Guarded Heart by Jennifer Blake

to the audience, she turned with perfect dramatic timing. Her voice poured over the assemblage like molten honey laced with the finest of Napoleon brandies.
    Madame Savoie proved in fine form as the evening advanced. Moving gracefully about the stage, her height and size beautifully proportioned in the removed and foreshortened view across the footlights, she held the audience in thrall. Favorite arias were met with applause as their familiar melodies soared forth, the less well-known with a quiet that was even more telling. Still, cries of “Brava! Brava!” rang out again and again, echoing around the great crystal-and-bronze chandelier overhead and stirring the smoke from the footlights.
    Gavin strolled with Caid from one vantage point to another, with the prowling male contingent that waited, as usual, for the intermission when it would be acceptable to visit the boxes of ladies not of their own family. He had no object in view other than dropping in at Maurelle’s box to make his bow and discover the state of his client’s injury. He didn’t care to call attention to his interest, however, so intended to mask his approach by visiting first at the box of the Conde and Condessa de Lérida.
    He allowed Caid to go ahead of him through the rear curtains when the time came, standing back while the Irishman approached the Condessa who had been Celina Vallier. He glanced past where his friend was saluting the lady’s hand, his eyes narrowing on the box on the opposite side of the theater. Madame Faucher sat there next to Maurelle, half-turned in her chair as she spoke to the three or four gentlemen who were crowding into the box, laughing up at Novgorodcev where he stood behind her chair. The muscles in Gavin’s jaw clenched as he absorbed the easy manner of that hefty, white-haired gentleman, as if the place he occupied was his by right. Also the casual way he placed his gloved fingertips on the lady’s bare shoulder near her nape.
    Celina addressed a question to him, something about Napoleon, Madame Zoe’s notoriously unfriendly parrot. It was all he could do to concentrate enough to answer her. When he was free to return his attention to Maurelle’s box again, he saw with disturbing gratification that Ariadne had shifted in her chair enough to dislodge the Russian’s hand. She faced forward with her opera glasses to her eyes as she scanned orchestra seats, inspected the tiers of boxes.
    Light flashed on her glasses as she directed them toward the box where he stood. She paused in her inspection. Was the movement too elaborate? Did she know he was there? Or was it mere curiosity about Spanish nobility in the guise of Rio and Celina that had arrested her attention? Gavin had no idea, but the prickling at the back of his neck let him know he was under scrutiny at the moment. Gazing into the lenses, he inclined his body in a bow.
    The opera glasses almost fell away from her eyes. As the lady turned with jerky movements to speak to Maurelle, he permitted himself a hard smile. She did not intend to recognize him. He had expected nothing else, yet was aware of blighting disappointment.
    But she was turning again, her chin tilted at the brave angle so vividly remembered from their last meeting. The movement stiff, measured, almost defiant, she bent her head in his direction. She did not smile, but it was definitely an acknowledgement. The constriction in his chest dissolved so abruptly that he made a short sound between a laugh and a grunt.
    â€œYou said something?” Caid asked, glancing over his shoulder.
    â€œNot a thing,” he answered without removing his gaze from the other box. “Nothing at all.”
    It was then he saw a lady of perhaps fifty in an evening gown of rather countrified frumpishness enter the Herriot box. She jarred to a halt, searched the faces of its occupants. Her gaze centered on Ariadne and she put a hand to her breast before gliding forward. Her