by Mary Balogh
“Oh, this was such fun,” she said, not looking at him.
“It was indeed,” he agreed. “But if I ever meet fortune face-to- face, I will demand to know why I had to be stranded here with a prudish schoolteacher. Go, Miss Allard. Run. If I can have no fresh bread with my soup after all, I shall be quite out of humor.”
For the merest moment Frances thought of staying in order to protest his use of the word prudish. But if she were foolish enough to do that, she might find herself having to prove that it did not apply to her.
She fled, though for very pride’s sake she did not run.
Part of her was feeling decidedly annoyed with herself. Why had she broken the tension of that moment? What harm would one full kiss have done? It was so long since she had been kissed, and the chance might never come again—she was all of twenty-three.
By the same token, she was only twenty-three.
What harm would a kiss have done?
But she was no green girl. She knew very well what harm it would have done. Neither of them, she suspected, would be content with just one kiss. And there was nothing in their circumstances to inhibit them from taking more.
And more . . .
Heavens above, even just the brush of his lips had half scrambled her brains and every bone and organ in her body.
She hurried into the kitchen after removing her outer garments and threw herself busily into baking the bread and making the soup.
The conversation at luncheon was rather strained and far too bright and superficial—on her part anyway. Lucius retreated into taciturnity. But though the bread was light and among the best he had ever tasted and the soup more than worthy of a second bowl, he found himself unable to concentrate upon the enjoyment of either quite as much as he might have liked.
He was distracted by unconsummated lust.
And he cursed his luck that while circumstances were ideal for a little sexual fling, the woman with whom he was stranded was not. If only she had been an actress or a merry widow or . . . Well, anyone but a schoolteacher, who might be gorgeous but who was also prim and virtuous—except when she was building snowmen and hurling snowballs and forgot herself for a while.
While she talked brightly on a variety of inane topics, he tried to think about Portia Hunt. He tried to bring her face into focus in his mind and succeeded all too well. She had that look in her eye that told him she despised all men and their animal appetites but would tolerate them in him provided she never had to know about them.
He was probably doing her an injustice. She was a perfect lady, it was true. It was also possible, he supposed, that there was an appealing woman beneath all the perfection. He was going to discover the answer soon.
And this adventure, as Frances Allard had called it, would soon be over. Already the sun had broken through the clouds, and water was dripping off the eaves outside the taproom window. There was only the rest of today to live through.
And tonight . . .
Tonight he would sleep in the taproom. He would not set even one toe beyond it in the direction of the stairs and the chambers above. When he died, his virtue would take him straight into heaven, where he could bore himself silly by playing on a harp for all eternity.
Damnation! Why could she not have continued to be the prunish shrew he had taken her for yesterday—less than twenty-four hours ago? Or else the laughing, eager woman she had been outside until his lips had touched hers? Why did she have to be such a frustrating mix?
He ordered Wally and Thomas to do the dishes—Peters was still busy with the carriage, though that fact did not stop Thomas from muttering something about favoritism as Peters disappeared through the back door. Lucius pulled his boots and his greatcoat back on and spent most of the afternoon outside, first in the carriage house feeling useless, and then chopping wood, since the pile that was already chopped looked seriously diminished. He could have hauled Wally outside to do the job, of course, and would have done so under normal circumstances. But he was glad of the excuse to remain outside. He was doubly glad of the chance to use up more energy. He chopped far more than would be needed tonight and tomorrow morning. This wood would be warming the toes of the Parkers for the next week or more.
She had tea ready when he went back inside—fresh bread with more of the cheese and pickles, and some currant cakes that were still warm from the oven. Who was it who had said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach? Not that it was exactly his heart that was the affected organ, but she was certainly a good cook.
“I have decided,” he said when they had finished eating, “not to offer you employment as my cook. I am large enough as I am—or as I was yesterday.”
She smiled but did not say anything. And when he got to his feet to help her into the kitchen with the tray, she told him to stay where he was, that he had been busy enough all afternoon.
She had been reading, he could see. Her book was resting open and facedown on the settle beside the hearth. It was Voltaire’s Candide, of all things. She was reading it in French, he saw when he picked it up. She had said that she taught French, had she not? French and music and writing.
She was a prim, staid schoolteacher. No doubt she was a dashed intelligent one too. If he repeated those facts to himself often enough, perhaps he would eventually accept them as hard reality and the knowledge would cool his blood.
Who the devil would want to bed an intelligent woman?
Wally came to make up the fire, and Lucius nodded off in his chair soon after. Frances Allard did not rejoin him until dinnertime, when she appeared with a roasted duckling and roast potatoes and other vegetables she had found in the root cellar.
“I did not even help with the potatoes tonight,” he said. “I am surprised you will allow me to eat.”
“I did not help chop the wood,” she said, “but here I am sitting in front of the fire.”
Lord, they could not even have a satisfactory quarrel any longer.
“Candide,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the book. “Do you always read in French?”
“I like to when the original was written in that language,” she said. “So much is lost in translation even when the translator is earnest and well educated. Something of the author’s voice is lost.”
Yes, there was no doubt about it. She was intelligent. He tried to feel his attraction to her wane as a result. He was attracted only because he was stranded here and she was the only woman within sight, he told himself. Under normal circumstances he would not afford her so much as a second glance.
They conversed without too much awkwardness or too many silences for the rest of the meal, but he found as it progressed and then as they washed and dried the dishes together that a certain melancholy had descended upon his spirits. It was not the black mood that had assailed him all over Christmas and even yesterday but a definite . . . melancholy nevertheless. Tomorrow they would part and never see each other again. By this time next week she would be simply a memory. By this time next month he would have forgotten all about her.
Good Lord! Next he would be growing his hair and wearing brightly colored cravats and spouting sentimental verse and sinking into a decline.
He set down a heavy pot he had just dried and cleared his throat. But when she looked up with raised eyebrows—and slightly flushed cheeks—he had nothing to say.
She led the way back into the taproom and sat on her usual chair. He stood before the fire, gazing into it, his hands clasped at his back. And he gave in to temptation. Not that he put up much of a fight, it was true. Perhaps he would do that later.
And perhaps not.
“And so,” he said, “you never did get to dance over Christmas?”
“Alas, no.” She chuckled softly. “And I was all prepared to impress the villagers with my prowess in the waltz. Mr. Huckerby, the dancing master at school, insisted upon teaching the steps to the girls, as he says it will almost certainly be all the rage within a few years. And he chose me with who
m to demonstrate. As if my days were not busy enough without that. But I stopped grumbling once I had learned the steps. It is a divine dance. However, I was given no chance to dazzle anyone with my performance of it over Christmas. How sad!”
Her voice was light with humor. And yet in her words, and in what she had said during the morning, he gathered an impression of a Christmas that had been dreary and disappointing. A lonely Christmas, with only two elderly ladies for company.
But he had already given in to temptation and could not now deny himself the pleasure of pressing onward.
He looked over his shoulder at her.
“Dazzle me.”
“I beg your pardon?” She looked blankly up at him, though some color had crept into her cheeks.
“Dazzle me,” he repeated. “Waltz with me. You do not even have to wade through snow to reach the Assembly Room. It awaits you abovestairs.”
“What?” She laughed.
“Come and waltz with me,” he said. “We can have the luxury of the room and the floor to ourselves.”
“But there is no music,” she protested.
“I thought you were a music teacher.”
“I did not see either a pianoforte or a spinet up there,” she said. “But even if there were either, I would not be able to play and dance at the same time, would I?”
“Do you not have a voice?” he asked her. “Can you not sing? Or hum?”
She laughed. “How absurd!” she said. “Besides, it is cold up there. There is no fire.”
“Do you feel cold, then?” he asked her.
He suddenly felt as if the taproom fire were scorching him through to the marrow of his bones. And with his eyes intently holding hers, he knew that she felt the same way.
“No.” The word came out on a breath of sound. She cleared her throat. “No.”
“Well, then.” He turned fully, made her an elegant leg, and reached out one hand, palm up. “May I have the pleasure of this set, ma’am?”
“How absurd!” she said again, but the color was high in both cheeks now, and her eyes were huge and bright, and he knew that she was his.
She set her hand in his, and his fingers closed about it.
Yes, they would waltz together at the very least.
At the very least!
And perhaps he would remember her even this time next year.
5
He carried two candles in tall holders up the stairs while she carried one, which she took into her room in order to find a shawl in her portmanteau. She wrapped it about her shoulders before going into the Assembly Room, taking her candle with her.
He had placed his at either end of the room, which was not really very large at all. He took hers from her hand and strode across to the fireplace opposite the door to set it on the mantel. He must have made a quick visit to his room too. He was wearing shoes in place of his Hessian boots.
This was terribly foolish, she thought. They were actually going to dance together? Without company, without music, without heat?
No, there was heat aplenty. And foolishness could sometimes feel marvelously exhilarating. She held the ends of her shawl and tried to steady her heartbeat as he came back across the room, his eyes intent on hers, looking distinctly dangerous. He repeated the elegant, marvelously theatrical bow he had made her downstairs, and cocked one eyebrow.
“Ma’am?” he said. “This is my dance, I believe.”
“I believe it is, sir.” She dipped into a low curtsy, set her hand in his, and felt the warmth of his fingers close strongly about hers again.
They spoke and behaved frivolously as if this were some amusing lark.
It felt anything but.
It felt downright sinful.
But, good heavens, they were only going to dance together.
He led her to the center of the floor and stood facing her.
“I confess,” he said, “that my experience with the waltz is somewhat limited. Let me see. My right hand goes here, I believe.”
Holding her eyes with his own, he slid it about her waist to come to rest against the small of her back. She could feel the heat of it through her wool dress and chemise—and there went her heartbeat again.
“And my left hand goes here.” She set it on his broad shoulder, a few inches above the level of her own—and there went the bones in her knees.
“And—” He held up his left hand and raised his eyebrows.
“This.” She placed her palm against his and curled her fingers in between his thumb and forefinger even as his own fingers closed over the back of her hand.
Her shawl, she suddenly felt, had been quite an unnecessary addition even though the air she was inhaling was chilly. She was terribly aware that his broad chest, encased behind his expertly tailored coat and the pristine shirt and elegantly tied neckcloth, was only inches away from her bosom. And that his face was close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath.
Her eyes were locked with his.
It was no wonder some people still considered the waltz an improper dance. It had felt nothing like this at the school. And they had not even started it yet.
“The music, ma’am?” His voice was low, even husky.
“Oh, dear,” she said. Was she going to have breath enough for this?
But she had had experience singing when she was nervous. Not this type of nervousness, it was true, but even so . . . It was a matter of breathing from deep in the diaphragm, where the air could be stored and released gradually, instead of from the throat, from which the nerves would expel it all in one breathy whoosh.
Now if she could just think of a waltz tune. If she could just think of any tune—other than a William Byrd madrigal, that was.
She closed her eyes, breaking at least some of the tension, and remembered the rhythm and the pleasure of waltzing with Mr. Huckerby, who was a very good dancer even if he was rather a fussy man and even if he did always smell strongly of lilies of the valley.
She hummed softly to herself for a few moments, and then she opened her eyes, smiled at Mr. Marshall, and hummed more loudly and firmly, emphasizing the first beat of each measure.
His right hand tapped the rhythm lightly against her back and then tightened slightly as he led her off into the steps of the waltz—small, tentative steps at first and then gaining in confidence, until after a minute or so they were moving with long, firm, rhythmic steps and twirling about until she could have sworn there were a dozen candles instead of just three.
She laughed.
So did he.
And then, of course, they came to grief because she had stopped humming for a moment.
She started again.
It soon became clear to her that when he had said he had limited experience with the waltz, he must have been talking in relative terms—or lying outright, which was more probable. He knew the dance very well indeed. More than that, he had a feel for the rhythm and the grace of it, his left hand holding hers high in a strong clasp, his right hand splayed against the arch of her back, leading her with such assured command into intricate little twirls and wider whirls that she felt as if her feet moved almost of their own volition, and as if they scarcely touched the wooden floor.
Their dance could not have been more exhilarating, she thought, even if it had been performed in a warmed, brightly lit Assembly Room full of people glittering in their evening array and with a full orchestra to provide the music.
By the time the tune came to an end, she was breathless. She was also fully aware that she was flushed and that she was smiling and happy and sorry the dance was over. His eyes glinted with a strange light and gazed very directly back into her own. His lips were pressed tightly together, making his jaw look very square and masterful.
She could feel his body heat and smell his very masculine cologne.
“Now,” he said, “you may no longer say that you did not attend an assembly over the Christmas season or that you did not dance. Or waltz.”
“What?”
she said. “I may no longer wallow in self-pity?”
“Not,” he said, “unless I did not measure up to the standard of the dancing master.”
“Oh,” she assured him, “you far surpass Mr. Huckerby.”
“Flattery,” he said, both eyebrows arching upward, “will get you everywhere, Miss Allard. Have you recovered your breath? A set, I believe, consists of more than just one dance. And I did reserve the whole set with you, if you will recall. Something a little slower this time, perhaps?”
She was assaulted suddenly with the realization that this adventure was almost at an end. They would not be here at the inn this time tomorrow. She would probably be back at the school, and he would be . . . wherever he was going. Somewhere in Hampshire, he had said.
She would never see him again.
But they were to waltz together one more time—one last time. She knew then with utter certainty that she would live on the memory of this day and this evening for a long time to come, perhaps even for the rest of her life. She rather believed it might be a painful memory for a time, though surely at some time farther in the future she would remember with pleasure.
She thought of another waltz tune, a slower one, which Mr. Huckerby had used to begin his instructions, though she had not realized until she began first to hum it and then to la-la-la it how poignantly beautiful it was, how haunting, how heartbreakingly romantic.
She was as foolish as any of the schoolgirls under her care, she thought. She was quite in love with him.
She kept her eyes closed as they waltzed this time, their steps slower and longer, their twirls more sweeping, until it felt altogether more natural to feel the fingers of his right hand slide farther up her back to bring her closer to him, to move her own hand farther into his shoulder and then behind his neck. It felt comforting to spread her right hand over the warm fabric of his coat above his heart and to have it held there by his palm and his fingers. It felt wonderful to rest her cheek against his, and to reduce the volume of the music to a soft humming.