Chapter 21
Stephen’s hand settled on her back. She felt it through, and she hoped he could not hear the small, startled sound that rose in her throat and was swallowed by the violins.
“Look at me,” he said quietly, as the first figure brought them close.
She did, because he asked it that way. His eyes were steady now.
“You are no longer avoiding me,” she murmured, forcing ease she did not feel. “That is a relief.”
“My earlier stupidity has been corrected,” he answered. “Peter administered the cure.”
“I should thank him,” she said, taking the turn and giving her hand as the step required.
“You may,” he said. “Later.”
They turned again. For four measures, they said nothing.
“Stephen,” she said at last, low enough that the words belonged only to them, “why did you behave so…” She sought a word that was not ungrateful and not untrue. “...so decidedly just now?”
“Decidedly,” he repeated, as if tasting it. “I prefer that to any of the other names you might choose.”
“I should like to know the reason for it,” she insisted, gentler than the sentence looked from a distance.
“Because I am your husband,” he said simply, “and another man reached for your hand.”
She blinked. “Men reach for hands all evening. It is the nature of a ball.”
“And you are my wife,” he said again, as if that explained arithmetic to a child who had not been given the numbers. “I fail in many things. I will not fail at the obvious.”
“But…” She broke off as they separated and met again. “But you have never been… possessive.”
“No,” he allowed. “Because I am not fond of the quality. It makes men foolish. And yet.”
“And yet?” she prompted, because the word wanted company.
“And yet,” he said, “I find I have limits. I can endure nonsense. I cannot abide presumption.”
“Presumption?” she echoed, half-laughing now, trying to ease him. “You nearly sounded like a husband.”
He did not laugh. His hand firmed at her back, and the line of his jaw set in a way that felt like a promise turned into bone.
“Maria,” he said, soft and unyielding, “I am your husband.”
The words landed in her like a stone tossed into deep water, and heat climbed her neck. Her breath shortened, then remembered itself. For a moment, she could not see the room, only the exact shade of his eyes as they watched her take the meaning in.
“Oh,” she said, because she could not say anything worth the air.
He did not press. The next figure separated them; his hand left her, returned, found its place again as if it had its own memory.
“You are angry with him,” she said, because she needed to pull the conversation onto ground that would hold.
“I am,” he said. “Briefly. I will not stay so.”
“Because anger is common?” she ventured, lifting her chin.
“Because it is unattractive,” he said dryly, “and because it makes me careless with you.”
The step required a close pass; their joined hands shifted, brushing the edge of her bodice. She wondered how something so slight could make her think of heat and the way heat lingers in a room after the fire is banked.
“Careless?” she repeated.
“With words,” he said. “With the way I look. With the impression I make on a woman who has had to become braver than is fair.”
“What impression?” she asked, and hated how bare the question sounded. She seemed to have set aside her careful armor without meaning to.
“Of a man who wishes to stand between you and nonsense,” he said. “Even when the nonsense is clever at bowing.”
“That is not a poor impression,” she managed. “Only.. unexpected.”
“From me?”
“From anyone,” she admitted.
He absorbed that in silence, head slightly inclined as if listening to a logic he recognized. “Do you object?” he asked then, with a precision that made it feel like a real question.
“To being protected?” she said. “Not excessively.”
“And where is the line?” he asked. The bow of his mouth was almost a smile, but his eyes were intent. “So that I do not cross it by accident.”
“When I cannot breathe,” she said, surprised at herself for knowing. “When I feel arranged instead of accompanied.”
“Arranged,” he repeated, something in his face altering at the word. “I will not arrange you.”
“Good,” she said, and found she meant the syllable more than she had meant any longer sentence today.
They made a turn that skimmed the edge of the dance, and something crawled along the back of her neck—prickle, chill, attention.
She glanced, quickly, to the gallery that ran along one wall, but the light broke the faces into soft, anonymous ovals.
An odd certainty slid into her: someone was watching them with more interest than was friendly.
She could not have said why she knew it. She only knew she did.
“Do you feel…” she began.
“Yes,” he said at once, not feigning ignorance. “Eyes. I cannot place them.”
“You see everything,” she murmured.
“Not tonight,” he said. His hand pressed once, reassuring. “Let them watch. They will learn nothing we do not mean them to.”
“If you keep rescuing me,” she said, returning to ground she could manage, “they will learn that I cannot rescue myself.”
He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “You rescued yourself from me quite handily in the carriage, if you recall.”
“I recall you refused to look at me,” she said, emboldened by the safety he was offering her now.
He winced. “Yes. I have apologized, privately and to myself. I will repeat it later to you, with humility.”
“Do,” she said gravely. “Humility becomes you.”
“You think everything becomes me when I am close enough to a compliment,” he said, sardonic. “I will attempt to earn this one.”
“You already did,” she said, surprising both of them. “When you said—what you said.”
He glanced down at her mouth, just for a second. “That I am your husband?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“Because I am,” he said, as if repeating the water table of a field to a farmer who has forgotten why his crops fail. “Not only in public. Not when it is polite. Always.”
“How improper,” she said, because if she did not smile, she would do something worse.
“I hope so,” he said, and the words went through her like heat through glass—no smoke, no ash, only a warm shift in the world.
They came together again, their joined hands a line across the chasm she had kept between sense and wanting. She dared to tease, because she needed to keep breathing.
“So this was jealousy,” she said airily. “I thought it was a fictional condition. Something novels invented to make plain men interesting.”
He raised a brow. “Do I strike you as plain?”
“I am informed you have a reputation for consequence,” she said serenely.
“I am informed my wife has a reputation for honesty,” he returned. “Answer the question.”
“You are not plain,” she conceded. “And yet jealousy does not suit you.”
“Agreed,” he said. “I wear it rarely. It pinches. But if a man reaches for your hand without asking you and without asking me, he will learn my measurements.”
She ducked her head to hide a smile that felt treacherous to the fear that had lived in her for so long. “You cannot police all hands,” she said softly.
“No,” he admitted. “And I do not, as a rule, wish to. I want you to choose freely—conversations, partners, everything. Only—” He hesitated, then said the truth and let it cost him. “Only it is new to me, the sensation of not wanting to share your attention.”
“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious. “You share willingly everywhere else.”
“Because with you it feels earned,” he said simply. “And I am a childish creature who wants to keep his prize.”
“I am not a prize,” she reminded him, gentle but firm.
“You are not,” he agreed. “You are a person who has chosen to stand with me for the space of a dance.” His eyes warmed, grew intent. “And for longer than a dance.”
“Convenience,” she said, automatic, defensive.
“Convenience dressed the day,” he said. “It did not choose the step.”
Her breath caught. She looked away, because looking at him felt like standing in direct sunlight—pleasant and terrifying.
“Maria,” he said, catching her gaze back with a tone she could not ignore. “Allow me one vulgarity in a room that remembers every sentence: I wanted you jealous of no man here.”
“Stephen,” she protested, startled and unsteady. “I am not— I do not—jealousy is not a thing I—”
“Good,” he said. “Keep it that way. It does not flatter you. It does not flatter me. But let me be jealous in peace for a quarter hour. I promise to hand it back before it stains.”
She nearly laughed, the sound trembling. “Very well. A quarter hour.”
“Thank you.” His hand eased, then firmed. “You are trembling.”
“Only a little.”
“Because of the eyes?”
“Because of your words,” she said, then pressed her lips together too late to stop them.
He inhaled as if the room had briefly forgotten to hold air for him. “Ah.” The syllable carried more satisfaction than a shout would have. “Then I will be careful.”
“You will not,” she said, recovering enough to chide. “You will be contrary until I scold.”
“I will be careful,” he repeated, stubbornly. “I am learning what that means with you.”
“You are doing very well,” she said, because it was true and because the urge to reward him surprised her with its strength.
He smiled properly then—no public edge, no ducal restraint, only a man pleased with a small win he had earned by not making a mess of things.
It did idiotic things to her sense of balance.
She nearly misstepped and then did not, because he adjusted his hand without comment, keeping her upright, keeping everything appearing effortless.
“You frighten me,” she said in a rush, trusting him to hold it.
“Because I could be unkind?” he asked at once.
“Because you could be… enough,” she said, the honesty costing less than it would have an hour ago. “And I do not know what to do with enough.”
“Keep it,” he said. “Spend it slowly.”
They passed the gallery again, and the prickling awareness returned—eyes, intent, a concentration that was not merely curious. She saw only a cluster of dark coats and pale faces, indistinct as a painting in the wrong light.
“It is nothing,” Stephen said, though his jaw had tightened. “If it becomes something, Peter will fetch me.”
“Does he know to watch us?” she asked, startled.
“He knows to watch me,” Stephen said, with the driest of humor. “Which amounts to the same.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said, striving for common sense. “We are two people obeying the figures of a dance.”
“Mm,” he said. “It would be more ridiculous to pretend I did not want to be the only man obeying them with you.”
“You will not always be,” she reminded him, because that was how balls worked and because she had gotten very good at finding the rule when feeling began to misbehave.
“I know,” he said. “But tonight I will be the first.”
“You already were,” she said softly.
He looked as if she had put her hand to his chest and pressed once, gently. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me for simple truth,” she said, recovering a little of her lightness.
“I must,” he said, and if the thanks were for something larger, neither of them said so.
They turned; their hands parted, met, rested again.
“Earlier,” she said, because she wanted it spoken aloud, “you told him to watch his words when he addressed a duke.”
“I did,” Stephen said.
“Was that for you?” she asked. “Or for me?”
“Both,” he said. “But mostly for you.”
“I liked it,” she confessed, surprising herself with the simplicity of the admission.
“Good,” he said. “I liked it too. I liked it very much.”
“You must not get used to being jealous,” she warned him.
“I will not,” he promised. “I will get used to saying what is true before I ruin it with silence.”
“And what is true?” she asked, reckless now that she was already at the edge.
“That when I first saw you,” he said, eyes steady on hers, “It was hard to think of anything else.”