Was this how all siblings acted? Launching into assistance, whether you wanted it or not? It was overbearing and a lifetime of it would send her mad.
Yet at the same time, watching Charlotte and William needle each other fondly, seeing how they gently teased out a softer, more relaxed version of Edward, left Fiona with an odd sense of lacking, as though there had been something missing—the absence of which she’d never noticed—and now the echoes of her childhood memories sounded hollow.
She was adrift in that unwelcome longing when Charlotte took her hand.
“We’ll start with the waltz.”
“The waltz? Surely no one will expect me to dance something so intimate.”
Charlotte laughed. “Finley, I had no idea you were such a prude. Here. Your left hand goes here.” She took Fiona’s hand and guided it to her waist. “And your right hand goes here. Edward, play, please.”
As the notes began to sound, Fiona froze. She’d forgotten how talented he was. He imbued the music with heart and soul that simultaneously arrested her and yet had her blood vibrating. It was as though all feeling and expression that he shuttered away as the duke found its release through the keys.
He’d played for her on the rickety church piano the night they’d broken in. The intensity of it had toppled her affection for him into the deepest longing. Tonight, following a daythat had muddled her sense of who this man was, his playing threatened to do the same.
“Finley,” Charlotte barked.
Fiona shook her head. “Pardon. I lost myself for a minute.” She tried to focus on the woman in front of her, not the man to the side, who was utterly wrecking her heart.
“He is very good,” Charlotte acknowledged. “I can understand your surprise. It’s a shame he won’t play for anyone but William and I.”
Fi looked at Edward. “Ye don’t?”
Over by the billiards table, William snorted before striking a ball. “‘The Wildeforde men are not frivolous,’” he said in a falsetto tone that she assumed mimicked their mother. “‘Music is too trivial a pastime.’”
“‘Wildefordes have duty to attend to,’” Charlotte jumped in with the samemocking voice. “‘They should not be spending time on such fanciful diversions.’”
William flicked his hand in a dismissive movement, his nose wrinkled. “‘Wildefordes are not monkeys, performing for the entertainment of lesserton.’”
Fiona looked to Edward to discern his reaction to his siblings’ jesting. He’d stopped playing. He shrugged, but his Adam’s apple bobbed and his face tightened. Charlotte and Will clearly found their mother’s decrees amusing, but Fiona didn’t believe Edward’s nonchalant mask.
“You play,” she said to Charlotte.
“Yes, but we ladiesareperforming monkeys and performing is our duty,” she quipped. “So, I have that freedom.”
Was it freedom, though? It sure as hell didn’t sound like it. Charlotte wasallowedto engage in frivolous pastimes such as music and flower arranging but not allowed to turn her hand to anything more substantial. Goodness, she wasn’t even allowed to participate in charitable endeavors that weren’t firmly within what was expected of a young lady, and it was Edward making that decision.
Before she could challenge any of them on their completely mad perspectives, Edward resumed playing and Charlotte grabbed her hand. After a quick rundown of the steps that Fiona didn’t need, they began to move.
And she promptly stepped on Charlotte’s foot.
“My apologies.”
“It’s nothing.”
A few more attempts and only one more crunching misstep later, and the two of them were moving around the room in a relatively graceful rhythm. It was peculiar dancing with a woman. To begin with, Charlotte smelled like a summer garden and Fiona wanted to know where the scent was purchased. Then there was the gentle curve of Charlotte’s waist, which her brother didn’t have, and the slenderness of Charlotte’s fingers around hers.
The scientist in her was too busy noting her observations to pay close attention to her movements.
“You mustlead, Finley. You dance as though you’re expectingmeto.”
Frustration snagged at Fiona’s fraying patience. “I’m nae used to—”
“You’re not used to what?”
Sigh.“—dancing,” Fiona said before the wordleadingleft her lips. “I’m nae used to dancing.” This whole enterprise was tempting fate and she began to wonder if perhaps she shouldn’t put an end to it. Women were more observant than men. There was no possibility of fooling them all in such close quarters. If she was as intelligent as she prided herself, she’d be avoiding other people like the plague until her matches were sold and her trial was over, and she could return to Abingdale.
But there were potential investors at tomorrow night’s ball, and she couldn’t let the opportunity pass.
