Save the Last Dance for Me

by Cora Lee

  “Why, Lady Honoria, are you jealous?”

  She felt his chuckle vibrate through her. “Yes, you cursed man, I am.” There was heat in her voice, but his amusement was fueling her own as well. “Who was she?”

  “My cousin, Eleanor.”

  She sat up again, releasing his hand and turning herself all the way around to look at him. “Your cousin?”

  “Whitby’s daughter, the oldest. I was supposed to lead her out for the opening set at her debutante ball, but I was so aggrieved by your refusal that I forgot about the whole thing.” Benedict reached for her, letting his hand glide over her skin before clasping her fingers in his. “I escorted her to Almack’s to make up for it.”

  “How did you get in?” She frowned for a moment, realizing how discourteous her question sounded, then backtracked. “I mean, the Patronesses only grant vouches to men they are particularly fond of. I wasn’t aware you knew any of them that well.”

  “I don’t, but my mother and Lady Whitby had a word with Lady Castlereagh.” His mouth pulled into a grin. “They assured her that my dancing would be impeccable.”

  Honoria gave him a sly smile. “Too bad Almack’s doesn’t allow the waltz.”

  “Better that they don’t,” he replied. “You are the only woman I’ve ever waltzed with, and I prefer to keep it that way.”

  He leaned in and kissed her then, one hand resting on her hip while the other threaded through her hair, scattering pins on the sofa cushions. Aunt Cecilia would notice the difference in Honoria’s appearance when she returned home, even after everything was set to rights, but Honoria didn’t care. Her arms went around Benedict and she held him close, breaking away to press her lips to his cheek, his temple, his jaw.

  “I prefer it that way, too,” she murmured. “You will be my ‘only’ for many things—I’m glad I can be yours for at least one.”

  “Oh, more than one,” he corrected, planting a final kiss on the tip of her nose. “You’re also the only woman I ever got drunk with, or learned dead languages with. And the only woman I think of when I smell apple blossoms.

  She set her forearms on his shoulders and pushed back to look into his eyes. “Is that what the tree is for in your morning room?”

  “It is now.” His arms slipped around her waist and held her firmly. “It was originally going to be a gift for you—a cutting from our favorite tree at Orchard Lake.”

  “Perhaps we can plant it in the garden.”

  “Here? I thought you’d prefer a larger home.”

  She let her fingers wander lightly through his hair. “I will prefer any home you happen to be in.”

  His eyes closed for a moment as his entire face relaxed. “I’ll show you the rest before I take you back to your aunt. You can tell me then if you think the nursery is large enough.”

  She brushed her lips across his cheek. “Are we going to have so many children, then?”

  He opened his eyes and she could see flecks of gold and green in his irises. “We must at least try. I am the last Grey male. And there’s another ‘only’: you’ll be the only Mrs. Benedict Grey.”

  “Unless I am Lady Honoria Grey,” she reminded him with a smirk. “I can do that, you know.”

  He slid a hand slowly up her back. “I do know. And I don’t care which title you use—as long as it’s my name you have and my life you share.”

  She smiled and drew him closer for another kiss. “Every blessed minute of it.”

  Epilogue

  August 1815

  The house was quiet when Honoria entered, in direct opposition to the chaos that had reigned when she left. It was dark, too, except for the candle carried by the butler in the entry.

  “Good evening, madam.”

  “Good evening. Is my husband still up?”

  “He retired to the master bedchamber some hours ago, madam. Whether he is still awake or not, I cannot say.”

  She smiled. “Hopefully he didn’t fall asleep reading again, with the candles still burning. And Emily?”

  “Sleeping peacefully in the nursery.”

  He offered to light her way upstairs but she declined, sending him off to bed and climbing the stairs in the darkness. In the two years she’d been mistress of this house she’d come to know all its secrets, and could find her way around blindfolded.

  After a stop in the nursery to check on her sleeping child, she reached the chamber she shared with Benedict and gently pushed the door open, peeping through the widening space to see if he slept as soundly as his daughter did.

  “Ah, the prodigal wife returns.”

  He was reclining on the big bed clad only in breeches and shirt, with a book in his lap, as Honoria had predicted, but far from sleeping. He slid off the counterpane and met her halfway across the room, wrapping his arms around her despite the summer heat.

  “Welcome home.” He bent down and kissed her softly, then kissed her again with more eagerness, as if she had been gone days rather than hours. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” she replied, rising up on her toes to drape her own arms around his neck.

  “How was the ball?”

  “Lady Lambert outdid herself this year—every inch of the house was decorated in roses, and she had seven kinds of cake.”

  He laughed. “Seven? Perhaps I should have gone after all.”

  “You would have been bored,” she told him, massaging his nape. “I nearly was myself some of the time.”

  “What about your aunt?”

  Honoria grinned. “My aunt is so besotted with her new husband she scarcely noticed anything else.”

  “Hmm, sounds like someone else I know.” He planted a big, smacking kiss on her cheek.

  She pushed him playfully away. “We are not newly wed anymore.”

  “But you are still besotted with me.”

  She liked how he stated rather than asked it. “Yes, I am.”

  “As I am with you.” He brushed his lips against her forehead.

  She savored his embrace, but all too quickly the high temperature intruded. “Will you help me out of this gown? If I wear it any longer I fear I’ll melt into a puddle at your feet.”

  He arched a suggestive eyebrow at her, but turned her by the shoulders and went methodically to work on her laces.

  “How is the packing coming?” she asked over her shoulder.

  She felt the tugging stop for a moment.

  “I don’t remember having this much to do before I left for Greece.”

  “You didn’t have a wife and daughter to cart with you then.” The tugging resumed and moments later Honoria’s bodice fell from her shoulders. She stepped carefully out of the gown, laying it over a chair to deal with later.

  He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and began unlacing her stays. “That must be it.”

  “You’re sure you want to take us all the way to Italy?” She’d probably asked him the same question a dozen times in the last month as their departure date drew nearer. “You’d be able to inspect the work done at the Forum much more easily without us.”

  Her stays peeled off her body and slid to her feet, and he kissed her shoulder. “You know I would expire of wanting the both of you before I ever even crossed the Channel.”

  She kicked away the corset and plopped down in a chair to remove her shoes and stockings. “Then I fear your baggage train will be disproportionately large.”

  “I don’t care if we have to commission a special ship to carry it all,” he smiled. “But it won’t be that bad. I had a letter from Mother today—she’s arrived safely in Rome and has found us a house. By the time we get there, it will be furnished and staffed. The largest of our trunks are going tomorrow, so they should be there before us, too.”

  “Good.”

  He took both her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Dance with me. We’ll imagine we’re in Lady Lambert’s lavish ballroom, with the orchestra playing whatever we want them to play, and forget about trying to move our household across
an entire continent.”

  Dressed now only in her shift, she grasped his upper arm with her left hand, laying her right hand on his offered palm as his free arm came around her. “We cannot dance this close together in public, my love. It’s unseemly.”

  He grinned and drew her even more snugly against him, waltzing her slowly around the room. “Then forget the ballroom. It’s just the two of us, here in our bedchamber.”

  She closed her eyes and nestled her head against his chest. “That is exactly what I want.”

  His lips pressed against her hair once, twice, before he spoke again. “Then it’s exactly what you shall always have.”

  Ready for more Maitland Maidens? Read on for a sneak peak at

  Back In My Arms Again (Maitland Maidens Book 2).

  Chapter 1

  February 1815

  James Fitzsimmons sat before the fireplace in his best friend’s drawing room, staring at the letters in his lap. There were three, each promising ruination and even imprisonment to the recipient should certain conditions not be met by Lady Day—the twenty-fifth of March—namely that a loan totaling the princely sum of three thousand pounds be paid in full.

  The sender was the powerful Earl of Grimsby. The recipient was James’s father.

  “How am I going to come up with three thousand pounds in six weeks?”

  Stephen Eddington settled himself on a sofa set at a right angle to James’s chair, placing his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. “Well, you can’t borrow against the farm.”

  James’s father had done precisely that, igniting the fire that James was now trying to put out. “I can’t ask our neighbors for help. They are comfortable, but not so wealthy they could spare this kind of money even if everyone we know contributed.”

  “And your father would be none too happy if they found out why he needed the money so quickly.”

  Because the elder Fitzsimmons had shown exceedingly poor judgment in this financial matter. Grimsby’s reputation marked him out as deceitful and avaricious in his financial dealings, and less than gentlemanly even with the men of his own class.

  James scrubbed a hand through his hair and over his face. “This would be a good time for a long-lost wealthy relative to appear and offer to make this all go away.”

  Eddington straightened. “That’s a good idea. Not a relative, but perhaps you can find a patron who will lend you the money. I’ll put up my own property as collateral if it will help.”

  “You’re a good friend, Eddy, but I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask—I volunteered,” Eddington returned with a quick grin. “That, together with the ledgers from the farm for the past several years, should be enough to convince a wealthy merchant or aristocrat to lend you the three thousand pounds. Your family keeps the farm and uses some of the income from it to pay back your benefactor. No one loses their home or livelihood.”

  James turned the scenario over in his mind. The Fitzsimmons farm had a long history of solid production and the documentation to prove it, so that would be an incentive to a would-be lender. It was probably the inducement his father had used to obtain the three thousand from Grimsby in the first place, though it wasn’t worth that much outright. Neither was Eddington’s little estate. But if they found a sympathetic ear...

  “What is it?” Eddington asked, jarring James from his thoughts.

  “What’s what?”

  “You’re wrinkling your nose as if you’ve encountered some noxious smell. What are you thinking about that’s so distasteful?”

  James suppressed a sigh. “You know I don’t like dealing with the aristocracy. But it appears that my family’s very existence now depends on one of them.”

  “I did say a wealthy merchant would do as well.”

  “Do you know any merchants who might be willing to help?”

  Eddington shook his head. “No. But I do know some aristocrats who might take pity on you.”

  James felt his nose wrinkle again and his mouth pull into a frown. “I don’t want their pity.”

  “Just their money.”

  Ouch. But Eddy was right, and James didn’t have time to be choosy. If pity was part of the bargain then he’d have to learn to live with it.

  “Fine. Where do we find these soft-hearted people with large bank accounts?”

  “Phillip Maitland and his wife are having a house party in a few days. They won’t have the sum required, but they are well connected—Mr. Maitland is cousin to the Duke of Alston and spent some time in the Commons as an MP.”

  James felt his body tense at the mention of the Maitland name and the duke’s title. He’d known the duke’s own sister in his youth—intimately. But it had been nearly two decades since he’d last seen her, and he highly doubted she would welcome him now.

  He pushed the thought aside and tried to focus on his family’s current predicament. “Can we wangle a dinner invitation one evening, do you think?”

  Eddington smiled brightly. “Better. I’ve been invited to the house party, and Mrs. Maitland just sent a note asking if I knew another gentleman that might be available. It seems she had a last-minute cancellation and needs to even out the numbers.”

  James hesitated. A Maitland house party? Would Cecilia be there? “Are you sure I’ll be welcome? Dinner is one thing, but an entire house party is a bit more presumptuous.”

  “It’s only a couple of weeks. And there’s bound to be someone there who can help you. Mrs. Maitland will be so glad to have an equal number of ladies and gentlemen she may even let you court her daughter.”

  “Two birds, one stone—how efficient. My mother would be pleased,” James replied in a flat voice. She’d taken to reminding him that, while James’s sister’s son could inherit the farm, the boy didn’t carry the Fitzsimmons name, and impressing upon James how wonderful it would be to have a grandchild that did. But Cecilia Maitland had hurt James badly the one and only time he’d proposed marriage, and at seven-and-thirty he was no longer interested in the almost political maneuverings some people undertook to make the “right” match.

  “You’ll go, then?”

  James nodded, resigned. He could brazen out a Maitland house party in order to save the farm. And Cecilia might not even be there. “I’ll go, and thank you for any information you can provide about the other guests.”

  Eddington sank back against the sofa cushions. “You’re welcome to everything I know about them. Mr. and Mrs. Maitland are excellent hosts, too—you might even enjoy yourself.”

  James wasn’t sure he’d enjoy anything until the farm was safe, but he nodded again to appease Eddington. “I might.”

  “You’ll certainly feel better after some preparation. Come, let’s adjourn to my study and we’ll see what we can glean from Mrs. Maitland’s invitation.”

  ~*~

  Lady Cecilia Maitland knocked on the door of her cousin’s bedchamber, hoping the hour wasn’t too late. Cecilia and Margaret had both been asked to arrive for the house party early to help with the preparations, and Cecilia found herself in need of counsel.

  The door opened to reveal a fully-clothed Margaret Maitland, who smiled brightly when her eyes met Cecilia’s. “I didn’t expect to see you this late. I thought surely you’d be abed and sleeping soundly after traveling all day.”

  “I would be, but sleep has been rather elusive these past few nights.”

  Margaret took a step back and opened the door wider. “Would you like to come in for a bit? Maybe a nice chat will settle you.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” Cecilia entered the room, closing her eyes momentarily to savor the heat radiating from the fireplace. There were two comfortable-looking chairs placed near the hearth, and Cecilia seated herself in the one closest to the window while Margaret took the other.

  “So what has been keeping you up these past nights?”

  Cecilia suppressed a smile. How very like a Maitland to get right to the point. “I’ve found myself
in some trouble, and I’m hoping you can help me discover a way to get out of it.”

  Margaret’s brows rose. “What kind of trouble now?”

  This time Cecilia allowed the smile to form on her lips. She was the unconventional member of the Maitland family, the forty-year-old woman who set up her own household and invested her money rather than marry and depend on a husband. Being the daughter and sister of a duke meant most of the ton brushed off what they called her eccentricities, but Cecilia’s society life had not been without incident.

  But her smile faded as she spoke. “I have a blackmailer.”

  “What?”

  “The Earl of Grimsby has an old letter of mine in his possession. One written to a lover many years ago that would disgrace me and the whole family if it became public. Or so he says.”

  Margaret sat back in her chair. “You doubt the existence of this letter?”

  “I don’t, actually. I vividly remember writing a number of letters to a certain gentleman when I was younger, so it’s possible that Grimsby does possess one of them. Though I’ll never know how he got his hands on it.”

  “You’re worried about the effect on your reputation, then?”

  Cecilia shook her head, her blonde nighttime plait sliding a little against her back. “I have position and wealth enough to withstand whatever backlash might occur, and I’m not exactly hunting for a husband. No, my concern is that my brother will find out.”

  His Grace the Duke of Alston was older than Cecilia by twelve years and had been in delicate health most of his adult life. Over the past few years “delicate” had been supplanted by “dreadful” more often than not, and the family knew it was only a matter of time before he went to his reward.

  “You think the shock will be too much for him.”

  Margaret’s voice was solemn and Cecilia gave a little nod, listening to the fire crackle cheerily along as if everything were fine.

  “And you came to me because I’m no stranger to scandal.”