“Won’t you teach Miss Margaret how to dance? I want to watch. Please say yes. You never, ever allow me any amusements.”
His eyes hurried to Meg—a bit too eagerly, though he cleared his throat as if this were a sacrifice they both must make for the sake of indulging his daughter.
Meg placed her empty plate back into the wicker basket. “I suppose with the assembly ball tomorrow, I should know a little.”
“Precisely.” Lord Cunningham helped her to her feet. “Though I warn you, I am no caper merchant. And with no music or set, this might all be quite in vain.”
The ridiculous urge to wiggle out of her slippers came over Meg. She ignored the notion.
“Perhaps we should begin with simple footwork. The chassé step, perhaps.” He took both of her hands, though she sensed that was not entirely necessary. “Temps levéand step forward with your right foot. Very good. Now the left foot follows the right and takes weight.”
The breeze was warm, too warm, catching scents of roasted lamb and pickled vegetables and strawberries. She fumbled through the steps once. Then twice.
Violet clapped, though without any true enthusiasm, and Lord Cunningham continually whispered in her ear, “You are marvelous. Now again.”
By the time he had pulled and tugged her through the fleuret step and the basic formations of a cotillion, her breathing came faster and the curls brushing against her face were damp with sweat. “I think I have learned so much that tomorrow, I shall likely not remember any of it.”
His arm snaked around her back, pulling her against him. “I shall be there to remind you of everything.” The skin of his cheek brushed her temple. Smooth, clammy with sweat. His body squeezed her closer.
With a faint laugh, she extracted herself from him and did what she had wanted to do all afternoon: kicked off her slippers. “I think Violet is right. A little punting on the lake would be most restful, and I am certain not even Dr. Bagot could object to such a small adventure.”
Lord Cunningham shook his head. “The two of you are against me. Very well. I surrender.” But when the servants went about to fetch the punting boat, and Violet hurried another cherry turnover into her mouth, and Meg poured herself a glass of punch …
A hair-raising sensation prickled her.
She twisted every direction on the blanket. She glanced from the lake to the hillsides to the abbey and beyond.
Nothing.
No one watching her.
“Are you well, my dear?” Lord Cunningham settled next to her.
She nodded, but the bumps on her arms remained. Because someone was out there. Whether she had imagined it just now or not, that someone would be back. They would find her.
And they would finish what they’d already failed to do twice.
See her dead.
She was here.
The barrel wobbled beneath him as Tom stared through the smudged panes and paint-peeling slats of an assembly room window. Inside, candles glowed everywhere. They reeked of tallow and grease and memories.
Like the first time Tom had coaxed thirteen-year-old Meg into nighttime mischief. Or she had coaxed him. He couldn’t remember now which it had been, but either way, they’d planned everything so well.
Tom arm wrestled young Brownie into claiming he’d been horse kicked.
Meg baked the boy apples to make up for it.
When Mr. Foxcroft was called away to help the boy, just as the yellow summer moon came out, Tom was waiting outside her bedchamber window. They snuck here in the twilight. Stood outside the windows on these very barrels and watched those who had enough coinage to pay for tickets to dance the night away.
“I wish I could dance.”Meg’s hair was down that night. Wavy to her elbows, catching moonlight, smelling of soap and grapeseed.“And wear one of those dresses, so I could swish-swish around.”She rocked the barrel with the pretend rustling of a gown.
“Why don’t ye?”
“Don’t I what?”
“Ye know.”He shrugged.“Wear a dress sometimes.”
