Kate Noble (18 page)

As she mused there, her eyes glazed over with thought, a dark shadow crawled its way up her face. The shadow’s owner loomed above her, and addressed his quarry in a squeaky, breaking voice.

“Good evening, Miss Gail,” young Lord Ommersley said, making a mockery of a bow toward her.

Gail jumped in her seat and looked up at her one-time accoster. She hadn’t seen Ommersley since that dreadful night, for, once he’d come to, he skulked away from the party and back to his own house across the square. He hadn’t come to call since, much to Gail’s relief, and she had entertained the hope he would avoid her altogether in the future.

But now his skinny height loomed above her.

He looked appalling. She hadn’t noticed his tendency for foppish dress before. Oh, his coat and breeches were appropriately black, but he wore more lace at his cuffs and throat than she did on her entire person. The particular shade of green he chose for his waistcoat matched his eye—the left one that is. The powder he had used liberally was ill applied, and the faded bruise that covered half his face was clearly visible. However, perhaps he thought his battle scars were to be worn with pride, or perhaps he thought himself the better of everyone else in the room, for his thin chest was puffed out to its fullest and his nose was high in the air.

The result was not unlike a sickly blade of grass trying to emulate a powerful, menacing oak.

Gail was so shocked by his appearance that she forgot her painstakingly applied tact.

“What the devil are you doing here?” she blurted, and then covered her mouth. It was one thing to be rude, it was quite another to swear in polite society. Fortunately, no one seemed to have taken notice of her.

Lord Ommersley grimaced at her unflattering greeting, then sneered. And then grimaced again. Making facial expressions must have still been a bit painful.

“Miss Gail, so
pleasant
to see you again,” he smarmed. “Indeed, I’ve been looking forward to renewing our acquaintance.”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Gail said. Normally, she would have made an effort to hold her tongue, especially fearing the consequences. But knowing how ungentlemanly Ommersley was, Gail could not be ladylike. “I can’t say I thought of you much at all, and when I did, it was to wish you consigned to Australia.”

“Tut-tut, Miss Gail—is that any way to speak to your dance partner?” He held out his hand for her to take.

She looked from his revoltingly offered hand to his face and saw the cold meanness that lived there. It scared her.

She pressed herself as far back against the wall as her chair would allow, but he stepped forward. He pursued, he leered, he positively hovered in her space. What could she do? She fought to keep her mind working as panic began to creep in.

“I’ll not dance with you,” Gail said, her fear showing in her voice. Ommersely gave a cold, hungry smile.

“But I have your stepmother’s express permission. She’s watching us even now.”

Gail looked over his shoulder and found Romilla across the way. Gail pleaded with her eyes, but Romilla only smiled, gave a little wave, and turned her attention back to a friend.

“I’m not dancing with you,” Gail bit out. “Leave me be.”

“No! We have things to discuss, you and I.” And with that, he reached forward and grabbed her arm, painfully tight.

Gail was about to disgrace herself and scream, when Ommersley’s arm was removed.

“I’d listen to the lady, if I were you,” Max drawled, his hand discreetly crushing Ommersley’s fingers. He whimpered quietly while Max held his grip and voice steady. “Besides, she’s to dance with me next.”

Ommersley and Max straightened—nobody nearby seemed to notice any fuss. The best threats were always given in whispers, Gail noted. Max let go of Ommersley’s hand, causing that young man to stumble back. A few heads turned at his ungraceful steps, so Ommersley quickly covered and made a bow to Max.

“Well, Fontaine. I see you have moved quicker than I,” he said, as eyes turned back to their own conversations. “I shall have to content myself with the next dance,” he said darkly.

“I’m afraid that one is spoken for, too,” Max said. “And the one after, and the one after.” He stepped forward, whispering menacingly into the gawkish fool’s ear. “Anytime you get it in your head to ask her to dance, she is spoken for.”

With that Ommersley darkened, his eyes growing hard and bright. But he again made a bow and turned on his heel and walked away.

Gail stood on shaky legs, her heart beating furiously. Max stared after Ommersley’s retreating form, as if to make certain he had truly abandoned his pursuit. When Ommersley had faded from sight, Max’s chest caved in a great exhale of pent-up breath. As if he hadn’t breathed since he crossed the room. To save her. Again.

She reached out gently and touched his arm.

His head jerked around.

They stared.

She didn’t know what to say to him. How could she thank him for another rescue? Her knees were still wobbly, and she couldn’t remember ever being that frightened before—but she couldn’t very well let Max Fontaine know that. She should say something smart and caustic. Unfortunately, all her brain could think was
thank God for you.

He opened his mouth to speak, but stalled, his eyes searching her face. Would he reprimand her? Gail worried. Did he blame her…worse yet, what if he made fun of her? She would surely die.

Finally, after a time-frozen moment in each other’s eyes, Max cleared his throat and asked, “Shall we dance?”

TAKING
her hand in his, they took to the floor, joining the other couples as they waltzed. Max spied Evangeline in Will’s arms, talking animatedly, Will smiling and laughing in return. Holt had always been the one with the gift of conversation, Max noted, and promptly forgot about his betrothed. All his energy was focused on the uncommonly pale, mute woman in his arms. He fought the uninvited impulse to smooth her hair, her cheek, and instead positioned them properly on the floor. Max’s left hand went to Gail’s surprisingly small waist, her hand perched tentatively in his right—but she put no weight on that hand, almost as if she were afraid to touch him. Stiffly they began to move.

She tripped once; he held her up. She trod on his toes; he didn’t say a word. After a minute of stony silence, Max’s worry was turning to annoyance. Her color had evened out, and she was no longer the shaken, fragile creature afraid of her own shadow. In fact, that side of Gail had been so fleeting, Max began to wonder if he had imagined it. But she still wouldn’t meet his eyes. She was concentrating too intensely on her feet, on dancing. When she misstepped onto his toes for the fourth time, Max couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

“Are you trying to break my feet?”

That brought her eyes up from the floor to his face, flashing with challenge. The sight made Max smile with relief.

“I beg your pardon, good sir,” she said with an edge of sarcasm, “but one of us has to take the lead—and you seem to be mincing more than moving.”

“You want me to lead?” Max rose to the challenge. “Fine. Try following. A few instructions: First, keep your eyes up, on my face—don’t look down at my feet. My feet are not going to tell you where we move next.”

She saw his dare and, smiling herself a little, did as he instructed, unnerving him with her direct and powerful gaze. But he didn’t falter. Instead, he continued.

“Now, put a little more strength into our clasped hands. I need you to be able to feel me. You won’t push me over, no matter how much you want to.” Once she had obeyed, he pulled her a bit closer and lowered his voice into her ear. “Now, do you feel my hand on your waist? My other hand holding yours? I am going to tell you how to follow me, simply by touch.”

“I think—” Gail started, only to be cut off.

“That’s the problem. You can’t dance while thinking about dancing.” His mouth was a scant inch from her delicate ear. “The act is about feeling, not thought.”

And with that, he put the veriest bit of pressure on her side and spun her into a turn, which she executed with astonishingly perfect grace. Gail was so wide-eyed with surprise, she burst into a gleeful grin before she could suppress it. Her joy hit Max with such an explosion of warmth, it was like a dozen nails driven into his chest. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling right back.

And then Gail tripped again.

She turned bright red and glowered at him. “You shouldn’t smile at a lady like that,” she remarked, after regaining the rhythm.

“Like what?”

“Like you want to eat her.”

Now was Max’s turn to trip, and Gail’s turn to catch him.

After those initial stumbles, they spun around the floor, perfectly in tune with each other and the music. Max guided her expertly, surprised and pleased they moved together so well.

She challenged him to show her how to dance, and the fact that she thrived under his instruction was thrilling. And she was loving every moment. No matter how stern she tried to remain, she couldn’t hide the light of joy on her face. And Max couldn’t help but comment on it.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say you were enjoying yourself.”

That earned him a wry look, but she maintained dignity and would not be baited.

“Apparently you can be taught,” he murmured in her ear.

She blithely stepped hard upon his toes and smiled serenely when he grimaced

“I’m sorry, did you say something? I was too busy feeling and not thinking to pay attention to your chatter,” she remarked, mischievousness alight in her face.

“You have the most amazingly selective hearing. Whatever I wish you to hear, you do not.”

“And whatever you don’t want me to hear, I manage to be listening,” Gail finished for him, as he took them into another turn, Gail following easily.

Max frowned, and to his abject embarrassment, was unable to meet Gail’s intensely direct gaze.

“You, ah, are referring to this morning, I gather,” he said after settling his eyes on an innocuous potted tree.

“Your French accent was passable, but the Portuguese was atrocious.”

“That is possibly because I have at least been to France, whereas I have not had the opportunity to visit Portugal.”

“On your Grand Tour, I expect, after university?” Her eyes challenged him yet again. “I had wondered where you learned such language.”

That brought his head back around quick enough. He lowered his voice and leaned in, his breath brushing her cheek. “The content of what I said was not intended for your ears.” His hand had begun to move along the small of her back—his thumb caressing the silk ever so slightly, movement to match his low, seductive tones. “Come now, you must believe that had I known you could understand me, I should never have said those things. It was a stressful morning, and I was merely…amusing myself.”

“Yes, gentlemen rarely think beyond their own amusement,” Gail replied stonily. But then, with false brightness, “Do you know, I had intended to blast you for your appalling sense of decorum for even thinking, never mind saying, such things. Then it occurred to me just how utterly mundane your silly phrases were, it seemed almost pitiful to berate you for them.”

Max heard some outraged gasping sounds—he was fairly certain they were coming from him.

“Mundane?”
he repeated, shocked to his core.

“Uninspired, to say the least. Unimaginative. Uninteresting,” Gail decided.

“For something so uninteresting, it certainly caught your attention,” he shot back, but Gail waved it aside.

“Honestly, you are so British. ‘I want to take off all your clothes’ is the best you could come up with? The French are far more poetic—and more depraved, if that was your intention. And do you know how many words the Greeks have for the curve of a woman’s flesh? I heard far more creativity dockside in half a dozen cities. You are not unintelligent, Max. I expected better.”

His thumb stopped moving languidly on her back, as his hand fisted in the silk of her dress. A hundred thoughts flashed through his brain—not the least of which was images of a woman’s flesh in Greece, depraved poetry in France, and the removal of clothing in Britain. So this is what the mind feels like when it’s reeling, Max wondered dazedly. What disturbed him more was that the flesh he kept inter-continentally flashing to belonged to someone very close at hand.

“Where did you…how did you…?”

Gail released a husky little laugh that shot straight down to Max’s lower anatomy. “I listened. I’ve walked the lanes and avenues of every city I’ve ever been to. That’s how I learn the languages. People say a number of interesting things when they think you can’t understand them.”

A lesson Max could take to heart after this morning.

“A young lady should not be exposed to the vulgar language of the general populace,” Max said stiffly, trying to turn the conversation to something more comfortable, namely, Gail’s faults.

“Actually, the most interesting phrases came from the ‘gentlemen,’” she replied archly.

Max regarded this eighteen-year-old woman, who by all rules of decent society should never have been let out of the country—let alone admitted into that plane of thought where baser notions existed—yet she espoused her opinions with such a wide-eyed innocence, he had half a mind to tell her she knew not of what she spoke, and then, cravenly, inform her.