It Takes Two to Tangle (10 page)

“Just that… well, it's my puffed-up dignity.” It rather magnified the indignity by having to speak of it, so he leaned forward, spoke lower. “I'd rather see whether I can court her successfully on my own.”

She picked up her teacup again, wrapping both hands around it as though pulling warmth from the tiny vessel. “So, just to be perfectly clear, you don't want me to intercede at all.”

“Right,” Henry said, relieved when she nodded. “And I'll tell the same to my sister-in-law.”

Frances shrugged. “All right, I understand. I won't interfere anymore.”

Again, there was something strange about the way she spoke, as though she chose her words carefully to hide something.

He thought he could guess what she was covering up: pity. Why else would her eyes skate away from his? Why would she agree so quickly to his ungracious request to distance herself?

Maybe she too had felt they'd been bound a little too closely. Or maybe distance was what she preferred. He had too much dignity and not enough bluntness to pursue an explanation from her when it was sure to end in another embarrassment. The latest in a long series since he'd returned to London.

With a dissonant crash of keys and another peal of laughter, the trio at the piano called for Henry and Frances to join them. They both stood quickly, not quite looking at one another.

“Don't forget,” Henry said in a whisper. “It's all up to me now.”

She gave a little sigh. “I never forget, Henry.”

***

The rest of the evening went by pleasantly. When Jem returned to the drawing room, the six took turns giving dramatic readings out of a book of plays. An aggressively safe activity, as no one could be tugged into an intimate conversation, or even an intimate
glance
, with anyone else.

That was all right with Henry. He had the letters to rely on, to look forward to.

Or so he thought.

But write to Caro as he might, in the week leading up to his ball, not a single letter came in response to his.

“I look like an idiot,” Frances hissed as she followed Caroline through the crowds in the Argyll Room's lengthy ballroom.

Plentiful witnesses to Frances's overdressed presumption were on hand, for all of London seemed to be in attendance at Lord and Lady Tallant's ball for Henry. The ballroom was brightly lit, richly ornamented, crushingly full. Curious guests peered down from the tiers of boxes overlooking the grand room and chattered from rows of benches surrounding the dancing area. Frances felt pinned by their curious gazes, as though she were a butterfly in a glass case.

Yes, tonight she was a butterfly, or at least had the coloring of one. For this ball, Caroline had insisted in fitting Frances out in one of her own evening dresses, a deep red sarcenet with black trim to flatter Frances's dark complexion, and she had lightly rouged Frances's cheeks and lips.

“I told you that you looked wonderful,” Caroline tossed back over her shoulder as she waved at a friend. “My feelings will be very hurt if you continue to question my judgment.”

“I'm sorry to hurt your feelings, but I have to,” Frances muttered to her cousin's back. “If I can't say I look like an idiot, then what about a clown? I'll start juggling the biscuits if you let me into the refreshment saloon.”

Caroline stopped short and turned to face her. “I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear any of that. And
you
are going to pretend that you think you look lovely. Because you do.” She held up a hand against Frances's protest. “You do, Frannie. Why won't you believe it?”

Frances opened her mouth, waiting for an explanation to fall out. She wasn't exactly sure how to answer Caroline, who always meant well.

“I guess it's because I don't feel like myself.” She made a helpless gesture at the dress. “The color, the cut. It's so conspicuous.”

As though proving her point, a young man in starched shirt points jostled her heavily and righted himself with a grab at her waist.

Frances fixed him with a filthy glare, then turned back to Caroline. “See? Clown. That fellow certainly expected me to entertain him.”

Caroline winked. “What better mood for a ball than a willingness to entertain? Tonight, you shouldn't hide on a chair against the wall. You ought to have a dance, and not only when my toes can't stand Bart Crosby's boots anymore.”

Frances's fingers worked around the slim rectangle of her folded fan. “What if you crack your fan? Or what if you need my help with something?”

Caroline flicked open her own fan, an elaborate affair painted with an image of Venus reclining amidst a flock of Cupids. Gracefully, as though unconscious of the movement, she fluttered it in the area of her shoulder, forcing back a trout-faced man who was about to step too close for propriety. “I think,” Caroline said with a tolerant smile, “I shall be able to bear the inconvenience. I'm not completely helpless, you know.”

“I never thought that,” Frances said.

“Off with you.” Caroline wiggled the fan. “Shoo. Go. Enjoy yourself. That's an order, Frannie. I don't want to see you again unless it's in the middle of a country-dance.”

She gave Frances a friendly wave before turning away, and Frances was left alone, with nothing to do but stand there in a too-red gown and pretend she belonged in the middle of a crushing ballroom.

Which she had, once. Almost a decade before.

Her stomach clenched under the fine fabric of her borrowed gown. Ah, how she would enjoy being a girl again, of whom nothing had been expected but dancing and flirtation. She hardly remembered that blithe girl anymore. Single-minded and selfish, and delighted to be so.

That was before she had learned the consequences of being single-minded and selfish.

“I've been looking for you.” A male voice sounded in her ear, making her jump.

“Henry.” She turned. “Why, where is your adoring throng? I saw you next to Lady Tallant not five minutes ago, smiling down a pack of rabid debutantes. Surely you can't have escaped them so quickly in this crowd.”

He raised his left arm to the level of his eyes. “Elbow. A little trick I learned from my brother.”

“Ah. I should have known.” Frances smiled.

So he had elbowed his way out of the receiving line to join her? She looked him over from short-cropped golden hair to bright eyes, to black-clad shoulders and stark white linens and… oh, good Lord, he was a delicious sight, all elegance and nobility.

Her mind vanished in a puff of lust, and she stood there gaping at him, a crimson-gowned statue.

“I need to speak with you,” he said, and she noticed at last that he wasn't smiling back.

Lust squirmed again before reluctantly bedding down. “As you wish. Not here, though? It's rather loud.”

“No, not here.” He frowned. “I—”

“Oh, Hal, thank heavens.” Lady Tallant, elegant in butter-yellow silks, had come up behind her brother-in-law. “I've been hunting for you. It's time to start the dancing. Did you ask Mrs. Whittier to stand up with you for the minuet? Excellent, come with me.”

She charged through the crowd, using her elbows with as much determination as her husband, and Frances and Henry could only stare at each other and shrug.

“You're going to dance?” Frances followed Lady Tallant, walking on her toes so that her words might travel directly into Henry's ear. “I didn't realize you planned to…” She trailed off. No, he hadn't come over to ask her to dance, or he would simply have done so. He had something else on his mind. Probably something to do with the letters—or lack thereof.

“You don't have to dance with me,” she said hurriedly. “I know I was at hand, but I won't be offended if you ask someone else.”

His eyes cut sideways for an instant. “Don't worry yourself about that. This way I can make sure you don't escape me, and after our dance is over, we'll have a chance to speak.”

Her mouth fell open. “I… well, all right. I assure you, I won't try to escape.”

That was an understatement if there ever was one. She could only hope she remembered the steps of the dance while her mind was so preoccupied with furtive longing. Her fingers tingled within their gloves, wanting to touch and hold. For a few minutes, he would be all hers.

The violins scratched the warning that the minuet was about to begin, and Henry threaded through the crowd a step ahead of Frances. The crush was, if anything, intensifying as the polite world pressed against the edges of the immense room to clear a large oblong for dancing. Couple after couple fought free from the crowd and took the floor, waiting for the guest of honor so they might begin the music.

At the edge of the crowd, Henry and Frances passed a tall figure that shot out an arm to arrest Henry's progress. “Middlebrook,” said a silky voice.

Henry halted and turned his head slowly. “Lord Wadsworth. Ah, Caro. You intend to dance together?”

Caroline stood at Wadsworth's side, wearing her favorite ballroom smile. Frances recognized the expression, useful for crowded rooms in which Caroline wished to appear friendly but not inviting.

“As you see,” Frances said to her cousin, “we
are
meeting on the dance floor, just as you ordered in that dictatorial way.”

“I'm delighted by your obedience,” Caroline answered. “Good girl, Frannie.”

“I hope
you
don't intend to be a good girl, Caro,” Wadsworth said in the oily voice that Frances had come to mistrust. “What pleasure would there be in that?”

“I'm always a pleasure to be around, Wadsworth. Whether I behave myself or not. But in a ballroom, I rather think I shall behave myself. Don't you?” Her fan hung from its loop at her wrist, and she shook it, setting it to swinging.

The viscount's gray eyes widened just a bit, and Frances guessed that he was remembering a sharp rap on the hand.

“If you must, Caro,” he replied with a tight smile. “Middlebrook, congratulations on your ball. I hadn't realized you'd be able to dance at all, considering the extent of your injury. I'm happy to be wrong. I know you'd be devastated not to be able to take part in society events anymore.”

“I'm happy when you're wrong too,” Henry said in a disinterested voice. Through the sleeve of his coat, Frances could feel the tension in his left arm. The tendons in his forearm were corded, the muscles clenched.

Wadsworth squeezed his eyes in a feline blink. “Caro, shall we take the floor over here? We must give Middlebrook and his partner room to show us what they are capable of.”

He turned on his heel then, and Caroline shrugged and waggled her fan at Frances as they stood in formation for the minuet.

Henry stood still for an instant, then drew in a deep breath. His eyes found Frances's. “Well. Shall we?”

He took her hand in his, warm through their gloves, and drew her into the center of the ballroom. More than ever, Frances felt conspicuous and odd, wondering whether Henry had wanted to be here with her or whether she was just a happenstance.

She pressed her mouth into the shape of a smile as he inclined his head, released her hand, and a bright string arpeggio signaled the beginning of the minuet.

And Henry showed her and Wadsworth, and everyone else, exactly what he was capable of. Though his right arm hung still at his side, not rising gracefully with the dance, his steps were as light and sure as if his feet had never left a ballroom to march heavily through a foreign country. She followed his lead, their feet crossing, their legs bending, turning in a large slow circle against the genteel pulse of the instruments.

Frances noticed every detail, as though the scene was drawn in her mind in indelible inks and colored with vivid paints. They wound through the other dancers, turning counterclockwise and catching their left hands together at the level of their eyes. Connecting with other couples, then breaking free to twirl and cross again. A tangle being combed into order. A regimented display. After Wadsworth's veiled taunts, this seemed a new type of march to war, only instead of the punishing swiftness of the infantry's wheeling step, they were wheeling slow about a giant circle. Sinking down in the bouree step, rising again in a half coupee, allowing everyone sitting on benches to have a look at them. That was what this ball was about—and this dance. Henry had something to prove to London society, and he was proving it.

At least, he would have with a proper partner.

A quick stab of panic tangled Frances's feet as they slid past one another. She wasn't suited to this extravagant dress, to a dance in the center of this ballroom. She had relinquished that right long ago. And she was definitely not suited for a dance with Henry, who wanted to court Caroline, who sought Frances only because she stood at Caroline's side.

All of this in an unbearable instant. But the minuet was forgiving; it was old-fashioned, winding and slow and precise, and Henry had pivoted with her, hiding her stumble with smooth grace.

He would be much-desired after this night. If he stayed in Town, he could have almost anyone he wanted.

“Thank you for dancing with me,” Frances said dutifully to Henry when next she drew near him.

His eyes flicked over her face. “I am delighted to be dancing with you.”

“And I am delighted by your manners,” Frances said. “It's kind of you to pretend you wanted this, considering Lady Tallant invited us to dance together before you got the chance.”

He tilted his head a little. “I might have asked you eventually.”

She almost missed another step. “Might have?
Eventually?
Any more of this praise and I shall swoon.”

His mouth pinched at the corners. “All right, I would have. I told you I needed to speak with you.” He stepped, stepped through the minuet, ever tracing a slow path with his feet. Pulling away, then turning back.

“Please do, then. The suspense is unbearable.” She spoke the truth so lightly that he was sure to assume she was teasing.

“It has to do with the letters.”

She had been correct, then. His expression looked as pained as she felt. “Frances, I haven't received any more letters. I can only assume Caro has decided she doesn't want…”

His head tilted to the right, just the smallest gesture toward his stiffened arm. His step flattened into a heavy tread. Anyone else watching might have thought the subtle shift only a part of the dance, but Frances hoarded his every movement with eyes long trained to be watchful.

Step
carefully, Frances
. Step, step, step. She caught his hand again and they twirled in a deliberate circle. She did not have much time to reply; surely the dance was almost done.

“No one would care for your injury,” she said. “That is, they would not hold it against you. It does not change who you truly are.”

His jaw clenched, and a dented smile—scarcely a decent attempt at the expression—flashed across his face. “Sometimes I think no woman will ever hold anything against me again.”

No, no, he could not think so.

But it was too late for protests; the dance was over. They stilled, facing each other, as the final notes wavered into silence. Applause was distant in Frances's ears; the shapes of other dancers were dim shadows at the edges of her vision. The only clear thing was Henry, standing before her, looking at her with those desolate eyes. A battlefield with all the soldiers gone. No more fighting.

But he would fight again; she knew that. He could not be held back for long. He would leave her in another instant and find Caroline, or someone else, and Frances would be nothing but a fool in a borrowed gown.

She took a deep breath and took a chance.

“Come with me,” Frances said, full of a heat that had nothing to do with the press of the crowd. “There is something I must tell you.”