by Mia Marlowe
“How very odd.”
“That’s as may be, my lady, but he begs you to hurry.”
Since her father had suffered a mild case of apoplexy a year ago, he no longer climbed that many stairs unless it was unavoidable. Caroline couldn’t imagine why the earl would need to visit the cavernous space on the topmost floor of the town house. It was never used unless Lord Chatham hosted a soiree for more guests than would fit around his enormous dining table or on the rare occasions when Caroline’s mother convinced him to hold a private ball.
That still didn’t explain why her presence was so urgently required.
However, Caroline rose immediately to do her father’s bidding, with Alice on her heels. When she reached the upper story, she found only her brother Benjamin. A shock of dark hair was falling forward across his forehead. He’d been affecting this Byronesque look since he finished his most recent term at Oxford.
Caroline’s fingers itched to smooth it back into place for him, but she knew this was his attempt to appear an artistic man of deep feeling. She’d often teased him about it, but now she wondered if Ben was having as much difficulty coming to grips with his lot in life as she. Being a spare heir meant he had to find a living for himself unless he wanted to hang on Bredon’s sleeve all his days.
Benjamin didn’t look up from tuning his violin.
“What’s this?” Caroline asked. “I was told our father wished to see me here.”
Ben’s face screwed into a frown. “To my knowledge, the earl has nothing to do with this. In fact, if we can keep it that way, so much the better.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, my lady,” Alice said, bobbing yet another quick curtsy. “I know I said His Lordship had need of you, but I ought to have made my meaning clearer. ’Twas not Lord Chatham who called you here. Lord Bredon, he’s the one who sent me to fetch you.”
“Teddy’s the reason I’m here as well,” Benjamin said as he executed a florid series of arpeggios and runs to warm up his fingers. While Caroline was sadly lacking as a musician, her brother Ben more than made up for her deficit. He’d been gifted in double portion. As the second son, he was likely bound for the Church, but until he finished his studies at Oxford and was ordained, Benjamin wasn’t apt to be found studying a theological treatise. Not if he could lay his hands on a new violin concerto instead.
“I was told this was a pressing matter,” Caroline said.
“And so it is.” Teddy’s voice floated up from the stairwell. Then he appeared at the top of the steps with Mr. Sinclair in tow. “We’ve only a bit more than a week.”
“To do what?”
Teddy gave her one of his sun-laden smiles. It was a trap, but she couldn’t help returning it. He was her favorite brother, after all. Then he said, “We have to teach Sinclair to dance before Lord Frampton’s ball.”
“That’s not enough time.” Caroline swallowed her surprise that someone who’d grown up in an earl’s household could come of age without acquiring the skill. Then she crossed her arms over her chest. “It cannot be done.”
“That’s what I tried to tell him,” Mr. Sinclair said, his arms similarly crossed.
“Then for once we find ourselves in complete accord, sir,” Caroline grudgingly said to him. “A week will never do. It takes years to master dancing.”
“He doesn’t need to master it. He just needs to be able not to embarrass himself too badly. And you’ll make a wonderful teacher. You, my dear, are one of the best dancers I’ve ever seen,” Bredon said. “Surely—”
“Save your breath. I know when someone’s trying to turn me up sweet, Teddy,” Caroline said, slanting her brother a sidelong glare. “Besides, knowing how to do something and teaching someone else to do it are two very different things.”
Teddy shook his head. “Caro, what’s happened to you? I’ve never known you to shy away from a challenge.”
“That’s not fair, Bredon. This isn’t a challenge,” Mr. Sinclair said, charging to her defense. “In the military we’d have called it ‘a forlorn hope.’ An impossible task. I never should have agreed to try.” He gave Caroline a quick bow from the neck. “Pray excuse me. I need to send Lord and Lady Frampton my regrets.”
Caroline’s irritation with him dissipated a little. The man was being sensible and chivalrous and disgustingly decent about the situation. She sighed. “If you refuse this invitation, you’ll not be invited to another ball all Season.”
“One can hope.” Mr. Sinclair turned and headed toward the stairwell.
Originally, she’d intended to make use of her association with Mr. Sinclair to irritate her parents. Now that she knew he was more than capable of irritating her as well, it didn’t seem so good a plan.
But if consorting with a completely unsuitable gentleman would convince Lord and Lady Chatham to give up on their dreams of a marriage in her future, perhaps the aggravation would be worth it. And Mr. Neither-Fish-Nor-Fowl Sinclair was singularly unsuitable.
“Wait,” Caroline said.
He stopped and turned to face her.
“I cannot promise success,” she said, “but I will try.”
“One cannot ask for more than that.” Then Mr. Sinclair gave her a genuine smile. The expression took her by surprise. She hadn’t seen him do it before. It turned his dark eyes from piercing to warm and welcoming and changed his countenance out of all knowing.
The man should smile more often.
“I am yours to command, my lady.”
“What woman doesn’t live to hear those words?” she said with a laugh. A strange warmth bloomed in her chest, but she dismissed it. This was no time to become mawkish over a gentleman’s pretty words. She was only doing a favor for Teddy. And herself, once news of the time she was spending with Mr. Sinclair reached her parents’ ears.
“Come. Let us begin.” Caroline straightened her spine and took a formal pose, toes turned out. “Fortunately, there are only a few steps you need to learn.”
“That doesn’t sound so hard.”
Benjamin chuckled. “It’s not. The trick comes when you have to remember the order in which to perform them.”
* * * *
“There is no need to add any flourishes,” Lady Caroline said, after they’d been at it for a while. “No extraneous gestures, if you please.”
“Indeed not.” Self-conscious, Lawrence forced himself to let his arms hang at his sides. They felt overlong, as if he could scratch his kneecap without bending over. “I was unaware that I added a flourish. I’m disinclined to anything that might draw attention to myself.”
“Nor should you.”
“The man’s trying, Caro,” Bredon said from his seat next to Benjamin, who was supplying a steady tune for the lesson.
Lawrence hurried to catch up to her in the intricate forward and back, side to side, turn and bow of the steps. “That extraneous gesture, as you call it, was only my attempt to keep my balance on that last turn.”
“If you shorten your strides, your center of balance will remain over your own feet,” Lady Caroline suggested. “Remember, this dance is performed in two parallel lines. There will be dancers on either side of you. Should you topple over, you’ll likely knock down several others.”
“Hmm…I had no idea dancing could be so aggressive.”
“Until I met you, Mr. Sinclair, I would have said it was not. Timely and decorous steps, if you please. There’s no need to tromp about. Imagine you are in a garden and don’t wish to tread heavily on the daisies.”
Instead of imagining a garden, the forward and back movements suddenly reminded Lawrence of his fencing lessons. Those required lightness of foot. He decided to pretend he carried a foil in his hand.
“Yes, that’s it,” Lady Caroline said. “Much better.”
“I wish you didn’t sound so astonished.”
“And I wish you wouldn’t star
t on the wrong foot—no, no, your other left—but we can’t have everything, can we?”
After a rough start, in a surprisingly short while, Lady Caroline had taught him the difference between a chassé and an allemande. The traveling waltz step, with its up-up-up-down rhythm, had him befogged for a bit, but he began to make sense of it.
So long as he imagined he was fencing.
“Now, we must put these steps to use.” She faced him about four feet in front of him. “Stop playing for a moment, Ben. We’ll need to just count for a bit.” Then to Lawrence, “Mirror my movements.”
She chasséd to meet him in the middle with her palm lifted. “Palm-to-palm. That’s it, and lightly go we round.”
She murmured more bits of encouragement and direction, counting aloud when he seemed to lose his timing. Lawrence tried mightily to pay attention to her words as they circled each other, but the wonder of touching her hand made it deucedly difficult. Not her gloved hand either. Lady Caroline was at home, so her lovely fingers were perfectly bare.
Her hand was soft. Tiny compared to his.
Then she raised her voice a bit. “I had heard the Duke of Wellington required his officers to know how to dance. How is it that you do not?”
Now that their circle was complete, she dropped her hand and danced backward to her original position. Lawrence followed suit, though with far less grace.
“I confess, my lady, that whenever a regimental ball was in the offing, I made certain my duties required me to be elsewhere to avoid such social obligations.”
“And you never learned to dance at home or at school?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“How lonely that must have been for you,” she said, her eyes dark and compassionate, “not to be able to join in the fun.”
“I wouldn’t say it was lonely. One cannot miss what one has never had.”
“Well, you’re having it now. And you won’t ever be able to get out of dancing again, Sinclair,” Bredon said. “Be grateful you never had a sister. Caro’s been pestering the lot of us to dance with her since she was wearing leading strings.”
Bredon’s voice came as a jarring reminder to Lawrence that he was not alone with Lady Caroline. When he danced forward to touch palms with her and they circled round each other again, gazes locked, it was easy to imagine the two of them were the only people in the world, let alone the room.
Steady on, Sinclair. It’s just a dance. She means nothing by it.
“Play us a tune, Ben,” Lady Caroline said. “I think Mr. Sinclair is ready to try a promenade.”
He’d be ready to try flying backward if she asked him. Fortunately, the promenade was much easier. And it had the added charm of requiring Lady Caroline to rest her hand on his.
“My lady,” he said, glad their speech would be covered by the tuneful melody coming from Benjamin’s violin, “I offended you somehow at the Academy of Arts and I wish to apo—”
“No, no. Of the two of us, I’m the one who owes you an apology. I said something about you that is not true. Someone who tries to learn a skill for which he has no appreciable aptitude is certainly not spineless.”
That made him feel both better and worse.
“Oh, no, that sounded terrible. And it’s not what I meant to…it’s just that you…” Lady Caroline floundered. “In truth, during our conversation at the gallery I was thinking about something else.”
That definitely made him feel worse.
“And whatever it was you were thinking about caused you to be upset with me?”
“Not exactly,” she said as they circled each other, gazes locked. “Your devotion to duty; it made me upset with myself.”
He gave her a puzzled frown. “I doubt you have done anything for which you should feel the need to castigate yourself.”
“Oh, no. It’s not what I’ve done. It’s what I plan to do.”
His brows shot up at that, but there was no time to question her further. The tempo of the music quickened.
“Up, up, up, down, Mr. Sinclair,” she said softly. “Do try to keep time.”
“I’d do better if you called me Lawrence,” he said, too softly for her brothers to hear. When she looked up at him sharply, he wished he could take it back. Even though she’d kindly agreed to be his dancing tutor, she’d shown no interest at all in letting their acquaintance become more familiar.
Then a minor miracle occurred.
“If you think it will help,” she whispered. “Lawrence.”
Chapter 8
While I sincerely hope to prove my worth to Lady Caroline, please, Lord, let that endeavor not involve shopping.
—Mr. Lawrence Sinclair
“How can the man not know how to dance?” Horatia said as she turned this way and that, admiring herself in the long standing mirror.
Her new gown of ivory lustring was lovely, but if Horatia didn’t stand still, Madame Fournier’s poor apprentice, Mary Woodyard, would never be able to pin up the hem evenly. Frederica had stood, docile as a lamb, while the apprentice made alterations to her ball gown. Horatia couldn’t be shepherded into submission no matter how often Mary coaxed her to be still. Her mouth full of pins, Mary made a small noise that might have been a low growl, if such a thing weren’t too impertinent for one of her station.
“Imagine not knowing a gavotte from a quadrille.” Horatia punctuated the remark with a little snort of derision. “I for one can scarcely credit it, Caro.”
“You’ll credit it well enough this evening.” Caroline ran her fingertips over a bolt of pale blue tulle. Her chaperone, Anna, had escorted the girls to the dressmaker’s shop and then left them there while she ducked into the bakery next door for tea and scones with her friend, Lady Dinwattle’s housekeeper. It was a pleasant break for the old woman and a relief to Caroline to be out from under her watchful eyes.
“I don’t expect Mr. Sinclair to become a polished dancer, of course,” Caroline said. “He only needs to be able to make a decent showing at Lord Frampton’s ball. I’m counting on you and Freddie to help. Come to supper and then stay the night, won’t you? Together, we can put Mr. Sinclair through his paces.”
Frederica looked up from the bolt of dotted Swiss she’d been admiring. “How will we do that without additional partners?” she said with unusual practicality.
“I’ve enlisted my brothers’ help.”
“Which ones?” Frederica asked.
“Charles and Thomas. Of the five of them, they’re the best dancers. Benjamin will play for us, so we’ll have music.”
“Bredon won’t be involved?” Horatia asked, all innocence. Caroline had long suspected her friend of being sweet on Teddy but knew there was no chance he’d return her affection. Horatia’s gossipy tongue had always tried his patience. He’d often told Caroline that only his devotion to her made him contain his irritation with her flighty friend.
And sometimes even that wasn’t enough to keep him from vacating the room without explanation while Horatia was tittering her on-dits. Horatia was bewildered by his behavior, but Caroline knew Teddy was trying to spare her.
“Involved? Of course Teddy will be involved. It was his idea that I teach Mr. Sinclair to dance, after all. Throughout the evening, Teddy will be coming in and out and sending one of my other brothers down to take his place,” Caro explained. “Someone has to play piquet with Mother in the parlor if we don’t want her to discover we’re playing caper masters on the fourth floor.”
“Your parents won’t notice anything strange if the three of us never appear in the parlor?” Horatia stopped batting her eyes at her own reflection long enough to ask.
“Mama knows we’d rather talk than play cards. She’ll assume we’re in my chamber,” Caroline explained. “And once my father sticks his nose in a book, he wouldn’t notice if an anvil fell from the sky and crashed through the roof.�
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“Is everything to the lady’s satisfaction?” Madame Fournier came breezing in from the back room, a cunningly devised headdress in her hands.
Horatia squealed in delight when she saw it. “Yes, I think this will do quite nicely for Lord Frampton’s ball.”
When they’d first arrived at the shop, Horatia had given the dressmaker an earful about Penelope Braithwaite’s yellow gown. Madame Fournier had seemed aghast at the news. She’d insisted, even swearing an oath on her mother’s grave, that she would never make the same gown for two of her clients. It would be a grievous breach of trust.
“Perhaps one of my competitors, she has copied my style, mademoiselle,” she had suggested. “It is—how you say?—an unhappy coincidence, nothing more.”
Then, after Madame Fournier promised to make Horatia a coronet of embroidered muslin and tulle to match her new gown, all was forgiven.
The dressmaker positioned the little cap on Horatia’s head, realized it needed to be a bit bigger, and disappeared once again into the back room.
“So, will you two help me with Mr. Sinclair or not?” Caroline asked.
Frederica nodded. “Of course we will, won’t we?”
“Why not?” Horatia turned sideways to view herself from that vantage. “It will be delicious fun to watch the man make a cake of himself.”
“I have to give him high marks for persistence.” That morning, Caroline had glanced down through the banister from the first-story landing and caught Mr. Sinclair practicing the traveling waltz step down the hall for a few beats as he followed Bredon out the door for their daily jaunt to White’s. It was strangely endearing. Caroline had clamped a hand firmly over her mouth, lest she burst out laughing and embarrass him. “He is trying.”
“Very trying, no doubt.”
“Don’t be unkind, Horatia,” Frederica admonished.