Chapter 7
“This is a terrible idea,” Maria whispered to herself. She had shown up for their midnight lesson, but it was not without some remorse.
What if they get caught?
“Most instruction worth having begins that way,” Stephen said from the far end.
“This is not amusing,” she shot him a look.
“It is, a little,” he said, coming forward. He wore a dark coat and a darker waistcoat. Then he stopped at a sensible distance. “And before you scold me for laughing, allow me to remark that it is rich to see you worry about being found somewhere unwise.”
“We do not need to bring up that incident again.”
“But it is amusing,” he replied. “You were perfectly agreeable about getting caught in a scandal before, and now look at you.”
“It was before I understood what the repercussions were,” she admitted honestly.
“Always so innocent.”
“But trying to learn,” she asserted herself. That should count for something.
“We are not going to be caught.”
“You cannot be sure.”
“I can be very nearly sure.” He tipped his head toward the shadows. “My man is in the passage. Mrs. Walsh believes I am reading Plato until one. Plato is a reliable alibi. No one in England wishes to ask me about him.”
She huffed despite herself.
“I am… sorry.”
“For what now?”
“For that night. For walking into your room. I did not truly understand what a scandal does except… move a person. I have regretted it every hour since.”
“Then you have paid for it,” he said, without drama. “You needn’t pay me as well.”
“It was…” She swallowed. “It was my fault.”
“It was our misfortune,” he corrected, the smallest curve at one corner of his mouth easing. “If I were the sort to be angry, I would be angry with Fate. And she never apologizes.”
“I am apologizing now.”
“I accept,” he said crisply. “Now that you have relieved your mind, may I relieve your feet?”
“My feet?”
“Your dancing,” he said, and his smile went almost wicked. “Come. We will begin with posture. I am told you have been attempting to make friends with the floor.”
“I was avoiding your toes.”
“Consider them insured,” he said, and offered his hand. “Tonight, we practice steps and… being looked at without flinching.”
She did not take his hand at once. She rubbed her fingers against her palm, then slipped them into his briefly. He let go the moment he placed her where he wanted her, the center of the floor, between two tall windows.
“If we are caught,” she said, because her mind was a stubborn thing, “we will…”
“…wave Plato at the intruder,” he said. “He is dull enough to repel almost anyone. Stop looking at the door.”
“I am not looking at the…”
“You are learning where to look,” he said. “But you keep checking exits. For the next hour, the exit is me.”
She made a face.
“Arrogant.”
“Accurate,” he said again. “Now. Feet under you. Not out. Own your ground.” He adjusted the line of one foot with the gentlest pressure of his boot against her slipper. “There.”
She obeyed and hated that it helped.
“What are we learning?”
“Not a quadrille,” he said. “You manage figures well enough with sufficient terror. We will take something you must feel to do properly.”
He made a square with his hand in the air.
“A simple turn about the room.. Think of it as practice for any dance that asks you to trust a man’s lead. I shall count; you shall step where I tell you.”
“That sounds like the worst of all possible worlds.”
“You asked me to be useful,” he reminded her. “Trust is part of usefulness.” He stepped in, placed his right hand low at her back, took her left hand up in his, and lifted his chin the barest degree.
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” she said, breathless.
“Poorly,” he murmured, “One, two, three… one, two, three…”
They moved. At first, it felt like an awkward rhythm, but they soon grew used to it. She felt herself easing a bit.
Once again, taking his advice had only helped her.
“Better,” he said.
“Stop saying that.”
“When it ceases to be true.”
She wanted to blame the heat in her cheeks on the effort. It wasn’t entirely untrue.
“This would be easier if you were less… you.”
“Tragically,” he said, deadpan, “I have been me for some time. Do not look at my mouth.”
“Do you read minds?”
“You stare where your thoughts live,” he said. “But your steps are improving. Continue.”
They turned the length of the gallery.
“You do not seem… angry,” she said on the pause between two threes. “With me. About the room.”
“My room?” His mouth tilted. “I am vain, not precious. Continue.”
She persisted.
“Most men would be furious at the idea of being forced into marriage.”
“Most men misunderstand themselves,” he said. “And most men do not have cousins like Peter, who would have tripped over his own honor rather than let you fall. I am fortunate in the family I did not deserve.”
“You would have married me if…”
“I will marry you if I fail,” he said simply, not allowing the set to falter. “And I do not intend to fail.”
Right. They kept having this conversation over and over again. But somehow, it felt like she had to keep having it for her to truly believe it.
She dragged her gaze up, scowling, and did not trip.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I am not interested in you,” she said crisply. “I have no reason to be nervous.”
He laughed.
“You are the first woman to say that to me.”
“Then you should hear it more often,” she said. Her heart did a ridiculous skip, and she despised it. “Count.”
“Bossy,” he said, amused, and obeyed, “One... two... three…”
They moved again. It was easier to keep her chin level when she was arguing. He seemed to know it.
“You have improved since breakfast,” he observed eventually.
“I was perfectly fine at breakfast.”
“You were perfectly polite,” he said, tone even. “There is a difference. Step. Good. Again.”
They reached the far end of the gallery. He paused them with a shift of his hand and regarded her as if checking a column in an account.
“Again,” he said. “From the door to the window.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You enjoy ordering people.”
“I prefer ordering rooms,” he said, “Feet under; shoulders down; gaze on me—no, not there; here. Much better. One…two…three…”
They were halfway back when the right slipper betrayed her. The heel caught a narrow groove in the floor; her balance tipped; instinct said brace, and her body obeyed. She went rigid, and he caught onto her.
Then very slowly, he drew her back towards him.
“Again,” he said, “And this time, if you stumble, let me have you. Do not fight me while asking me to hold you.”
“Your ego,” she muttered.
“My hand,” he corrected.
She tried.
On the next small misstep, she did not flail; she let the hand at her back do its work.
“Good,” he said softly.
They turned slow circles, then quicker ones. Twice, he stopped them and shifted her hand an inch higher or lower, as if where she rested could matter as much as where she moved.
When the pace quickened, he said, “Trust the floor; it has not changed,” and when her shoulders crept toward her ears, he murmured, “Do not try to be polite with your bones.”
“You are frowning,” he observed.
“I am concentrating.”
“You are thinking too loudly,” he said. “You make noise in your head, and your feet try to hear it.” He smiled when she made a face.
They came to stillness at last, both of them exactly three heartbeats out of breath.
He did not let her go at once. He stepped back a controlled inch at a time.
“Better,” he said.
“You promised to vary your vocabulary.”
“Do you want ‘exemplary’?”
“No.”
“Then we are at ‘better,’” he decided, and let his hands fall. “Now. Tell me what you fear when the set begins.”
“What do I fear?”
“Yes. Say it aloud so it stops gnawing.”
“That I will be stupid. That I will do it wrong and everyone will see. That I will hurt someone. That I will… be hurt.”
He nodded to each, the way one nods to a list that requires action rather than pity.
“First: stupidity is loud; ignorance is quiet. You are not stupid. Second: everyone does it wrong; no one remembers. Third: my toes will survive. Fourth—” His voice gentled. “Fourth is not a dance problem. Fourth is a man problem.”
She looked away.
“Who taught you to brace?” he asked after a moment.
“A man who hates a woman named Maria,” she said before she could decide not to, surprised at how quickly the sentence found the world. “I had her name.”
Silence settled. He did not ask who. “The nunnery?”
She nodded.
“You know it is infamous.”
“I know it was unkind,” he said. “Names change in the telling. Cruelty does not.”
“How comforting.”
“Not meant to comfort,” he said, and moved them a few steps to sit at the window bench. He did not touch her and sat on the side.
“If you wish to tell me, I will know where to steer us. If you do not, I will still find you a man whose first instinct is not to raise his voice.”
Maria did not know if she should speak about this. She never had, really. Not even to Nicholas and Violet. But it felt easy with him.
“There was a man,” she said at last. “Not a priest. A steward of sorts, over the accounts and the girls. He was quite fond of his rules, and his wife had left him when he was very young. Or died. Or both. The stories changed. He hated her. Her name was Maria.”
Stephen did not move.
“And so?”
“And so…” She wet her lips and pressed her hands together hard enough to stop them shaking.
“When the girls were lined up, he would pass by me and choose me when he wished to make an example. If a seam was crooked, he said to Maria without looking. If a broom was out of place. If the bread was burned. If the bread was perfect.” Her mouth tugged.
“When it was perfect, it was because I had not baked it. He preferred… certainty.”
“He liked to find what he had decided to see,” Stephen said, his anger seeming palpable.
“Yes.” Maria’s voice lowered. “He was always hardest on me because that is what justice felt like to him. He thought he was balancing a scale that had tipped before I was born. The punishments were not… dramatic. No beatings. He thought spectacle vulgar. He preferred humiliation.”
She made herself breathe.