She was not exaggerating.
She had known this about herself for years, had made a kind of peace with the fact that she was a terrible dancer.
“I suppose we will find out,” Joseph said, looking relieved that he didn’t have to be subjected to Albina any longer.
Temperance lasted approximately forty seconds before she stepped directly onto Joseph’s foot. Then she turned the wrong direction entirely and walked into his shoulder, and his composure slipped.
“You are not following,” he said. “Instead, you are going wherever you want to go.”
“That is not intentional, but I told you already that I am no good at this.”
“It is very inconvenient,” he said, with crisp disapproval, “Mr. Fowler, she is not following.”
“A good leader,” said a voice from the doorway, “does not blame his partner for what his lead fails to communicate.”
Everyone in the room turned and Harper was standing at the door with his coat still on, which meant he had come directly from wherever he had been. He was looking at his son now, assessing.
Joseph straightened, immediately.
“Father, it is not something that you can blame me for. She simply wasn’t following.”
“She wasn’t following because you weren’t leading,” Harper said, coming into the room. “Not all your partners will be good dancers. Most of them won’t be and the point is that a good lead makes it possible for any partner to follow. If she can’t follow you, the problem is yours.”
Joseph absorbed this, and to no one’s surprise, did not argue any further.
Mr. Fowler, who had clearly been waiting for exactly this kind of opening, said, “Perhaps Your Grace might demonstrate?”
Harper looked at Mr. Fowler and a silence occurred. Temperance became very interested in a point on the far wall.
“One demonstration,” Harper said, handing his coat to the footman near the door before he crossed the floor, andTemperance turned back from the wall and found him already in front of her, one hand extended.
She looked at the hand.
“Me?”
“Why do you look so surprised?” Harper replied, seeming amused. “You were dancing with Joseph just a moment ago.”
“Yes, and I had told him that I am no good at any of this,” she replied.
“Enough,” he took her hand in his and his other hand came to her waist. She had the immediate, inconvenient awareness of how different this was from Joseph’s careful, practiced grip. There was no deliberateness to it. He simply knew where his hand went and put it there, and the effect was entirely different from being positioned and considerably more difficult to be sensible about.
Suddenly, it was as though her head felt lighter and her heart was beating faster.
Usually, she would arrive at symptoms like this when she had not eaten much. There was a name for it.
A head rush.
“Ready?” he said, quietly, just for her.
“Not really,” she said, honestly as her heart beat wildly in her chest.
“You look a bit flushed.”
She was embarrassed at the fact that he had noticed.
“It’s just that I am not used to dancing, as you know,” she tried to cover it up. Though whether or not if she was successful, she did not know. “It’s been a long time since I have had any lessons.”
Something moved at the corner of his mouth, and he seemed rather amused by her plight.
