"Put your hand on my upper arm." He slid his warm hand around her waist. "Come closer," he said, pulling her forward until she was too close. "'Tis three-quarter time, like the dance with the allemande. Do you remember?"
She nodded.
The earl began to play the loveliest melody she had ever heard. It caught her off guard and she turned to watch him play with more feeling than any musician she'd ever heard. "He plays wonderfully."
"Yes, he does. It's one of the few things he still appears to take seriously." There was a look of pity in her husband's eyes that she knew would have sent the earl into another bout of careless drinking had he looked up from the keys at that moment. Alec's hand squeezed her waist. "Ready?"
She nodded, her head filled with music as wonderful as that at her beasts' ball, and a magical moment later she was swirling across the marble floor in the strong and steady arms of her love.
"I say! You caught on quickly!" Neil called out.
The music played on, sweetly, gently, the notes flowing like satin ribbons in the air. She looked up at her husband, seeking his approval. His face was stone serious; the light in his eyes said he was fighting some silent battle, and losing. If this had been a dream, she would have hoped he was fighting a battle with his heart, but this wasn't a dream. Surely the battle was with his anger, or possibly with his shame at his choice of a wife. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
From the expression on his face, she knew her remark had confused him.
"This must be humiliating for you," she clarified.
"Why would you think so?"
"Because you've had to teach me how to act around your friends."
"The members of the ton are not my friends, Scottish."
"Oh," she said lamely and was surprised when he pulled her even closer, then closer still, until her breasts just grazed his chest with each swirling turn. His hand flattened against her back and inched downward until it rested scandalously low. His warm fingers tightened on hers, and his breath brushed her forehead.
She stared at the studs on his shirt, wanting to look up but unable to do so. The heady scent of him, the almost scorching heat of his hand, the sound of the music, and feel of his breath ruffling her hair filled her senses until there was nothing in the room but the two of them. She finally raised her gaze to his and saw a need that made her heart catch in her throat.
His silver hair looked like moonlight in the golden glow of the chandelier, the shadow of his beard showing just enough to make her remember the rough and erotic feel of it on her skin. His hand moved slightly, a mere inkling of a stroke across her waist. It was like dancing into a dream where the air was a living, breathing thing and the music a tune to make love by.
Her eyes drifted closed and in her mind she relived her intimate moments with Alec: his head bent as he took her breast into the depths of his mouth and his rough tongue over the tip of her, him above her, his skin damp and glistening from the thundering movements of his body inside hers; the feel of him filling her so full that she wasn't sure where her body ended and his began; that one magic moment in which nothing existed but the wonder of them together.
He pulled her closer and spun, then dipped, and her eyes shot open in surprise. He was looking at her mouth, intensely. She looked at his, remembering the feel of his lips and the taste of his tongue.
Kiss me,
she thought,
kiss me and end this yearning.
As if her wish had come true, he lowered his head slowly, watching her, daring her to break eye contact before his mouth met hers so softly, just a sweep of his lips, a tease. Her own lips parted in surprise, for she had expected passion of the same vibrant intensity that his eyes promised.
Silently he was asking her if she wanted more. She did, and her fingers tightened on the hard strength of his upper arm. A second later his lips, as hot as fire and moistened by a quick flick of his tongue, were on hers and he pulled her flush against him, never once breaking step, never once missing a beat.
If anything their spins were faster, their dips deeper, each anticipating the other's motion before it happened. The tempo of the music increased and the volume grew. With each turn, his tongue flickered over her lips, with each dip it sank into the depths of her mouth, filling her in a perfect imitation of the way his body filled hers. The mood of the music changed, the pitch descended. Then the melody changed, climbing higher and higher, swelling in volume and intensity until it reached a peaking crescendo.
It was the kiss of a lifetime, but it ceased a brief moment later.
The music had ended.
"Scottish," he whispered her name in an aching plea.
Joy opened her eyes.
And Alec lost consciousness.
***
"The measles! Impossible!" Alec arrogantly raised himself up in the bed. "I cannot have the measles."
Joy sat in an overstuffed chair near her husband's bed. She was terribly relieved, but her husband's sharp tone and scowling fevered face told her that he was not the least bit pleased with the physician's diagnosis.
"And take that bloody candle away from my eyes. You're going to blind me with that thing."
"Does the light bother Your Grace?"
Alec looked at the physician through bloodshot eyes that narrowed in suspicion. "Why?"
With a small shake of his head, the physician pulled the candle away and gestured to his patient's chest and belly. "The rash is the measles. Once it spreads, Your Grace's fever will drop." He set the candle down on the bedside table and picked up his case.
"I have never been ill a day in my life," Alec said to the room in general, as if by making this announcement he could make the illness go away.
"If Your Grace had had measles as a child, Your Grace would not have them now," the physician said with infinite patience. "This is a rather severe case, I'd say, considering the high fever and the widespread rash." He closed his case with a snap. "Keep warm and stay in bed until the coughing ceases."
"I haven't been coughing." Alec's tone was so belligerent that Joy winced.
"You will. Your eyes will stop tearing, and your nose will stop running. Recovery will begin a day or so later." He turned to her and said, "In the meantime please keep him warm, Your Grace."
She stood. "I will, thank you. We'll take fine care of him." She ignored her husband's unaristocratic snort and walked with the physician into the sitting room. "Is there anything else I should know?"
"No. As I said before, it is imperative that he be kept warm." He gave her a look of pity. "I suspect he won't be a very cooperative patient."
"I'll make sure he stays warm." She gave him a warm smile, hoping to make up a bit for Alec's poor manners and thanked the man again as Henson escorted him out.
She reentered the bedchamber. Although she would have thought it impossible to look arrogant when one was ill, Alec managed it. He was enthroned among the monogrammed pillows, his chin up, his arms crossed in a manner that said, "I am a duke and therefore I am not ill." His expression, to say the least, was not pleased.
She sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry you don't feel well."
He just glared at her.
She tried again. "I was very frightened, you know. One moment you were standing there and the next you had collapsed."
Silence.
"'Twas the fever, I suspect."
Brooding silence.
"You should get some rest."
"I am not tired."
She sighed and reached for the bellpull. "Should I have something sent up to you? Water? Soup? Are you hungry?"
He coughed, once, twice, then tried to suppress the next one.
"Alec, you do have the measles."
He blew his nose. "I know, dammit!"
"Are you warm enough?"
"No."
She shook open a blanket and added it to the pile already on the massive bed. "There. Is that better?"
He grunted a response she assumed was a yes.
She stood there a minute, then shook her head and gave up. "Well, since you don't need me—"
"Don't go."
She stopped and turned around, surprised.
"Read to me." He pointed to a book on the table.
She picked up the book and read the title,
The Gentlemen's Guide to Selecting and Breeding Prime Horseflesh.
"This?"
"Yes, the page is marked." He leaned back into the wealth of pillows and waited expectantly.
She opened to the marked page and began to read. Half an hour later, Joy had learned that horses can be cow-legged, bowlegged, or pigeon-toed, that a sloping croup means lack of power in the hindquarters and a straight croup means less power in jumping, and that horses suffered from such afflictions as ringbone, seedy toe, and bog spavin—which sounded like something a witch might use to cast a black spell.
"I've been thinking," Alec said, cutting off the latest tidbit of information. "I realize I have been rather rigid about your . . . your problem."
"My problem?"
"Yes."
Now he's going to bring up that incident at the Frost Fair again, she thought, deciding that if he did she would not hit him with the stack of blankets Roberts had supplied.
"I realize you cannot change what you are any more than I can change what I am."
She nodded and waited for the rest.
"I suppose if your magic can do some good, 'twould be acceptable, every so often, for you to use it."
She clamped her gaping mouth shut.
"Not in public, of course, but in private, behind closed doors, when only you and I are present." He looked at her expectantly. "Like now."
"I don't understand," she said.
"I am giving you permission to zap the measles away."
For a second she had to think to make sure she'd heard him right. Then she burst out laughing. "Oh, Alec!" She collapsed onto the chair in a fit of giggles. "You can be such a hypocritical prig sometimes."
"Me?"
She bit her smile back. "Yes, you."
He looked down his nose at her, then winced and scratched his chest. "I'm waiting," he said.
"I cannot."
"What do you mean you cannot?"
"A witch cannot just zap an illness away."
"Why the hell not?"
"'Tis not one of our powers."
"Bloody hell," he muttered, then sank back against the pillows.
Well, husband, she thought, you might never have been a child, but today you are acting like one. She forced herself to keep from laughing and asked, "Shall I continue reading?"
"Yes," he barked, then leaned his head back and closed his red-rimmed eyes.
Halfway into the next chapter he was sound asleep, and Joy was thumbing through the pages of the first interesting and enlightening chapter "What to Look for in a Breeding Stallion."
***