Chapter Sixteen
TOO RESTLESS AFTER the evening’s excursion to retire to his bedchamber, Lando found himself wandering his own ballroom. In his mother’s day, it had been a den of activity, one of the most utilised parts of the house. Now it sat bare, her beloved pianoforte and sticks of furniture hidden away under dust sheets. The view from the floor-length windows overlooking verdant Grosvenor Square, however, remained as good as it always was. Though he could barely see the outlines of the linden trees lining the leafy avenue through it, Lando took up a post at the window for a while.
Even in London, heavy silence ruled the dark hours of early dawn. In Lando’s experience, it was a time best avoided. The melancholy that had settled around his shoulders during dinner still accompanied him, and his mind drifted to brood on those he’d lost—his parents, whom he’d loved, his wife of whom he’d been dearly fond, and Charles, whom he’d adored. At moments such as this, his loneliness knew no bounds, much like the rich velvet sky reflecting off the windowpane.
The nature of the silence changed when Kit joined him. He knew it was Kit; his presence thickened the air, enriching it in a way Lando had only ever known with one other person.
“You dance well,” Lando remarked, not turning around. “Though you declined the waltz. At least three unmarried ladies swooned with disappointment.”
“Alas, I do not know the steps well enough. Its fame hadn’t reached Kent by the time I left.”
“Oh, it’s a dreadfully simple little thing.” Lando contrived to sound bored. “But scandalous, according to the mamas, thus it has naturally become a firm favourite amongst their daughters.”
Kit stepped farther into the room, his hard soles beating a steady rhythm against the polished wood. “Simple, yet you did not dare attempt it either. Or any of the others.”
The heat of Kit’s gaze caressed the nape of his neck.
“I avoid dancing through choice, not aptitude,” Lando replied. “I have not danced since…” He swallowed away the words. “How long is of no consequence. I assure you my waltz is more than adequate.”
Kit was so close, Lando heard his inhale, the soft rustle of his waistcoat, the creak of boot leather. “You don’t dance, and yet you have this beautiful ballroom going to waste.”
Lando continued to stare into the night. His other ballroom at Rossingley was more beautiful still. How was it possible he could have so much and yet so little? “Yes.”
Quiet fell upon them once more, so much so that Lando could hear the thrum of his own heartbeat. Minutes passed, maybe five or so, before Kit spoke again.
“I learned how to cheat at cards—piquet, loo, and brag mostly—from Sir Brandon Gower. Kentish winter evenings are long and dark; our neighbours were five miles away or more. We used to play for brass buttons. He himself learned during his time fighting in the hussars. He was a good, kind man.”
“And picking pockets? Did Sir Brandon teach you how to do that?”
“No.” Another few beats passed. “I learned that from my mother. She was half-Hungarian, descended from the Rom, though we learned never to speak of it. My father came upon her whilst fighting in Spain and brought her back to England. He married far beneath himself, but theirs was a love match and the reason we lived a quiet life in Kent. Picking one another’s pockets became an amusing game. Anne is adept, too, though she has never used it to her advantage. Your own sister’s belongings are quite safe.”
“You have your mother’s skin colour,” Lando surmised. The man’s honeyed tones and sulky hazel eyes had intruded on his thoughts on more than one occasion during the evening at Lady Chalfont’s.
“Yes. Anne is fairer. She takes after our father.”
More empty beats echoed through the ballroom as if even the silence listened and waited.
“Waltz with me, Lando.” Kit’s low murmur folded around Lando like a warm summer breeze. Or like the arms of his lost love tugging him close, whispering his name as if it were a secret shared between only the two of them. “Here. Now. Show me how.”
Lando’s eyes filled, and he made a sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob. “We don’t have music.”
“It matters not. Waltz with me.” A command this time, not a question as Kit’s breath gusted against Lando’s skin, hot and damp.
If Lando turned, he’d find a willing mouth, willing arms, a willing body. And their dance would be so much more than a dreadfully simple little waltz because the body belonged to the only man who’d penetrated his frozen heart since Charles’s death.
“Teach me,” Kit repeated. “Dance with me. Like you used to with my uncle. In your even bigger ballroom at Rossingley.”
Lando’s cheeks were wet. “How do you know about that?”
“He spoke of it often, towards the end. Of how beautifully you dance. And of the pleasure you gained from it.”
“It was foolish. We were foolish.” Lando brushed a rough palm over his tears. “We thought what we had between us was…” He shook his head, defeated by the future he and Charles had once dreamed together. “Dalliances with men should only ever be a brief exchange of pleasure, nothing more. I know now.”
“You do not truly believe that.”
Kit’s hand lightly touched Lando’s shoulder, hovering as though he half expected it be shaken off. When Lando didn’t move, it slid down his arm to settle at his trim waist. “One puts a hand here, does one not, for a waltz?”
“Yes.” Lando huffed a weak laugh. “Lewd, isn’t it?”
The space between them shrank until there was none, until Kit’s torso pressed up against Lando’s back, and the sturdy branches of his arms wrapped fully around him. “You and my uncle were blessed, Lando. Not foolish.”
Kit’s lips found the narrow column of his nape as Lando drifted against the rise and fall of Kit’s solid chest, the cadence of his heartbeat, the shared warmth.
A minute passed, maybe longer, and then Lando turned elegantly as if already in tune with unheard music. He studied Kit’s arms, still embracing his waist, unspent tears still filling his eyes.
“At Rossingley, our winters also stretched. Neither Charles nor I played cards. Though we were well occupied.”
“I’m so, so sorry for your loss.” Kit placed a light kiss on Lando’s forehead, resting his mouth there. “I fear I possess two left feet, but may I offer myself as a poor substitute?” Stepping back, he smiled down at Lando before wiping at an escaping tear with the tip of his thumb. Such an intimate, tender gesture; no wonder another swiftly took its place.
Lightly, Lando brushed his hands along the length of Kit’s arms. “You are far from that, Kit. I…I admit I do not know what this is between us. I cannot explain it. But whatever it is, it calms my soul. You are…you are not Charles. You are…you. And you have made me feel more alive than I ever believed I would again. I am…grateful.”
He dipped his chin so Kit wouldn’t see the flush of colour painting his cheeks. “Forgive me. I’ve said too much. Men do not speak to other men in such a way.”
Kit barked a laugh. “They do not, I agree. But then you are not like any other man I have ever known.” He lifted Lando’s face up to his. “And I can’t explain it either. Nor can I keep away or stay cross with you any longer. Not even when my trust in you hangs by a thread. You…you scare me, Lando.” He shook his head, glancing up at the shadowy sky beyond the window. “And I would not admit to that were it not dawn at the end of a very long and trying evening. You have me at a weak moment.”
Lando’s watery gaze locked onto Kit’s. “Then we are both of us having weak moments. I would not shed tears or be so maudlin if I’d partaken of a hearty supper.”
“I have yet to see you eat more than a few morsels.”
“I…no.” Lando sighed. “It is a family affliction, I think. In unhappy times. I cannot explain it. My mother also suffered.”
Kit planted another kiss on his forehead and chuckled. “Then I shall endeavour to make you happy. And turn you into a plump cushion.”
Lando smiled. “And you believe your waltz will achieve that?”
“I very much doubt it. But shall we find out?”
Relinquishing Kit’s hold, Lando examined his dance partner’s posture with pursed lips. “I’m a little out of touch, but both of your arms around my waist isn’t the traditional stance. The ton ’s decorum hasn’t slipped that much in my absence.”
“A great pity.”
Trying not to laugh, Lando raised Kit’s left arm, placing his own around Kit’s broad back. “This hand belongs here, resting on my upper arm, almost on my shoulder. And your right hand rests as so, clasped in my left.”
A puzzled frown pinched Kit’s brow as he examined the position of his left hand. “You’re leading.”
“Yes. I am.” Lando smiled again, an inviting, half-seductive and half-challenging sort of smile. “Although, when the mood takes me, I have been known to let other men take the lead,” he added in a silky tone as he guided Kit across the dance floor.
“If not for the hard soles of our boots ringing out, I would hardly notice we’re dancing,” Kit murmured. “Charles was right. You are grace in physical form.”
“And your feet are far nimbler than you led me to believe.”
“If they are, then it is because you make them so.”
When they reached a wall, Lando swept Kit in a turn, smoothly carrying the bigger man along. Kit had been correct about one thing, Lando mused. Music would have been superfluous as the fast beat of his own heart provided a rare old tune.
“You say you let other men take the lead,” Kit began, his sinful gaze latched onto Lando’s.
“Not all men,” Lando corrected, then hesitated. “But I would allow you.”
“You are both flower and gardener,” Kit blurted, cheeks suffused with colour. And he promptly tripped over nothing.
“Nicely put.” Lando laughed. “I am indeed. But your left foot should be mirroring my right. When mine moves forward a pace, yours steps back.”
Staggering to straighten himself, Kit cursed. “I was right not to trust you. You lied! Your waltz is so much more than adequate.”
With a brief pause before setting off again, Lando arranged him back in his hold. “Modesty becomes me. Now, pull your shoulders up and your chest out and stop looking down at those disobedient feet. Make them dance to your tune, not the other way around.”
Kit found a rhythm and soon enough, they were tripping around the ballroom as if lighter than air. His confidence grew with it, enough to add light kisses on Lando’s cheeks whenever they slowed for a turn. Then he abandoned the traditional hold altogether to shamelessly grasp Lando once more around his middle.
“I am picturing an imaginary audience of horrified snooty mamas,” Lando said, amused. “This scandalous embrace would be the talk of the ton .”
As if to prove a point, Kit squeezed him closer still. He whirled Lando around, moving on instinct. And if Lando’s breath was taken away by the end of the dance, he’d know the damned reason hid behind the pair of sinful dark eyes laughing down at him.
“‘ Trust me ,’ you insisted,” Kit said after one of his more exuberant moves. “Though it might be the most foolish decision of my short life, I have decided to obey.” And with nothing but a determined look and a sudden swerve nearly toppling them both, Kit took the lead. Stronger and bigger, he swept Lando across the dancefloor in any direction he pleased. Kit went right, Lando went right. He sped up, Lando sped up. With all accuracy and timing abandoned, it was a ridiculous, made-up country jig of a dance, but it made Lando smile, it made him giggle.
“I’m unfamiliar with this one,” Lando cried breathily after a most unaristocratic squeal.
“It’s called ‘The Angel.’” Kit pulled him into a twirl. “It will soon be the talk of the ton , you’ll see. We’ll be asked to demonstrate it in every drawing room from here to Piccadilly.”
Another twirl followed the first. One hand slipped lower to rest on Lando’s slim hip, the other grazed the dip of his spine, pulling him closer as Kit spun him around. A flood of heat ignited between them; Lando became aware of it at the same moment as Kit’s hooded gaze turned from amusement to something more restless. As if tethered, their steps slowed. They found themselves marooned in the middle of the empty dance floor.
When Lando tipped his head, only the smallest fraction, he found Kit’s lips expectantly waiting for him, sweet and soft. Their tongues mingled in a tentative gasping exploration, filling Lando’s soul with the purest, sturdiest, diamond-hard joy.
“We appear to have stopped dancing,” Kit whispered when they broke apart. He stroked a finger down Lando’s cheek, his gaze following the path as though memorising the contours. “If I kiss and dance at the same time, then an amateur such as I cannot give our kiss the attention it deserves.”
“There is nothing amateur about your mouth.” Lando tasted it again, just to be sure. “See? Your lips fit perfectly over mine. Your waltzing, however, is woeful. I am not convinced this newfangled dance of yours will catch on.”
“Then I shall save it only for you, for when we are alone,” answered Kit and kissed him again, deeply.
Dawn light fell more and more brightly upon their heaving shoulders. Outside in the street, a cart rumbled by. Lando’s servants would be about their business at any moment.
“We have danced the night away.” Kit glanced towards the window.
“And banished my demons along with it,” agreed Lando. “I am grateful. Sometimes they trail after me for days on end. Such a bore, especially as we have so much to do.”
Kit cradled his face, his hand cupping Lando’s cheek. He swayed slightly. “I’d like to take you to bed,” Kit whispered.
“I’m…” Lando pressed his forehead into the warmth of Kit’s chest. “I am not ready. I’m damaged, Kit. I should warn you. Difficult too. Spoiled even. I’m not always pleasant to those around me.”
“If I were a true gentleman, I would disagree wholeheartedly and enlist all the ways you are not.” Kit tangled his fingers in Lando’s hair. “And God knows I’m flawed too. But the truth is that I find you to be all of those things and more. And yet…and yet, I still want you. As, I hope, you want me. I am prepared to wait.”
“Be prepared to trust me, too,” Lando pleaded. “However it might seem, however dark it might get, I promise I shall not let you hang.”