Page 70 of The Last Debutante

“To dance, lass. Look at them all, waltzing. And here sits their laird, only recently off the cane.”

She’d seen him dancing while she played, and she eyed him suspiciously. “You wish me to teach you to waltz.”

“Aye.”

“In front of them,” she said, nodding surreptitiously to the crowd.

“Before all of them, aye.” He winked. “Teach this laird to dance. I command it.” His eyes were sparkling with gaiety, impossible to resist.

“Well. If youcommandit.” She smiled.

Jamie gestured for Malcolm Brodie to begin playing anew, then offered his arm to Daria. As he escorted her onto the dance floor, she was aware that everyone was watching them. In England she would have relished the attention, but here she felt conspicuous.

“Well, then?” Jamie asked.

Daria drew a breath and looked him in the eye. “You should place your hand on my back.”

He stepped closer and slipped his arm around her back. “There?” he asked, his hand just above her hip.

“Quite a bit higher.”

He smiled. But instead of moving his hand up her back, he pulled her closer, and gazed down at her with those shining hazel eyes. “There?”

Daria swallowed. “Not there, really, but we’ll make do.”

His smile deepened.

She held out her arm. “You should hold my hand.”

He put his hand beneath her elbow, then slowly slid it down her arm to her hand, closing his fingers tightly and possessively around hers.

Daria’s heart was beating so rapidly, she feared she might take wing. She put her hand on his shoulder. “All right, then, you will begin to your left.Onetwo three,” she counted softly.

He was still smiling as he moved to his left uncertainly, and then back again as Daria instructed. He picked up the dance quite easily. Before she knew it, he was moving her about, his lead firm and sure, then spinning her this way and that. He moved so well that Daria began to feel she was dancing on air. The evening slipped away, and she was aware of only the flute, and Jamie. His eyes never left her, his gaze fixed on her face.

“You’ve waltzed before,” she said.

He laughed and spun her about. “Perhaps once or twice.”

“Where? Did Geordie teach you?”

“Geordie!” He laughed roundly at that. “No, I learned in London.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” she laughingly demanded as he twirled her again.

“What, and miss the experience of having the last debutante of Hadley Green instruct me? I’m no’ a fool.” He spun her to the right, pulling her closer. “You are a very entertaining young woman.”

“Because I play the pianoforte? There are squads of debutantes who do.”

“I meanyou,Daria.”

“Even though I am English?” she asked.

“Even though.”

She smiled up at him. “I think, Laird Campbell, that you hold England in higher regard than you let on.”

He shook his head and dipped his gaze to her décolletage. “There is only one I hold in high regard, aye?”