Chapter 19 #2
By the time they had finished their rounds of the room, it was plain at least half the guests believed theirs was a love match.
The other half whispered to themselves, but that was fine.
Jessamine knew they could not win everyone over on their first try.
But for William’s sake, she would keep trying.
Andrew extended a hand. “A dance, wife?”
“It would be my pleasure, husband.” She put her fingers in his, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze as they took to the dance floor for a waltz. Given how unusual it was for a waltz to be played at this point in the proceedings, Jessamine suspected Lady Marwich had been speaking with the quartet.
Andrew drew her closer. “Have you danced the waltz before?”
“A handful of times. Not many. I was tutored in it, but…” She shrugged and glanced down at her feet. “Have you?”
“I was in the army, Jessamine, not the wilds of the Arctic.” He chuckled, a warm, unexpected sound. “Of course I’ve waltzed before.”
“How should I know what occurs in the army?”
“A great deal of soldiers are gentlemen, and wherever we are commissioned for training, we make the most of what little society there is. It’s not London, of course.”
He drew her a little closer, and his hand settled on her waist.
A strange feeling bubbled in her. “Who were you dancing the waltz with?”
“Jealous?” he asked, a curl of amusement in his voice.
She started to realize she was. She was jealous of a mysterious lady—or ladies—she had never met, and never would, who had seen a piece of Andrew before she had known him. They had known him while he was a captain, and they had… Had they felt like this in the safety of his arms?
And when had his arms become a place of such safety?
“Does that give me leave to be jealous of the gentlemen who danced with you?” he asked, looking down into her eyes.
“There were relatively few gentlemen, so I doubt there’s much to be jealous of.”
“What about in Scotland?”
“None who seriously aspired to my hand. I was too English for them.” She laughed, the memory amusing her. Some lads had found her pretty enough, but they had ultimately wanted a Scottish lass. “I kissed a few.”
“What?” He stilled a little.
“Not—not the kisses I shared with you.” Her face flamed. “I mean… you know, the type children exchange.”
“Ah.” He relaxed a little, but his arms tightened still more around her. They were in the middle of the ballroom, but he didn’t seem to notice a thing except for her. “I’m not sure I would count them as kisses.”
“From a technical standpoint, they count. At least, I thought so at the time.”
His eyes were dark and intense. “And now?”
“Now…” She huffed a breath. “I don’t know.”
“I hope you do not consider those kisses to be on par with others,” he said, still looking down at her. “If you do, I shall demonstrate the difference to you.”
She stumbled, missing her footing, and he caught her effortlessly.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not particularly good at the waltz.”
“Then follow my lead,” he said. “Every step is easy if you have someone to show the way. Lean against me. Let me guide you.”
His hand pushed at hers slightly, indicating she was to step back, and when he turned, he used his hands and body to guide her before he moved.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Just like that.”
“Thank you.”
He hesitated for a second, then brought her a little closer to his body again. The hand on her waist shifted a fraction, and his thumb swiped the material of her dress.
“It’s the least I could do, Jessamine. Truly. The way you are caring for William…” He glanced away for a heartbeat, then looked back at her. “It’s better than anything I could have hoped for.”
“Andrew,” she protested. “It’s nothing. What else was I supposed to do?”
“I know he’s not your child—”
“So?”
“And I also know you’re doing this for Rebecca,” he continued doggedly, “but that doesn’t stop me from being grateful. Perhaps I haven’t always shown it the way I ought, but that doesn’t stop it from being true.”
Affection twinged in her chest as she looked up at him. “I didn’t do it for you,” she said, smiling, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy it means something to you. And perhaps—perhaps if you were to ask me now, I would do it for you.”
His eyes flashed to hers, and held.
Jessamine’s stomach flipped. Logically, she knew there were over fifty other people in this room, but all she could think about was the way Andrew looked at her. The way a man might have looked at Venus in Ancient Rome and understood what beauty was for the first time in his life.
His thumb moved across her waist again, another slow swipe that made her blood heat.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that night, the night she had attempted to banish to the back of her mind. Irene was right that they could take it slowly and there was nothing obliging her to re-enter his bed if she were afraid to—oh, but she wanted to.
That was always the problem. The problem was not that she did not want to, but that she did.
“Andrew,” she whispered.
His arms curled her a little closer. The rest of the room vanished. She didn’t know what she wanted to say, but perhaps it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the heat in his eyes and the slow curl of his mouth as he looked down at her.
“You are not what I imagined you would be,” he said gruffly.
“And what did you imagine?”
“I imagined—” He broke off as the music stopped and the dance ended.
Already.
Jessamine wasn’t sure how it had happened so quickly. The dance was over.
She looked questioningly up at him, and he stepped back, releasing her. The moment had passed, like the dance, and now it was over.
Wishing it could have lasted just a little longer so they could have had more of this conversation, she accepted his hand and allowed him to walk her back into the crowd.