B00Q5W7IXE (R) by Shana Galen

One
     
    Blue adored Covent Garden, and not simply because an excursion to the theater allowed him to don his evergreen coat with velvet trim, his violet waistcoat, and his finest linen shirt, complete with lace sleeves. Though, it must be said, Blue adored lace sleeves almost as much as Covent Garden.
    When Blue stepped into Covent Garden, he always had the sense of coming home—the smell of lemon polish on the seats mingled with the scents of sawdust and paint from the creation of the elaborate settings. The operas were almost always superb, and when he attended—very nearly every night—he often preferred standing outside his box, closing his eyes, and listening to the singers’ voices drift through the walls of the theater.
    And the applause. Even if it was not for him, Blue could appreciate heartfelt applause.
    Mostly, however, Blue came for the opera singers. They were a notoriously loose lot of women and men and Blue found them infinitely amusing. The men preened and the women strutted. The show backstage was as dramatic as that to which the audience was privy.
    Having lent his applause to that of the rest of the audience’s at the end of the performance, Blue anticipated the backstage performance now as he made his way into the bowels of the theater to where the singers shed their costumes and their stage characters. Blue’s blood thrummed in his veins with anticipation. He had his eye on one opera singer in particular. If he were fortunate, he’d take her home tonight. How he’d enjoy waking up in the morning to the spill of her brown-red hair on his pillow, her lovely dark eyes full of lazy pleasure.
    As he passed the costume room, several chorus singers in various states of undress waved at him.
    “Ladies.” He tipped his hat.
    “Lord Ernest, do come and say hello,” one topless wench pled.
    “Why do you run off?” another in little more than a chemise called after him.
    “My lord! We don’t bite,” a third said.
    “Too bad,” Blue murmured to himself, walking on without a backward glance.
    He had no interest in chorus girls, especially those who only sought his attentions because he was the son of a duke. He was the sixth son of the Duke and Duchess of Ely, the tenth of eleven children. The country was positively infested with progeny of his ducal father. Blue could scarce keep up with his siblings’ comings and goings. And they took no more interest in him than the chorus singers, who called him Lord Ernest, when anyone who knew him understood immediately that he preferred to be called Blue.
    Helena liked to remind him that Blue was his codename, not his Christian name. One did not choose one’s Christian name, however, and he had chosen—or at least sanctioned—his codename, which had been conferred in honor of the startling blue of his eyes.
    He rounded the corner, entering a hallway teeming with gentlemen, armed with Christmas roses and kissing boughs. Fighting his way through the throng, he shouldered past two dressing rooms and tumbled to a stop before the third. Entry into the room was not an option as men spilled from it like ducklings from a nest. Men similarly overflowed from the other two rooms—that of the other female lead and the last, currently housing the male lead.
    Blue did not begrudge those performers their admirers. Helena, however, was his.
    Putting his hands to his mouth, Blue called, “Look over there! Is that Princess Charlotte?” He made a flourishing bow. “Your Royal Highness.”
    The next moment, Blue was all but run down by men scampering to have a look at the daughter of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick.
    “She went that way!”
    As one, the men turned and followed his pointed finger.
    Blue straightened his cravat. “Opera singers are not the only ones who can act.”
    “Opera singers act?” a light, melodic voice asked. “High praise indeed.”
    Blue swept into Helena’s dressing room, closing the door firmly behind him. She raised a brow