“There is such a thing as concentrating too hard,” she advised upon their next turn. “Perhaps, if you concentrate just a little less, you’ll enjoy it more.”
Enjoy it? At what point hadenjoymententered into the picture? “If I miss a step, I might tread upon your toes. Or worse, your hem.”
“You might,” she allowed. “But then, you might also relax enough not to squeeze my fingers straight off my hand.”
Hell. He had clamped them so hard in his that she could hardly wiggle them enough to suggest he might loosen his grip. “Damn,” he said as he eased the pressure upon her fingers. “I’m sorry, I—” He missed the step. Trod upon the hem of her gown. The sound of rending fabric sheared through the room, impossibly and embarrassingly loud.
And Charity laughed.
In the darkness, he could not quite tell the extent of the damage, how badly he had humiliated himself. “I’ll pay for it,” he said. “The gown, I mean to say. If it can’t be mended.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, still with the warmth of laughter in her voice. “It’s only a gown, and quite an old one at that.”
“At the very least, I can beg a temporary replacement from one of my sisters-in-law.” Both were still in deep mourning; an old gown would not be missed. Possibly Helen was near enough to her size. “You cannot be seen leaving in a torn gown.”
“Unnecessary. I brought a pelisse. No one will notice what is obscured beneath it. Here, now, again.” She took up his hand once more, repositioned herself. “My sister designs the most beautiful fabric patterns,” she said, conversationally, as she prodded him into the dance anew. “I can get the best of anything for a fraction of the cost.”
“Felicity?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Felicity lives in Brighton, and she teaches at a school for young ladies. The same one, in fact,” she added, with a cheeky smile, “to which I sent her years ago.”
“Your father never discovered where she was?”
“No, thank God,” she said. “I led him to believe I had sent her off to Scotland. He never discovered the truth, and she’s been living beneath an assumed surname all these years.” She blew out a breath. “I don’t like to speak of my father,” she admitted.
“Then don’t. Tell me about your other sister instead. I wasn’t aware you had one.” He knew all the rest of it, besides. Every word she had spoken to him as she had held his hand and sat by his beside had been long committed to memory.
“Neither was I, until fairly recently. Mercy is my half-sister. We share a mother, not a father,” she said. “I would not have wished mine on anyone.” Her voice had grown strained there at the end, as if her throat had tightened around the words. Another squeeze of her fingers upon his arm; another turn. He had hardly noticed how far they had made it across the room. She had been right, there. When he had stopped concentrating so intently upon the steps, it had all become easier. His feet remembered patterns he had learned long ago and sought to place themselves accordingly.
“Mercy married a baron last year,” she said. “They have got a daughter now. Flora. She’s only a few months old. I have not yet met her, but if she grows up to be anything like her mother, she’ll be a holy terror.”
“Oh?”
“Mercy is…irrepressible,” she said. “An idealist; a fantasist who sees the world not as it is but as it couldbe. I adore her for it, but just occasionally she needs the stability of her husband’s influence. Together they are—rather like a kite and a string, I think. The string keeps the kite safe from the inconstancy of the wind, and the kite flies above the trees without the threat of floating off into the ether. And little Flora will have the best of both of them.” Another squeeze, a smoother turn this time. “And your nieces?” she pressed.
“I don’t know,” he said, in all honesty. “I hardly see the children. I know their names and little else. They spend most of their time in the nursery.”
“Have you visited them?”
Anthony suppressed a wince. “I don’t know that I’d care to try,” he admitted. “They’re frightened of my face. The nursery is a space that remains safe for them. It would be cruel to take that from them, when my presence unsettles them so.” Somehow, they’d made another circuit of the room without a misstep on his part. “Occasionally, their mother has them down with the family for dinner. Without me.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“Perhaps not, but they have weathered so much change just lately—”
“And so have you,” she said firmly. “They have lost their father, but they have got an uncle who mightbean uncle to them, if he were given the opportunity. If he gave himself the opportunity.” The moonlight flashed across her hair, lustrous dark curls shining as they moved around the room, in smooth sweeps now instead of his once-awkward steps. “It’s not so difficult, is it? Conversation, I mean to say.”
“Probably this one is not well-suited to a ballroom,” he said. “But, no—it’s not quite so difficult as I had thought it would be.” Hearing her speaking of her family had soothed his nerves somewhat, given him something to focus upon other than his own clumsiness, his fear of a missed step.
If he made another—she would laugh again, no doubt. Without mockery; without contempt or disdain or ridicule. Just simple pleasure, as if it were a joke shared between them. She might well leave this room with her gown in shreds, but she would do it with a smile.
“Tell me, then,” she said, “what sort of lady you had in mind for a wife? I have got a list of names, but it would be prudent to pare itdown a bit first. Start with the ladies most likely, and then branch out from there, if none of them should suit.”
“I shouldn’t like anyone too young,” he said hastily. “I can’t imagine I could have much in common with a girl only a few years removed from the school room.” Though he could hardly imagine what he might have in common with any other lady, besides.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good. That eliminates two right away. How do you feel about widows?”
Another misstep at the unexpected question, but at least he hadn’t stepped upon her hem this time. “I suppose it depends. Was her prior marriage a love match? Has she got children of her own?”
