“Sadly, yes,” he said as they left the town square and headed west. “London is a place where the wealthy live in paradise, the poor live in squalor, and those in the middle barely eke out a living.”
Rachel kept watching as the vehicle trundled down the roads and onto a bridge that headed to Vauxhall. Even from afar, Rachel saw lights burst in the sky.
“Fireworks!” she gasped. “Oh, my word. I would love to see them.”
“You will,” he assured her.
They came to the gate where William paid the three shillings over, and they started on the Grand Walk. From the sides, she saw paths diverging from the main one, snaking their way into darkness. But what kept her eyes dancing were the innumerable colored paper lamps hung on the trees that made her think she was walking in a rainbow.
“Oh, William,” she held his hand tightly. “It is magical.”
“It is,” he agreed as they came down the lane to a large round where merry music flowed from the orchestra above. William turned to her, “Care to dance?”
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Chapter 17
It was magical seeing the expression that ran across Rachel’s face as she took in all the glory that Vauxhall was. He wondered if she had begun to strike down the sordid, depraved image that her parents had put in her head about the place and replace it with the mystical, vibrant place that it was proving itself to be.
“Yes,” she placed her hand in his. “I would love to dance with you.”
Smiling her led her unto the packed dance floor, and he held her close as the maddened version of a waltz had them dancing fast and spinning in crazed whirls. He swung her into another dizzying turn, and she burst out in a giddy laugh that rippled over his senses.
The people around them did not mind when they bumped into them, as they too were brushing into others. The heat from the crowd and the bodily exertion almost made the rotunda feel stifling. But that did not stop Rachel; she shone under the gas lamp with a different glow. One more mesmerizing and enthralling than he had ever seen before.
Rachel was dazzling as she danced; he drank the image in as if he were a starving man standing before a table loaded with food. Rachel danced with perfect synchrony to his, and when the music changed from the mad spins to a more sedate tempo, the waltz aroused him.
It was not hard for him to imagine her flushed face on a bed of rose petals, her lithe body arching to the pleasure he was giving her. His hand slipped from the middle of her back to the small, supple curve of her spine as he spun them again.
His head dipped to her ear, “Tell me what I did to you in your dream.”
She ducked her head, and red painted up her neck to burn her ears bright. “Naughty girl. Tell me.”
“Not…not here,” she whispered. “Anywhere else.”
“I will hold you to that,” William said as the dance dwindled to a close.
After the patrons applauded, William took her hand, and they left the rotunda. The cold air was like a slap to the face after the heat of the rotunda, and he shivered. Knowing that Rachel had to feel the same, he pulled her under his arm and kissed her temple.
“You danced beautifully,” he praised her.
“I would hope so,” she laughed. “It took a lot of improvising, I will tell you that much.
The night sky was ablaze with brilliant stars as they walked away from the main walk further into the park. As they approached the twists and turns of The Lovers' Walks, he saw couples darting into shadowed alcoves and squares hemmed in by tall bushes. They even passed where the unmistakable sound of sexual activity hung in the air.
“Well,” he smiled. “They are having fun.”
“Pardon?”
“Inside that nook we just passed, a couple is having a certainrendezvous,” he said, knowing that she would catch onto his insinuation.
“Rendezvous…Oh!” Rachel exclaimed. “Mother was right then.”
“In some ways, but it is not all flagrant debauchery that happens here, and I think you just experienced one of them,” William said. “There are acrobats, fireworks, a supper room, and the cascade.”
“Cascade?”
As she spoke, the sound of rushing water began to grow and drown out her words. A bell rang, and William tugged her down the path and came to the banks of the cascade just at the exact appearance of water rushing down the fake rocks and tin sheets. They watched at the gush, illuminated by concealed lights, spun a wagon wheel spurring foam to rise up at the bottom and then glideaway.
