Walking away, Christina had no sense of triumph. Keeping her shoulders back and her head held high was an effort, tears pricking behind her eyes as the battle raged behind her composed expression. No matter how much she tried, she could not push him completely out of her heart. That longing refusedto die, refused to let her bury it under layers of sorrow and doubt.
And now I must dance with him.
Anxiety took its place on the throne of her heart as she swallowed tightly, her breathing already quickening. To be back in his arms would bring her even more trouble, Christina was sure, but there was nothing whatsoever she could do about it.
As Christina returned the card to her wrist, her fingers fumbled with the ribbon — the satin loop catching on the clasp of her bracelet. She fought with it for a moment, her cheeks warming, before a pair of steady hands appeared in her field of vision.
“Allow me.”
The voice was Lord Coventry’s. He had materialized beside her — she had not seen him approach, had not heard his steps — and his fingers were already working the ribbon free from the clasp with a deftness that made her breath catch. His gloves brushed the inside of her wrist, and a fine tremor ran under her skin from wrist to shoulder, one she could not still. For three heartbeats, his hands were on hers — the closest they had been in two years — and neither of them breathed.
He released her wrist. Stepped back. His expression was perfectly neutral, as if he had performed a minor courtesy for a passing stranger, but Christina could see the rapid pulse at his throat, the faint color climbing his neck above his cravat.
“Thank you,” she managed, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It was nothing.” His voice was rough. He turned and walked away without another word.
Christina stood perfectly still, her hand pressed to the wrist he had touched. The heat of his fingers lingered on her skin like a ghost. Beside her, her mother was speaking — something about Lord Newfield, something about the next dance — but the words arrived as if through water, muffled and distant.
Near the far pillar, half turned away from the ballroom floor but watching through the reflection in the tall gilt-framed mirror, Lord Pennington observed the exchange. His expression did not change — he was too practiced for that — but his hand, resting on the marble ledge beside him, curled slowly into a fist. Lord Granton, standing at his elbow, had noticed it too.
“Coventry seems rather attentive to Miss Oldham,” Granton remarked, his tone carefully light.
Pennington’s jaw flexed. “Merely being polite, I would imagine.” His voice carried a thinness that belied the words. “I understand they are barely acquainted.”
Granton gave him a sidelong look but said nothing more.
6
"Ido not want to dance with her."
Lord Kinsley snorted. "I am afraid you cannot step back from it now, my friend! It must be done."
Isaac scowled down at his dance card, where he had been forced to write Christina's name. It had been her mother who had caught his attention first. He had tried to find an excuse to step away from their company just as quickly as he could, but Lord Newfield had put an end to that intention. The way he had simply handed Isaac the lady's dance card had left him no choice but to put his name to one of the remaining dances.
He had signed it to the waltz.
It had been done before he had even realized what he was doing. His fingers had written his name there without his full awareness, leaving him to stare down at the card in horror. Why had he even thought to do such a thing? It was a whisper of the past, a longing that he had tried to pretend he did not have. It had pushed itself to the fore, telling him that he was not as free of her as he otherwise pretended… and had tied him to her for the most intimate dance of the evening.
How he despised himself for his weakness.
"The country dance has come to an end," Lord Kinsley said, giving Isaac a nudge. "Go, now. Find her, dance with her, and then return her to her mother. It will be over and done with in a few minutes, and you need not even speak with her if you do not wish it."
Isaac's hands curled into fists at his sides, the knuckles whitening beneath his gloves. He stared at the dance floor as if it were a battlefield — which, in its way, it was. Every couple reforming for the next dance moved with a casual ease that struck him as obscene. Did none of them understand what was about to be asked of him? To hold the woman who had broken his heart, to move with her in the most intimate dance society permitted, to feel her hand in his and her waist beneath his palm — it was a cruelty that no gentleman deserved.
He pulled at his cravat, tugging the knot fractionally looser. The air in the ballroom was too thick, too warm, and it pressed against him on all sides. He counted his exhales — one, two, three — the way he had learned to do in moments of extreme agitation, forcing the breath out slowly and deliberately.
"Go." Lord Kinsley sounded like a father reprimanding a child. "You must go. It is only right, Coventry, and you are a gentleman of honor."
That shook Isaac out of his reluctance and forced him into action. His friend was right, he was a gentleman of honor, and he could not simply leave the lady to stand waiting. Even the thought of her looking about for him sent a flicker of shame to his heart and, with a nod both to himself and to Lord Kinsley, Isaac went in search of her.
As he walked, his stride quickening despite himself, his head turning this way and that to look through the crowd, an old, familiar sense of expectation and excitement began to creep up into his heart. This was how he had felt some two years ago, when he and Miss Oldham had first begun their acquaintance.There had been a thrill of anticipation whenever he had stepped into a room, a longing desperate to be fulfilled as he had sought her out. The joy that had been his when he had finally set eyes on her, when he had finally looked into her eyes and been able to take her hand — that had been a joy unlike anything he had ever known before.
Then he caught her scent. Rosewater and something fainter beneath it — clean linen, warm skin — carried on the movement of the crowd. His step faltered. The scent unlocked a door he had spent months boarding shut, and for one treacherous instant, he was back in the garden, her hand in his, moonlight on her hair, the wordyesstill trembling on her lips.
He blinked the memory away. Set his jaw. Pressed forward.
He found her standing beside Lady Bedford, her back to him. Her spine was rigid, her shoulders drawn up, her hands clasped so tightly before her that even from behind, he could see the tension in her fingers. She was performing composure with the same relentless discipline he recognized in himself — and that recognition, unwanted and unwelcome, sent a crack through the armor he had so carefully constructed.
