by Mia Marlowe
“Our joined hands complete one side of the frame. Now I rest my left hand on your shoulder,” she said, as if captioning her motions somehow took the intimacy away from them.
“Where would you like my right hand?”
* * * *
Where indeed? Just holding his left hand made her insides quiver like a bowl of aspic. She’d waltzed with any number of men before, but never had just standing close to one made her breath hitch so. “Rest your hand gently at my waist.”
Her column gown didn’t have a clearly defined waist, so he made a guess. Unhurriedly, as if she were a mare who might spook at a sudden movement, he put his hand at the narrowest point of her body below her ribs.
“You’re slenderer than I realized,” he said softly.
“That is not an appropriate thing to say to your dance partner.” Her cheeks heated. “But as long as we’re saying inappropriate things, your hands are bigger than I thought as well.”
Fashion dictated that a man’s hands and feet be small and sensitive. A rough callus rested at the base of each of Lawrence’s thick fingers. With hands like these, Lawrence might well pass for a dock worker in fancy dress.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“Not at all.” Surprisingly, she rather liked the roughness. He’d worked with those hands. Fought with them. Lawrence was strength under tight control. “Once we begin, you will use your hands as points of contact to direct where we go, leading with your left hand and with a slight pressure from the right.”
He squeezed her waist a bit.
“Yes, that will do to communicate your lead.”
He pulled her closer until there wasn’t a finger’s width between them. “Like that?”
“Not exactly.” She took a half step back. “We must keep some distance between us. Otherwise, our feet may become hopelessly entangled and we’ll land on the floor together.”
“And that would be bad, I take it.”
“Very bad.”
“Actually,” he said with a grin, “I can think of far worse fates than having you tumble on top of me.”
“Mr. Sinclair!” She pulled out of his embrace.
“Lawrence,” he corrected evenly. “And I shall call you Caroline, because either we are friends or we’re not. I grow weary of this back and forth. Friends should be able to say what’s on their minds without fear of causing offense.”
“Ordinarily I’d agree.” She had been terrible to him actually, telling him to go one moment and ordering him to stay the next, but the man irritated her so. She’d never been so unsettled. “Friends should be able to share their thoughts, but what if what’s on your mind is…well, if it’s not really acceptable…”
“Then friends should be able to talk about that, too. But may I point out that you were the one who first raised the idea of our being tangled up on the floor together?”
“Oh, pish!” He was right. She had said something like that, without meaning anything untoward by it of course. And maybe he was right about the other thing, too. Friends should be able to talk about anything.
But the problem was, she didn’t feel particularly friendly toward him. She wasn’t sure how to name it, but she was certain this tingly, shivery sensation rolling around inside her had nothing to do with friendship.
He raised his arms in the approximation of a waltz hold. “Shall we continue the lesson?”
It was either that or she’d have to explain why she was being so touchy. She couldn’t tell him he made a mess of her insides, so she stepped into his arms and began instructing him in the standard box step.
“Eyes up,” she ordered. “Look at me, not your feet.”
“With pleasure.”
There was that smile of his again. She’d do anything for him if only he kept smiling at her. Caroline was grateful for the dimness of the candlelight. Based on the way her cheeks heated, she was blushing like a schoolgirl in the throes of her first crush.
She remembered what that was like. When she was a young girl, long before she’d decided to forsake convention and claim a life of adventure for herself, she’d had a bit of a crush on Rowley. She’d mooned over him during cricket matches. She frequently consented to play the part of damsel in distress so Rowley and her brothers could rescue her from an invisible dragon who’d trapped her in the haymow. Even then, she wasn’t wild about the idea of needing rescue, but it allowed her to play with Rowley. Her diary from those days had several pages worth of Lady Rowley, Lady Rowley, Lady Rowley scribbled across them. Or, if she were feeling particularly syrupy about Oliver on a given day, Caroline Rowley might border her diary’s pages, swimming in a sea of hearts and flowers.
But that kind of calf-love wasn’t at all what she was feeling now. Along with frustration and jumbled-up confusion, a lump of something like tenderness glowed inside her.
For Lawrence Sinclair, of all people.
She didn’t understand it, but that didn’t make it less true. And it was a thing to be shunned with all her might or her plans for an adventurous life might well be upended for good.
“We’ve been stuck in this pattern for some time now,” Lawrence said. “Is this all there is to a waltz?”
“No, of course not. This is just the basic step, which you seem to have more or less acquired.”
“More or less, eh? Careful. Such praise will ruin me.”
She swatted his shoulder. “You’re doing well enough. Take the compliment. Now, you may take me around the room by pivoting a bit on the balls of your feet with each step. Ah! Just so.”
Lawrence started humming the Sussex waltz as they circled the room.
“How do you know that tune if you’ve never attended a ball?”
“When I was in the military, I often volunteered for guard duty outside the dancing hall.”
“As a way to avoid dancing itself,” she surmised.
“Correct. In any case, I could not avoid hearing the music. This tune stuck in my mind.”
It was just enough of a melody in three-quarter time to keep them together. Caroline showed him how to lead her in underarm turns and in the promenade hold that had them traveling around the room side by side. Lawrence even managed to remember the up-up-down dipping motion that helped them move in perfect harmony.
Her dance lesson was a success, but her real reason for venturing up to the dark ballroom alone had wilted along the side of the room like a sad wallflower. She was no closer to learning Lawrence’s tragedy, and thereby knowing him better, than she had been when she arrived. He was dancing well enough now that a little conversation ought not to disrupt his steps.
“Did you lose many friends in the service?” she ventured, assuming that would be a natural point of tragedy.
“Yes.”
Taciturn as always. Well, what else were you expecting? “And it affected you deeply?”
“How could it not?”
It was like trying to wring blood from a turnip. “Do you wish to talk about it?”
“Not particularly. It doesn’t make pretty hearing.” He began to hum a little louder.
“Because I’m a woman, you think I can’t hear about such things?”
“No, because you’re a human being with a sense of decency. Whatever else war is, it is rarely decent. What I did during my time in the military was for my king and country, and more particularly for the soldier fighting by my side. I’ve made my peace with it and have no need to dredge it up again.” He led her through a couple of underarm turns in fairly quick succession, leaving her more than a little dizzy.
“Is it usual to pose such personal questions to your dance partner during a waltz?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “In truth, it’s not usual to ask such personal questions any time, but I wanted to understand you better.”
“There’s not much to understand. I’m a si
mple man, Caroline.”
“I doubt that.” Even though they continued to dip around the room, the ballroom faded a bit from her peripheral vision. All she could see was the man before her. “I’ve rarely met anyone as difficult to know as you.”
“And you want to know me?”
“I do.” Then, because that smacked far too much of a declaration of affection, she hastily added, “As…as a friend, of course.”
“Then ask something else and I shall try to answer.”
Because his military service didn’t seem to qualify as a tragedy, Caroline was forced to look elsewhere. That left only his family.
“Why have you not gone home since you returned from the Continent?”
“Honestly?”
“There’s no point to the question otherwise.”
“Because you are in London,” he said, not caring that he seemed to be making a declaration. “Since I first met you, I can’t bear the thought of being where you are not.”
The lump of tenderness inside her glowed even more warmly, but she tamped it down. “That’s too bold for a friend.”
His dark eyes said they were much more. Their waltz slowed to a stop, but they kept hold of each other, her fingers laced with his and his hand still heavy on her waist. “Perhaps you were mistaken when you called us friends.”
“Perhaps I was.” Silence stretched between them, and she feared if she didn’t fill it soon, something dreadfully serious—she didn’t know what exactly—was about to happen. Something she wouldn’t be able to take back. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I feel about you. You are quite insufferable sometimes.”
“So I’ve been told.” He smiled as he said it, and the smile seemed to take the awful seriousness away.
“I only want to know you better, Lawrence.” She’d asked Mr. Price if Lawrence had posted any letters bound for Ware, but the butler said Mr. Sinclair had failed to write any. It seemed beyond strange that he hadn’t sent word to let his family know he was safely on English soil once again. “So in order to know you, I want to understand why you have not gone to Ware. Not even for a short visit.”
He frowned, an implacable, grim expression. Caroline decided she wouldn’t have wanted to be the French soldier who met him on a field of battle. “I didn’t return to Ware because I wouldn’t be welcome. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
She shook her head. Families weren’t like that. No matter what, she knew with certainty that her parents loved her. Even when she disappointed them by refusing to accept one of the many proposals that came her way, she never doubted they cared about her.
“You must be wrong to be unsure of your reception at Ware Hall.”
“Oh, I am sure,” he said. “And I’m not wrong.”
“Would you…I mean, sometimes it helps me to talk about difficult things. Perhaps if you tell me why your fam—”
“I’m sorry to have kept you from your rest, my lady.” He released her hand and stepped back. “I thank you for teaching me to waltz. It would be inappropriate for me to see you to your chamber, so I shall wait here until you’ve had enough time to reach it on your own. Good night.”
It was a blatant dismissal.
She’d been on the other end of such a rejection countless times. Sometimes, behavior bordering on boorishness had been the only way to rid herself of an unwanted suitor. But no man had ever dared to send her away like this.
None but Lawrence Sinclair.
“Yes, well, try not to tread on anyone’s toes at Lord Frampton’s ball,” she said waspishly. “I shall make certain you have no opportunity to tread on mine.”
Chapter 12
Trying to put distance between you and your troubles never works. Wherever you go, you carry them with you. As soon as you pack your valise, thinking to leave them, your failures sneak into your pocket and come along for the journey. They sink in their talons and travel in your memories. They steal into your idle daydreams when you least expect them. Their ugly heads rise up in night terrors. And unfortunately, you can’t misplace them or drop them off somewhere, as if they were an unwanted parcel.
They come home with you as well.
—Mr. Lawrence Sinclair, who wished he packed troubles as scantily as his personal effects.
Lawrence and his mount flew across the freshly cut meadow. Crooning a few curses his uncle would have whipped him for, he leaned over the horse’s neck. The forbidden words seemed to make the gelding stretch out and go even faster. Lawrence raised himself slightly in the stirrups, his knees bearing the jolting rhythm so that his body moved in perfect harmony with the galloping horse.
Ralph bumped along behind him on the crupper, clinging to Lawrence’s waist, tight as a tick. The younger boy screamed at the top of his lungs.
His cousin wasn’t afraid. Ralph always howled like that when he was excited. He said it was his Pictish battle cry. When Lawrence had asked what a Pict was, Ralph had explained that they were early Britons who defended the fair isle of Albion against Roman invaders. When Picts went to war, they dipped themselves in woad and screamed out their defiance.
Lawrence understood the battle cry part. Roaring as loudly as they could would give the Picts courage and scare the Romans silly. For the life of him, he had no idea why the Picts thought painting themselves blue would help, but Ralph was the history scholar. Lawrence believed him. If Ralph said they colored themselves with blue dye, it was so.
“Faster! Faster!” Ralph yelled. He wasn’t a good enough horseman to handle this kind of speed on his own. But that didn’t stop him from begging to fly across the field with Lawrence whenever the pair of them escaped the watchful eye of Ralph’s father, the earl. “Now the jump. Do the jump!”
His uncle would kill him if he caught Lawrence at it.
But Ralph loved the thrill of flying over an obstacle. The harder the jump, the more he squealed for joy.
“Oh, fiend take it!” Lawrence cried and tossed caution to the wind. Riding neck or nothing, he headed for the nearest waist-high stone wall. The gelding’s powerful haunches bunched under them and suddenly they were airborne. Ralph screamed again, a Pictish war cry if ever there was one.
The jolt of their hard landing knocked Lawrence awake. He must have been holding his breath in his sleep because he sucked in a noisy lungful. His heart hammered in his ears. He swallowed hard and sat up.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. The dream had seemed so real, he half-expected the grassy smell of a freshly cut field and horse sweat to hang in the air. But he hadn’t wakened in Ware Hall, eleven years old and shivering in his cold chamber. He was in as opulent a bedroom as he could imagine.
Then it all rushed back into him, the years of his life galloping by—the accident, the pack of wolves at the boarding school, serving with the dragoons, roaming the Continent alongside Bredon and Rowley, and, finally, running headlong into the original immovable object, Lady Caroline Lovell.
Beguiling, confusing, unattainable Caroline.
And with that sobering thought, he remembered what he needed to do that day. Judging by the light streaming in through his windows, breakfast was long past. He rose and dressed without ringing for Dudley to come help him. If he was going to live by his own means, the first thing he’d have to do without was a servant of any sort.
With regret, Lawrence didn’t slip out the back of Lovell House and saddle one of Bredon’s horses, even though his friend had told him often enough that any of the mounts in Lord Chatham’s stable were at his disposal. A horse was another luxury he couldn’t afford. Keeping one in London—never mind a carriage or a racy curricle—was a rich man’s convenience. Lawrence was no pauper. He had enough to live comfortably, but he’d definitely have to cut back on some of the niceties he’d enjoyed in Lord Bredon’s company.
It pained him to leave Lovell House, but he must. Caroline had decided to get to
know him, of all things, and he couldn’t have that. She was sure not to like what she saw. Leaving with her good opinion of him still intact was the best he could hope for.
So he set out across the city on shank’s mare. In Leicester Square, he found a flat on the first floor of a respectable-looking house, located on a quiet street. The sameness of the house’s surroundings ensured that he wouldn’t waste much time looking out the small windows. There was a bakery on the corner, and a pub within easy walking distance where he could take his evening meals.
Best of all, his landlady had asked a modest sum that was well within his budget for the furnished flat. The three rooms were too humble for entertaining, but they were clean. Mrs. Abernathy even offered to come in weekly to tidy up and change the bed linens.
Lawrence decided it would suit him.
Of course there was no chance of seeing Caroline in this neighborhood, but he told himself that was a blessing. When he’d goaded her into meeting him in the ballroom last night, he had thought no farther than the joy of being alone with her. Of holding her in his arms. Maybe kissing her. But he’d pushed her too far.
Caroline had pushed back.
Why do women always think things are made better by talking about them?
He might have come round to sharing some of his war stories with her, but only if he sanitized the tales a great deal. He’d never tell her about how he came to be estranged from his family. He’d never told anyone.
He hadn’t had a bite all day and the nearby church tolled three, so he decided to walk down to the bakery for a bun or two to tide him over until supper. But as he neared the corner, he noticed the carriage with the Chatham coat of arms emblazoned on the side. Old Sedgewick, the driver, nodded on his bench as usual, having slipped into the light sleep of age.
“What’s this?” Lawrence asked him. “Where are your passengers?”
Sedgewick roused himself from his catnap with a shake and cleared his throat noisily. “My lady and her maid popped into that bakery yonder.” He motioned toward the shop at the end of the block.