deadpan delivery that Robert was using our lack of eye contact as a chance to wind me up. “Dance cards? As in … may I have this dance, Miss Bennet?”
“Yup.”
“You’re joking!” I paused. “You
are
joking?”
He shook his head. “You need a different partner for each reel, so to save embarrassment, there’s a free-for-all over dinner to get the evening booked. And before you say,
‘
Ooh, how romantic,
’
in reality it’s brutal. I’ve seen men get ditched right over the crème brûlée when a better dancer walks past.”
“You love it, really,” I said, tingling. “You know you’re the first one to get bagged.”
Robert raised his hands in pretend amazement. “Why, yes, Miss Nicholson! It’s every man’s
dream
to dress up in an orange, yellow, and black skirt, and tag-team wrestle to the sound of a fiddle being scraped with a cat. While trying to make small talk with some random woman who keeps hinting about settling down and what sort of horse do I have? When she knows full well I don’t even
have
a horse.”
We’d been walking along the leaf-covered track for several minutes, with green thickets on each side that rustled (rabbits? mice?), but now we’d reached a gate that opened onto a smaller stone path, leading deeper into the woods. Robert opened it for me with an old-fashioned flourish that might have been him taking the mickey. He definitely inclined his head as I thanked him. I wasn’t complaining, though: I’d had more doors opened for me in the past twenty-four hours than I had had all year.
“What a trial for you,” I went on. “Forced to suffer an evening of candlelight and champagne in your own ballroom. Boo-hoo.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Candlelight and champagne—fine,” he said. “It’s the dancing and the social machinations that aren’t my thing. Are you a keen dancer? Have you reeled?”
I laughed out loud. “God, no! I’m a
shocking
dancer. I make wardrobes look like slinky movers. I’d cause some kind of pileup if I ever tried reeling.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s not as hard as it looks, especially not for the girls. You just have to resign yourself to being spun from one place to the next. Fun for you, bloody hard work for the men.”
“From what I’ve heard, I’d break myself and probably someone else. I have issues around coordination.”
Ahead the trees thinned out, and in the clearing I saw a neat lodge behind a small cottage garden, a perfect chocolate-box house with a slate roof and a squat chimney and a weather vane in the shape of a fox.
“This is your house?” I breathed.
“No, Snow White lives here, I’m renting a room. Of course it’s my house.” Robert patted his pockets, looking for his keys. “Girls can get away with being rubbish in the reel, but you wouldn’t believe the criticism men get. I’m so bad, last year Lady Duffield commiserated with my mother about my ‘awful riding accident.’ Turns out she thought I was Dougie Graham—and he’d broken his leg in three places and was wearing a cast under his trousers.”
I’d heard this sort of thing before, usually before dancing classes where the “terrible dancer” turned out to be the tap and modern champion of East Sheen.
“Yeah,
yeah
,” I scoffed. “I bet you’ve never managed to split your own lip doing the Charleston.”
Robert turned round and looked straight at me.
“Do you want me to demonstrate?” he asked. His eyes had a twinkle in them that made my stomach loop suddenly up to my chest. I wanted to look away—and frankly, I should have, because I wasn’t completely sure what my face was doing—but something made me hold his gaze.
Robert pocketed his keys and held out his hands. He had nice hands, with long fingers under the wrist-warmers. “Come on, let me show you.”
I hesitated. The man had no idea what he was risking.
“Plenty of room out here,” he went on, glancing at the bare trees around us. “Not much to crash into. I can’t
“Yup.”
“You’re joking!” I paused. “You
are
joking?”
He shook his head. “You need a different partner for each reel, so to save embarrassment, there’s a free-for-all over dinner to get the evening booked. And before you say,
‘
Ooh, how romantic,
’
in reality it’s brutal. I’ve seen men get ditched right over the crème brûlée when a better dancer walks past.”
“You love it, really,” I said, tingling. “You know you’re the first one to get bagged.”
Robert raised his hands in pretend amazement. “Why, yes, Miss Nicholson! It’s every man’s
dream
to dress up in an orange, yellow, and black skirt, and tag-team wrestle to the sound of a fiddle being scraped with a cat. While trying to make small talk with some random woman who keeps hinting about settling down and what sort of horse do I have? When she knows full well I don’t even
have
a horse.”
We’d been walking along the leaf-covered track for several minutes, with green thickets on each side that rustled (rabbits? mice?), but now we’d reached a gate that opened onto a smaller stone path, leading deeper into the woods. Robert opened it for me with an old-fashioned flourish that might have been him taking the mickey. He definitely inclined his head as I thanked him. I wasn’t complaining, though: I’d had more doors opened for me in the past twenty-four hours than I had had all year.
“What a trial for you,” I went on. “Forced to suffer an evening of candlelight and champagne in your own ballroom. Boo-hoo.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Candlelight and champagne—fine,” he said. “It’s the dancing and the social machinations that aren’t my thing. Are you a keen dancer? Have you reeled?”
I laughed out loud. “God, no! I’m a
shocking
dancer. I make wardrobes look like slinky movers. I’d cause some kind of pileup if I ever tried reeling.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s not as hard as it looks, especially not for the girls. You just have to resign yourself to being spun from one place to the next. Fun for you, bloody hard work for the men.”
“From what I’ve heard, I’d break myself and probably someone else. I have issues around coordination.”
Ahead the trees thinned out, and in the clearing I saw a neat lodge behind a small cottage garden, a perfect chocolate-box house with a slate roof and a squat chimney and a weather vane in the shape of a fox.
“This is your house?” I breathed.
“No, Snow White lives here, I’m renting a room. Of course it’s my house.” Robert patted his pockets, looking for his keys. “Girls can get away with being rubbish in the reel, but you wouldn’t believe the criticism men get. I’m so bad, last year Lady Duffield commiserated with my mother about my ‘awful riding accident.’ Turns out she thought I was Dougie Graham—and he’d broken his leg in three places and was wearing a cast under his trousers.”
I’d heard this sort of thing before, usually before dancing classes where the “terrible dancer” turned out to be the tap and modern champion of East Sheen.
“Yeah,
yeah
,” I scoffed. “I bet you’ve never managed to split your own lip doing the Charleston.”
Robert turned round and looked straight at me.
“Do you want me to demonstrate?” he asked. His eyes had a twinkle in them that made my stomach loop suddenly up to my chest. I wanted to look away—and frankly, I should have, because I wasn’t completely sure what my face was doing—but something made me hold his gaze.
Robert pocketed his keys and held out his hands. He had nice hands, with long fingers under the wrist-warmers. “Come on, let me show you.”
I hesitated. The man had no idea what he was risking.
“Plenty of room out here,” he went on, glancing at the bare trees around us. “Not much to crash into. I can’t
Similar Books
