, the earnest comment was seductive in its simplicity.

Shakespeare. Milton. Now Mozart. He was beginning to see all the many, complicated facets of her even if he couldn’t yet completely fathom the woman beneath. But he knew now that she wasn’t the flighty chit he’d always assumed her to be. Miranda wasn’t capricious or immature. She simply loved life and all the new experiences it offered, which the rest of them had grown too jaded to appreciate.

And he, more than anyone, knew exactly how mature she was.

When she leaned over to whisper to him, the side of her breast accidentally brushed his arm. He stiffened, feeling that innocent touch rush through him with the force of an electric jolt.

“Why isn’t anyone else paying attention?” Her voice was little more than a breath, yet it made him tremble. She had no idea of the way she tied him into knots with only the soft tickle of her warm whispers in his ear. “Don’t they realize how wonderful the opera is?”

“They don’t have the same refined tastes as stodgy, old dukes and orphanage manageresses,” he replied wryly with an exaggerated shake of his head. “No appreciation of the finer arts. Or of pirates.”

She gave a throaty laugh at his teasing, one that fell through him like warm rain.

His gut tightened with quick arousal. She hadn’t meant the laugh as a flirtation, but that was exactly how it had come out. And he liked it. Immensely.

Recklessly, he sought more. He leaned toward her, close enough to catch the delicious scent of roses lingering on her skin, and whispered, “Some of the people here haven’t come to hear the music.”

She puzzled. “Then why are they here?”

“To be seen in their finery and to see others in theirs, to gossip and catch up on the latest rumors…” He watched her expression as he added, unable to help himself, “For secret trysts.”

“Secret trysts?” she repeated, her breath hitching.

He smiled at her innocence, a trait he’d so rarely found in the women who pursued him this season in their hopes to catch a duke. “Haven’t you wondered why so many of the private boxes now have their curtains drawn?”

With a bewildered frown, she glanced at the opera house around her. “No. Why would they…” Her words trailed off into a soft, comprehending gasp.

Her eyes widened as if seeing for the first time the building that had surrounded them for the past two hours, realizing exactly what must have been going on at that very moment in the darkness behind those pulled curtains. Her pink lips formed a round O, although no sound came beyond a soft breath.

A devilishly wicked urge to smile gripped him. As he watched her with amusement, he wondered if the dim shadows of their box hid from him a hot blush on her soft cheeks. And grateful that they did, because he found himself enjoying this inappropriate conversation far more than he should. If he had proof that she found it arousing as well, he might be tempted to give her yet another lesson on flirting. One far more erotic and scandalous than before.

“But the king’s box is also…Oh.”

He bit his inner cheek to keep from laughing.

She didn’t dare look at him then, her eyes focused straight ahead. But the corners of her mouth curled into the start of a bewitching, wanton smile. Her eyes shining knowingly, she whispered, “Who knew opera could be so…inspiring?”

Then he did laugh and drew scowls from the people seated around them. But he didn’t care. Talking with her like this was too liberating to stop. For a few moments here in the shadows, exchanging whispers with her, he could again be the mischievous rogue he’d once been, and he’d missed being that man. Greatly. Tonight with Miranda made him realize exactly how much.

“I don’t understand these people,” she whispered, a touch of bewilderment lacing her voice. “I mean, they can beinspiredanywhere, but they’re behind curtains, missing the most wonderful music.”

He bit back the urge to tell her that many of the couples being inspired by each other tonight were not otherwise together except behind those closed curtains, because the curious woman would then want to know how he knew that. And Sebastian wasn’t prepared to share with her how many nights he’d spent behind those very same drawn curtains himself, missing the opera.

“It’s because of the singers,” he pressed on, although he knew he should stop. This conversation was for courtesans and demimondaines, not for innocents like Miranda. But he simply couldn’t help himself. The reaction she created inside him was too titillating to eschew. “Hearing all those high notes,” he boldly whispered into her ear, “stirs a man’s blood.”

She froze for a moment, not visibly reacting to that blatant and wholly improper flirtation. For a heartbeat, he wondered if he’d gone too far and pushed the limits of their newfound friendship too hard—

Then she breathed out, “It’s all that passion, isn’t it?” She spoke so softly he barely heard her, but each word seeped into him like liquid heat. “Watching it onstage, hearing it swirl around you, becoming swept up in it until you’re part of it…”

“Exactly,” he murmured, then thrilled when she exhaled a shaky sigh in the first signs of quiet arousal.