The lamps coloured imposing portico of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden into a pleasing golden hue. The aficionados crowded the gangway so thickly that picking out acquaintances became a game of chance rather than scheming. Mabel would have given up on locating Harriette if the surge of the crowd didn't deposit a certain silver-moustached colonel with them. He recalled Lady Catherine's adolescent accomplishments with such gusto that she must have been mortified inside, despite covering her suffering with silvery peals of laughter.

The last thing Mabel expected is for her desperate eyes to meet Everett's blue ones. Meet! She drowned in them after an inhale worthy of a pearl-diver. The cad was serious about joining them at the Opera! Or else it was a coincidence. At least a ten-day had passed since the fateful dinner. Everett didn't once darken Chesterton's manor threshold since then, and... It didn't matter. She turned her back on him in a way that should send a crystal-clear message.

"Mother!" Everett's voice carried over the din.

She stifled a sigh. How could she have expected Everett to consider anyone's pleasure but Everett's?

The crowd parted for him like the waves of the Red Sea for Moses. He offered a cursory smile to the Colonel. The older man boomed, "Everett, my good fellow! Fancy to meet you here!"

Yes, fancy that indeed...

Everett bowed gallantly to his mother. "As you've bid, so I present myself at the Opera."

"It's such a joy to see you, my dear," Lady Catherine gashed.

Yes, Mabel's heart exclaimed, contradicting the rational person she otherwise was.

In the evening attire of stark black-and-white Everett looked dashing. His lips curved in a cheerful smile. He could have walked across the stage and impressed the ladies more than any play could have. Merciful Heavens, he almost glowed with his own light tonight!

'Everett didn't change a yote,' she reminded her stupid heart. 'The man is a two-faced Janus.'

"You chose your evening well," Lady Catherine was saying in the meantime, beaming at her son. "The 'Country Gentleman Abroad' could alleviate the sourest mood, you'll see."

"You disagree, Miss Walton?" Everett must have been watching her face to notice a sardonic smile she allowed herself. "Or are you not one for comic operas?"

"I like them well enough when it's Rossini's."

"I'm afraid our dear Mabel loves Italian music more than our home-grown talents'," Lady Catherine said. "But I assure you, the play is no worse for being written on the foggy shores of Albion and very cheerful."

"Far it would be from me to disparage Miss Walton's taste," Everett said gallantly. It didn't look that way until he made a show of admiring her appearance. "Isn't she a vision in this pale lilac shade!"

The Colonel made agreeable noises, indeed, indeed, a vision. Mabel reminded herself that the poor old man wouldn't have recognized one of Cordelia's handed-downs. Everett, on the other hand... "I adore this colour."

"I adore it on you," he insisted with a saccharine smile. Blood rushed into her face. Before Cordelia had children, her figure was slimmer than Mabel's. They were also close in height, so Lady Catherine ordered alterations made of all the dresses left from her daughter's debutante days.

"I wish that the Heavens gave me more daughters," Lady Catherine had exclaimed, dabbing her eyes, while she watched the windfall wardrobe fitted on Mabel and adapted to current fashion trends by the seamstress.

Armed with this sweet memory, Mabel fanned herself. Let him have his fun. Fortunately, the bell calling the spectators to their places dampened the conversations, saving her the necessity to invent a witty repartee.

"I beg your pardon, but I must go and find the old chap Winston," Everett bowed.

Lady Catherine's face fell. "Nonsense. You must sit with us!"

Mabel didn't know what to invent to stop Everett, when the Colonel regained his booming voice. "Ah, Lady Catherine! Let the young fellows have their fun! If you don't mind, I am offering my humble person in his stead."

He offered an arm to Lady Catherine. Her glance moved between her son and the quivering silver moustache. She put a gloved hand delicately on the old gentleman's elbow, allowing him to usher her up the carpeted staircase to the third tier with all the private boxes. He barked a laugh at something she had said as they went. It was so loud that it nearly sent the more delicate among the ladies into a swoon from fright.

"The old chap is sprite for his age," Everett commented.

Mabel snapped her fan closed, picked her skirts and dashed after the couple, as was her duty. As the propriety demanded. That it left Everett Chesterton in her dust was only a pleasant side effect.

Everett paralleled her on the staircase however, even caught her hand before sailing away. With barely a touch of his fingers, a folded note appeared between her wrist and the string of her fan. He slipped it to her so deftly, that she had no doubts he had done this countless times before.

Her first impulse was to drop the paper triangle without reading it. Let the hurrying feet trample it! But with her awful luck, some helpful idiot would notice and return it to her in front of Lady Catherine and the most bellicose throat in London.

Once in the box, Mabel took her chair and opened her fan. Its ribs stuck together, instead of falling flawlessly as they always did. "O pooh!"

She flipped the dratted thing back to closed. The note practically burned her wrist. She opened the fan again. This time it went without a hitch, but the incriminating triangle tumbled into her lap. A white spot on her much maligned pale-lilac dress.

Her eyes bulged at the note, breath caught, ears went up in smoke. Lady Catherine was sure to spot it! She slanted her eyes carefully at her employer.

Lady Catherine was looking at the Colonel, her head shaking in empathy to what he was saying. "Yes, yes I remember the unfortunate calamity. It's hard to believe nigh a decade has passed since."

"I too remember the terrible fire here. And Miss Mellon, that actress! She behaved so graciously, distributing rewards for saving lives from the wreckage. Such a kind Christian soul!"

Hardly believing her own luck, Mabel grabbed the paper with numb fingers, and unfolded her bounty behind the cooperative fan. It crinkled a little, but Colonel's sighs exploded like cannon-shots under his billowing moustache. "Those poor fellows on the Phoenix fire engine were particularly pitiful."

"They drove it in so bravely to fight the blaze, and then the wall collapsed on them. Dreadful!"

"Aye," said the Colonel, "an awful death. Must have been a dozen of them burnt alive."

"Why must we talk of this before a comedic performance, Colonel?"

"I don't know, my lady. Forgive the old fool for upsetting you..."

Mabel's eyes ran over the hasty cursive. 'I beg to speak with you on the matter of great urgency. Leave the box as soon as the Opera starts. I will be waiting just without. I vow to behave like a perfect gentleman. Yours, E.'

She nearly chortled. If he were to prove himself a gentleman, she had to behave like a trollop. She didn't want to see him. She despides the dratted man! It would teach him a proper lesson in humility if she left him standing in the hall like a fatwit.

But as the bell rang again, and the musicians took their places in the spacious pit; and the gallery above them filled to the brim with the unfortunate souls who didn't pay in advance for the entry; her body filled with jitters. Her excitement had nothing to do with the misfortunes of the country gentleman to be presented on the stage. It had everything to do with Everett and his mysterious missive.

What if she truly were in danger? Poppycock, of course, but... but... what if? Radcliffe had dismissed her. Did Everett's warning have anything to do with it?

When the lights lowered and the bows first laid into the fiddles, Mable stood up, fanning herself vigorously.

"I must step into the antechamber for a moment," she said. "I feel a little faint."

After the old theatre was consumed by the flames--the tragic event that Lady Catherine and her cavalier were just recalling--the new one was built from scratch. It was opulent and mindful of the patrons' exclusivity. The rooms adjacent to each of the private boxes completely insulated the lucky owners from the rest of the crowd.

Concern fought in Lady Catherine's face with the obvious disappointment over leaving the performance. The play's principal attraction, the comedian Mr. Brant, had already walked onto the stage.

Understandably, Lady Catherine didn't push to her feet immediately. Also, the Colonel blocked her in her seat with his rather corpulent figure. His moustache drooped, probably at the memory of how long it took him to settle comfortably into the velvet chair. Despite all that, an impeccable gentleman of the old breed started to raise, even as his knees popped rather loudly.

Mabel hurried to reassure them. "Please, I beg you, do not worry on my account. I would only be a moment."

An argument she once had with Lady Catherine sprung in her agitated mind. She had scolded Mabel for treating her as someone incapable of doing simple, familiar things on her own, despite the opinions of the society.

"Did... did I not prove myself capable and level-headed enough to not get lost between the box and the antechamber?"

The ouverture picked up, so she saw, rather than heard, Lady Catherine titter. "Very well. But if the unfortunate spell doesn't pass, we shall immediately return home."

The Colonel's face sagged, but Mabel was too much in a hurry to comfort him.

She walked into the antechamber. The doors loomed before hers like the Gates of Hell in Aligiere's poem. Once she walked through them, she might have doomed herself. She was going to a secret assignation with a man who was less trustworthy than an average fox. What was she thinking?

An urgent matter. Beg. Will behave...

She took a deep breath in. Curiosity lifted her like a dust speck caught in a wind and carried her into the private passage between the boxes.

Everett stood there already and grasped her hand in his. He tugged her down the hall. "Come, quickly."

"Where are you dragging me?" she protested weakly. "This is decidedly not how a gentleman should behave."

"Just a few boxes down. Winston didn't come, so we'll be able to speak privately."

She stopped so abruptly, that it overpowered his pull.

"I promise no harm will come to you," Everett said impatiently. "Don't you trust my word?"

"No," she muttered.

"I won't even look at you." He chuckled without a trace of merriment. "If you don't listen to me, you will face danger far greater than a friendly kiss."

A tiny cry of alarm escaped her at the mention of kissing. Her lips still sizzled at the memory. "Friendly?" she squeaked. "Friendly?"

"This is what I get for trying to be brief for the sake of your precious reputation." Everett practically exuded impatience. "I only want to explain my reasons to distrust Radcliffe. Then I will escort you back and you will never see me again."

She swallowed. Not for a moment she believed his promise to leave forever. Like a bad penny, he seemed to always turn up in her life.

"Well? Do you want me to swear on my father's grave?"

"I hate your father."

"Who doesn't?"

His tone was so raw, it broke her resistance. She shuffled forward. 

Besides, he had said the magic name: Radcliffe. She was dying to know more about Radcliffe, and the man was as close-mouthed as he was enigmatic. If Radcliffe was false she had to know, because... because... she didn't know if she could survive the hurt if Radcliffe proved as odious as the other men of his family.