“Then please, do tell what led you to allow me to escort you home after so many sound rejections.”
“That.” I waved a finger at his chest. “How do you do ... that?”
A pause. “I must admit, now I’m even more curious. I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
I tucked my chin into my cloak and felt the heat through my layers. What a rotten idea this was. “All the ... grace. Confidence.” I waved my hand around vaguely. “All I can manage is stiffness and—”
“Ah, your dancing. You want advice on your performances.”
“Fournier says I need a spark of romance.”
“So you’ve come to me.” There was amusement in his voice.
“Well, you are the expert.” Heavens, this was unsettling.
His eyebrows shot up. “Am I, now?”
“I’ve yet to see you without an utterly charmed woman by your side and a smile on that silly face of yours. I suppose that’s what I need to do to audiences—charm them the way you charm women.”
He fell silent and paced on for two and a half blocks, during which time I worried through more than a hundred different ways he could have taken my words.
Finally his voice, soft but firm, came out with puffs of steam in the cold. “You care too much.”
My gaze shot to his.
“Drop the extra practices. You’re not perfect, so why waste time trying to be?”
This was headed in the wrong direction. “You’ve never been a ballet dancer. You couldn’t understand.” I’d heard it too many times—therelax your standardsspeech, and it only rankled. Everything rested on the precision of each dancer onstage. “Ballet is a show of collective perfection.”
“No, listen.” He crossed his arms, pausing on the walk. “Perfection is an illusion, and you’ll never reach it. It’s an utter waste of time to attempt it.”
I rolled my eyes with a sigh.
“Scoff if you want, but you’ll only send yourself into an early grave trying to impress a roomful of people who don’t care about you.”
I lifted one brow. “What are you suggesting I do instead?”
His smile widened. “Relax. Enjoy life a little. Don’t take things so seriously. Go about and have a little fun now andagain. I can assist with that too.” He punctuated this with a wink.
I spun and kept walking. “This was a terrible idea.”
He touched my arm and I pivoted back. The soft streetlight overhead accentuated his fresh, clear-cut features. His face was nearly boyish. Hopeful. “Come. Let me show you something. Won’t take but a moment.”
His delight was infectious. Magnetic. Those eyes, so vivid ... Alarms sounded again in my head and I pulled back. “I should go home.”
The light in his face dimmed. “Right, then. I’ll take you.” He bowed and extended his arm, and everything inside me churned. We paused before the door of the rooming house, and he leaned on the frame, hands in his pockets. “Offer remains, if you change your mind.”
I forced a smile. “Thank you, I won’t.”
As I closed the door between us, looking out the window at the retreating triangle of his back, I recalled another thing Mama always taught me—never speak in absolutes.
15
Everyone who’s left, you’ll be the willow chorus.” Bellini’s statement left no room for argument.
I blinked, looking from the six chosen soloists to the long line of dancers—myself included—who had not yet received assignments.
That is, until now.
