Chapter 11 #2
Mama made an odd strangling sound in her throat but gulped it down as quickly as she could. Julia glanced at David, a question in her eyes. He gave her a nod of encouragement.
I walked to where David stood, and his fingers curled around mine as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
I smiled my encouragement to Julia and prayed my voice didn’t betray the warm sensation David’s hand was causing to climb up my arm.
“Don’t hesitate on my account. I may not play or sing very well, but I do appreciate beautiful music.
And I have no pride in this matter for you to concern yourself with. ”
Mama didn’t miss the easy way David had reached for me, and I could see the way his smile and tender touch calmed her fears.
I waited for the warmth of his hand to dissipate.
It was a calculated decision on his part, but even knowing he held my hand only in order to show Mama we were happily engaged did nothing to make me enjoy his fingers curled possessively around my own any less.
David tugged on my hand with a quick pull, and I tumbled into his side. Mama looked pointedly away. “Someday, I will hear ‘Hot Cross Buns’ from your lips.” He spoke with more breath than voice, making certain Mama wouldn’t hear.
I placed my other hand in the crook of his elbow and rose just enough on my toes to bring my mouth to his ear. “Hot,” I said the word slowly. “Cross,” I said after a brief pause. “Buns,” I finished in a jaunty, whispered fashion I would think any engaged young lady would be proud of.
David closed his eyes, the muscles in his neck pulling tight.
Mama dashed toward Julia at the pianoforte in a movement that made me quite certain she’d been watching the two of us. “Let me help you turn the pages, Miss Tate,” she said, standing next to Julia, both of their backs to us.
“It looks as though Mama would like us to have a private moment.” I laughed, but my laugh died when I looked back at David.
He wasn’t laughing.
His eyes had turned a dark, dusky blue.
Instead of sitting back down, he turned and pulled me with him toward the small alcove where the covered harp sat.
I eyed the instrument with marked civility. “If you think I have any skill with a harp, you’ll be sad to know I’ve never even set a finger to one.”
He tucked himself behind the harp and pulled me into him.
Our heads would be visible over the instrument but only if Mama and Julia left the pianoforte and took a few steps toward us.
The wall of the alcove hid us completely.
Something in Mama’s earlier glances at David told me she and Julia would remain at the pianoforte for several pieces.
“At least . . .” he said, his hand holding mine against his chest, “that would mean you hadn’t learned incorrectly.”
Our sudden privacy, made even more roguish by our cramped quarters between the harp and the wall, made me swallow hard.
David’s face was so close I could make out delicate changes of color on his skin and the pupils of his eyes.
Not to mention, my skirts and most of my side were pressed up against him.
It would take only a relaxing of my spine and a sagging of my shoulders to curl into his chest completely.
I forced that image out of my head as quickly as it had come.
With a deep breath and a smile I hoped conveyed friendship and not the look of a woman who might not mind being engaged, in truth, to the man holding her, I caught David’s intense gaze. “Are you saying I’ve learned the pianoforte incorrectly?”
He smirked, and a dangerous gleam sparked in his eyes. “Well—” he began.
I shook my head and allowed myself to sink into him the slightest amount, such a small amount that he probably wouldn’t even notice. “No,” I laughed. “Don’t answer that question. I’d rather keep what camaraderie we have and not spoil it.”
“I see.” His voice was low and gravelly, a man’s voice to match his hands and face. “After one harsh word from me about your musical prowess, I would no longer be a friend?”
“No, I’m not quite so fickle as that.” His chest was warm under my hand. I was too comfortable with him. Perhaps I should have allowed him to disparage me. I pulled my hand away from him and started to step back, but David stopped me by putting a hand on my waist and pulling me closer to him.
My right hand came to his chest again with a soft crash, just under the flowers he’d tucked into his lapel and on top of his front jacket pocket. Something flat and rigid lay inside. He’d been wearing a different jacket this morning, but for some silly reason, I thought it could be my note.
I’d told myself all day he couldn’t think of me as anything more than a woman who needed his help, but holding me like this was more than playful, wasn’t it?
Was there any chance his heart was playing the same tricks on him as mine was on me?
Or was he simply young and enjoying himself with no thought of how his glances might be misinterpreted by a woman who hadn’t ever had the chance to flirt or be held by a man?
I glanced to my side, trying to catch a glimpse of Mama over the harp, but she remained out of sight. I bit my lip. “Do you think we are enjoying this engagement a bit too much?”
“Oh, no.” David brought his face closer to mine, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “I’m enjoying it a lot less than I could be. We only just started on your list.”
“It isn’t a list. It is simply something I said. I didn’t know you were going to attach such meaning to it.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I happened to like your list. We are making good progress on it.” He lifted his hand from mine and raised one of his fingers.
“Flowers. I was able to do that one quite simply, and right away.” He lifted another finger.
“Walks. We have already had several, and they were all very pleasant. I can see why engaged couples indulge in them.” He glanced into the room behind us, Julia’s practiced notes floating into the alcove.
“And we just finished a very remarkable duet on the pianoforte . . .” He brought his hand back over mine and toyed with my fingers.
Then he wrinkled his forehead as if he were trying to solve a difficult math problem.
“I feel like there is something missing from what you said in the library. What was the last thing?”
I knew exactly what he was thinking about, but he’d made an error. There was more than one thing left on the list. “Dancing at balls?” I asked.
His hand tightened on mine, and he looked me in the eye. “I think we will be forgiven for not dancing at balls if there are no balls to be had. No, it was something else.”
I swallowed. “Stolen kittens?” My voice had a scratchy quality that didn’t come from singing.
He snorted. “Definitely not kittens.”
I closed my eyes, not in invitation but in defeat. When I opened them again, David was there, holding me in his arms, with his face only inches from my own. “Kisses,” I managed to hoarsely whisper. “I believe it was stolen kisses.”
His face brightened. “Ah yes, that was it. How could I have forgotten?”
He tugged at my hand, which pulled me away from the harp and out of our little alcove. He must have been bluffing, for if he’d wanted to kiss me, he wouldn’t have brought us back into sight of Mama.
But he didn’t stop walking, instead leading me past the chairs, his pace hastening with each step until he was practically galloping to the door. With a hurried look at Mama and Julia still at the pianoforte, he turned the knob and pulled me into the corridor.
Where we would be well and truly alone.
My heart quickened. What was this dangerous game David was playing? Did enjoying our engagement while it lasted mean actually enjoying everything that came with an engagement? Would he kiss me while knowing our relationship could be ending in a matter of weeks?
Would I want him to?
I took a deep breath and pressed myself against the door we’d just walked through. “You already kissed me. You crossed that one off the list first. Don’t you remember?”
His eyes grew even darker, and he leaned forward, his thumb tracing a path across my knuckles. “I did not kiss you. Trust me, I would remember if I had.”
I ignored the line of heat he left in his wake on my fingers and concentrated only on keeping my breathing steady. “The point of that list was to convince everyone around us that you wanted to marry me, and a pretend kiss works just as well as a real one for that.”
“I’m not certain I’ve ever heard a sentiment I disagree with more. But even if I didn’t, it doesn’t matter since I distinctly remember you saying stolen kisses. As in plural.”
My heart was already acting up, and now my head was as well. “You are confusing me. How can a stolen kiss help our cause? If a kiss is stolen, no one will see you steal it; therefore, there is no point in it.”
“I wasn’t the one who made the list. I’m only trying to complete it.
” He laughed, a soft rumble from deep inside his chest, and my hand instinctively reached for his lapel, my fingers clenching around it, uncertain whether they should pull him in closer or push him away.
“Didn’t we agree to enjoy our time together? ”
I nodded slowly. “We did.”
“Are you telling me you don’t think you’d enjoy being kissed by your fiancé? Because I think I could make it enjoyable.”
My eyes lowered to his mouth, and I didn’t try to hide my gaze.
I would enjoy it. I would enjoy it too much.
That was the danger in it. We’d been engaged not even two weeks, and already, I was dreading going back to the life of just Mama and me.
I liked David, and I liked that our engagement tied the two of us together.
But if he kissed me now, or later, or, as he seemed to be implying, often, I would be in danger of falling in love with him.
He had to understand that, hadn’t he? He had to know how bland my life had become before he’d stepped back into it.