“And you are holding the wrong woman’s hand.” She eyed him with a raised eyebrow.
Pamela descended the staircase with the careful poise of someone counting every step in her head. When she reached the bottom, she bobbed a curtsy so flawless that Lord Lempster and his daughters dabbed at their eyes. Then, she spun straight into Raph’s arms.
“Did you see?” she whispered against his waistcoat, her voice trembling with excitement. “I didn’t trip. Not even once.”
“You were magnificent,” he managed, his voice rough. “Happy birthday, Pamela.”
She pulled back, her cheeks scarlet as they swayed to the music.
“Do I really look all right? The lace isn’t too much?”
“Pamela, you are perfect.” Raph spun her around. “Just like your mother.”
Pamela’s smile could have lit the chandeliers.
Raph’s heart swelled even when he thought about how she took the news about her true parents. Every morning, as if it were a ritual, she would take a few minutes to stand in front of Josephine’s portrait and admire her.
Margaret swooped in like a hawk. “Come along, birthday queen. Although there are few of us, we have all formed a disorderly queue to meet with you.”
Pamela giggled, then caught Raph’s sleeve. “May I dance with my father before I go?”
“Of course! Do you remember the steps I taught you?” Margaret asked her excitedly.
“Yes, I would love to show them off tonight.”
“Oh, you will be absolutely wonderful! I will leave you to it, then. Good luck!” Margaret squeezed Pamela’s hands before she sashayed towards her family, a wide grin plastered on her face.
Raph shook his head and turned his attention back to Pamela.
“What dance did you have in mind?” he asked.
“A proper waltz?”
Raph swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “It would be the greatest honor of my life.”
He led her onto the dance floor as the orchestra began the sweeping strains of a waltz. Pamela placed her gloved hand in his, the other on his shoulder, and for the first time in sixteen years, Raph felt the past finally loosen its grip.
“You’re not stepping on my toes at all,” he teased softly.
“That’s because Lady Margaret threatened to make me practice with a book on my head for a month if I embarrassed the family,” Pamela whispered back, her eyes sparkling. “I practiced until the book fell.”
He laughed in the middle of a ballroom. Across the floor, Camelia watched them, teary-eyed.
When the Lempster family had departed with hugs and promises to return before the week’s end, Camelia slipped away and found Raph in the small morning room. She closed the door softly behind her.
“Young ladies of sixteen,” he said without preamble, loosening his cravat, “are incomprehensible creatures. Pamela spent twenty minutes arguing that blue lace is not childish, another ten insisting she is far too grown-up for birthday kisses, and then demanded I promise to buy her a horse that can jump the moon.”
Camelia bit her lip, but her laughter crept through. “That is why I am here. To translate the mysterious language of teenage girls.”
He crossed the room in three strides, caught her waist, and backed her gently against the wall beside the cold fireplace.
“Raph,” she gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Did you forget?”
“Forget what?”
“I promised you a lesson tonight.”
