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CHAPTER NINETEEN

T he orchestra struck up a lively tune in response to the call for a country dance from the lead couple, but it might as well have been a funeral dirge for all the effect it was having on Teresa’s body.

Her legs were two stalks of lead, her arms clamped at her sides, her heart stuck in her throat, the blood in her veins replaced with the electric crackle of pure terror.

Remember your lessons. It did not help, her palms remembering the sting of Master Venyamin’s cane, striking after every misstep she made. And she had made them often.

But Cyrus began to move, and if she did not respond in kind, she would make a mockery of not only herself, but him too. Not quite the grand reintroduction to society he might have been hoping for.

Everyone is watching. Why must everyone be watching?

Panicked to the point of perspiration, she glanced around at the spectators: clusters of curious women who had not hesitated to greet her earlier, and would not hesitate to judge her now; casually interested gentlemen who talked among themselves, their attention divided; mothers and grandmothers with their noses in the air, perhaps wondering why they had not schemed to put their girls in the path of such a duke, when he obviously was not picky.

“Look at me,” Cyrus’ voice commanded, as he stopped in front of her, towering over her with that tremendous height of his.

Her eyelids fluttered, her gaze turning upward.

“That is better,” he said. “Now, dance as if there is no one here but us.”

That was easier said than done, the burn of so many eyes striking like sparks across her skin, but when he stepped left and right, back and forth, she mirrored him. As if he had control of her, and she was helpless to do anything but obey his orders.

As the music quickened, her shaky limbs began to find their rhythm, hopping and leaping and twirling along with Cyrus and the rest of the dancers.

Blending in, in a way she had never done before.

The more she became one of the many, a cog in the clockwork of the larger group of dancers, the more her confidence grew.

Her legs and arms slowly relaxed, the steps becoming easier, creating a fluidity she had not known she was capable of.

She flowed with the music, her field of vision narrowing to just him: her husband.

Sure enough, as if in a vignette, the spectators faded out of her awareness, relieving the pressure and the nerves that had commandeered her veins.

“That is better,” Cyrus said, and though his voice was unchanged, she got the feeling he was teasing her.

“The music has seen fit to oil what was rusty,” she replied with a small, shy smile. “ You are more accomplished than I thought you would be.”

He raised an eyebrow as he pressed his palm to hers, the two of them circling one another. “I am a duke. The ability to dance is essential.”

“But you are a giant,” she insisted. “Those gifted with such… immense height are not usually so adept at dancing. There is too much of them to move around with any grace.”

A slight snort escaped him. “By that reasoning, the exceedingly tiny should be the very best dancers.”

“I have never thought to make such a study,” Teresa replied, enjoying the tentative comfort that bloomed between them. A thing that required caution, in case she caused the bud of it to wither before it could fully blossom.

Cyrus cast a sideways glance down the line of fellow couples. “I already see one contradiction.”

Teresa followed his gaze, hurrying to stifle a chuckle that bubbled up her throat.

A young lady further down the line was fighting for her life, seemingly tripping over her own feet, struggling to keep up with the pace of the dance to the obvious dismay of her partner.

The lady was incredibly short, and it appeared that was part of the problem; her small legs and feet simply were not fast enough.

“That is very unkind,” Teresa scolded lightly, to herself for almost laughing as well as to Cyrus for pointing out the poor woman’s difficulty.

“Merely an observation,” he replied, turning, so they might circle back in the opposite direction.

She frowned at him as they moved together, still unable to figure him out. There should have been a mischievous smile or a glint in his eye, to match the remark he had made, yet there was nothing. His expression remained steadfast in its concealment of what existed beneath.

“Did you just jest with me?” she asked bluntly.

He raised an eyebrow. “I never jest.”

“You did at the Tea House,” she pointed out. “When you joked about apparitions emerging from solid walls.”

A slight cough rasped in his throat, like he had a lump that would not clear. “A joke must elicit laughter. As there was no laughter, there was no jest. And I was quite serious about our first meeting not being an embarrassment. It was… a very efficient way to meet a bride.”

She recalled her earlier fears that he thought she had schemed their meeting, and nearly asked him outright if he believed that… until she remembered how fiercely he had come to her defense. Even against his friend.

But if that was not the reason for his distant demeanor, then what was?

We are not so distant now, though, are we? she mused, her palm feeling the loss of him as he suddenly swept backward to join the line of gentlemen.

They danced a vigorous jig of leaps and turns, before handing over the next part to the ladies. Less confident without Cyrus’ proximity, Teresa mustered her courage and copied the steps, faltering only once, and not too calamitously.

A moment later, Cyrus was in front of her again, one arm behind his back, the other out in an elegant curve. They walked around one another to the rhythm of the music, his eyes never leaving hers, the rest of the ballroom disappearing once again.

“Have the Captain and Miss Savage ever danced like this?” he asked out of nowhere, a pulsing heat sweeping through her face, dropping her jaw.

“What?”

“Those fictions you seem to enjoy so much,” he said. “I should like to hear about them. Perhaps, there might be a place for them in the library, though you will not, under any circumstances, climb any ladders again.”

Teresa wished she had the lemonade that Beatrice had brought from the refreshment room, just to place the cold glass against her cheeks. The embarrassment would surely burn her alive where she stood, until she was nothing but a smoking gown on the floor.

“I confess, I have never heard of their books,” he continued, clearly oblivious to the fact that she wanted the ground to split and swallow her up. “I asked someone, but he had not heard of them either.”

Oh, this is too much. I shall die of this. She lowered her gaze, conscious of every step, focusing on the dance instead of her husband uncovering her precious secrets. Her one true passion.

“They are not… commonly available,” she confessed, her throat tight. “I have them sent to me fortnightly, for a very reasonable sum.”

All of a sudden, he was very close, his hands taking hold of hers. “I do hope they are not ‘inappropriate’ novels.”

“They might be to you,” she blurted out, before she could stop herself. “After all, you have a mercurial opinion of what is appropriate and what is not.”

Please, do not prohibit me from receiving and reading them. It was the worst possible punishment she could think of, to be denied her fortnightly dose of romance and escape.

“You still have not answered my question,” he said, leading her into a promenade.

She swallowed thickly. “No, the Captain and Miss Savage have never danced like this.”

“But they have danced?”

She nodded, refusing to look up and meet his eye. “Many times.”

“If not like this, then how do they dance?” he asked, his tone even, making it impossible, once again, to figure out if he was teasing her or not.

“I cannot explain it. You would have to read it to know,” she replied, thinking of her collection, still stuck at Grayling House.

“But they have danced together in countless places, in countless countries, in countless situations. They have danced to music both familiar and strange, and to no music at all. They have danced, not knowing if tomorrow is promised to them. It is… beautiful. At least to me. And I do not think it is inappropriate at all, for what is inappropriate about true love?”

She could feel Cyrus’ eyes on her, stoking the blush on her cheeks. She had gotten carried away, as she often did when it came to Captain Frostheart and Miss Savage. She could not help it. They had the life that she craved, even if it was just in her imagination.

“Is that what you hoped marriage would be like?” he asked, surprising her. “Like your books?”

It felt like an olive branch, reaching through the emotional distance between them.

Why is he asking me such a thing? Was he hoping for insight into how to improve their relationship? Was he truly curious to know what it was she wanted from a marriage? Or was he still teasing her? She did not know which possibility unnerved her more.

“We are close enough now that some might consider us to be friends,” she said stiffly, trying to reassert herself. “So, if that is a genuine question from a friend, I shall answer it as such.”

Cyrus said nothing, prompting her to continue.

“It is not what I expect from a marriage, for I am not silly enough to confuse fiction and reality, but…

I do dream that I might feel all of the things that I have read about.

I have always dreamed that, long before Captain Frostheart and Miss Savage.

Probably from my first fairytale, I have hoped I might one day know romance.

“That being said, I maintain that it is not an expectation I have; it is just a lingering fantasy that I am determined to forget. At the very least, I shall keep those thoughts solely within the boundaries of the pages they are written on.”

He still did not speak, drawing her wary gaze upward to understand why he had suddenly fallen silent.

A deep frown furrowed his brow, his eyes creased at the corners as if he had decided to try and look at the sun.

His mouth was set in a grim line, any hint of humor there might have been now entirely gone.

“Cyrus?” she said quietly.

He gave a small shake of his head and looked down at her, still wearing his implacable mask. “That is good to know. You should have no expectations.”

“You told me that already,” she said, though the repetition did nothing to help the sinking disappointment in her stomach or help her to relinquish her hopes that her daydreams might yet become reality.

The music began to fade to a close. Cyrus led Teresa back to the point where they had started, drawing back from her, rejoining the line of gentlemen. His frown only deepened as he stared across the distance between them, and bowed politely.

She curtseyed in return, her unruly mind still granting her one last vision of him as Captain Frostheart, wading through a lake to reach her.

Yet, in her daydream, he did not make it to the shore, the lake continuing on and on while she waited for his arrival, his embrace, knowing deep down that it would never come.