Page 46

“It’s like dancing on the deck of a ship.” He’d bent his head to murmur by her ear. He meant the floor, the rough, wide planks, the steep pitch. Even so, her whole body felt flush with the possibility of escape, of a future.

The two of them on a ship to France.

The duchess and her paramour.

Unlike the duchess in her story, she’d have to set sail without the plunder from her husband’s estate. She’d be penniless, depending on Neal, as she’d once depended on her papa, on George, on Cranbrook.

But no, she’d never even get that far.

Unlike the duchess’s paramour, Neal, for all his princely grace and piratical swagger, was not a ruffian king, a fugitive beholden to no one and nothing. He wouldn’t spirit her across the sea, live with her in Paris.

Unless.

She kept her eyes trained straight ahead, studied his cravat, the top of his tanned neck, the hard angle of his jaw.

Unless he fell in love with her. Fell senselessly, torrentially in love with her, the kind of love that permitted no reason, no moderation.

Then he would do anything.

The waltz ended abruptly, a scuffle by the piano causing Emily Polwhele to bang an off chord on the keys.

Neal tightened his hold, pulled her a fraction closer than perfect form allowed, then released her and scanned the room. A group of lanky young men with tankards had surrounded Mr. Barnett, demanding . . . something. The ringleader had an enormous Adam’s apple and the loudest voice. Volume was not clarifying.

“Crowdy so we’ll dance!”

Lavinia wrinkled her nose at Neal, who translated.

“The boys are wanting a jig,” he said as the fiddle struck up. Mr. Barnett began leaping about—he didn’t suffer from rheumatism for all he had to be nearing a hundred—and a portly man unceremoniously displaced an old woman from one of the Traymaynes’ chairs, settled a drum on his lap, and beat it for all he was worth with the palm of his hand.

Unsurprisingly, he wore a smock.

The old woman lifted her feet in rhythm, circling the piano as the young men cheered.

Neal raised a brow and gave Lavinia an appraising look. She shook her head. Jigs were not in her repertoire.

“You disapprove?” he asked as they drifted away from the uproarious skipping and kicking toward a gap in the spectators arrayed along the far wall.

“Of Emmeline’s ball becoming a barn dance?” She stopped by the window, where the wildflowers had wilted in their bottle on the sill. Had she forgotten to add water? With all the preparations, the afternoon had gone by in a blur.

No green thumb here.

She sighed. “The inevitability of the blow has somehow softened the impact.”

He smiled at the wryness in her voice. She’d hoped he would smile.

“Emmeline’s ball?” He watched her closely. The floor thundered as dancers stamped along to Mr. Barnett’s wild bowing. “Is this what it took to win her over? She wasn’t convinced by yesterday’s heroics, so today you arranged for her coming out?”

“More or less.” She smiled. Heroics. He wouldn’t admit that she’d saved his life, but he had just called her a hero. Not quite. But still.

“Bravo.” His eyes looked almost black in the low lamplight. “Every Kyncastle Traymayne is now in your power.”

“Are they?” She turned to fuss with the blossoms, so she could slant a look at him over her shoulder. “Only the Kyncastle Traymaynes?”

Balls—barn dances—they existed to facilitate flirtations.

George had liked to see her flirt.

Fills me with pity for my fellow man, who otherwise I’m inclined to despise. There but for the grace of God go I, that’s what I say to myself. Because those poor pups will never have you, not my Vinnie. My very own. Mine.