He looked at her for a long moment before rising to his feet and crossing the very short distance to her chair. He leaned down, and then, so softly that she was not certain she"d heard him, he said, "Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, may I have this dance?"
Hugh was not prepared for the look in her eyes. Her face tipped up toward his, and her lips parted with a breath, and in that moment he would have sworn that the sun rose and set on her smile.
He leaned in, almost close enough for a whisper. "If I am not, as you say, a cripple, then I must be able to dance."
"Are you sure?" she whispered.
"I shall never know unless I try."
"I won"t be very graceful," she said ruefully.
"That"s why you are the perfect partner."
She reached out and placed her hand in his. "Lord Hugh Prentice, I would be honored to dance with you."
Carefully, she moved to the edge of her chair, then allowed him to tug her to her feet. Or rather, to her foot. It was almost comical; he was leaning on the chair, and she was leaning on him, and neither could stop their grins from extending into giggles.
When they were both upright and reasonably well balanced, Hugh listened for the strains of music wafting out along the night breeze. He heard a quadrille.
"I believe I hear a waltz," he said.
She looked up at him, clearly about to issue a correction. He placed a finger on her lips. "It must be a waltz," he told her, and he saw the instant she understood. They would never dance a reel, or a minuet, or quadrille. Even a waltz would require considerable innovation.
He reached over and plucked his cane from where it was resting against the side of his chair. "If I put my hand here," he said, resting it on the handle, "and you put yours on mine . . ."
She followed his lead, and he placed his other hand at the small of her back. Without ever taking her eyes from his, she moved her hand to his shoulder. "Like this?" she whispered.
He nodded. "Like this."
It was the strangest, most awkward waltz imaginable. Instead of a clasped pair of hands, elegantly arched before them, they both put their weight on the cane. Not too heavily; they didn"t need that much support, not while they had each other. He hummed in three-quarter time, and he led with light pressure on her back, moving the cane whenever it was time to turn.
He had not danced in nearly four years. He had not felt music flow through his body, nor savored the warmth of a woman"s hand in his. But tonight . . . It was magical, almost spiritual, and he knew that there was no way he could ever thank her for this moment, for restoring a piece of his soul.
"You"re very graceful," she said, gazing up at him with an enigmatic smile. This was the smile she used in London, he was certain of it. When she danced at a ball, when she looked up at her suitor and paid him a compliment, this was how she smiled. It made him feel positively normal.
He never thought he"d be so grateful for a smile.
He dipped his head toward hers and pretended to be imparting a secret. "I"ve been practicing for years."
"Have you now?"
"Oh, indeed. Shall we attempt a turn?"
"Oh yes, let"s."
Together they lifted the cane, swung it gently to the right, then pressed the tip back down on the gra.s.s.
He leaned in. "I"ve been waiting for the proper moment to unleash my talent upon the world."
Her brows rose. "The proper moment?"
"The proper partner," he corrected.
"I knew there was a reason I fell out of that carriage." She laughed and looked up with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Aren"t you going to say that you knew there was a reason you didn"t catch me?"
About this, however, he could not be glib. "No," he said with quiet force. "Never."
She was looking down, but he could see by the curve of her cheeks that she was pleased. After a few moments, she said, "You did break my fall."
"It appears I am good for something," he replied, happy to be back to their teasing banter. It was a safer place to be.
"Oh, I don"t know about that, my lord. I suspect you"re good for many things."
"Did you just "my lord" me?"
This time, when she smiled, he heard it in her breath, right before she said, "It seems that I did."
"I cannot imagine what I have done to earn such an honor."
"Oh, it is not a question of what you have done to earn it," she said, "but what I think you have done to earn it."
For a moment he stopped dancing. "This may explain why I don"t understand women."
At that she laughed. "It is but one of many reasons, I"m sure."
"You wound me."
"On the contrary. I know of no man who truly wishes to understand women. What would you have to complain about if you did?"
"Napoleon?"
"He"s dead."
"The weather?"
"You already have that, not that you could possibly find any complaint tonight."
"No," he agreed, peering up at the stars. "It is an uncommonly fine evening."
"Yes," she said softly. "Yes, it is."
He should have been satisfied with that, but he was feeling greedy, and he did not want the dance to end, so he allowed his hand to settle more heavily on her back and said, "You did not tell me what you think I have done to earn the honor of your calling me "your lord." "
She glanced up at him with impudent eyes. "Well, if I were completely honest, I might admit that it just popped out of my mouth. It does lend a flirtatious air to a statement."
"You crush me."
"Ah, but I"m not going to be completely honest. Instead, I"m going to recommend that you wonder why I was feeling flirtatious."
"I shall take that recommendation."
She hummed quietly as they turned.
"You"re going to make me ask, aren"t you?"
"Only if you want to."
He caught her gaze and held it. "I do want."
"Very well, I was feeling flirtatious because-"
"Hold on one moment," he interrupted, because she deserved it, after making him ask. "It"s time for another spin."
They executed this one perfectly, which was to say, they didn"t fall down.
"You were saying," he prompted.
She looked up at him with faux severity. "I should claim to have forgotten my train of thought."
"But you won"t."
She made a sorry little face. "Oh, but I think I have forgotten."
"Sarah."
"How do you make my name sound like such a threat?"
"It doesn"t really matter if it sounds like a threat," he said. "It only matters if you think it sounds like a threat."
Her eyes grew wide, and she burst into laughter. "You win," she said, and he was quite sure she would have thrown up her hands in defeat if they had not still been depending upon one another to stay upright.
"I think I do," he murmured.
It was the strangest, most awkward waltz imaginable, and it was the most perfect moment of his life.
Chapter Fourteen.
Several nights later, well after dark in the guest bedchamber shared by the Ladies Sarah and Harriet Pleinsworth "Are you going to read all night?"
Sarah"s eyes, which had been speeding along the pages of her novel with a most pleasurable abandon, froze in place upon the word forsythia. "Why," she said aloud (and with considerable aggravation), "does that question even exist in the realm of human activity? Of course I"m not going to read all night. Has there ever even existed a human being who has read all night?"
This was a question she regretted immediately, because this was Harriet lying in bed next to her, and if there was anyone in the world who would respond by saying, "There probably has been," it was Harriet.
And she did.
"Well, I"m not going to," Sarah muttered, even though she"d already said as much. It was important to get the last word in a sisterly argument, even if it did mean repeating oneself.
Harriet turned onto her side, scrunching her pillow under her head. "What are you reading?"
Sarah pushed back a sigh and let her book fall closed around her index finger. This was not an unfamiliar sequence of events. When Sarah could not sleep, she read novels. When Harriet could not sleep, she pestered Sarah.
"Miss b.u.t.terworth and the Mad Baron."
"Haven"t you read that before?"
"Yes, but I enjoy rereading it. It"s silly, but I like it." She reopened the book, planted her eyes back on forsythia, and prepared to move forward.
"Did you see Lord Hugh tonight at supper?"
Sarah stuck her index finger back into the book. "Yes, of course I did. Why?"
"No reason in particular. I thought he looked very handsome." Harriet had dined with the adults that evening, much to Elizabeth"s and Frances"s chagrin.
The wedding was now but three days away, and Whipple Hill was a flurry of activity. Marcus and Honoria (Lord and Lady Chatteris, Sarah reminded herself) had arrived from Fensmore looking flushed and giggly and deliriously happy. It would have been enough to make Sarah want to gag, except that she had been having a rather fine time herself, laughing and bantering with Lord Hugh.
It was the oddest thing, but his was the first face she thought of when she woke in the morning. She looked for him at breakfast, and she always seemed to find him there, his plate so nearly full as to indicate that he"d arrived mere moments before she had.
Every morning, they lingered. They told themselves it was because they could not partake in the many activities that had been planned for the day (although in truth Sarah"s ankle was much improved, and even if a walk to the village was still out of the question, there was no reason she could not manage bowls on the lawn).
They lingered, and she would pretend to sip at her tea, because if she actually drank as much as one normally might over the hours she sat at the table, she"d be forced to cut the conversation short.
She did not reflect upon the fact that a conversation truncated at the hour mark could not possibly be construed as short.
They lingered, and most people didn"t seem to notice. The other guests came and went, taking their food from the sideboard, drinking their coffee and tea, and leaving. Sometimes Sarah and Hugh were joined in conversation, sometimes not.
And then finally, when it became past obvious that it was time for the servants to clean the breakfast room, Sarah would rise and casually mention where she thought she might take her book for the afternoon.
He would never say that he planned to join her, but he always did.
They had become friends, and if occasionally she caught herself staring at his mouth, thinking that everyone had to have a first kiss, and wouldn"t it be lovely if hers was with him . . . Well, she kept such things to herself.
She was running out of novels, though. The Whipple Hill library was extensive, but it was sadly lacking in books of the kind Sarah liked to read. Miss b.u.t.terworth had been haphazardly shelved between The Divine Comedy and The Taming of the Shrew.
She looked back down. Miss b.u.t.terworth had not yet met her baron, and Sarah was eager for the plot to get moving.
Forsythia . . . forsythia . . .
"Did you think he looked handsome?"
Sarah let out an annoyed groan.
"Did you think Lord Hugh looked handsome?" Harriet prodded.