The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (13 page)

“Bested you, grandson,” her grace pointed out
with a chuckle. “Care to try again? Emily do be quiet. I swear you
cackle like a hen laying a three-pound egg.” She directed her next
words back to the man now balefully glaring at his cousin, who was
balefully glaring back. “Ashley, your services are required here
for approximately one hour,” she announced in a tone that brooked
no argument.

The Duke gave Tansy one last searing look and
turned to his grandparent. “I am terribly afraid I must disoblige
you, madam. I am due at Cribb’s in a few minutes,” he inserted
without much hope of being excused.

“Splendid. You can do much the same here as
you would there. The footwork doesn’t vary all that much, and you
can toss verbal punches instead of real ones. Not to say you’ll
come off any less bruised. Our Tansy is a proper right ’un, you
know, when it comes to sparring and, leveling, er, wisty
castors.”

The Duke was at a loss. “I do not wish to
play dance master to any lead-footed miss who cannot even caper
about with inanimate objects without accident, Grandmama. And,” he
added darkly, “I must question your sources on the knowledge of
fisticuffs and boxing cant.”

The dowager explained happily. “Tansy has
witnessed a mill or two in her earlier years, and has kindly
explained all sorts of things—like uppercutting and boneboxes and
the like.” The Duke’s eyes rolled in mock horror. “What we require
now is a dancing partner for Tansy,” the dowager continued. “It is
impossible to capture the correct mood and rhythm with a
broomstick.”

Any amusement the Duke experienced at his
grandmother’s inelegant interest in boxing evaporated in the heat
of his indignation. “I repeat. I’ll be damned if I’ll dance with
her,” he exploded angrily. “Every time I come within ten feet of
the chit, disaster strikes.”

“And I’ll be damned if I’d let him within
twenty feet of me!” Tansy retorted hotly. The two returned to
glaring at each other.

“The children are squabbling again,
Grandmama,” Emily supplied facetiously. “Shall we send them to bed
without their porridge?”

“Stow it, brat,” her brother warned her. “You
are not too old to be spanked.”

Emily promptly burst into tears.

“Don’t include an innocent infant in our
quarrel,” Tansy threatened. “She has always looked to you, her so
ton
nish, perfect brother, for guidance in how to go on. She
only follows your sterling example.”

“That will be enough, from all of you,” the
dowager pronounced coldly when it appeared the scene before her was
about to degenerate into violence. “Tansy, you are to master
waltzing and you are to master it today. If Dunstan knew the steps
we would not have to make use of Ashley, who is only a mediocre
dancer in any case.”

Avanoll’s head jerked up at this calumny.

“Ashley, as your grandmother, and a frail old
woman sorely tried in her declining years and worthy of better than
she is receiving, and as a woman fully capable of making your life
a veritable hell if she so chooses, I must insist you resign
yourself to partnering your cousin. Emily, you may accompany them
when you have done with those crocodile tears. They may work on
Lucinda, but they’ll cut no wheedle with me.”

Emily moved to the spinet and stood there.
“Well,” coaxed the dowager, “sit down.”

“Oh, did you want me to play?” Emily
questioned blankly.

“No, I just thought you could see better from
there. I am going to hum the tune in German.”

Emily giggled. “Grandmama, you are so
droll!”

The dowager shook her head. “That gel is such
a ninny,” she told the room in general. “I truly believe my late
daughter-in-law played my son false. No son of mine could have
sired such an airhead.”

Lady Emily, who cast herself as a blameless
innocent in a harsh world, born into a family of vile-tongued
creatures whose blood contained not one drop of sensibility, patted
carefully at the two tears she had produced on demand and began
pounding out a technically correct tune in a belligerent military
march tempo.

The two combatants—dancers—eyed each other
warily and assumed their battle—waltzing—stations. Tansy laid her
hand lightly in Avanoll’s outstretched palm and gingerly placed her
other hand on his broad, unpadded shoulder. Avanoll closed his hand
just enough to keep their arms angled correctly and grasped her
surprisingly small waist in a wary hold.

They started slowly, feeling each other out
as fighters in the ring, Tansy mentally monitoring her steps and
the Duke slowly counting to ten to cool his temper. From her chair
halfway across the room the dowager admonished them to stop looking
like they were dancing their way to Tyburn and the gibbet, and
further directed her grandson to give Tansy some practice in the
art of pleasant conversation while dancing.

Actually, Avanoll found himself not as averse
to partnering his cousin as his countenance implied. After a few
false steps she seemed to find the correct rhythm, and in point of
fact was as light on her feet as the petite Emily. This after he
had expected her to try and lead him around the floor. He tightened
his hold, shortening the distance between them to a still proper
but more intimate degree, and his nostrils caught the light flowery
scent of her newly-washed hair. He wouldn’t delude himself into
thinking he was enjoying himself, but it was becoming increasingly
difficult to maintain his earlier anger. “I see no problem in your
form, cousin. Perhaps the old dragon was just pushing you too
hard.”

Tansy had never been in such close proximity
to a man before and was finding the experience quite heady. She had
no wish to antagonize Avanoll again and cut short her enjoyment.
She didn’t answer for a moment or two, and then thanked him
prettily for his appraisal of her expertise—which she disclaimed
credit for, suggesting the adeptness of her current partner over
Sir Humphrey.

Puzzled, the Duke asked who this Sir Humphrey
could be. Again her answer was slightly delayed, and then she
informed him with a grin, “You were not properly introduced, I
know, but he quite threw himself at your feet a few minutes ago,
begging sanctuary.”

Avanoll tossed back his head and laughed,
then asked why she was delaying her answers. “Perhaps civility to
me comes hard, and your words must first be carefully screened in
your mind,” he suggested.

For the first time he was treated to the
sight of a very flattering blush on his cousin’s face. “I could not
reply in the middle of my counting. I answered you as soon as I
reached three. You wouldn’t want me to tread on your toes, would
you?”

Again the Duke’s laughter rang out, and the
dowager and Emily exchanged sly looks. See, their eyes said, if we
but persevere they will cry friends yet. At least that was the
extent of Emily’s hopes. Her grace’s aspirations went considerably
higher, but there was no need to rush her fences. There was plenty
of time for mother nature and herself to work their combined wiles.
If not, a well-engineered compromise or two should do the trick.
I’d lock ’em up together in the conservatory for a sen’night to
force a marriage, she told herself smugly, if I didn’t believe
they’d pelt each other to flinders with the oranges.

Emily put a gentler, more romantic tone into
her playing as her mood improved, and the dancers matched her by
whirling and swaying with increasing confidence. The Duke’s hand
tightened on Tansy’s waist and she responded unwittingly by holding
more firmly to his ungloved hand. As they neared the far end of the
dance floor the Duke spoke again. “Are you still counting, my
dear?”

Tansy’s head snapped up at his use of this
casual intimacy, and she blushed again as she assured him she had
stopped counting some time ago.

“Good,” he answered with an accompanying
wink. “Then what say we give the old girl a little exhibition?”
With Tansy’s form gently but firmly in his control, he swept them
into a series of turns that billowed out her muslin skirts and
brought a smile of pure enjoyment to her face. Round and round the
floor they glided, their eyes locked together as their bodies moved
as if in silent communion.

The dowager signaled to her granddaughter and
the two rose and stole silently from the room. Once outside the old
lady shook her head at Emily. “Close your gaping mouth before a
moth finds its home in your molars, and hie your precious self out
of the path of destiny.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Emily gasped.

The dowager sighed and gave the girl a
none-too-gentle shove toward the stairs. The dowager then went off
to the morning room, where she raised her eyes heavenward and
addressed her departed husband. “Dearest, surely your grandson is
not so stiff and proper as to pass up a golden opportunity like
this. Or worse yet, so dull-witted as not to recognize it as such.
Ah, but then he couldn’t be your offspring and be such a slowtop,
could he, my dear?” She gave a sly wink, then, unbelievably, the
old lady’s cheeks blushed a faint pink at a long-forgotten, sweet
memory.

She recovered herself quickly, cast her eyes
about to be sure she had not been overheard, and returned to the
foyer, quietly closing the double doors to the ballroom as she
went. Horatio sidled up to her and she tersely commanded him to
“sit,” which he did, and to “stay,” which he had every intention of
doing even if it meant missing his dinner, since his beloved
mistress was still behind those closed doors, and lastly, to
“guard,” which he did not quite understand, but then two out of
three wasn’t really so bad for a pup as young as he.

Almost before the dowager was out of sight,
Horatio, head comfortably settled on his outstretched paws, was
sound asleep, dreaming of his mistress’ ecstasy-producing talent of
scratching that one unreachable spot behind his left ear.

I
t had been several
seconds before the dancers still inside the ballroom noticed the
lack of musical accompaniment. Once awareness set in they halted
suddenly in the center of the floor and Tansy reluctantly made to
move away, but Avanoll’s grip tightened and he drew her still
closer. She could see the question in his blue eyes as his head
slowly moved toward her. (Somewhere his grandfather was
smiling.)

Avanoll halted in his move for a moment,
giving Tansy time to back away, but she was too startled to take
heed of his chivalry. Her eyelids briefly widened, then fluttered
and closed as his lips covered hers in a soft, tentative kiss.

All too soon he lifted his head to stare at
her as if he had suddenly discovered a stranger in his arms. He
released her only to bring his hands up to cup her face and
whisper, “I must be mad!” then kiss her again, this time not at all
tentatively.

At first Tansy was stunned, but then a sudden
weakness invaded her limbs and she clutched at Avanoll’s lapels to
keep herself from falling. She heard his muttered exclamation and
silently agreed: they must both be quite mad. His second kiss
succeeded in banishing this and all thought but one, the conclusion
that being kissed knocked anything else she had ever experienced
all to sticks. A convulsive shiver ran down her spine, and she
could feel an answering tremor in Avanoll’s body as her hands
encountered his muscular, silk-clad chest.

Then, suddenly, it was over, and she was
roughly pushed backwards and would have fallen but for her
convulsive clutching of the Duke’s lapels.

Avanoll’s countenance was a study in
conflicting emotions as he ran his eyes over Tansy’s features: her
mouth, moist and trembling; her cheeks, slightly flushed; her eyes,
misty and a bit dazzled-looking. Tansy, in her turn, could see the
disbelief, indignation, and what a more experienced woman would
recognize as a rising desire, registering on his face in their
turn.

Indignation finally won. He raised his hands
and brusquely disengaged hers from his coat. “I shall have a hard
time explaining my crushed appearance to Farnley,” he said stiffly,
if a bit shakily. “I am at a loss to understand my total lapse in
propriety. I can only say I regret it, and beg humbly for your
forgiveness.”

Tansy was shaken to her core and felt an
overweening desire to burst into loud, raucous tears. To prevent
such a humiliating occurrence she took refuge in anger.

“I do not know how you arrived at your
conclusion, but I have the distinct impression you believe me the
instigator of this touching little scene. As I would have had to
stand on tiptoe and forcibly yank you down to my level by your ears
in order to so compromise your honor, however, I fail to see any
such guilt resting with me. Furthermore, I seriously doubt I could
have lured you into my arms, as Emily has only had time for one
short lesson in flirting and that to do with making calves-eyes at
gentlemen overtop a fluttering fan.”

As a slow, red flush rose in his grace’s
cheeks, she added in a terrible voice, “Uppermost, I greatly resent
your weak-kneed apology. You speak of our, er, it—as if it were a
distasteful interlude best erased from your memory. Well, I am not
of the same mind for, frankly, I enjoyed it more than a little bit!
I shall regard it as my first lesson in romance—given, no doubt, by
a master.” As the Duke tried to get a word in, she further informed
him, “And do not fear I shall cry rope to your grandmother and
force you to wed me, perish the very thought.” At last her voice
showed signs of cracking under the press of her injured feelings,
“For I shouldn’t have you if you were served up to me on a platter
of gold with... with a dressed duck hanging from your mouth!”

Avanoll reached out and grabbed Tansy’s
shoulders, wishing only to shake her into listening to reason. Why
did this infernal female always take his words and twist them
around to make him sound either a cold, callous brute or a
mindless, blithering idiot?