I held my back straight, chin up, when Jack turned. His gaze took me in, head to toe, then with a smile tweaking his lips, he moved toward me in two bold steps with an offered arm. “Shall we, my lady?”
I dipped a curtsy and took his arm. “Of course.” I smiled upon the others, still watching from their places. “Good day to you all, and thank you for a most remarkable visit. I shall remember it always.”
Jack looked down at me as we left, and the smile on his face, the glow in those intense eyes, were unmistakably filled with admiration.
I clamped my hat to my head as the coach jostled us over the road toward London.
“You’re quite a vision in ... that.” Jack had propped himself in the rear-facing seat where he merely stared from the shadows, left arm over the back of his seat. “I suppose I should have given some thought to coordinating colors.”
“I’ve never felt lovelier.”
He smiled. “It takes an exceptional woman to wear it well, and by heavens, you’re first-rate.”
A smile flickered about my lips. Somehow it was the mostromantic compliment I’d ever received. I tried not to shiver under the directness of his approving stare, but my heart pounded. I leaned one hand upon the cool window and watched the rolling countryside fly by, but I was ever aware of him. It was impossible not to be.
When I turned back to him, his gaze was still upon me, his arm braced against the seat.
“Why Philippe?” he asked again. His voice was soft this time.
“I’ve answered that already.”
“I want the truth.” His jaw angled left. “Tell me what it is, or I shall have to askhim.”
Heat climbed my neck and I looked away. “He’ll only think you mad. There’s no understanding between us. At least, nothing firm.”
“Why such an attachment to him, then? It all seems rather arbitrary.”
I spun with a huff. “Why Marcus de Silva? Why stick your neck out for him so much if he’s truly of no relation?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“There’s more. All this devotion merely because he gave you a hand up? What hold has he over you?”
A muscle flinched beneath his shirt. “That’s none of your business.”
“Likewise.” I gave a prim smile.
He leaned forward with a hefty sigh and shoved hair off his forehead. “Very well then, your secrets for mine. Tell me what hold Philippe has on you, and I’ll talk about de Silva.”
Something fluttered in my chest at the name of my father, and standing here on the edge of knowledge where there’d been nothing but blackness for years, I couldn’t turn away from it.
“And no half-truth—I’ll know. You’re a terrible liar.”
I fidgeted with the folds of the frothy skirt. “It’s rather silly, really. We danced together once, years ago, when I was but a girl.” Memories sweet and tender tugged at me. “It was the first time I’d ever truly danced ballet. It was ... incredible.”
His eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“He happened upon me in the old materials room, the one off the—”
“I know it.”
“Right, then. He discovered me there after I rescued him from a pair of drunken sots.”
“Fight them off, did you?” He was amused.
“With a shoe. I threw it at them and they ran. I suppose he felt indebted to me. He came and found me and ... well, he was my very first dancing partner. Led me in my first pas de deux.”
How easily my mind drifted back to that night, as if it had just occurred. “It was lovely and innocent, yet so very unsettling, in a good way. I never knew it could feel that way. Then he showed me the ballet in the theater—it was my first glimpse—and he made me this promise that one day we’d dance together on that stage, that I would be a real dancer and ...” And somehow the two had become the same thing. “It’s always been my dream.”
