“I know how to dance, Miss Turnbow,” he assured her, winking at Nora and Con, who looked on with an undisguised combination of astonishment and delight. “Moreover, your capitulation has pleased your charges immensely.”
“Hmm,” came the noncommittal sound of her lovely voice. And then she gave his sisters a beaming, brilliant smile that rendered her positively radiant and could not help but elicit a response in his eager prick.Devil take it, she was a lovely bit of baggage, her governess weeds be damned.
“I knew you could not resist your inner desire to please me,” he murmured, wanting to nettle her.
Her color rose, but she kept her gold-brown gaze settled across the room. “Lady Honora, Lady Constance, I would dearly love to hear the two of you play together at once. If it pleased you for us to dance, I suppose I shall be willing to eschew propriety on this solitary occasion.”
Con clapped, and Nora gave an excited bounce. Their enthusiasm was infectious. And, if he was honest, endearing. Miss Governess had been more than correct in her assessment of the situation. He had never seen his sisters this happy. Nor had he ever felt as light as he did in this moment of freeing, uninhibited pleasure.
It was deuced odd. Never would he have supposed that something as trivial and commonplace as dancing a reel with a governess could imbue him with such a sense of innate gratification. But then again, it could not be denied that Miss Turnbow was not just a governess. She was notjustanything. She was somehow… different. And she made him feel alive.
Since his ignominious return to England for Phillip’s funeral, which had occurred not long after Morgan’s death, his existence had been steeped in misery and the attempt to escape it by any means possible. Particularly by drowning his demons in whisky and numbing himself as best as he knew how. The deaths of his brother and best friend still shook him to his core even now, six months later.
But now was not the time for mourning, or grief, or dwelling in the pain of his past. It was instead about seizing the moment. About remembering how to enjoy life. About twirling Miss Governess until she grew so dizzy and fell so far beneath his seductive spell, she could not help but acquiesce and become his mistress.
He smiled down at her as they faced each other and waited for the music to begin.
She stared up at him solemnly, and the height difference between them struck him for the first time. She was petite in stature, the top of her head only reaching to his chin. He extended his hand, and she placed hers in his. Con and Nora began to play the lively tune.
Because he did not know how to dance Mrs. McWhatnot’s reel, and because he certainly did not know Miss Governess’s special two-person version of the bloody thing, he found himself in the unusual position of allowing the female to lead. Of allowing his sunset-haired, stubborn, vexing, con-bloody-founding siren to lead. It took only a note or two of the music for her to realize he was waiting to follow her. And then she took charge.
Predictably.
Maddeningly.
As they danced, his hand slid to her trim waist—hidden beneath the shapeless lines of her drab gown—for a turn before she wordlessly rebuffed him. He bit back a grin and spun about her, copying her footwork. Odd, but he didn’t mind allowing her to lead. She took the reins and went with abandon. They twirled and circled each other, they did their paces up and down the chamber. Con and Nora picked up time, playing the reel faster and forcing them to speed up their steps.
By the time the song ended, he was as breathless as Miss Governess. They stood opposite each other, hands still linked, and when she would have extricated herself from his grasp, he held firm for one moment longer. Wild color bloomed on her cheeks from her exertion, and a genuine smile curved her pink lips. Small, curled tendrils of her lustrous hair had escaped her hideous cap, making her look even younger and softer and lush.
How he wished he could kiss her. How he wished they did not have an audience.
But he could not, so he sketched a bow and brought her hand to his lips instead. “Thank you, Miss Turnbow.”
She stared at him, a stricken expression on her face before she schooled her features back into her prim and proper governess mask. She dipped into a smooth curtsy. “Thank you for the honor, Your Grace.”
Her soft words and sweet voice moved over him like a caress. His gut tightened, and only partially because he wondered at the reason for the emotion he had seen glittering in her eyes before she dashed them away. She was a mystery wrapped inside an enigma, cloaked in intrigue. What was it about her that burrowed beneath his skin in a way no other female had? Why could he not shake the instinct that there was a great deal more to Miss Jacinda Turnbow than she pretended?
He forced himself to release her hand and turn back to his sisters, who were both looking on with avid interest. Curious little articles. “Thank you as well, Con and Nora. It was a lovely way to spend the evening, and you are both quite skilled.”
“Miss Turnbow has been busy teaching us all manner of new dances,” Con said, exhibiting an enthusiasm he had never seen in her before. “She knows so many lively ones.”
Well, he supposed he could not say Miss Governess did not perform her duty. It seemed she was quite industrious. “Excellent, though you cannot have learned to play with suchfinessein a mere week.”
He could not resist alluding to their intentional increase in the tempo so he and Miss Turnbow were skipping about like Bedlamites by the time the last note rang out. He was more than aware of their every attempt to make mischief.
“Mother taught us to play,” Nora said softly then, shaking him with her sudden candor. “She liked to entertain us in the evenings. The sad ones were always her favorite, but we could persuade her to play reels if we promised to read her the letters you wrote us.”
Mother.He stiffened as a fresh rush of sadness flooded him. She had been the kindest, gentlest soul. Nothing but sweet and good, with the compassion of an angel and a faultless ability to see the best in everyone around her, she had been the heart of the family. She had been many years younger than Crispin’s father, whose first wife had died birthing a stillborn daughter. Where the old duke had been aloof and cool, Mother had been the opposite. When she had died unexpectedly while he was on the Continent at war, it had eaten him alive.
It touched his black heart to think his mother had longed to hear the silly epistles he’d written his young sisters. His words had always been careless and light, never alluding to the horrors of battle. Even the letters he had sent to Mother had been carefully expunged of anything that would cause her undue worry from afar. All the time he had been gone, he had imagined no one had truly missed him. That his family had simply carried on in his absence, as if he were a wound that had healed over to form a scar. A memory and nothing more. Had he been wrong?
“Brother?”
Nora’s voice, questioning and tinged with confusion, jolted his wandering mind from its reminiscences. He blinked, focusing on her, but his vision was suddenly blurred. He blinked more furiously, frowning. Why were his cursed eyes wet?
“Are you crying?” Con asked in hushed tones.
No, he damn well was not. Gritting his teeth, he reached into his coat and extracted a monogrammed handkerchief, dabbing at his infernal eyes that refused to cooperate. “Of course not,” he dismissed. “I am merely…”
