Then he did a marvellous thing that made her heart quite jump up and down in her throat. He laughed, a deep rumble of a laugh, complete with twinkling eyes and wide grin.
Hannah looked over. ‘Mr Sloane, come talk with me and Athenia. We have great need of your company.’
Morgana’s pulse still raced when he moved away without even a look back at her.
Her cousin Varney came to her side. ‘Glad to see you out, Morgana.’
She was grateful he’d come to distract her. ‘I am glad to be out at last.’
Varney glanced over to where Hannah stood clutching Sloane’s arm in a lively, giggling conversation with her friend. ‘What do you think of that?’ He bent his head in their direction.
Morgana raised her brows. ‘What am I to think? Are they to be engaged? Hannah has said she has hopes of it.’
Varney nodded. ‘Oh, she has hopes, all right. He’s flush enough, to be sure, but I still cannot like it.’
‘Why?’ Morgana could not help but ask.
Varney squirmed a little, glancing back at Sloane. ‘A lot of talk surrounds that fellow. Some people say he was a smuggler during the war, in it for his own profit. He has a reputation as a philanderer and a card player—and not always in gentlemen’s clubs.’
Morgana, too, directed her gaze at Sloane.
‘I cannot think he is the man for Hannah,’ Varney added in a gloomy tone.
Sloane looked every bit the part her cousin Varney described. She could more readily see Sloane at the helm of some smuggling vessel or seated at a green baize table staring at a hand of cards, than here chatting with two misses in their first Season. Morgana said what she was thinking. ‘Does your father know of this talk? Why would he allow Sloane to court her then?’
Varney grimaced. ‘Truth is, the family needs Hannah to make a good match. A wealthy one, that is. Sloane has been the best prospect thus far, and no one can complain of anything in his recent behaviour.’
‘He is reformed, do you say?’
‘I do not say it,’ he protested. ‘But others insist he is reformed. Castlereagh, for example. And the Marquess of Heronvale. Both are known to speak well of him.’
‘Indeed,’ she mused, more to herself than to him.
Lady Cowdlin roused herself from her conversation. ‘Mr Sloane, I believe the performance is due to start soon. We must return to the box before there is a mad rush.’
Sloane responded with great affability, ‘As you wish, my lady.’
Hannah clutched his arm, but spoke to her friend. ‘Athenia, do walk with us. You have not had a promenade yet this evening. You and your mother can walk with us and Varney can escort you back.’
Varney hurried to Athenia’s side, but Hannah insisted he escort the older ladies.
Sloane looked at Morgana. It appeared he was the only one who noticed she did not have a man’s arm to hang on to. In any event, she could certainly walk the short distance to the opera box without assistance.
The corridors were every bit as congested as they’d been at the start of the intermission. Morgana dived into the crowd, trying to keep up with Varney and Sloane and the ladies on their arms. Sloane looked back once to check on her. If he looked back again, she did not know it. She became separated from the group by several men who had left the box she’d been curious of before. One young man gave her a very appraising look, which Morgana returned with a cool repressive one, just before she spied her uncle and Athenia’s father coming out of the box as well.
Whose box was it who attracted her uncle and Lord Poltrop and all these other gentlemen? She pushed her way past, calculating that the box was five doors from Mr Sloane’s. She’d gone no more than a yard when he came towards her in the crowd.
He gave her his arm. ‘I ought not to have allowed you to proceed unescorted.’
She put her arm through his, thinking of how that arm so lethally had held a sword. ‘I assure you I only had one illicit encounter,’ she quipped. ‘However, I am well able to take care of myself.’
He again gave that devastating smile and leaned down to her ear. ‘I feared I would be compelled to break up another brawl.’
She could not help but laugh in return. ‘You might recall exactly who ended that first brawl.’
They reached the door to his box and halted, each smiling into the other’s eyes. ‘I recall it,’ he said, and for Morgana time seemed to stand still.
He opened the door, and the other ladies and Varney were crowded in the box saying their goodbyes. Sloane escorted Morgana to her chair and they were still standing next to each other when her uncle entered.
Morgana thought her uncle’s complexion in high colour. She turned to check the boxes, counting carefully to discover who it was he and half the gentlemen in the house visited.
In the fifth box over sat a brightly clad, auburn-haired woman holding court to several gentlemen who flocked around her. Her dress, while not scandalously low cut, none the less displayed to advantage her ample bosom. She looked the very paragon of fashion and gaiety. The woman caught Morgana’s eye and smiled.
‘Who is she?’ Morgana asked Sloane.
He frowned. ‘No one you should know, Miss Hart.’
Morgana glanced back at the woman. ‘Why not? Is she a demi-rep?’
He drew her from the edge of the box, making her turn away from the audience. ‘It would be best for you not to ask about such women.’
She pursed her lips. ‘I am not missish, Mr Sloane, as you well know. My uncle and Lord Poltrop visited that box. I saw them. I would like to know who she is.’
He shushed her again, something that always raised her hackles ever since she’d been a small child. She gave him a direct stare and waited.
He returned the stare, much too long for her to be comfortable. Finally, he spoke, ‘That is Harriette Wilson. She is a celebrated courtesan and not the sort of person a young lady of your station should know about.’
Morgana persisted, now more out of a desire to deflate his sudden prosiness than out of curiosity about the captivating Harriette Wilson. ‘Do you know her?’
He paused, their gazes still locked. ‘I am acquainted with her.’
She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that, when Hannah hurried over. Her friend had left, and she’d undoubtedly noticed her gentleman-of-choice had engaged in a brief conversation with someone other than herself.
The orchestra sounded its first chords and they all took their seats, Morgana feeling more stimulated by the brief conversation with Mr Sloane than anything else of that evening. She consoled herself that, since Sloane was Hannah’s probable fiancé, she might have other opportunities to converse with him.
She peeked at him. He would make an interesting friend, and she could content herself with that. Her gaze wandered back to Harriette Wilson. No one in that box paid the least attention to the performance on stage. They were riveted on Miss Wilson, who exuded self-assurance and charm, as well as a frankly sensuous appearance.
Even Morgana could recognise her allure, though she could not explain it. Suffice to say the gentlemen flocked around her, even though she was not a young woman, perhaps even near her father’s age.
Miss Wilson looked in the direction of their box, but not at Morgana this time. At Sloane.
What precisely had Sloane meant by being ‘acquainted’ with the celebrated courtesan?
Chapter Three