by Kate Hewitt
Another uneasy pause, accompanied by more jangling of keys. Please say something, Lindy thought silently. Yet what? Did she actually want him to ask her out? Of course, she could ask him out, on a proper date. She was a liberated woman; there was no reason not to, if it was what she wanted. Yet was it? She wasn’t entirely sure. Roger could be kind, but he was also hard work. And she wasn’t even sure he liked her. Besides, she wanted him to do something. To want to do something.
And he didn’t.
“I suppose I shall see you on Monday, at class,” he said, and she nodded. “You’ll make an application with Blue Cross?”
“Yes, as soon as I get home.”
“Very good.” He gave one more nod, another jangle, and then he started walking down the street, a stiff yet quick gait that made Lindy fear he couldn’t get away fast enough. After the fizzy excitement and pleasure of the afternoon, she felt her mood tumbling down, down, down, so unlike her usual determined optimism, and yet she couldn’t keep herself from it, although she tried.
It didn’t really matter, she told herself as pragmatically as she could as she headed back up the high street towards her car. So what if he hadn’t asked her out on a date? It wasn’t the end of the world, far from it, considering how ambivalent she’d been feeling about the prospect. Hopefully she’d soon have Toby the greyhound, or another one of the rescue dogs, for companionship. She really didn’t need Roger Wentworth to pay her attention.
And yet she couldn’t keep from one last disconsolate look behind her to glimpse him walking down the street; he was no more than a speck in the distance, striding quickly and purposefully away.
Chapter Seven
Lindy gave her reflection another quick and nervous glance—about the fifth one in the last ten minutes. It was Monday, and her students—including Roger—were about to arrive. Had she gone too overboard with her outfit? She loved to dress up for her dance classes, and the flowing ballgown in rusty-red satin—the same colour as fox fur—had seemed a perfect choice to introduce the foxtrot.
Yet now, as she glanced at herself yet again in the mirror, she wondered if she looked a bit too brazen. The V-neck of the gown was only just on the right side of plunging, and the cleavage on display was a bit more than she was used to or comfortable with. She didn’t want to give Roger an eyeful, and yet…she sort of did.
He’d been in her thoughts a great deal in the forty-eight hours since she’d said goodbye to him in Burford. Too much, maybe. On Sunday she’d gone out to brunch in Witney with Emily and Olivia, and while it had been a very pleasant time, she’d been hopelessly distracted, wondering how Roger would act when she saw him again. Thinking about actually asking him out on a proper, honest-to-goodness date. Why not? What did she have to lose?
Well, her dignity, perhaps. Her pride, as well. Hopefully not more than that, if he refused. She liked him, despite or perhaps because of his quirkiness, but her heart was definitely not more dangerously engaged. Not yet. She wasn’t even sure it ever would be. As quirkily charming as Roger could be, he was also sometimes pedantic, pompous, or just plain difficult.
And yet…she kept thinking about the warmth of his eyes, that little quirk of his smile, the heartfelt tone he’d used when he’d been talking about losing his dad. All of it made her want to ask him out—or preferably, for him to ask her out, but she had a rather decided feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
In her thirty-five years, Lindy had had only a handful of dates and just one proper boyfriend. That relationship had only lasted a few months; in retrospect she didn’t even know why it had begun, never mind ended. She and Philip had both more or less tolerated each other, but not much more than that.
He hadn’t been interested in what she was interested in; she’d asked him to go dancing with her but he’d always refused. To be fair, he’d asked her to go to the rugby with him and she’d let herself be dragged along to one match before she’d started to make excuses he’d been more than happy to accept. They’d gone out to dinner once a week, if that, and had the occasional evening in but it had all felt rather damp squibby rather than being with the love of her life.
Would Roger be different? Did she want to take the risk to find out? Liking people was easy. Lindy was always more than happy and eager to do that. But loving people…actually letting them in to her life and her heart…that was harder. A lot harder.
But of course one date was hardly doing that. And the fact that she was still on the fence about dating at all surely made falling in love an even less likely possibility.
“Hello…?”
“Maureen!” Lindy whirled away from the mirror she’d been staring into unseeingly for the last five minutes to greet her first student. “Lovely to see you. How are you today?”
“My back’s playing up,” Maureen said as she hobbled into the room. “My knee, too.”
“I’m sorry…”
“What can you do?” She shrugged pragmatically. “I know you’d find it hard to believe I was the Newcastle tango champion three years running—”
“I don’t,” Lindy assured her. Despite her obvious stiffness now, Maureen had an inherent grace that was still evident in her twisted and pain-racked body.
“In 1962, 1963, and 1965,” Maureen stated proudly. “Tony slipped up in 1964, unfortunately.” She shook her head sadly. “He was a good dancer, and an even better husband.”
Lindy felt a pang of poignant sorrow at this simple statement as she gave the older woman a sympathetic smile. “That’s the right way round, surely.”
“I’m not sure I thought that in 1964.” Maureen let out a cackle of rather wicked laughter. “But never mind. We stayed together to the end—eleven years ago now. Funny to think it’s been that long.”
“You must miss him.”
“The way you’d miss your right hand, if it was cut off,” Maureen said simply. “But you learn to make do. What about you, my girl? A nice, buxom woman like you.” She eyed Lindy’s cleavage with a nod of approval that made Lindy want to laugh—or blush. “You must have a man waiting in the wings, if not two or three.”
Lindy did laugh then. “I’m afraid not.”
“Well, you should. You’ve got the figure, certainly, but you’re not getting any younger, are you?” She nodded shrewdly. “Best to get your skates on, dearie.”
“I’ll do my best,” Lindy murmured. Maureen’s advice was both brutal and well meant, but also timely. She would ask Roger out tonight, she decided. Why not? It was only a date, after all. It didn’t have to mean anything.
“That’s the ticket,” Maureen approved.
The others were coming in now—Simon and Olivia looking shy and loved-up as usual, and then Roger and Ellen. Lindy’s heart skipped an uneven beat at the sight of him. He wasn’t wearing his usual stodgy suit, but rather a crisp blue button-down shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of well-pressed khakis. The most boring clothes imaginable, and yet…he looked good in them. Really rather wonderful.
Lindy took a moment to admire his strong forearms, the brown column of throat where his shirt was unbuttoned—a sedate one button undone rather than a Casanova-ish two, the hair curling about his ears in the same way she’d noted on Saturday. She liked it all.
Then Roger noticed her, and his eyes widened almost comically at the sight of her in her get-up. She’d gone the whole kit and kaboodle tonight, with not just the dress but her hair piled on top of her head in an elegant updo, an extravagant use of eyeliner and a pair of gold heels that put her at a hairsbreadth under six foot three. Did she look ridiculous? Judging by Roger’s rather shell-shocked expression, Lindy thought she probably did.
She’d always dressed up to go dancing, even as a little girl, waltzing along to the radio in the kitchen with her dad. Out came the organza and tulle, the shiny patent leather shoes and the satin hair bows. And later, when she’d gone to ballroom dancing evenings on her own, it had been a point of pride to get as gussied up as possible. Many ballroom dancing aficio
nados were the same. If you couldn’t wear a ballgown while doing the samba, when could you?
There was, of course, the matter of her height. Next to her six-foot-five father and five-eleven mother, Lindy had never felt particularly tall, but after they’d died she’d become more conscious of the fact that she was a good half foot taller than most women, and topped most men by a few inches, as well. She had never wanted to let her height dictate her fashion choices—she loved high heels—but next to Maureen, who barely reached five feet, and Olivia not much taller, she felt truly Amazonian as Roger finally stopped goggling and looked away. Never mind. She straightened, throwing back her shoulders, giving Roger and Ellen and everyone else as dazzling a smile as she could.
“Great that you’re here! I think we’re ready to begin.”
She spent the next twenty minutes teaching them all the basic steps of the foxtrot, which was, in her estimation, the easiest dance step to learn after the waltz with its basic quickstep, although it required a good deal more body contact, with both partners moving in close time to the other.
Although a far cry from the tango or rumba, it could still be quite a sexy, sensual dance, something she hadn’t fully considered when she’d chosen to introduce it in just her third class for beginners.
As she set everyone to practising, partnering Maureen as usual, she couldn’t keep from giving Ellen and Roger a glance—Ellen had her usual cheerful game face on, but Roger looked as if he were in agonies and trying unsuccessfully to suppress it. Lindy felt a stab of sympathy for him. The foxtrot, unlike the waltz, required a certain loose-limbed fluidity that seemed inherently contrary to Roger’s nature.
With the brass notes of a big-band piece vibrating through the room, Lindy took Maureen through the basic steps. Arthritic though she was, the older woman caught on easily and seemed to enjoy it, despite the occasional creak or groan. Simon and Olivia, Lindy saw, were falling about laughing as they massacred the steps, and Roger…Roger looked as if he were in a straitjacket. Or perhaps he just wanted to be.
“You need to relax a little, darling,” Ellen said patiently, and her son responded through gritted teeth, “I am trying.”
Lindy didn’t know whether she was taking pity on him or just wanting to be near him but as the first song came to an end, she clapped her hands and called out, “Let’s switch partners now. Simon, with Ellen, please. Olivia with Maureen.” She turned to Roger, who was staring at her with a neutral expression that still somehow reminded Lindy of Munch’s painting The Scream. “Roger, I’ll dance with you.”
*
Roger watched Lindy come towards him with an expectant smile and felt his whole body freeze. He’d just about got the hang of the sedate waltz, but this foxtrot was something else entirely. And dancing it with Lindy, while she was looking so…so…sexy was a prospect that filled him with equal parts dread, terror, and deep, fizzing excitement.
“It’s a basic box step, just like the waltz,” she reminded him as she came to stand next to him. In her heels they were almost eye level, which was most disconcerting as Roger was used to women coming up to his shoulder, or maybe his chin. There was no ignoring Lindy while she was gazing right into his eyes—no ignoring the faint, floral scent of her—or was it vanilla?—or the way a few tendrils of wavy golden-brown hair had fallen from her updo and were now tumbling down her shoulders. No ignoring the way her chest rose and fell with every breath, or the fact that if he glanced downwards he knew he would see the rather glorious display of her abundant cleavage, something he was determined not to do, because of course it would be obvious he was checking her out, and yet how could he not?
She was gorgeous. Vibrant and alive, earthy and sensual. Her dress gleamed every time she moved, her body swaying and undulating with graceful confidence as she’d shown them all the basic steps. He couldn’t stop looking at her, and yet he had to stop, because he feared the expression on his face would be unguarded in its yearning.
He’d done his best not to think of her in the last forty-eight hours, and he’d managed somewhat successfully. He had comforted himself that he hadn’t made too much of an idiot of himself while they’d had their drinks in Burford, and yet those moments outside the café while they’d said their goodbyes had been fairly excruciating. He hadn’t been able to tell if she’d wanted him to ask her out, and he’d been too inherently risk-averse to take the chance and see. He’d been considered so unsuitable, he reminded himself—for what, he didn’t know, but did it even matter? Just basic, general unsuitability. And he was afraid that the fact that he’d even been thinking about asking Lindy out was ridiculous, an absurdity that would become painfully apparent the second the words passed his lips. So they hadn’t.
“Ready?” Lindy said, and Roger refocused on her face. She was very close. As close as she’d been when she’d turned to him in front of the kennel, and he’d bolted like a frightened horse.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I think,” he answered stiffly, and she let out one of those breathy gurgles of laughter that electrified every nerve ending.
“I admire your spirit,” she told him, and she clasped one hand with his and placed the other on his shoulder. Dutifully Roger placed his other hand on her waist, conscious of the curve of her hip under his fingers, the slippery satin of her dress, the warmth of her body. She was closer than the last time they’d danced, so her breasts were brushing his chest, her hips nearly nudging his. This could, Roger realised afresh, get very embarrassing.
The music began, and Lindy started to move, the folds of her dress seeming to envelop him, her thighs brushing his every time she moved. Roger did his best to mimic her steps with stiff, jerky movements, but he knew his performance was lamentable. He was the one supposed to be leading, after all, and instead he was following her as if he were a marionette, not a man.
“The thing with any dance,” Lindy told him, her voice low and musical, “is you just have to let yourself feel it. Let it flow through you. It becomes intuitive—don’t think which foot when, just feel the music, the movement.”
Which might work for someone who had a modicum of rhythm, but for someone like him, Roger knew, the only thing he was going to feel was humiliation.
“I do not believe this is the sort of thing I can just feel,” he stated, and Lindy pressed her body a little closer, so the entire length of her was very nearly against him, and she asked in a murmur, “So, what do you feel, Roger?”
That rather coy question was enough to make Roger experience that shocking and yet wonderful sense of short-circuiting both body and brain. What he felt was desire—heady, intoxicating, overwhelming. He had a gorgeous, lovely, interesting woman in his arms, and amazingly, it almost seemed as if she were flirting with him. As if she wanted him in the same way he knew he wanted her. But surely she couldn’t. Surely he was reading the signals wrong, or she was just teasing him, or…something.
What was he going to do?
“That’s the way, Roger,” Lindy said in a voice full of warm approval, and he realised they had continued to move across the dance floor, and he’d managed the steps without having to think about them too much—because he was thinking about Lindy. How could he possibly think about anything else? And yet somehow he’d managed to keep dancing—until he didn’t.
Roger wasn’t sure what exactly happened at that moment—he became aware of the need to focus on the steps again, and he was still aware of Lindy so close to him, and that was simply too much awareness so somehow his legs got tangled with hers and he felt his balance shift and then falter.
The next thing he knew he was falling in an inelegant sprawl of limbs, unable to untangle himself from Lindy’s embrace to break his fall. Lindy fell on top of him in a swirl of rust-red skirts as his cheekbone smacked into the floor hard enough for him to see dazzling pinpoints of light.
“Roger… Roger!”
A few seconds must have passed either in a blackout or simply a daze, for the next thing Roger knew was his mother was peerin
g anxiously at him from above, the room was silent, and Lindy was still on top of him, her body most intimately entangled with his. And the entire side of his face was throbbing painfully.
“Are you all right?” Lindy propped herself on her elbows as Roger blinked her face into focus, just beneath his mother’s. His brain felt as if it were full of cottony clouds. His face hurt. He felt too stunned to be embarrassed, but he knew that would most certainly come in time.
“Roger?” He thought he heard a thread of anxiety in Lindy’s voice and he tried to pluck his thoughts from the clouds they’d snagged on.
“Yes…I’m all right. I believe my pride is more bruised than anything else.”
“I think your face is going to be rather bruised, as well,” Lindy said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was my fault.”
“I don’t know about that. Even the best dancers take a tumble once in a while.”
“Are you hurt?” She was still sprawled on top of him, which, despite the pain in his cheek, felt quite delicious, but Roger was conscious they hadn’t moved and everyone was watching as they lay tangled together on the floor.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Lindy started to scramble up from him and, wincing, Roger managed to get himself into a seated position, conscious still of everyone’s stares.
“You’re going to have a nice shiner,” Maureen pronounced, sounding rather pleased by the prospect. “And a swollen lip.”
Roger put one hand gingerly to his face. How was he going to explain this to people at work? Although at this particular moment that felt like the least of his concerns.
“Let me help you get cleaned up,” Lindy said, and took his hand. She helped to pull him up to his feet, and Roger, still somewhat dazed, allowed her to lead him out of the classroom, down the stairs, to the tiny kitchen at the back of the bakery.
It wasn’t until she’d opened a first aid kid and the pungent smell of rubbing alcohol stung the air that Roger came to himself enough to say, “This isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly capable of tending to my own injuries—”