Chapter Fifteen #2
She found, somehow, that she did still long to dance with him, despite everything.
She remembered so well how it felt to spin around the dance floor with him.
Her body instinctively leaned towards him, as if pulled by some invisible thread, as if it remembered too.
She imagined what it would feel like to feel his hand on her waist, to hold his fingers in hers, to move together in rhythm as if the rest of the world had fallen away. But maybe he did not feel the same.
May shot her a questioning glance. ‘We have an opening quadrille, the Night Sky Dance. After that, the floor will be open with a waltz. If Jane’s card permits…’
‘Yes, of course,’ Jane whispered. He leaned close to sign her card and her breath caught.
Maybe she could not read his expression, but her body remembered his.
The space between them disappeared, and suddenly every inch of awareness was only on him, the warmth of him, the scent of his skin, the soft sound of his breath.
Everything unspoken between them hung in the air.
Then he moved away and uncertainty crept in once again.
‘Now, Your Grace, if you would like to choose a boutonniere…’ May said, gesturing to the table of flowers. There was one yellow rose among the white ones, and she laid a fingertip on it so he would be sure to see it. ‘The slip of paper attached will tell you the lady you shall escort into supper.’
Of course, he picked up the yellow rose and read the slip of paper. ‘Miss Jane O’Neill,’ he said, and she felt her cheeks turn warm.
To Jane’s relief, Benedict at last moved on to talk to Connor about boating, and she was able to take a deep breath again. Yet she could still smell his scent of sandalwood and sea salt. Her heartbeat quickened, as if it remembered something deeply important.
May gently touched her hand. ‘If you would rather not dance with him…’ she whispered.
Jane shook her head. ‘It’s fine. It would cause far more scandal if I did not dance with him!’
Fortunately for her heart, more guests arrived then, and her attention was pulled away from him. She took another deep breath and wondered why the evening suddenly looked so much brighter.
The moment for the first dance was racing towards Jane much too quickly.
She watched the quadrille, the Night Sky Dance of people in star-embroidered blue velvet weaving in and out of intricate patterns, and tried not to look at Benedict across the ballroom.
He chatted with his aunt and Mrs Astor, nodding and giving them his little half-smile, but she sensed he was aware of her too.
All too soon, he would take her in his arms again, on the dance floor in front of everyone there.
Would she still be able to control her emotions, hold them in an iron grip?
She felt a prickle at the back of her neck, as if someone watched her most intently.
She laid her gloved fingers over the spot and glanced back to see Paul.
She had no idea how he had got in, though he looked part of it all in his fine evening suit.
His narrowed gaze scanned the crowd as if he owned it, and she ducked away.
The dance floor was crowded as the orchestra launched into the introduction to the waltz. Couples took their place around the inlaid Celtic knot on the parquet floor, a kaleidoscope of bright and pastel silk gowns, diamonds and pearls.
Jane froze, as cold and still as one of the garden statues, as she saw Benedict walking towards her.
She sensed everyone watching them—May and Connor, Regina Van Joort, Mrs Astor and a furious-eyed Paul.
Yet she could see only Benedict. It was a moment suspended in time, slow and wrapped in anticipation and heartache.
His blue eyes locked on hers as if no one else existed for him either, and on his lips there was a hint of a smile, as if he’d been searching for her all night and had finally found her.
‘Jane,’ he said simply.
‘Your Grace,’ she answered. She curtsied and he bowed, all most proper. Then he did take her in his arms, and it didn’t feel proper at all. Her icy feelings, her nervousness, all vanished.
The room faded as they moved closer, her pulse even louder than the swirling music. Their hands touched ever so lightly, and it sent a quiet shiver through her. As they swept into the dance, they laughed, soft and nervously; their gazes met, then flickered away, as if he was as nervous as she.
She expected those nerves to fade, as they always did when they danced together, but his smile changed, as if she were watching a shadow pass over the sun.
His golden brow furrowed slightly, and he wouldn’t quite look at her.
His smile faltered at the edges, and she could feel the shift before he said anything, a quiet distance opening between them that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
There was a softness in his doubt, no anger or fire, that made her feel even colder to watch him.
They stopped near a window, just the two of them with the party reflected back at them in the glass. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, and she knew how much was unspoken between them.
‘Jane. I…’ he began and shook his head.
Jane understood. She no longer had many words, either. What had begun as a game, a lark, a friendship, had become so much more without her even having realised it was sneaking up on her. It had become something dangerous.
‘May we go outside and talk?’ he said.
She longed to be alone with him, and yet she was afraid of it too. Afraid her control would crack and she would be vulnerable to him all over again. ‘Why?’
He laughed, his face rueful. ‘Why? Because there is so very much to say. Because I—I want to marry you, whether you believe I do or not. And I think you just might want to marry me.’
Oh, yes, she would, if it only would be a true marriage. If it were not… It would be misery.
‘Benedict, I want—I want more.’ With him, she would have a place in Society with a capital S; she would please her family; she’d avoid scandal; she would have important work to do as a duchess.
But living so close to Benedict without them truly, deeply sharing their lives, knowing she didn’t really have his love the way she longed for, would be so lonely, so cold.
Only Benedict could ever break her heart, so she could not give it to him. No matter how very easy it would be; no matter how she longed for it.
Just now, with the way he looked at her, something thickened and changed around them, as though the air were charged like a lightning strike with everything they hadn’t yet said.
He looked at her, not just watching but reaching for something—maybe to bridge the space between what was and what could be.
‘Please,’ he said softly, as people ‘casually’ strolled past to stare at them. ‘Just walk with me for a few minutes. There are things I need to tell you.’
And there were things she needed to tell him.
She had to be brave. She finally nodded.
When the music ended, she took his arm and strolled out through the open French windows to the garden as if all was quiet as usual.
She saw the pale shadows of people strolling in the gardens, saw the lights from the tent and heard the rush of the sea and muted laughter and music.
The sky was dusty blue, glittering with stars.
She realised then her very great mistake. Newport summer evenings were tailor-made for romance: the night sky, the crashing sea, the soft breeze carrying the scent of roses around them… Its beauty would only make heartache so much worse.
But they were here now. She sat down on one of the marble benches, looking down to the little teahouse May had built near the shoreline, the white-tipped waves rushing below.
She carefully arranged her tulle skirts to avoid looking directly at him.
He sat down beside her, close but not touching, and it made a warmth in the space between them, quiet and steady.
She was so very aware of everything: the brush of his sleeve on her arm, the shift of his weight, the nearness of his breath.
Somehow, even without touching, that closeness filled the night air with something unspoken and unmistakable.
‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’ she asked. ‘You were so kind to rescue me from Paul at the Casino, and in front of Mrs Astor, too! But I care about you too much to hold you to that. My family has weathered scandal before; we can again.’
‘We can talk about all of that later, Jane,’ he said, his voice a little unsteady. ‘Now, I must tell you something—a story.’
Jane glanced at him curiously, cautiously. ‘A story?’
‘About my own family. About two people who made a terrible mistake.’ His jaw hardened. ‘My parents.’
Whatever Jane had expected him to say, it hadn’t quite been this. ‘Your parents?’
‘My father was such a cold and distant man, cruel sometimes, a profligate duke. He gambled and spent without thought to the estate, until it was almost ruined. My mother was so young when she married, barely sixteen, the daughter of a wealthy viscount, raised in the countryside. She was very sweet—romantic, sensitive. She really loved my father when she met him, until she discovered he only wanted her fortune. She would come and visit me, play with me in the nursery, and though she sang and laughed I could see she was…delicate. Sad. And living with a man such as my father destroyed her while I, their only child, watched.’
‘Oh, Benedict.’ Jane pressed her hand to her lips.
His words were simple, but she could hear the deep, quiet heartbreak of it.
She could see the weight in his beautiful eyes, and she ached with him.
She would have taken that pain from him if she could in a heartbeat, and yet she could not.
It felt as if there were a bruise inside her chest, and she would do anything—anything—to see his smile come back.