“It is a country entertainment, Lord Whitleaf,” she said. “I daresay it will be over well before midnight.”
“One of the first things I noticed about you,” he said, “was that you are literal-minded—hearts as organs in the chest, for example. My poet’s soul still winces over that one. Let me rephrase my question, then. Are you preparing to dance theeveningaway?”
“I am preparing toenjoymyself,” she said. “I have never been to a ball or even a country assembly.”
“Never?” He looked arrested. “You do not know how to dance, then?”
“Learning to dance is a necessary part of any lady’s education,” she said, “even if she is only a charity pupil. We have a dancing master at the school—Mr. Huckerby. I learned from him. And now I often demonstrate the dances with him while the girls look on.”
“But you have never danced at a ball,” he said quietly.
She felt horribly embarrassed then. That was one pathetic piece of information she ought to have kept to herself.
“We should go back,” she said. “It must be getting late. Everyone will be thinking of going home, and our long absence will be remarked upon.”
“Miss Osbourne,” he said abruptly, “will you dance the first waltz with me at the assembly?”
Oh!
She stared at him, filled with such longing that for a moment she could not even speak. “Oh,” she said then, “there is no need to ask such a thing just because I told you it will be my first assembly and I am in a sense your friend.”
He seized her hand again then, but not just to hold. He raised it to his lips and held it there for a few moments while he looked intently into her eyes over the top of it.
“What does thisin a sensemean?” he asked. “How can two people be friendsin a sense? Either we are or we are not. I have asked you to waltz with me because I wish to waltz with you and no one else. Sometimes motives are as simple as that.”
She had watched her hand held against his lips, and she hadfeltit there—not just with the hand itself but with every cell in her body. No man had ever made her such a courtly gesture before. Ah, no one had. And it felt very good indeed. It feltmorethan just good.
And then his face blurred before her vision and she realized in some horror that her eyes had filled with tears.
She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on to it, his grasp tightening.
“Susanna,” he said, “have I upset you? I do beg your pardon. Do you not wish—”
“Yes,” she said shakily, dashing her free hand across her eyes. “I do. I will. I mean, it would give me the greatest pleasure to waltz with you, my lord. Thank you.”
But her stomach felt as if it had performed a somersault inside her. He had called herSusanna. How foolish to be so affected by that slight breach of good manners—by that wonderful sign of friendship.
He bowed elegantly over her hand and grinned at her.
“The evening preceding that waltz will be dull indeed,” he told her, his free hand over his heart.
Ah, he had seen that she was upset and otherwise discomposed, she realized. And so he was deliberately lightening the atmosphere by teasing her, even flirting with her. Oh, hewasa kind man.
“Nonsense, Lord Whitleaf,” she said with a laugh that came out on a strange gurgle. “I have not forgotten that you are engaged to dance at least the first four sets of the evening with other partners. You cannot pretend that the prospect of so much female company is dull.”
He chuckled.
“But I had engaged to dance with them,” he said, “before I even met you. Once I did, I became impervious to all other female charms.”
“Flatterer!” She clucked her tongue and laughed again, with genuine amusement this time, and withdrew her hand from his.
“Iamspeaking the truth, you know,” he added. “I have found that friendship is far more stimulating than flirtation.”
“The female population of England would go into a collective decline if they heard you say such a thing,” she said. “We must go back.”
“Must we?” he said. “Or shall we run away and stay away forever and ever? Do you ever wish you could do that?”
“No.” But she gazed wistfully at him. Sometimes she did wish it. Shehadrun away once. But in her dreams she could sometimes fly…
