The Bridal Quest (15 page)

Irene stared at him, hands on hips, perplexed. "Why?" she asked, throwing up her hands and walking back to the chair beside him. She sat down, shaking her head, and said again, "Why would you want us to think that you know nothing? Why would you try to act rougher than you are?"

"It pleases my family so," he replied. His eyes glinted, and he added beneath his breath, "And how else was I supposed to get you so close?"

Irene's eyes widened, a sudden warmth flooding her abdomen at his words. She glanced quickly at Francesca to see if she had heard his sotto voce statement. Francesca, still smiling from her spate of mirth and shaking her head in amused disbelief, did not seem to have noticed what Gideon said, and Irene relaxed a little and turned to look at him. He was watching her, his face relaxed from his laughter, but his eyes steady and watchful. Irene felt a blush rising in her cheeks, and she turned away, suddenly flustered and confused.

"Don't be absurd," she said, but her voice did not come out as sharply as she had intended.

"Very well, then," Francesca said, rising to her feet and settling her face back into a serious expression. "I apologize, Lord Radbourne, for listening too much to what others have said that you need. Perhaps we should start over. Maybe you have no need to polish your manners, in which case, there is really little reason for Lady Irene and me to be here. So I will ask you—is there any area in which you feel you could ... gain useful knowledge? Do something to make you fit in more easily with your new family and your peers? Or should Irene and I simply retire from our efforts?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "I am sure that you and Lady Irene can improve me. But I know as much as I care to about tableware. I have a valet who endeavors to keep me looking the part. And, as you said, I will have a wife to keep me informed as to the order of precedence on any occasion. I am aware that my speech is a trifle wrong, but I can tell you that I worked at some length to speak in the proper manner, and I am told that it is my nature, not my grammar, that is not quite up to snuff. So I have little hope—and admittedly, little interest—in learning how to speak like a swell." He paused, then added, "There
is
one area in which I would like to improve my skills. I am hopeless on the dance floor."

"Ah." Francesca looked pleased. "That, I am sure, is something that we can help you with." She looked over at Irene. "Don't you agree?"

"Yes, of course." Irene nodded.

They left the dining room and made their way to the music room. Irene had immediately seen the dangers inherent in teaching Gideon to dance. He would need to have a partner with whom to practice, and being his partner would require her to stand quite close to him the whole time, often with his hand on hers or even his arm around her. If being close to him at the table had stirred her in unaccustomed ways, she did not like to think of what she might feel while dancing with him.

"Why don't I play the piano?" she suggested as they entered the music room, heading for the piano where Francesca had played for Lady Odelia the evening before.

Francesca let out a little laugh. "Oh, no, my dear, you forget—I have heard you play. I think it will be better if I play the tune and you act as his lordship's partner."

Unfortunately, Irene knew that Francesca had the right of it. Irene was not musically gifted and had hated the tedium of daily practice, so she possessed only minimal skill at the piano. And both she and Francesca were well aware of that fact, as young unmarried ladies were often called upon to show off such talents at various social gatherings. If Irene insisted on playing, Francesca would know that there was something behind her stubbornness, and she had even less desire to set Francesca speculating on why she did not want to dance with Lord Radbourne than she did to dance with him.

"Of course." Irene gave in as gracefully as she could.

She glanced over at Gideon. He smiled at her in a way that told her that he understood why she had wanted to play the piano. Worse, he knew why she was reluctant to dance with him—not because she was repelled by him, but exactly the opposite. Quite despite her own wishes, she was attracted to him. She was afraid to be in his arms, to move to the music with him, because she was afraid of her own response.

"Shall we start with the waltz?" Francesca asked, going on without waiting for an answer. "I know it is not always done outside of London, but I think this will be a sophisticated enough gathering that it will be no problem. And it is the simplest to learn, I think. Irene, you explain the steps to Lord Radbourne while I find some music."

Irene turned to Gideon as Francesca started searching through the pile of sheet music on top of the piano. He held up his hand.

"I know the steps. I have been taught them. I am simply not expert at it. I think what I need is practice."

"Of course," Irene replied, goaded by the smugness in his smile into a determination to remain utterly cool and unaffected throughout the dancing lesson. "Shall we try a few steps without the music first?"

"If you wish." He held out his hand for hers, then drew her closer, putting his other hand at her waist.

His palm was heavy and warm upon her side, his grip firm, and she was very aware of just how large his hand was. It made her feel a little breathless to stand this close to him, to look up into his face from only a few inches away. He was, she thought, a rather overpowering man, and she had to remind herself that she, on the other hand, was a woman who was not easily dominated.

"The first thing to remember is that you must not grip a lady too tightly," she told him in an even tone. "Your hand should rest lightly at her waist."

He lifted his hand just a little, and she reached down and moved his thumb a bit so that it was in exactly the correct position.

"Now you must guide me in the direction we are going, but lightly. You must not be ham-handed about it, as if you are pulling and pushing a sack about. Merely a light pressure of your fingers. And you do not grip my other hand tightly, but cup it. Yes, just so. Now, let us start."

She began to count out the waltz, and they moved, their steps rather stiff and awkward.

Irene looked up at him and asked, somewhat suspiciously, "You are not pretending to be less able to dance than you really are, are you?"

He laughed. "No. I fear that this is, in fact, the way I dance."

"All you need is practice," Irene told him encouragingly.

"My dear lady, you have not taken refuge in the polite lie before. Please do not start now."

She had to chuckle. "All right. Then let me say truthfully that you are not the worst with whom I have taken a turn around the floor. Not the best, either, it is true. But I do believe that practice will bring improvement."

He bowed his head briefly in acknowledgment. "Thank you. Then we shall practice."

So they did, sweeping around the floor to Francesca's playing. Their task was made more difficult by the necessity of dodging the other pieces of furniture in the music room, which was not set up for dancing. But after knocking over a stool and backing into a chair, they paused to rearrange the chairs a little, forming a vaguely circular path around most of the impediments. They danced along it for a time or two, and Gideon began to relax and move less stiffly, without such concentration on his steps.

As his confidence increased, he looked more at her face and less at his feet. Indeed, he looked at her at such length that Irene felt a flush beginning to creep up into her cheeks.

"Have I grown a third eye, sir?" she asked somewhat sharply. "You have been staring at me far longer than is polite."

"I am sorry. No doubt it is more of my poor upbringing," he responded without the slightest trace of regret in his voice. "It is probably also impolite of me to point out that there is something different about you."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Different? Different from what?"

"From the way you looked when I first met you. Your hair, I think. It is not the same."

"A woman often chooses different hairstyles, my lord," she retorted.

"I like the one you chose last night and today," he told her. His voice deepened a little huskily as he went on. "It is softer, a little less ... tightly bound. It makes a man think ..."

Heat spread in her at his words. She knew she should not ask, should not permit him to go on in this way. It was not at all the thing. It was dangerous.

Yet she heard herself saying, "Think of what, my lord?"

"Of taking it down," he answered, and the huskiness of his voice sent a thrill through her. "Of seeing all that glory unbound and spilling over your shoulders."

This time it was Irene who stumbled a little, and his hand tightened on her waist, keeping her steady. She looked away. "This is not the sort of conversation we should be having. Your speech is far too warm, sir. Far too familiar."

"It is not polite?" he asked sardonically.

"It is not proper," she corrected. "A gentleman does not speak to a young unmarried lady in this manner." She raised her eyes to his face a little defiantly, thinking that she must not let him see how his words had affected her.

"Ah, but we both know that I am not a gentleman." His eyes were on her, and she could not mistake the heat in them any more than she could mistake the meaning of his words.

His low voice was like a caress across her skin, making her tremble.

"You must not say such things to the girls you will be courting," she said firmly, struggling to ignore the response she felt inside her.

"I am not saying this to any of them," he pointed out, adding, "I don't have any interest in any of them."

"You have not met them yet."

"I do not have to meet them to know that they will be by and large giggling and foolish, or proud and disdainful. And that none of them will have anything to say that is not what they have been trained to say since they were born. And not one of them will be as interesting to me as you are."

Irene drew a sharp breath. "I told you that I was not interested in marriage, Lord Radbourne."

"Do you not think, since you are engaged in correcting my every word and move, that you could at least call me by my name?"

"That is your name," Irene protested.

"No. It is not. The Earl of Radbourne is not me. It is some entity that has nothing to do with who I am at all." His voice turned hard as he spoke, his face drawing into its usual severe lines and angles. "I have been Gideon all my life."

It was not proper, she knew, to call him by his given name; they had known each other only a few days, after all. To call him Gideon would indicate an intimacy between them that was not right. And yet, after a long moment, she said, "All right. Gideon."

His face relaxed, and his hand tightened slightly around hers. Irene glanced away. She felt as if she were sliding down a rather slippery slope. How had this situation gotten away from her? She had started out correcting Gideon, quite rightly, for speaking to her in a most improper way, and somehow she had wound up agreeing to call him by his first name, something she did not do even with men she had known her entire life.

She was simply not accustomed to this—the man, the situation, the feelings that boiled within her, seeming to bubble up to the surface at inopportune moments. Irene knew that she had a certain reputation for prickliness; there were those who proclaimed that it was more her disagreeable nature than her lack of dowry that had kept her from receiving an offer when she was younger. However, she did not mind that people thought her difficult and sharp-tongued. She would rather be that than a spineless chit who giggled and simpered and looked up with awe at a man, no matter how idiotic the fellow might be.

Lady Irene Wyngate, she thought, was the sort who knew her own mind. She was not easily swayed, and she rarely felt mystified or confused—in particular, she was not confused about herself. Yet ever since she had met the Earl of Radbourne, she had surprised herself. She had felt things she had never felt before, had acted in ways that she would never have thought she could, and she had been pushed this way and that by a tumult of sensations and emotions. She felt, quite frankly, a loss of control that she had never experienced before, and the feeling left her a little shaken.

When the waltz ended and they stepped apart, Irene moved a few steps away from him. She turned toward Francesca, who was paging through her music, looking for another waltz to play while the dancers took a short rest.

Irene took a breath and said, "Lady Francesca, I think that I would like to—to stop now, if we may."

"Of course." Francesca looked over at her in surprise. "I am sorry. Are you tired? I was not thinking, I should not have kept on playing."

Gideon frowned, starting toward Irene. "Yes, we should take a few minutes. Perhaps we should have some tea."

"No, I'm not—" Irene started to dispute the idea that the dancing had wearied her, but she stopped, seeing the easy opportunity. "That is, yes, perhaps you are right. But I don't need any tea. I think that I should go upstairs to my room. I—I have a bit of a headache, I believe."

She could not quite meet Gideon's eyes, and she turned quickly back to Francesca. "If you do not mind, perhaps we might continue this tomorrow?"

"Of course." Francesca smiled and waved a hand. "I feel sure that Lord Radbourne will be more than pleased to escape our clutches for an afternoon. I shall just go along and discuss the plans for the party with Lady Odelia."