Page 17
He looked straight into her eyes, and she willed herself to do the same.
“Aye, my lord.”
She hardly had to bend her head for him to reach it. Though the light touch she felt was, of course, from the chapeau, she imagined instead it was his hand caressing her hair.
The dance!
It was only when the musicians began to play a lively tune and the crowd parted that Gillian remembered the tradition—the first dance was to be theirs. When he held out his arm, she had no choice but to rest her own arm, and hand, atop his.
Her father would most certainly be watching. But there was no help for it, and he could hardly complain of her behavior.
Despite her jumbled thoughts, her training had been such that she nonetheless glided effortlessly through the hall as people moved to allow them space.
“You’re quite a dancer,” she said. She’d never danced with a Scotsman before. He dressed much the same as his English counterparts except for the lack of a coat of arms on his surcoat.
“You’re quite a woman.”
She stumbled.
Gillian never stumbled. She could dance with her eyes closed. Had been trained to do so. But he made her feel as if she’d forgotten how to use her feet.
“Yet you know nothing of me.”
They switched arms, and the other dancers finally joined them, breaking some but not all of the tension.
“Not true,” he said.
Ah, so the man thought highly of himself. As well he should.
“I know you are the most beautiful woman here.”
She stumbled again.
“Though your dancing skills are a wee bit lacking.”
“Lacking? I—”
His grin, so easy and comfortable, told her not to be offended. It had been intended as a harmless jest, a way to calm her.
“I know you are a friend of Sara’s. And that you’ve been coming here since you were a girl.”
“Everyone knows that,” she said. Her shoulders relaxed. Though he was large and undeniably handsome, the Scots chief was also surprisingly easy to talk to.
“But they don’t all know how curious you are, do they?”
She would have stopped dancing had he not continued to lead. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to pretend he’d not seen her—and she’d not seen . . .
She pinned her stare on the floor, refusing to meet his eye or to defend herself.
“Did you like what you saw, my queen?”
Gillian couldn’t speak if she had wanted to.
The song found an opportune time to end.
“May I?” another man said, reaching for her hand. She gladly took it.
As May Queen, Gillian would not stop dancing for the remainder of the evening. Which suited her well. What better way to spend her last eve of freedom?
