Page 40 of The Austen Affair

When I descend the stairs that evening, Hugh brings me my shawl.

And I don’t think he does it solely because it’s part of the doting-fiancé role he’s playing.

I think he also does it as an excuse to graze the bare skin of my arm as he wraps the silk over the crook of my elbows, to bend very slightly toward my earlobe.

For a moment, I think he’s going to brush his lips against it, but instead, he practices a restraint that nearly kills me.

He stops with mere atoms of air between his lips and my ear and murmurs, as if in prayer, “You are lovely tonight.”

I turn to him, flirtation quivering my lower lip. “Just tonight?”

He takes my hand and obediently bends to kiss my knuckles. “Every night. Always. And I am cursing the silk of these gloves that separates us.”

I tilt my chin up toward him, beaming. I am a vain little actress, after all.

When the entire household is prepared to depart—including Mr. Balfour and George, who are unable to participate in the dancing but seem eager to soak in the festive ambience—we step together into the night.

As we enter the inn’s hall, it’s everything I dreamed it would be.

The sound of it all, which somehow manages to be overwhelming and welcoming at the same time: the warm hum of voices, the rasping of wineglasses, the shouts of laughter.

Last but certainly not least is the trio of hired musicians—the violin, the flute, and the piano—merging together to make a rich, spritely wall of sound.

For once in this rigid Regency society, our friends and neighbors seem loose and unconcerned with propriety, regarding the world with unstudied delight.

I twist away from Hugh’s arm, spinning in place as I crane my neck to see it all.

An exultant laugh bursts from deep in my lungs, promptly swallowed by the noise of the crowd.

I spin back around to look up at Hugh, to see if he loves it as much as I do, but he’s already looking at me as if he’s drinking in pure sunlight. I’m not sure he’s wasted a second studying the room.

“It’s real,” I whisper to him. “Don’t you want to look around?”

“Don’t need to,” he says, pointing at me. “It’s right there. That’s it.”

“What’s it?” I laugh.

“The reason,” he says. “When we first came here, you told me there had to be a reason. Well, I just found it. That look on your face.”

“Would you please dance with me?” I ask him, quite overwhelmed with how lucky I am.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Hugh quips.

We begin the first dance. My feet lead me into the quadrille as if I were a born-and-bred Regency lady.

As if I had trained for this all my life.

Which I suppose is true in a spiritual sense—although if I must be practical about it, I should lay my gratitude squarely with the dance lessons I took for the Northanger Abbey ball scenes.

While Mr. Balfour is technically the host of the ball, with all this having been done by Aunt Fanny under his auspices to celebrate our engagement, it is Hugh and I who lead the dancing, since Mr. Balfour is in no position to do it himself, and we are officially the guests of honor.

As dear old Mr. Woodhouse says in Emma, “A bride is always first in company.”

Hugh obviously paid as much attention in his dance lessons as I did, though, it must be said, his motions are somewhat more mechanical.

This is something that might have bothered me on the set of Northanger but now just raises a delicious smile to my cheeks.

He would dance like that. How perfectly Hugh. My dear little robot man.

“What are you laughing at?” Hugh queries the next time the steps bring us close. Another wonderful thing about Regency dances: they allow for these intimate confidences between partners in the way that thumping bass and deafening volume in a Los Angeles nightclub never could.

I give him a wicked smile. “What else? You.”

When we first met, Hugh might have taken offense at that. But I think he knows me a little better now and just meets my gaze with a patient smile.

“And what have I done that is so amusing?”

“You always amuse me,” I tell him. “You are the type of man who can be funny even without meaning to.”

Hugh looks thoughtful. “Is that compliment or insult?”

“Oh, a compliment, ” I promise. “I dearly love to laugh.”

Hugh’s face splits into a roguish grin as the dance ends, and he bows to me. “Happy to be of service.”

As the next dance begins, we are obliged to shift partners out of politeness.

Soon, I am claimed by Captain Dereham, and Hugh by Phoebe.

The captain’s attention is elsewhere— his gaze is always seeking out Isabella—and I am pleased that this lets me off the hook of conversing, and now I can spend the dance admiring Hugh from afar.

Perhaps I should feel a twinge of jealousy, seeing Phoebe, who had obviously been attracted to him, as his partner.

But I don’t, because somehow amidst all the spinning, the lines of people separating us, the precise choreography, our eyes keep meeting from across the dance floor.

A loose dark curl that has fallen forward across his forehead in the exertion of the dance electrifies every synapse in my brain.

I long to brush it back from his temple.

A caress—a simple touch. But one that I know would spark a wildfire from the tips of my fingers that would spread all the way down my body.

I finally understand pining. There is a reason the Regency is the setting for some of the most ardent love stories of all time.

Because when society will not permit you to whet your passion in physical contact, the contours of your paramour’s body become impossible to stop imagining.

I ache for him to take off his white gloves and clasp my hand to his.

I have held hands with dozens of men in my lifetime.

But now the most innocent gesture has become forbidden fruit. I feel almost faint imagining it.

Heat pools between my legs as I watch him, allowing my imaginings to spiral well out of control. I’m sure that I’ve missed a couple steps here and there in this particular dance because my attention is so thoroughly elsewhere. But I couldn’t possibly begin to give a damn.

When the second dance closes, Hugh finds his way back to me.

I cannot disguise my relief to be nearer him again, but even closing the gap between us does not quench the flame of desire.

If anything, it’s torture to stand so close.

Our bodies evolved to interlock—what kind of mad society would do everything in its power to prevent us from what is natural and good?

Hugh’s black eyes fix on me with a devastating intensity. “You are no longer smiling. Is the ball not everything you dreamed it would be?”

I sigh, a little dreamily. “Everything and more. But right now, it’s hard to focus.”

“Give it a try, though,” Hugh says, chuckling. We raise our arms toward each other, pacing around each other like starving lions on the hunt. “We’ll be going home soon. I can’t imagine we’ll see another of these, so best enjoy it while you can.”

My heart drops a little at that. It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me: as much as our return is a necessity, I’ll also be sorry to leave this time behind us.

“At any rate,” Hugh says, “couldn’t ask for a better grand finale than a ball, eh? That’s how the movies would do it.”

I shake my head, feeling oddly downcast. “It’s a very Hollywood choice to have things end at a ball. But in Austen, balls aren’t where things end.”

“No?” he asks me, thick eyebrows quirking together.

I give a wistful smile. “Balls are just where they begin. Darcy and Elizabeth meet at a ball. Henry and Catherine meet at a ball. Knightley and Emma’s relationship shifts at a ball. But a ball isn’t where anything ends.”

“Then where do they end?” Hugh asks me, voice low and intent.

“In nature,” I respond. “A man proposes in a garden, or on a long walk. Brandon carries Marianne home across a drenched moor.”

“Only in the movie,” Hugh counters. “That scene was an Emma Thompson addition.”

I blush. He’s got me on that one. “I guess Hollywood gets things right sometimes. ”

Hugh inclines his head to me. “It would have to. Our casting director certainly picked you right.”

“Hugh Balfour,” I laugh, disbelieving, “are you admitting that I wasn’t miscast after all?

“You are a perfect Catherine Morland,” he allows, then twirls an encouraging hand at me. “And now, here’s the part where you tell me I wasn’t miscast either.”

A giddy laugh soars from me. “Oh, but I hate being wrong! Fine. I’ll admit that against all odds, you do seem to have developed some of that patented Henry Tilney charm. Keeping in mind, of course, that he’s a clergyman by trade, so let’s not go overboard.”

Hugh snorts but seems oddly flattered. “I pay you a compliment, you give a dig. An unequal partnership, this.”

“If you’re offended, why the color in your cheeks?” I tease. The dance ends and I dart forward, placing a light hand on his shoulder. I stand on tiptoes to press a quick kiss where the blush has risen in his face. I whisper, “You make me laugh. Just like Henry Tilney makes Catherine Morland laugh.”

Aunt Fanny calls for Hugh’s attention, drawing him sadly away from me. Kitty Foster runs up to me from where her dreary husband stands, clasping my hands in hers. She whispers in my ear, “Have you noticed the… attentions Mr. Armstrong is paying Miss Phoebe Dixon?”

Alight with our shared conspiracy, I direct my eyes over to the punch bowl, where I can see Phoebe Dixon engaged in intense conversation with none other than Captain Dick Armstrong, who was invited only out of grudging social obligation after his brawl with Hugh.

I assume Fanny thought he would never have the gall to actually show up.

But here he is, bold as brass: he has Phoebe’s gloved hand clutched tight in his, and her face seems torn between interest and aversion.