Page 32 of The Tenacious Lady Blackmore

“Once we return to where we started—”

“I always said dancing gets one nowhere.”

“Hush,” she chided him with a smile. “Once we return to where we started, you will cross over to the lady directly opposite you and perform a particular spin with her. Then you will come back this way and do the same spin with me.”

“All right, now I’m lost.”

“Stay here.” Charlotte crossed to stand facing him where the lady opposite himself would have been. “You start with walking toward me. We don’t meet in the middle during the allemande. You’ll walk all the way over to where I am.”

Seth proceeded to do so, but Charlotte stopped him with a raised hand.

“No,” she corrected. “Do the same step and skip as before.”

Seth took two steps backward to where he’d started. “I swear nothing makes a man feel more idiotic than dancing. I haven’t worried about the way I walk since I was in leading strings, and now here I am, doing it all wrong somehow.”

“That’s because youaren’twalking now, you’redancing.”

Seth tutted even as he shook his head, earning another laugh from Charlotte. Hang it all, but he’d never grow tired of that sound.

As required, hedancedhis way over to her. Step, skip. Step, skip.

“Now what?” he asked once he’d crossed the short yet painful distance.

“Now, loop one arm behind your back as I do the same. Then we hold hands.”

This was getting more confusing by the minute. For the next several minutes, they laughed and giggled as Seth struggled to understand exactly what she meant. Half of him truly, honestly did not see what they were trying to accomplish, and the other half of him truly didn’t care.

After a time, they stood back to back, his arms twisted about one another.

“Like this?” he asked.

Then a moment later he asked again, “Like this?” This time his right elbow had managed to rest against her shoulder, which left his hand dangling in front of her face.

Charlotte pushed him away with a happy sigh. “You dunderhead. Stop messing up on purpose.”

Seth held up both his hands. “I told you I couldn’t dance. What’s happening here is all your fault.”

“Stand still,” she said, her smile brightening her already enchanting eyes. “Now,” she took hold of one of his arms, “this goes here,” she placed it around his own back, then took his other arm, “and this goes here.”

Then, moving so that she mirrored his own stance, she slipped up to him.

It was like two gears in a clock−strange on their own, but when placed together with another perfectly fitted piece, they suddenly became beautiful.

That’s what they were, two clock-gear pieces. They fit as though they’d always been designed to. They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions. One of his arms looped behind himself and held her outstretched hand. His other reached behind her back, holding her other hand.

The room stilled as the laughter from earlier slipped into the background, leaving only Seth and Charlotte and the candlelight.

It flickered across her cheek.

It skipped over her lips.

“What now?” he whispered. The room suddenly felt far too still for anything louder.

She leaned toward him, or perhaps that was only him leaning toward her. Seth couldn’t be sure, but they were closer all the same.

“We turn,” she whispered back.

But she didn’t move, and neither did he. His heart beat fast enough, he could have just finished a race. Was it possible she felt the same?

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