Chapter 6
"Ido not want to dance with her."
Lord Kinsley snorted. "I am afraid you cannot step back from it now, my friend! It must be done."
Isaac scowled down at his dance card, where he had been forced to write Christina's name.
It had been her mother who had caught his attention first. He had tried to find an excuse to step away from their company just as quickly as he could, but Lord Newfield had put an end to that intention.
The way he had simply handed Isaac the lady's dance card had left him no choice but to put his name to one of the remaining dances.
He had signed it to the waltz.
It had been done before he had even realized what he was doing.
His fingers had written his name there without his full awareness, leaving him to stare down at the card in horror.
Why had he even thought to do such a thing?
It was a whisper of the past, a longing that he had tried to pretend he did not have.
It had pushed itself to the fore, telling him that he was not as free of her as he otherwise pretended…
and had tied him to her for the most intimate dance of the evening.
How he despised himself for his weakness.
"The country dance has come to an end," Lord Kinsley said, giving Isaac a nudge. "Go, now. Find her, dance with her, and then return her to her mother. It will be over and done with in a few minutes, and you need not even speak with her if you do not wish it."
Isaac's hands curled into fists at his sides, the knuckles whitening beneath his gloves.
He stared at the dance floor as if it were a battlefield — which, in its way, it was.
Every couple reforming for the next dance moved with a casual ease that struck him as obscene.
Did none of them understand what was about to be asked of him?
To hold the woman who had broken his heart, to move with her in the most intimate dance society permitted, to feel her hand in his and her waist beneath his palm — it was a cruelty that no gentleman deserved.
He pulled at his cravat, tugging the knot fractionally looser.
The air in the ballroom was too thick, too warm, and it pressed against him on all sides.
He counted his exhales — one, two, three — the way he had learned to do in moments of extreme agitation, forcing the breath out slowly and deliberately.
"Go." Lord Kinsley sounded like a father reprimanding a child. "You must go. It is only right, Coventry, and you are a gentleman of honor."
That shook Isaac out of his reluctance and forced him into action.
His friend was right, he was a gentleman of honor, and he could not simply leave the lady to stand waiting.
Even the thought of her looking about for him sent a flicker of shame to his heart and, with a nod both to himself and to Lord Kinsley, Isaac went in search of her.
As he walked, his stride quickening despite himself, his head turning this way and that to look through the crowd, an old, familiar sense of expectation and excitement began to creep up into his heart.
This was how he had felt some two years ago, when he and Miss Oldham had first begun their acquaintance.
There had been a thrill of anticipation whenever he had stepped into a room, a longing desperate to be fulfilled as he had sought her out.
The joy that had been his when he had finally set eyes on her, when he had finally looked into her eyes and been able to take her hand — that had been a joy unlike anything he had ever known before.
Then he caught her scent. Rosewater and something fainter beneath it — clean linen, warm skin — carried on the movement of the crowd.
His step faltered. The scent unlocked a door he had spent months boarding shut, and for one treacherous instant, he was back in the garden, her hand in his, moonlight on her hair, the word yes still trembling on her lips.
He blinked the memory away. Set his jaw. Pressed forward.
He found her standing beside Lady Bedford, her back to him.
Her spine was rigid, her shoulders drawn up, her hands clasped so tightly before her that even from behind, he could see the tension in her fingers.
She was performing composure with the same relentless discipline he recognized in himself — and that recognition, unwanted and unwelcome, sent a crack through the armor he had so carefully constructed.
"Miss Oldham?"
When she turned her head and looked up into his eyes, Isaac's heart betrayed him in an instant.
It lurched as if it wanted to propel him forward, to push him closer to her.
Her face was pale, her chin lifted a fraction too high — the posture of a woman bracing herself rather than welcoming a partner.
The corners of her mouth pulled downward briefly before she controlled them.
Clearing his throat and making sure his mask of apathy was fixed to his expression, Isaac inclined his head.
"The waltz, Miss Oldham. If you please." His voice was controlled but too formal — stiff where it should have been easy, clipped where it should have been warm. A mask, just as hers was a mask.
"Oh, how very kind of you to have taken the waltz, Lord Coventry," Lady Bedford gushed, as Miss Oldham put her hand on his arm. "Enjoy the dance, my dear."
Miss Oldham smiled, but Isaac could tell that there was no real feeling behind it. He knew her well enough that when her smile was true, it made her blue eyes shine. For the moment, they remained dull.
Isaac led Miss Oldham out to the center of the dance floor, his gaze fixed straight ahead rather than looking down at her. Perhaps there would be nothing but silence between them for the entirety of the dance. That, he thought, would suit him very well.
Stepping back, he bowed low just as she curtsied, one of many couples standing in preparation for the dance.
Isaac grimaced, recalling how he had once been so very eager to dance with the lady before him.
On this occasion, it was a torment and a trial rather than a joy.
Letting his eyes go to her, Isaac's breath quickened at the expression on her face.
Her eyes were downcast, her face pale, and the corners of her mouth pulling downwards.
Surely it could not be that she was sorrowful over this dance?
She might well be frustrated that you have taken the dance she hoped to dance with another.
A sharp agony stabbed his heart.
Perhaps there is already another gentleman she is considering.
The music began, and Isaac, feeling his heart quicken, had no choice but to step forward and take the lady in his arms. Her gloved hand settled on his, his free hand going to her waist.
He burned.
Biting the inside of his cheek in the hope that the heat within him would dissipate, Isaac began the dance, but every turn of the waltz, every moment shared began to unpick the thread of the resolve he had spent months stitching together.
Miss Oldham danced with the same quiet grace and ease he remembered, allowing him to lead and following his steps without hesitation.
Their bodies knew each other — that was the terrible truth of it.
His hand at her waist, her hand in his, the rhythm of their movement together — it was all body memory, deeply learned and impossible to unlearn.
If he let himself forget, even for a few moments, then the sensation of longing, of desire, and love would pour into him again and devastate him.
Nothing but a fool, he thought, looking over her shoulder instead of into her eyes. Remember her letter. Remember the pain. Do not remember your affection.
"We are to say nothing to each other, then?"
Her quiet words unsettled him. "I do not think there is anything to say," he responded, keeping his tone steady, feigning an absence of feeling. Miss Oldham looked up at him, then pulled her gaze away, and Isaac's heart roared.
A single glance was enough to undo him, twisting an invisible knife beneath his ribs.
She had shattered his hopes once, had broken his heart into pieces, and yet still, his very self felt as if it belonged to her.
Why could he not free himself from her? Why must he constantly battle his own desperate feelings?
"You will offer me no explanation, then?"
Isaac blinked, his eyes darting to hers and then pulling away.
"I thought —" She bit her lip, blinking rapidly as they continued to waltz. "It does not matter what I thought. It was all a lie, was it not?"
"Yes, it was," he grated, a spike of anger burrowing itself into his soul. "You lied to me, Christina. I will not forget it."
Her eyes shot to his, eyebrows throwing themselves up towards her hairline.
"I did nothing of the sort!" she exclaimed, and he saw it — a brief flash of heat in her eyes, a spark of fury that flared bright before she blinked it away.
Not the cold calculation he had expected, not the practiced indifference of a woman who had discarded him deliberately.
No — this was rage, and hurt, and something beneath both that looked dangerously like love. "Your letter to me —"
"Your letter?" His voice cracked on the word, the sound splitting the careful veneer he had constructed. It was not just confusion that broke through — it was shock, raw and uncontrolled, the kind that could not be feigned.
The music began to slow, and Isaac, his mind reeling, made to step back from her, but to his utter astonishment, Miss Oldham grasped his hand tightly, forcing him to stay. Her fingers dug into his palm with a desperate strength that sent a jolt straight through his chest.
"Yes, your letter, Coventry," she said hoarsely, as tears glistened in her eyes. "The one where you wrote to me to say that our engagement could never be, that I was not to write to you again but to stay back from you from that day on… do not pretend that you did not write it."
The room narrowed around them. The dancers, the music, the chandeliers blazing above — all of it fell away until there was nothing but her face, her tears, and the terrible weight of her words.
Isaac felt the ground shift beneath his feet.
The blood left his face in a rush, leaving him light-headed, unsteady.
"You — you lie," he said, harshly, but the harshness was hollow now, the anger behind it collapsing. His breathing was ragged, his chest tight, the blood roaring in his ears. "I received a letter from you, not the other way around."
Miss Oldham's mouth opened in a gasp, her eyes flaring as one hand flew to her lips.
Dropping his hand, she stepped back, giving a minute shake of her head.
Other couples flowed past them, still dancing, but they were frozen — two people standing in the wreckage of everything they had believed. "I wrote no letter."
"Nor did I."
They stared at each other, the wall he had built between them slowly beginning to crack and crumble.
Isaac's heart was beating wildly, going cold from head to foot.
Sounds muffled around them — the orchestra, the conversations, the gentle rustle of silk — everything reduced to a dull hum behind the deafening silence between them.
A single tear dropped to Miss Oldham's cheek.
Then she turned and hurried away from him, disappearing back into the crowd.
Isaac stood where she had left him.
The waltz continued — other couples reforming, the music swelling into its final measures — but he did not move.
His hand was still extended where she had released it, the warmth of her fingers fading from his palm.
Slowly, deliberately, he curled his fingers into a fist. His breathing came in ragged pulls, each one shallower than the last, and the blood had not returned to his face.
A polite voice beside him: "Lord Coventry? Are you well?"
He could not answer for a moment. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.
"Coventry?" A hand touched his arm — Lord Kinsley, perhaps, or some well-meaning acquaintance. "Shall I fetch you something?"
Isaac shook his head. The movement felt disconnected from his body, as if he were watching himself from a great distance. He made himself walk. His legs were unsteady, each step requiring conscious effort, as if the floor itself had become uncertain.
He walked off the dance floor and kept walking — past the card room, past the refreshment table, past the clusters of conversation and laughter — until he reached an alcove near the servants' entrance where the noise dimmed to a murmur.
He pressed his back against the wall, both hands at his sides, palms flat against the cool plaster.
The foundation of two years of belief had just cracked beneath him. Every harsh word, every cold glance, every deliberate cut he had directed at the woman he loved — loved, still loved, had never stopped loving — had been built on a lie. Not her lie. Someone else's.
Everything he thought he knew was wrong.
And he could not go back to hating her now. He could never go back.