Page 35 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“Yes, a little,” Kate said as she poured. “Not every dance. But a few reels. A quadrille.”

“A waltz?”

“Yes; with Elliot.” Kate found a chair of her own and smoothed out her skirts as she sat. “And I didn’t even step on his toes.” Strangely, it hadn’t even been difficult. That faux waltz out in the garden had done the trick; she had found the rhythm of the dance at last, when she hadn’t managed it in all the days they had practiced. The simple act of standing on his feet and feeling the steps through him had done it.

Mama selected a lump of sugar with the tongs and dropped it into her tea. “Was there…anyone you would dance with again?”

Elliot. Kate felt a strange heat climbing into her cheeks at the intrusive thought. “I’m not certain,” she said as she sipped her tea. “I didn’t feel—they weren’t—”

She wouldn’t have wanted to waltz in the moonlight with them. The thought struck not her head, but her heart. Like a forceful blow from a sharp-tipped weapon, driving deeper by the second and carving out a brutal wound. Her heart ached with a fierce and quiet pain, the sort of pain that could only be borne in silence, in the wretched camouflage of a smile. The sort of pain that could only be weathered because there was no simple cure for it.

Oh, no. Oh, no.

“Kate, your teacup!”

The warning came too late. Kate gave a ragged little gasp as hot tea poured from her tilted teacup into her lap, soaking through the delicate silk of her skirt and the petticoats beneath. “Oh—oh, how clumsy of me,” she said as she leapt to her feet to set her cup aside and snatched up a napkin to blot at the wet stain left behind.

“Have you burned yourself?” Mama asked, worry in her voice.

“No, no. Just embarrassed myself.” At least now she had a ready excuse for her scarlet cheeks. “The tea wasn’t so hot as that, Mama,” Kate said, the words coming so quickly it was as if they tripped over one another on their way out. Drat. Probably she’d stained the skirt irreparably. Kate swallowed back a sigh as she tossed down the napkin once more. “I’m sorry, Mama, I’m just beyond exhausted. Would you mind terribly if I went up to bed?”

“Not at all, dear,” Mama said, her voice thick with confusion. “We’ll speak more in the morning, then?”

“Of course,” Kate said, pausing to buss a kiss to Mama’s cheek on her way to the door. Hopefully, by the time morning came, she would have had enough time to invent answers to whichever questions Mama might have—as well enough time and rest to convince herself that the answers which had sprung immediately to mind were only fanciful concoctions of an overtired brain.

∞∞∞

Elliot tapped his fingertips against the surface of the table, only too aware of the intense, awkward silence that had persisted well beyond Richard’s arrival at their club. A silence Richard made no effort of his own to break, instead choosing to let Elliot wriggle through it like a fish caught upon a hook.

Several days had passed since the ball, and Rebecca had made it plain enough at their last meeting that she was nurturing something of a grudge against him for the worry he had put her through over Kate’s reputation. And Richard, devoted husband that he was, had cast his lot in with his wife, positioning himself firmly upon her side of this petty squabble and carrying her grudges for her.

Happily, whatever lingering annoyance which Rebecca harbored toward him had not extended itself to Kate. The two women—and Kate’s mother—had gone on a number of daytime outings since. Outings on which Elliot had not been invited, much to his chagrin.

But perhaps Rebecca’s rather frosty attitude had finally begun to thaw. Richard had elected, at last, to accept Elliot’s invitation to join him at their club. Now Elliot had only to find out how deeply ran their current of irritation. A task which would have to be managed with finesse, with subtlety, with no small amount of delicacy…

“I was thinking the theatre tomorrow evening,” Elliot blurted out. Blast.

“Were you?” Richard asked dryly, with the sardonic lift of one dark brow.

Elliot fought against the fierce urge to hang his head like a scolded puppy. “Kate has got the wardrobe, now, to allow for it,” he muttered.

“Oh?” Richard speared Elliot with such a piercing gaze that Elliot found himself squirming beneath it as if it had truly pinned him to his seat. “And?”

“Well,” Elliot hedged, tugging at his cravat in futile effort to relieve his discomfort. “Kate’s mother is wearying of so many late nights, you know, and I’ve kept them both out until well past midnight this past week. And I was thinking—hoping, really—that you and Rebecca might deign to—”

Richard interrupted with a derisive snort. “You’ll have the devil of a time convincing Rebecca to play chaperone,” he said over his glass of brandy. “She’s still rather put out with you, you know.”

Stifling a groan, Elliot let his head fall against the back of his chair. “It couldn’t be helped.”

Richard lowered his voice to a gritty murmur to avoid being overheard by any of the other members of their club currently present and said, “Kate was gone for nearly half an hour. Rebecca was beside herself, and utterly convinced she’d be responsible for the ruin of Kate’s reputation!”

“Yes, well, I did tell her where Kate was eventually,” Elliot said, “and I knew Rebecca to be clever enough to concoct some sort of excuse in the event that anyone had made note of Kate’s disappearance.”

“That’s hardly the damned point, Elliot,” Richard groused. “Of course Kate ought not to have gone off on her own—”

“Things are different in the countryside,” Elliot interjected sulkily. “She knows better now.”

Richard made a sound of annoyance beneath his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers in consternation. “Even if she did not know better,” he said, “you certainly did.”