Chapter Twelve #2
“I’ll be able to direct her to you,” he said. “Whether she’ll be able to follow instructions—that’s another issue altogether. Were you engaged for another set?”
“No,” she said. “That is—no one else has yet asked.” Not that she had much given anyone the opportunity with the way she had fled from the room.
Elliot cast his head back, and in the moonlight drifting down from the sky, his hair glowed silver.
He raked his gloved fingers through it, scratching grooves through the strands which had once been perfectly combed.
“It’s likely, then, that you haven’t been missed.
And Rebecca is wise enough to make excuses for you should anyone come asking.
By the time anyone next sees you, you’ll be in her company, and your reputation will be safe,” he said, on a low sigh of relief.
“Won’t you be missed?” Kate asked.
“Oh, certainly,” he said, and even in the darkness she could see the shine of his teeth in a crooked smile.
“But the difference is that no one is likely to come looking for me. No young lady could, and no gentleman would dare. My absence will be noted, but not questioned.” He let his head drop and rubbed at the back of his neck as if he had developed an ache there.
“Do you know,” he said slowly, quietly, “I suppose I could use a few minutes out here myself.”
“Really? You looked to be having such a grand time.” With Miss Applegate. Laughing together, as if they had been the dearest of friends for years and years. As if Kate had already been usurped in his affections.
Elliot shrugged. “I enjoy dancing,” he said. “Less so feeling like a slab of meat hung within a butcher’s window.” He turned his face up to catch the wick of the wind that slid through the hedgerows, issuing a low sigh at the sensation. “And you? Did you enjoy your dance with Lord Shaw?”
Kate managed a wry smile. “It was pleasant enough. Did you know that Lord Shaw is Miss Applegate’s elder brother?
He wished to sing his sister’s praises. Word has indeed gotten round that the clearest path to your heart is through me—so he didn’t wish to dance with me, you see, so much as he wished to put his sister’s case before me. ”
“That was not well done of him.” It was uttered in a low, raw voice, nearly menacing in its gruff tenor.
The night air, which only moments ago had been soft and cool, felt at once thick and heavy.
There was a crackle of tension, of a sudden strange current, not unlike the static charge of the air before a lightning storm.
But the storm of earlier in the day had long passed, and the sky was dark but cloudless, the cold silvery moon hanging heavy overhead amidst a web of stars.
“I was not offended,” Kate said with an awkward little laugh.
“He was agreeable company otherwise, and I do like reels. At least I did not have to suffer through a waltz.”
“Oh, you must waltz,” Elliot said, and with the lightening of his voice, so, too did the oppressive atmosphere fade. “I haven’t gone through all of that effort this week for naught. We’ll waltz once we’ve made it safely back inside.”
“No!” Kate gasped, horrified at the suggestion of humiliating herself before a roomful of people. “I can’t waltz; I’ve resigned myself to it.”
“If you can dance a reel, you can dance a waltz,” Elliot said, inflecting his voice toward a wheedling tone. “Come, what’s the harm?”
“I’ll embarrass myself,” she grumbled. “I’ve stepped upon your toes at least a dozen times today already.”
“Then what’s once or twice more? In fact…” Elliot stepped closer, out of the clinging shadows cast by the hedgerows and into the small circle of moonlight that fell between them. “Here,” he said, extending his gloved hand to her. “Step on my feet.”
∞∞∞
“Step on your feet?” Kate repeated with a nervous little laugh. “Elliot, be serious.”
“I’m not always jesting, Katie.” Still Elliot held his hand extended to her in the hope that she would take it. “Can’t you hear the music?”
It was quiet in the garden, mostly. The drone of conversation, which had been at a dull roar in the crowded confines of the ballroom, had been rendered completely inaudible.
But the music—high and sweet and clear, the faint strains of a waltz from the distant ballroom, could still be heard above the breeze rustling through the hedgerows.
She didn’t reach for his hand. Instead she twisted her fingers before her, and her shoulders pitched up in an awkward shrug as a grimace threatened to pull at her lips. “I haven’t managed it in the least thus far,” she said. “You can’t expect me to manage it now.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “I’ll be doing the dancing for both of us.”
Kate gave a rueful shake of her head, but at least she stopped twisting her fingers as if she might wrench them straight off of her hands.
Instead they dropped to smooth at the vivid yellow skirt of her gown, brushing invisible wrinkles from the delicate silk.
“Haven’t I caused enough damage to your toes already? ”
Elliot offered her a cheeky grin and flexed his fingers in a beckoning gesture. “You could step on my toes a hundred more times and you’d not hear me complain of it. Come, now, Katie.”
For just a moment she went utterly still, the last vestiges of that wry, self-effacing expression fading from her face as a handful of seconds ticked by.
At her sides, her fingers twitched within her gloves, as if there were some part of her that wanted to reach out to him.
Not because he’d badgered her into it—only because he’d asked.
Her lips parted, and she drew in a short, shaky breath as she firmed her shoulders. “All right,” she said, as she lifted her chin decisively. “All right, but—but if I should jam my heel down onto your toes by accident, it is only your own fault.”
“I’ll take that blame,” he agreed readily, lurching forward to grasp her hand in his.
“And if I should fall on my arse, you are never to tell a single living soul—”
“Kate,” he interjected, swallowing down the laugh that had climbed into his throat. “You’ll be fine. You have my word.”
Even in the darkness, he could see the heat rising into her cheeks.
How strange it was that Kate, whom he had never known to blush in such a fashion in all the years of their acquaintance, could now be brought to it so easily.
Her life in Northampton, he thought, had stunted her a little.
She had been only a sapling when her life had been utterly changed, those first tendrils of new branches pruned and snipped away before they had ever had the chance to flower.
Would she allow herself, now, the occasion to bloom? To discover facets of herself she had thought long since trimmed away? To grow beyond the limits she had placed upon herself much too soon in life?
Her fingers clutched his, squeezed in a helpless, spasmodic clench that felt more like a flinch than a grip. “I’ll embarrass myself again,” she said, her voice pitched to a whisper-soft murmur.
“You won’t. Here, step on my feet.”
There was the cool rustle of silk as she shifted to lift one foot from the earth. Hesitated. Placed it back on the ground once more. “I’m too heavy. I’ll hurt you.”
“You won’t.” And he prodded her in the way he knew best, in a way that he had learned from childhood, and which had never failed to get a rise out of her. “What are you afraid of, Katie?”
There. Her chin set in that familiar, mulish expression. Her dark eyes glowed with the particular fire of stubborn determination. She snatched up one foot, brought it down again—more lightly than he’d expected, given her flare of temper—to bear upon his.
The position was difficult. She couldn’t place the other foot without being hopelessly overbalanced. She would fall on her arse, and she’d pin the blame squarely upon his shoulders. Elliot wrapped one arm about her waist, offering the security of his arm at her back. “Go on,” he said.
Kate’s fingers clutched at his once more. “You daft man, you’re going to drop me!”
“I’m not going to drop you.”
“I’m fairly certain our thighs aren’t meant to be touching,” she groused.
“Who is going to know?” A minute shift in his stance as he braced himself. “I’m not going to let you fall,” he said, striving to pitch his voice to a reassuring tone. “You’re not going to hurt me, and you’re not going to embarrass yourself. The other foot, now.”
He felt her shift, felt her weight settle more firmly against his arm as she gingerly lifted her other foot and at last set it atop his shoe.
Gradually, as if she doubted the veracity of his claim that she wouldn’t hurt him, she let her weight shift upon it until at last both of her feet balanced atop his.
“There,” he said. “You see? No damage done.”
Kate swallowed audibly, and she clenched his hand in one of hers as she let the other fall upon his shoulder, grabbing hold for added stability. “Don’t you dare drop me.”
“I would never,” Elliot chuckled. “Did you know,” he said conversationally, “most reels are written in common time?”
“No; I can’t read music,” Kate said. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“Waltzes,” he said, “are written in perfect time. Three beats to the measure instead of four. I think your feet want to squeeze in that extra beat when you try to waltz, when it’s not meant to be there. You have got to feel the rhythm to learn it instead.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You can still hear the music, can’t you?”
Kate canted her head, and a loose curl drifted in the light breeze, teasing her shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I can hear it.”
“All right, then. Now feel it, when we move.” He waited for the next measure to begin and took those first few steps, whirling Kate with him into the rhythm of the dance. Tight, close circles, owing to the constraint of the space allowed to them.