“Well, someone put it there,” Tabitha insisted.
“Therefore someone ought to dance?” he asked with amusement.
She glared at him. “Yes. It’s a time-honored tradition that stretches back for centuries.”
“Then I suppose we cannot stand in the way of tradition.” He took her hand in his. “Come on, lady fair.”
She blinked. “Really?”
Hudson tugged her toward the maypole, their steps quickly increasing from a walk to a run until they arrived, winded and laughing, at the base of the colorful pole.
“How does the dancing go?” he asked. “Are there specific figures, like a quadrille or a corn rig?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I always imagined a maypole dance as something romantic and pagan and joyful.”
“Then we’ll do whatever occurs to us, and it’ll be right.”
“Like what?”
He answered by springing into motion, skipping around the maypole with exaggerated bounding steps whilst waving his arms about wildly, a silly expression on his handsome face.
Tabitha burst out laughing and joined him at once, skipping merrily in a way she hadn’t done since she was a small child, and wiggling her arms overhead as if she were a maypole herself.
Hudson was right. This did feel romantic and joyful. Tabitha felt freer in this moment than she could ever recall feeling in her entire life.
It was more than the unusual sensation of peace. She felt truly happy. It bubbled within her, filling her with energy and making her lightheaded with joy. The moment was carefree and perfect. She was having fun.
All because of the hulking giant of a man frolicking about the maypole with her.
Their windmilling hands banged together, and Hudson pulled her into his embrace. Tabitha wasted no time in wrapping her arms about his neck. She rose on her toes as his head dipped down to meet hers.
The kiss was explosive. A rainbow of colors in its own right. A dance, a frolic, as unselfconscious and joyful as their bodies. An overwhelming sense of love rushed through her, followed a frisson of panic and dread.
This was the man she wanted. Not as a pretend husband, but as a real one.
And she couldn’t have him.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured against her lips. “Do you want to go?”
“I never want to leave.” She held him tighter. “I want to stay with you all week and forever.”
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly. “I’m fine enough as a distraction, but nothing more permanent than that. Even without considering Oldfield… You’re a lady. I’m nothing.”
“You’re everything,” she said fiercely. “Without Oldfield, nothing would stop me from turning my back on the beau monde if it meant opening my arms and my life to you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t mean that. The world you were born into—”
“Has gossiped about me since before I took my first breath. Do you think my choosing a man of business would raise any more eyebrows than a newborn babe betrothed to a man older than her father?” She lifted her chin. “Regardless, what would I care? I wouldn’t be around them to hear it.”
He stared at her in silence for a long moment, then crushed his lips back to hers.
She kissed him as though their moments together were numbered… because they were. Without the betrothal to Lord Oldfield, Tabitha would unreservedly and eagerly spend the rest of her life with Hudson.
But she was promised to Oldfield. And the viscount was Hudson’s employer. A man who was petty and vicious enough to enact revenge on a servant for a transgression far less bold than kissing his employer’s betrothed.
Tabitha had been born doomed to a life of misery, but she needn’t drag Hudson down with her. There was no path for them together. She had no business also jeopardizing the safe, secure future Hudson had built for himself out of talent and grit. He’d fought so hard and so long to rise from his humble beginnings to the respected position he held now. Pretending this week was anything more than a fantasy was a disservice to them both.
For now, they were acting out a play…
