Alexandra (17 page)

CHOCOLATED SPONGE CAKES

Take a measure of sugar and a like amount of butter and mix together well. To this add two beaten eggs and then flour in the same amount as the butter and sugar. Put together with a little milk to make soft and pour into your pan. Put in your oven for half an hour until well risen, then cut into little squares, cover with chocolate icing, and decorate with white icing strands to make them look like little presents on a plate.

Mere acquaintances have been known to call on me hoping to find these offered. They look like tiny gifts and are reputed to be irresistible!
—Katherine, Countess of Greystone, 1769

BONIFACE’S PRETTY
face was even prettier with red cheeks.

“Take her hand, Boniface,” Tris said patiently, demonstrating with Corinna. “You can do it.”

Even with their hands gloved, the butler held Alexandra’s fingers so hesitantly she had to cling to his to hold on.

“Put your other hand around her back.”

Though Boniface complied, Alexandra could barely feel his fingers grazing her spine.

“Music, please.”

All three sisters began humming.

“The basic figure is a full turn in two measures using three steps per measure. Like this.” Tris swept Corinna into the dance, the two of them turning so fast she was forced to rise to her toes. She stopped humming. Her laughter echoed through the cavernous great hall.

Alexandra hummed through gritted teeth.

Griffin and Juliana took a few tentative steps, then seemed to grasp the idea. “Oh, this is fun!” Juliana cried, leaving Alexandra humming alone.

She changed to la-la-la’s. Boniface still stood there, limply attached to her, his blue eyes wide with apprehension. Unlike most families, the Chases didn’t ban their servants from marrying, and Alexandra had sometimes wondered why he chose to remain a bachelor. Now she knew.

By all appearances, he was terrified of women.

“Shall we dance?” she prompted, abandoning the music. It was still raining—it had rained all night—and the drops sounded louder in the sudden silence. “Hum!” she commanded her sisters, turning back to Boniface when they took over. “Well?” she asked.

He nodded mutely, remaining riveted in place.

Tris frowned as he twirled past. “Go on, man. Give it a try.”

“It’s delightful!” Corinna called encouragingly.

Seeing her sister in Tris’s arms, a stab of jealousy caught Alexandra by surprise.

At last, Boniface took a few jerky steps, and she lurched with him, trying her best to stay attached. She hardly noticed the three times he trod on her feet, busy as she was watching Tris guide her sister in whirling circles around the planked wood floor. He danced with admirable grace, looking handsome and debonair and dreadfully delicious.

“Enough,” he finally said, saving Alexandra’s toes. They all stopped humming. “Change partners. No, wait—allow me to fetch another sweet first.” He walked over to where Alexandra had set up refreshments on a side table, taking his sixth bite-sized chocolate-covered cake. “These are truly excellent.”

“So you’ve assured me,” she said with a little smile.

He snatched another one and ate it quickly before returning. “Now we switch partners.” To Alexandra’s disappointment, he went to Juliana. “Griffin, you take Alexandra. Boniface, I think you’ll find Corinna an accomplished waltzer already.”

Corinna beamed. Boniface’s face turned even redder, if that were possible. Alexandra and her sisters resumed providing the music, and everyone began dancing.

Griffin held Alexandra a bit awkwardly, but at least his hands were firmer than the butler’s. Tris shouted occasional words of encouragement and correction. He and Juliana glided by, making the dance look effortless—and sparking envy that seemed to fill Alexandra from the top of her head clear down to her toes.

She wondered if she’d actually turned green.

“Stop watching him,” Griffin muttered.

She focused up at the hammerbeam ceiling. “La-la-la.”

His fingers gripped hers tighter. “You think I don’t notice the way you look at each other?”

“La-la-la.”

“Three days from now, this room will be full of eligible gentlemen, all vying for your hand.”

“La-la-la.”

“I hope you’ll fall in love with one of them.”

The great hall looked plain and empty today, but on Friday evening it would be crammed full of people, blazing with torchlight, and sparkling with the jewels adorning their guests. Guests who had been invited expressly to provide her with the chance to meet someone special.

And her brother wanted her to find love. He wasn’t bent on marrying her off to the first young man who offered.

She stopped singing. “I hope so, too.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Griffin smiled…until her gaze wandered again to Tris. “Pay attention to your dancing, will you?”

“I think I’m improving.” She looked back at her brother. “You’re a great deal better than Boniface.”

“That’s not saying much,” he muttered as the butler stumbled by with Corinna.

“Switch!” Tris called, heading toward the cakes. While everyone else shuffled partners, he ate two more.

Then finally, just when Alexandra felt like she’d been waiting forever, he slipped an arm around her waist and took her hand. As he locked her body into the proper position opposite his, he locked his eyes on hers, too.

A bolt of energy rippled through her. And through him as well—she’d swear it. He couldn’t look at her like that and not feel as she did, not sense the current that ran between them.

And then he began to dance. He moved so smoothly, she didn’t have to think about what her feet did. All by themselves, they seemed to know the steps. She forgot to hum.

His smile seemed as intimate as a kiss—that second kiss she’d been thinking about but knew she would never get. “Now you can follow me around,” he said playfully, “instead of me following you.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I was in a mood.”

“I understand.”

The fact that she believed he
did
understand didn’t make her feel any better.

His gray eyes watched her so intently, she feared she might lose herself in their depths. She fit perfectly in his arms, the two of them moving together as though they’d been born to share a dance floor. Where his hand rested on her back, heat seemed to spread out from his palm to warm every bit of her skin.

She feared all the hard work of forgetting, of piecing her heart back together, was unraveling in the space of a single dance.

The song came to an end. Corinna and Juliana stopped humming. The incessant rain pounded on the hammerbeam roof. Tris kept dancing, kept his gaze fastened on Alexandra.

She felt rather than saw Griffin’s glare. “Switch!” he called, shoving himself between them. He handed Tris a sweet. “Time for another chocolate cake, isn’t it?”

“Thank you,” Tris said and stepped back, allowing Boniface to take his place.

For the next minute or two, Alexandra danced in a daze. Boniface had improved slightly. He actually held her hand, and he trod on her toes only once.

“Switch!” Tris called.

Alexandra noticed Juliana sweetly hand him a cake as she joined him. Sometimes her sister grated on her nerves.

“Why are you frowning?” Griffin asked, holding Alexandra a little too tightly. “You’re supposed to pay attention to your partner.”

“Thank you for the advice. You could write a book and call yourself A Gentleman of Distinction.”

“Stop watching him,” he growled low.

“I’m studying his technique. He’s good, isn’t he?”

“How would you know?” He swung her farther away. “You’ve never seen anyone waltz before in your life.”

“Switch!” Tris called.

Not to be outdone by Juliana, Alexandra rushed to grab one of the little cakes before meeting him. Her sisters laughed, but the smile Tris gave her made her knees turn to jelly.

Yet when his arm came around her, his sure guidance kept her twirling in perfect rhythm. She felt giddy, lightheaded. As their gazes held, she wondered whether to attribute that to the motion or to him.

Him. Definitely him.

She wracked her brains for a neutral topic of conversation. “If you never go out in society, when did you learn how to waltz?”

“Directly after my uncle died, when I first inherited the marquessate.”

Before the scandal broke out, then. “Did a dancing master teach you?”

“No.” When she just looked at him, he added, “A girl taught me.”

If she hadn’t turned green before, she surely did now. “A girl? Who?”

It was possibly the rudest question she’d ever asked. Her stomach twisted with shame, but she had to know the answer.

“It doesn’t signify,” he said, somehow managing to sound both evasive and blithe. “Just someone who hoped to dance with me at many balls.”

He spoke in past tense, Alexandra consoled herself. Quite obviously, that girl’s hopes had ultimately been dashed. But she hated her, regardless.

Even though she couldn’t remember hating anyone before.

“Switch!” Griffin yelled, sounding so furious she was glad her next partner was Boniface instead of him.

She gave the butler a big smile. “You’re surely improving, Boniface.”

“Thank you, my lady.” He stumbled. “Pardon me.”

“No, no, you’re doing fine.” Since he didn’t seem to be leading her, she led him instead. “Just think, you’ll be able to waltz at the next servants’ ball.”

“I think not, my lady. I don’t believe waltzing is my forte.”

“Oh, bosh,” she said, although she agreed. “You’re doing just fine.”

“Switch!” Tris called.

Griffin started twirling her with a little more gusto than necessary. “What were you two talking about so intently?”

“Boniface fears that waltzing is not his forte.”

“Not Boniface. You and Tristan.”

“Goodness, Griffin. That was a good two minutes ago. I cannot remember the conversation, but I’m certain it wasn’t anything significant.”

“He was holding you too close.”

“No, he wasn’t. You’re not holding me close enough. There’s a reason old matrons think the waltz is a scandalous dance, I’ll have you know.”

“Switch!” Tris called. While Alexandra headed to fetch him a chocolate cake, he added, “You’re all doing splendidly.”

“Good,” Griffin said. “Because we’re all finished.”

Alexandra turned to protest, her gaze swinging past her brother and over to Tris. As she met his gray eyes, their intensity evoked the memory of his warm hand on her back as they danced, his thigh grazing hers as he reached for the bread, his chest pressing up against her in the library, his fingers encircling her elbow, his lips touching her forehead, his breath tickling her cheek…

Alexandra’s knees began to buckle.

Sweet heaven, Tris
had
been holding her too close.

And she’d been encouraging him, flirting with him, not to mention letting jealousy turn her head. It was all wrong, so wrong. Tris was wrong for her, wrong for her sisters, wrong for the future of her family.

She took the plate of remaining cakes and held it before her like a shield. “I’ll go put these in the dining room,” she said, keeping her tone as casual as possible. When Tris gave the sweets a longing glance, she released a tense laugh. “Don’t worry; we’ll save them for you. They’ll go well with your port after dinner.”

She didn’t breathe until she’d escaped, leaving the sweets on one of the dining room’s side tables and her heart in the great hall.

WITH ONLY A
day and a half left before the ball—and less than that before Tris departed—Alexandra was finding it hard to sleep. Still lying awake in her bed well after midnight, she sighed and lit a candle, leaned back against her pillows, and slid a copy of
Mansfield Park
off her night table.

Then sat with it unopened on her lap.

Unless one could count fleeting glances, she hadn’t seen Tris in the two days since the dance lesson. He’d ordered his meals brought to the workshop, where he was building the second pump. But his rush to finish didn’t really explain his avoidance.

Nor did it explain why, the few times she’d caught sight of him, she’d found herself walking the other way.

It seemed silly and childish—and
wrong
somehow—and each time it happened, she swore to herself it would be the last. But after all, it took two to play the game. She wondered if he, like she, had been unprepared for the heady experience of waltzing together. Unprepared and dismayed. For both their sakes, nothing like that must ever happen again.

If only…

According to Griffin, although the incessant rain had delayed completion of the new pipeline, the pump was ready, and Tris would be leaving after they installed it tomorrow. A full day before the ball, just as planned. Griffin was jubilant, but her feelings on the matter ran to dejection mixed with relief.

Well, she told herself sternly, staring into space wasn’t going to change anything. With another sigh, she opened her book. But she hadn’t read two paragraphs when her attention was claimed by the prolonged creak of a slowly opening door.