My regret over accepting Owen’s invitation raged inside me until it was time to begin the dance. Mrs. Everard nudged me forward as Owen stepped around Lady Pembury to find me.
I felt the daggers she shot in my direction as Owen led me to the dance floor.
My stomach fluttered as he stood across from me. There was nothing to obscure my view of him. There was nothing between us—nothing but space and air and unspoken words.
He bowed, and I curtsied.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, just above a whisper.
Was he referring to this being my first dance, or that I was dancing with him specifically? Both played a major part in my nerves. I tried to think of him as Owen,my friend. Not Owen,the man who had kissed me senseless in the drawing room.
“I can’t help it,” I whispered. “I’ve never danced with anyone before.” I swallowed, allowing myself a small smile.
He stepped forward as the music began, taking my hand in his. “I’m nervous too.”
He must have been lying to make me feel better. He was never nervous. I threw him a questioning look.
“I’ve never danced with you before,” he said with a soft smile.
His smile pricked my heart, because I knew how difficult it must have been for him to do it. But I knew why he did. He wanted me to feel comfortable, and to enjoy my first dance without pitying him.
I wished he could know how I really felt. He didn’t know how keenly his touch affected me, and how his smile somehow made my heart lighter and heavier at the same time. He didn’t know how much I had missed him the past week, and how much I would miss him for the rest of my life.
My head spun as his arm slid around my waist. I remembered this dance from my lessons with Alice, and how it began with this pirouette. With our hands intertwined above my head, Owen led me in a circle, his eyes locked on mine. The violins echoed in the large room, the melancholy tune threatening to unravel me.
The other dancers moved with us in perfect harmony, but surely they didn’t feel as much turmoil as I did.
“Are you acquainted with Lady Pembury?” Owen asked as we stepped together.
I glanced in her direction, not surprised to see that she was watching me with a lifted chin and narrowed eyes. “Unfortunately.”
He laughed, sending a ripple through me, then said in a quiet voice, “Perhaps we should go fetch the acorns.”
My eyes rounded. “Was she?—”
“Yes. She was.” He gave a soft laugh. “A common victim of my mischief. Something that I cannot say I’m ashamed of.”
So Lady Pembury was the woman walking beneath the tree that day, ten years ago. I no longer regretted a single one of those acorns.
Owen held my hand tightly as we stepped together, then apart, and as I performed my own pirouette.
“I’m sorry I neglected to invite your betrothed,” he whispered as we stepped together. “I knew he would claim your first dance, and I was not in a generous mood.” His serious tone did nothing but unnerve me.
We switched sides as I turned, and the next steps demanded that I move down the line. My heart pounded, and my mind raced. I couldn’t plan my next words, not amid my attempts to dance correctly. I tried to appear weightless and graceful, as Alice had instructed, as each of the other gentleman passed the ladies down the line. A clasp of a hand, a pirouette, a polite smile.
I met Owen again, and we stepped together, our hands touching briefly, then moving apart.
“You were mistaken,” I said in a hushed voice.
We turned together, our hands interlocked behind our backs. He held my gaze, a crease entering his brow.
“I’m not engaged to Mr. Baines.” The confession spilled out so quietly I wondered if he had heard me. There was little time to explain before the dance would end. “It’s someone else…a man from Silton.”
Owen’s hands clasped mine as we stepped together, but not apart as we were meant to. He held me there, and I fell out of step with the others. I felt the weight of a million gazes as Owen suspended our dance, right there, in the middle of the room.
“From Silton?” His eyes searched my face with confusion as the final notes of the song rang through the air. The other dancers bowed and curtsied to their partners, but Owen still held my hands tight.
I nodded, but my face burned at the attention we were drawing. I wrenched my fingers away from his, curtsied, and strode as quickly as I could toward the nearest wall. If Owenrespected my reputation, he wouldn’t follow me and continue making a scene.
