To Dream Again

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  "I'll explain it some other time."

  There was something intense and purposeful in his eyes as he came to a halt in front of her, and Mara's breath caught as she gazed up at him. When he reached for her hand, she jumped. "What are you doing?"

  His fingers closed around hers, tightening when she tried to yank her hand away. Gently he pulled her further into the room. "Teaching you to dance."

  "What?" She tried unsuccessfully to extricate her hand from his grasp as he led her toward the empty space he had made in the center of the room. "No, really, that's quite nice of you, but—"

  "Every woman should know how to dance." He turned to face her with only a hand's breadth between them.

  Mara licked her dry lips and stared at his white shirt front and remembered the tautness of muscle and skin beneath it. "I don't think so."

  "Yes." He lifted her hand in his, and put his other hand on her waist.

  She pulled back at the light touch, resisting the impulse to twist away from it, to run. She made a fluttering motion with her free hand, and he answered her unspoken question.

  "My shoulder."

  Her hand came to rest there, lightly, her palm fitted against the dent of his shoulder, her fingers curving over the top, black kid against white linen. "This is silly," she mumbled.

  "No, it isn't. Now, pay attention, and I'll show you how it's done. Follow me." He began to move his feet in time to the lilting melody, pulling her with him, showing her the steps. "The easiest way is to count in your head as you go," he told her. "Like this. One-two-three, one-two-three."

  Mara watched his feet and followed with awkward, stilted movements, trying to concentrate on the steps of the dance rather than the man. But he was so close. She could feel the warmth of his fingers through layers of fabric, through walls of defense. Too close.

  She stumbled, tripping over her own feet, and she felt his hands tighten to steady her as they stopped moving.

  "Mara, don't look at the floor. Look at me."

  "I'll step on your feet."

  "They've been stepped on before. Look at me."

  She lifted her gaze as far as his chin and saw the hint of a smile above it, a lingering, teasing twist of the lips. Was he laughing at her?

  Challenged, she looked higher and saw the humor in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

  "That's better." His smile widened and he began moving again, pulling her with him in the steps of the waltz. She kept her gaze locked with his, but she only made it through three steps before she stumbled again. He came to a halt and sighed.

  "This won’t work if you don't allow me to lead," he told her.

  She stirred restlessly in his hold. "I don't understand."

  "It's very simple. I lead you where I want you to go, and you follow."

  Mara didn't like that notion at all. She looked down at his black boots. "I'm not any good at this," she said, shaking her head and pulling free of him as the music ended. She clasped her hands behind her back. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. Really, I do, but I fear you won’t succeed. I can't dance."

  She waited, but he continued to stand before her, and finally she looked at him. His smile was gone, and he was studying her with that thoughtful, perceptive look.

  "I have an idea." He lifted his hand, palm facing her. "Don't move."

  She watched him disappear into the other part of the room and heard the sound of him rummaging about, obviously looking for something. Wildly, she wondered if she should just leave, but before she made up her mind, he reappeared with a length of white silk in his hand.

  A cravat? She frowned suspiciously. What was he up to? With Nathaniel, it could be anything. There was no way to predict what crazy ideas would enter his head. She watched, her curiosity keeping her there when all her instincts told her to run.

  He walked to the table and again turned the handle on the gramophone. A moment later, the waltz began again, and he returned to stand before her. "If you're to follow my lead, you have to let me guide you."

  "I told you, I'm not any good at this. Let's just forget it, shall we?"

  There was a hint of desperation in her voice, and she knew he heard it.

  He shook his head. "Oh, no. You shall learn how to do this. I lead, you follow, we waltz."

  He lifted the cravat in his hands. Too late, she realized what he intended. The silk came around her eyes, blinding her to everything but the wall of white before her, and she began to panic as she felt him knot the length of silk behind her head. "No, I can't."

  "Yes, you can."

  "I don't want to." She reached up to pull the cravat away, but his hands captured hers, and she felt the panic wash over her in waves. "I don't want to do this!"

  “It’s just a dance.” His voice was low against her ear. "I'll take you where you're supposed to go."

  "Nathaniel?"

  "Yes?"

  "What if I don't like where you're taking me?" she asked in a whisper.

  His hands tightened around hers, and she knew he understood what she meant. "You'll just have to trust me," he said.

  He released one of her hands, lifted the other in his, and began the waltz. She had no choice now.

  Her free hand reached for the solid reassurance of his shoulder as he whirled her around. "Count," he said softly. "One-two-three."

  She focused on that, repeating the numbers in her head as he moved her through the steps. He gave her no opportunity to be tentative, and without sight to guide her, she began to find the rhythm of the dance in him.

  She stopped counting and clung to him, the only solid thing in a world that was spinning, her movements following his by instinct alone. The music receded until all she could hear was her own heartbeat. The tension left her until all she could feel was the strength and reassurance emanating from him.

  When the music ended, he brought her to a stop. Exhilaration flooded through her. "I did it!" she cried. "Nathaniel, I really did it."

  He laughed. "Yes, you did. And very well, too."

  His hands released her, moving to the back of her head to untie the cravat. When he let it slip down her nose to rest beneath her chin, she smiled.

  "Thank you. I'm ever so grateful."

  She felt the wisp of silk slide against her throat, and she realized his hands were still behind her head, his wrists resting on her shoulders. She would have pulled away then, but she felt his thumb caress the side of her neck, and she couldn't seem to move. She couldn't seem to breathe.

  His fingers slid into the knot of her hair, pulling gently to lift her face. He bent his head slowly, ever so slowly, until his lips brushed hers, feather light and warm. "As a very strong-minded woman once said to me," he murmured against her mouth, "I don't want your gratitude."

  The light grazing of his lips sent an involuntary shiver through her.

  He had the ability to turn her upside down and inside out. He took away all her safe ideas and replaced them with dangerous new ones. He guessed her private secrets and tore down her protective walls. It was so easy. Easy because she let him.

  Mara was lost in the sensation of his mouth against hers, her open eyes watching his close, watching his thick gold lashes sweep downward to rest against his skin. She felt him pull her lower lip between both of his, and he brushed his tongue back and forth over it, teasing and tasting, savoring her like a comfit. In that moment, something hard and tight deep within her unclenched, yielded. Her mouth opened.

  His response was immediate. His tongue entered her mouth, and she realized that was what he'd been waiting for, that silent yielding. His hands tangled in her hair as he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. The knot loosened, sending her hair and her defenses tumbling down.

  She lifted her hands to grasp at something that wasn't him, but as it had been when she'd danced blindfolded in his arms, he was the only thing solid to hang on to. Her fists opened and closed on the air, helpless. She couldn't pull him closer, but she couldn't push him away.

  Nat
haniel broke the kiss, pulling back to look into her face. He was breathing hard, and she realized that she was, too, her breath coming out in little whispers between her parted lips, mingling with the hiss of the gramophone.

  Her body tingled and her pulse beat frantically. She stared up at him in shock and wonder. So long ... it had been so long ... oh, heavens. She couldn't think.

  He was smiling, looking down at her. It was a smile unlike any other before, a smile of infinite tenderness. His hands slid from beneath the heavy curtain of her hair to cup her face, and his thumbs swept back and forth across her cheekbones.

  His head lowered a fraction, and she knew he intended to kiss her again. A tremor ran through her, a tremor of sudden panic, and she stepped back with a little gasp. He drew a deep breath and let her pull away.

  He tugged the cravat gently from her throat and pushed back a wisp of her hair that had fallen over one shoulder, then his hands fell away, leaving her free. Alone.

  She didn't want to be alone. She wanted to lean into him, feel his strength and gentleness again, hold on to him and keep him there. But she didn't. She couldn't. Something inside her held her back, the insecurity, the knowledge that she couldn't really hold him, not for long.

  He lowered his gaze to the cravat in his hands and rubbed the silk between his fingers. "I think I had better take you home."

  His voice sounded harsh, something she'd never heard before. Mara bit her lip and ducked her head, feeling relieved, disappointed, and quite inadequate all at once. She nodded, looking at the floor. "All right."

  She heard him breathe a heavy sigh as he turned away. He walked her back to the lodging house, but neither of them spoke. When they reached her door, she unlocked it, hesitated with one hand on the latch, and looked up at him. "Nathaniel, I—"

  "It's late," he interrupted her, pushing the door open. "I'll see you tomorrow."

  He turned away, but instead of starting up the stairs to his own rooms, he went back down.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "For a walk," he replied over his shoulder without looking at her. "A long walk."

  She watched him descend the staircase and disappear. A walk at this hour? She shook her head, stepped inside her room, and shut the door. He really was the most unpredictable man.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was twenty past eight. Nathaniel was often late, Mara reminded herself. He usually didn't come in until after nine. She knew she should be working, not watching the clock and waiting for him to come breezing in with their tea. There was a note on her desk from Michael, asking if she would meet with him this morning to go over next week's production schedule, but she didn't move to respond to it.

  The proposal for the bank was finished. She could check it for errors one more time before she gave it to Nathaniel. She pulled the document out of the stack of completed work on the left side of her desk and began to read it.

  Why had he kissed her? Afraid to ponder such a question, Mara continued to read the report in her hands. Ledgers and reports and numbers were tangible things, understandable. Men, however, were an unfathomable mystery. After twelve years of marriage, she hadn't understood James at all, and she knew that Nathaniel Chase was a much deeper, much more complicated man than fames had ever been.

  Did he think she was pretty? She wasn't, she knew that, not anymore. She looked in the mirror, and she saw the hardness in herself. But last night had been different. She had been different.

  Mara came to the end of the proposal, and she realized that she had read the entire thing without paying any attention to it. She gave up and went to place the document on Nathaniel's desk, perching it atop the untidy pile of papers already there so that he would see it when he came in.

  She started to turn away, but the sight of his jacket slung carelessly over the back of his chair caught her attention. She smiled, remembering it had been there the night before. He'd forgotten to take it with him.

  She lifted the jacket from the chair and turned away, thinking she'd hang it on one of the brass hooks Boggs had installed beside the door, but she took only two steps before she paused. Holding it in her hands, she breathed in the clean, spicy scent of him, and the night before came back to her in all its hot confusion.

  "Why did you kiss me?" she whispered and rubbed her cheek against the soft black wool before pressing her lips to it. She felt again the heat of his mouth, the touch of his thumbs caressing her neck, and the shivers along her spine. She felt it all again, and she indulged in a luxury she hadn't allowed herself for a long time. "I wish..."

  What she wished was never voiced aloud. The sound of footsteps on the stairs brought her out of her daydream with a jerk, and she quickly hung the jacket on one of the hooks. When Nathaniel entered the office carrying the tea tray, she was seated at her desk, an open ledger before her and a pencil in her hand, hoping she looked as if she'd been hard at work all morning.

  She made the mistake of glancing at him, and her facade of composure nearly deserted her. One dance, one kiss, and everything was different. She couldn't look at his hands without remembering the feel of them in her hair. She couldn't look at the straps of the braces he wore without remembering the solid strength of his shoulder beneath her hand. She couldn't look at his cravat without remembering the feel of silk against her throat.

  She couldn't look at his mouth without remembering how it had felt when he'd kissed her.

  She didn't want to be alone. She didn't want to keep carrying all the burdens by herself, yet she was a coward: she was afraid to trust. A bittersweet longing filled her as she looked at him. I wish...

  "Good morning." He walked in and set the tray on the table. His expression gave her no clue as to what he might be thinking.

  She looked away. "Good morning." Feeling the need to say something, anything, she asked, "Did you enjoy your walk last night?"

  He didn't answer.

  He was watching her, and when she looked up, his eyes met hers across the room. "No." He gestured to the table. "Shall we?"

  She joined him, feeling puzzled, apprehensive, curious. But he said nothing more about his walk. She sat down, and he took the opposite chair.

  "I thought you'd want to read the proposal before we go to the bank," she said, pouring their tea. "It's on your desk."

  "Good," he answered. "I have an appointment with Arthur Gamage this morning, and other appointments this afternoon, so I'll read it later. Just give me the gist of it, would you?"

  She handed him his cup of tea. "We need three thousand pounds."

  Nathaniel pulled a scone from the basket and looked at her. "That gives us enough money to produce the trains for orders we already have?" When she nodded, he asked, "What about any additional orders we might receive?"

  "We have orders for twelve hundred now. We shouldn't commit ourselves to more until we know how well they will sell."

  "If my meeting with Gamage goes well, we'll have more orders today."

  "But all our orders are on consignment. If people don't buy the trains, the retailers can return the unsold product and demand a refund. Then we'll have thousands of unsalable trains, a huge loan, and no way to pay it back."

  He took a sip of tea. "Mara, we discussed this before. Taking orders on consignment is standard practice with a new company and a new product. But Charles Harrod and William Whiteley were confident that the trains would sell. They didn't arrive where they are by being wrong about what people will buy."

  He heard her sigh and looked at her across the table. "We'll need to grab as much business as we can and establish ourselves. Once other toy makers see what we're doing, they’ll race to come up with their own version. By next spring, every toy maker in Britain will have a train very similar to mine."

  "But your train is patented, isn't it?" She slowly spread jam on one half of her scone.

  "Of course, both here and in America. But a patent only protects you against a competitor coming out with the exact same product. All other to
y companies have to do is make a few minor modifications, and they can sell virtually the same train we do. We have to establish ourselves as the leader right from the start."

  "How much—" She paused and put down the knife, then cleared her throat. "How much do you think we'll need, then?"

  "I expect we'll be able to more than double our sales before the Christmas season begins. So we'll need at least eight thousand, I'd say. Plus another two thousand for contingencies."

  "Ten thousand pounds? That's the company's entire net worth. They'll never loan us that much."

  "Of course they will. I am the brother of a viscount after all. I can obtain credit on my family name."

  Mara began to panic. She slid back her chair and jumped to her feet. "No, we can't."

  He stood up and circled the table. "Yes, we can."

  "Ten thousand pounds." She moaned, feeling sick, and buried her face in her hands. "Ten thousand pounds."

  He halted beside her. "Everything will be all right," he said softly and pulled her hands away from her face. He released her wrists and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him, but she kept her head lowered. She looked so vulnerable, so lost and uncertain. He wanted to give her the security she craved, he wanted to promise her that nothing would go wrong, but he could not. "I know you're worried," he said, his hands moving in soothing circles over her shoulders, "but this is an all or nothing proposition. Our main concern will be to have those trains made and delivered by November 27. The biggest mistake we can make is underestimating our expenses."

  She lifted her head. "Why can't we just borrow the three thousand for now?" she whispered. "We can always ask for more money later, if we need it."

  He shook his head. "No, I don't want to do that. We're in a position of strength just now. We have an innovative product, the means to produce it, and no other debt on our books. If any problems come up, and we have to ask for more money, we'll lose our bargaining power with the bank. They might even begin to question our solvency, and they could deny us additional funds."

  "You sound as if you expect problems to occur," she murmured miserably.