Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight by Grace Burrowes Page B

the orchestra launched into the opening bars. She moved with the rhythm of the music, let it shift her even as she stood virtually in his embrace.
    What he felt inside was a marvelous sense of privilege, to be holding Louisa Windham close to his body, to have the warm, female shape of her there beneath his hands. Her scent, clean and a little spicy, was sweeter when she was this close.
    She wasn’t as tall in his embrace as she was in his imagination. Against his body, she fit… perfectly.
    And with the sense of privilege and wonder, there lurked a current of arousal. Louisa Windham was lovely, dear, smart, and brave, but she was also a grown woman whom Joseph had found desirable from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
    He waited until the phrasing felt right, closed his fingers gently around hers, then moved off with his partner. She shifted with him, the embodiment of grace, as weightless as sunshine, as fluid as laughter.
    â€œYou lead well,” she whispered, her eyes half closed. “You’re a natural.”
    He was a man plagued by a bad knee and a questionable hip, but with Louisa Windham for a partner and the music of an eighteen-piece orchestra to buoy him, Joseph Carrington danced.
    The longer they moved together, the better they danced. Louisa let him lead, let him guide her this way and that, let him decide how much sweep to give the turns and how closely to enfold her. She gave herself up to the music, and thus a little to him, as well, and yet, she anchored him too.
    Dancing with a woman who enjoyed the waltz this much gave a man some bodily confidence. He brought her closer, wonderfully closer, and realized what gave him such joy was not simply the physical pleasure of holding her but the warmth in his heart generated by her trust.
    She was dancing with a lame soldier, with a pig farmer, and enjoying it.
    All too soon, the music wound to a sweet final cadence, but Louisa did not sink into the closing curtsy. She instead stood in the circle of Joseph’s arms and dropped her forehead to his shoulder.
    â€œSir Joseph, thank you.”
    What do to? Arousal hummed quietly in his veins, the citrus-and-clove scent of Louisa Windham wafted through his brain, and the voice of common sense started yammering in his ears.
    Bow, idiot. Bow over the lady’s hand, now.
    He stroked a hand slowly down her back, reveling in the contour of her muscles and bones beneath his fingers. “The other night…”
    She didn’t step back, but he felt the tension infuse her spine. “At dinner?”
    â€œI’m sorry. I’ve wanted to say that, but I haven’t found the moment. I have no conversation, Louisa, and what few manners…” What was he trying to say? He knew arguing with a lady wasn’t done, but it was more than that. “Prinny’s Pavilion is an extravagance, regardless of how pretty or different, and you are entitled to your very sensible opinions.”
    He allowed himself to rest his cheek against her hair, trying to memorize each pleasure the moment afforded him:
    The pleasure of making reparation for a conversation he had not managed well at all.
    The pleasure of her body next to his, warm from their exertions, and yet quiet in his arms.
    The pleasure of her scent, clean and sweet and unique to her.
    The pleasure of her simple willingness to remain close to him.
    She obliterated all those pleasures with one more delight, one he could not have foreseen, could not have envisioned in his wildest imaginings, when she went up on her toes and kissed him.
    ***
    A woman should practice kissing, lest she miss the cheek she was aiming for, and by purest accident, set her lips against a man’s mouth.
    Some corner of Louisa’s mind marveled that her brain was capable of thought, while another noted that up close, beneath the hint of cedar, Sir Joseph’s linen bore the scent of true lavender, the sweet, soft version of the flower that Her Grace kept