Aubrey reached for the glass, his mouth working to form the words.
Except they wouldn’t come. Couldn’t come. Refused to come.
He couldn’t say it.
Gads, he was in love with the only goddess on earth he had ever seen, and the one he was supposed to find fault in. He was in love with Grace Morledge.
He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry out in terror, though he desperately wanted to do both. His eyes met Cam’s, and he knew full well that his utter bewilderment was plain to see.
Cam’s mouth formed a tight line, and this time his nod was entirely sympathetic. “There it is. Right, drink number two for you, sir, and as many more as you need. I’ll send you home passed out in a carriage if I must.”
Aubrey took the drink, downed it again, and held the empty glass out once more. “I think you must.”
Chapter Sixteen
When in doubt, one can always dance. Minimal conversation, minimal focus, and a bit of exercise to brighten one’s outlook… who could ask for more than that?
-The Spinster Chronicles, 12 August 1818
“Why are we doing dancing again? It’s already been evaluated.”
“Correction, your abilities in certain dances were evaluated. Your Lord Ingram consulted us on various areas of evaluation, with your consent, and we, knowing accomplishments as we do, insisted that multiple dances be considered.”
Grace scowled at Charlotte as they walked to the ballroom of the Wrights’ house, which had been the designated location for today’s ridiculous nature. “Well, that wasn’t well done, was it?”
Charlotte’s dark eyes flicked to hers, one brow rising. “You disagree with our expert opinion? You think looking at a woman dancing a jig will demonstrate how she can dance the quadrille? All the same, are they?”
No, they were not, and Grace knew it well. What was worse was that only weeks ago, she had written an article for the Chronicles about dancing and had been rather specific about each popular dance, as well. Every rational part of her mind knew that the Spinsters had been absolutely right in their insistence.
The rest of her objected wildly and with great enthusiasm.
She hadn’t seen Aubrey since they had awkwardly met in the Vales’ entry hall the week before. It was the longest they had gone without seeing each other since the fault-finding venture had commenced, and Grace had begun to wilt with lost hope and disappointment. She was familiar with the sensation, as all young ladies surely must be at some point in their lives, but this was far worse. This was no childish fancy gone awry, it was a numbing torment that left her irascible and short-tempered.
And, at the moment, she was rather inclined to slap Aubrey across the face with something rather hard. It wouldn’t have the same level of satisfaction as her hand burning with the impact, but the increased injury to the man in question would more than make up for it.
What else was one to do when a man kissed her senseless and then abandoned her without any indication of what it meant?
“I don’t feel like dancing,” Grace grumbled as they entered the room, managing only a weak smile for Izzy, Elinor, and Kitty Morton.
“Perfect,” Charlotte retorted. “Then you’ll be evaluated under the exact same conditions we endure roughly seventy-three percent of the time at any given ball or assembly. Now, kindly avoid biting anyone’s head off today, we’ve just had the floors cleaned. Especially not a certain gentleman whom we all happen to like very much, as I suspect his blood is still tainted by the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed from Cam’s stores, and the smell would take ages to sponge from the room.”
Grace gave Charlotte a startled look. “His what was what?”
“Blood,” Charlotte repeated on a long-suffering sigh. “Tainted. I stayed a bit later at Prue’s the other day, and Aubrey was fully and completely soused. Nigh unconscious, if Cam’s efforts in hauling him into the carriage was any indication.” She shook her head with some sympathy. “His head must have been positively raging for days. I wonder what could have driven him to it.”
Aubrey had been drinking excessively with Cam? Whatever for? What would have brought that about? Aubrey wasn’t the sort to turn profligate, no matter how sardonic he could get, and he was never careless about anything.
This made absolutely no sense.
“Had Cam been drinking, as well?” Grace pressed without hesitation.
Charlotte flicked at something on her bodice, not nearly as invested in this topic as she ought to have been. “Oh, I’m sure he had been, but not nearly to the same extent. I couldn’t even smell it on him. He was perfectly coherent and himself. Nothing at all compared to the state in which poor Aubrey got himself into.”
Elinor tsked loudly. “I’ve never approved of excessive inebriation.”
“Then may you never have reason to succumb to it.”
Grace stiffened at hearing the all too familiar drawl, her curiosity over the new revelation edging out her fury for the moment. She turned to watch as he and Lieutenant Henshaw entered the ballroom, both looking handsome and hale. Aubrey, in particular, seemed to be free of any concerns or constraints.
She forced herself not to glower, as Henshaw might assume the look was for him, and she did not need the misunderstanding.
“Henshaw, have you been roped into a turn as a dancing monkey like the rest of us?” Charlotte asked politely as she folded her arms.
Henshaw grinned and gave a quick bow of acquiescence. “When it comes to this particular gathering of ladies, I am willing to subject myself to a vast majority of things.”
“I wouldn’t admit that too loudly,” Elinor laughed, sharing a look with Kitty, whose amusement did not extend to the same degree, but her smile was sure enough.
Oh, to be a shy girl and not expected to perform in any particular way.
Aubrey surveyed the group with an assessing eye, glancing over Grace with as much interest as he’d done the rest of them. She felt the sting of such a cursory look sharply and inhaled shortly at the pain.
“Right,” Aubrey said, completely unaware of her current state, “do we have enough, Charlotte?”
Charlotte counted quickly, then shrugged as she looked back at him. “Enough to be passable, which is as much as we could hope, I expect.”
“Charmingly optimistic,” Elinor commented wryly, making Kitty and Izzy snicker.
Aubrey paid no mind to Elinor, which was undoubtedly for the best.
“Which of you plays the best?” Aubrey asked.
Izzy’s lips quirked. “Grace does.”
Grace bit down on her cheek to keep from laughing. While she would never claim to be exceptional in her musical abilities, she could safely attest to being accomplished, and the best player of the Spinsters.
“Not particularly helpful,” Aubrey remarked with a fond smile for Izzy. “Perhaps I’ll rephrase; who will be playing for the dancers today?”
Grace was stunned, and clearly Aubrey was as well, when Kitty Morton raised her hand without a hint of shyness. “I will,” Kitty’s voice rang out, the slightest quiver in her declaration.
Aubrey stared just a moment longer than he should have done, then his mouth curved into the gentlest smile Grace had ever seen on his face. “Alas that we are to be deprived of your lovely dancing, Kitty Morton, but your playing will be the magic to spur our feet into their steps.”
Grace nearly rolled her eyes, though the words were politely said, and smirked as Kitty’s cheeks flamed even as the girl smiled. Aubrey knew Kitty enough to know of her shyness, and he respected that, but surely he knew the flattery would make things worse.
She shook her head and stepped to Kitty, giving her a warm smile as they moved to the piano situated to one side of the room. “Never mind the rest of us, dear. He’s assessing my dancing, not your playing, so I don’t want you to have a single worry about it.”
Kitty nodded, exhaling slowly, quietly. “I might not play very well,” she admitted so only Grace could hear.
The girl’s pale eyes raised to Grace’s, a hesitant smile on her lips. “I don’t even play perfectly at home.”
“Well, I know a little about lack of perfection,” Grace murmured as she leaned a little closer. “And I’ll enjoy your playing all the more for it.”
Seeming satisfied, and no longer looking like a scared mouse, Kitty sat at the piano and began playing a neat series of scales in preparation.
Grace turned back to the others, returning a grateful smile from Izzy, and ignoring the curiously fixed look from Aubrey. “Shall we get on with this, then?” she asked, glancing in his direction yet avoiding meeting his eyes.
He cleared his throat quickly and nodded. “Yes, of course. I believe we are starting with a quadrille, aren’t we, Charlotte?”
“Correct, sir,” came the cheeky response. “Come on, everyone, form the square.”
Grace folded her arms, a last bit of resistance making itself known. “Who named Charlotte the dance supervisor?”
“I did,” Aubrey shot back with a daring look. “It’s her house, and I am not fool enough to try to dictate to her while in it.”
“Wise man,” Charlotte praised with a sage nod for him. She leveled a dark look at Grace. “Come over here, Miss Morledge, and kindly recall no one looks murderous while dancing a quadrille.”
Grace offered her friend a patronizing, strained smile that made the others laugh, and trudged over to the forming square with the rest. Elinor stood with Henshaw, Izzy stood across from them, Charlotte stood alone across from Aubrey, and Aubrey…
Aubrey looked at Grace expectantly.
A very naughty French curse she’d once heard her aunt use suddenly flashed into her mind.
Nothing for it, then.
She exhaled shortly and forced her irritation back if for no other reason than to give him nothing to criticize about her dancing or her manner while doing so. She obediently came to stand beside him, smiling across the square at Charlotte, then giving a sidelong look to Izzy, standing diagonally to her. Izzy flashed a tight smile of sympathy, though she could not possibly comprehend exactly what Grace’s particular complaint was at this moment. She only knew how Grace felt about being evaluated, and that was enough.
It was not wrong, certainly. It only failed to capture the full extent of her emotional state.
Kitty struck up an appropriate tune and Grace hummed to herself as Izzy, with her pretend partner, began the first movements with Elinor and Henshaw.
“I had no idea you were so against a quadrille,” Aubrey muttered beside her.
“What?” she snapped, not bothering to look at him as the others returned to their sides of the square.
He held out a hand, which she took, and they proceeded to meet Charlotte, and her imagined partner, in their formation. “You’re as sour as lemons and have a rind twice as thick. Is it the dancing or is it me?”
She stiffened as they parted, and she prayed her expression would be made bland as she danced with the pretend partner.
Alas, when she returned to Aubrey, he chuckled. “That answers that question. Whatever it is, I apologize profusely, and beg you to take pity on me.”
Grace scoffed a laugh as they returned to their first position. “Take pity on you? Why?”
“Well, for one, you’ve trodden on my toes three times in as many minutes.”
She glanced down as they began the next movement, intentionally doing so once more. “Four,” she corrected with a bright smile as she returned to look at him.
He chuckled again as he turned her for the dance, and they promenaded for a moment or two. “Or you could take pity on me for the blistering headache that took two days to recover from. No doubt Charlotte told you about it.”
Grace smirked as they met Charlotte in the center of the square, Aubrey taking one of her hands as the three of them moved in a circle, careful to leave space for the imagined fourth. “I will not pity you for that. It was your own fault, and your own stupidity that gave it to you.”
“True enough,” Aubrey said as they danced back to their position. “Though I cannot say I bear the fault of the motivation to behave with such stupidity.”
“No?” Grace’s heart skipped a beat, even as she skipped in the dance. “Whatever could motivate a man to do something so foolish, knowing where it would lead?”
Aubrey flashed a smile at her that tickled her insides, the look intense and warm, though she noticed a hint of hesitation in it. “A need to be momentarily blind, deaf, and dumb, for the world as he knows it has vanished.”
Her throat went dry, and she was grateful for the reprieve of dancing with Izzy’s imagined partner to her left while Aubrey danced with Elinor.
Surely, he didn’t mean… He couldn’t mean…
She looked at him closely as he returned to her, but whatever intensity she had seen, whatever sincerity, had gone, and only Aubrey’s cheerful countenance remained.
“And surely,” he told her when they took hands once more, “you must pity me for this dance, as I fear Charlotte’s imagined partner is clearly the best gentleman among the group.”
“Too right he is,” Charlotte crowed with a clap of her hand as she turned herself about. “I may marry this one.”
“Speak for yourself, Ingram,” Henshaw chortled, he and Elinor promenading to the center to meet Izzy. “I, for one, am dancing beautifully.”
Aubrey shook his head, squeezing Grace’s hand in a way that warmed her heart, even if she did not know the meaning behind it. “Passable at best, man. Elinor must be crying for a partner as capable as myself.”
“See how my tears fall,” Elinor called out drily, making Grace laugh.
“That’s better,” Aubrey whispered. “Come on, then, let’s enjoy this.”
Grace hesitated, remnants of her laughter still echoing through her. Could she give herself up to enjoying a dance with a man she wanted to question at times and kiss at times, and let go of the indignation that had been keeping her company?
“Please?”
She nearly groaned at his faint request; the words were barely audible. She could not resist that. Could not resist him. Could not resist this.
“Oh, all right,” she replied, sighing for good measure. “It’s for the best anyway. I so dislike being cross.”
“You’re very good at it, though,” Aubrey insisted with the crooked grin she so adored.
She quirked her brows as she passed him in the next movement. “I know. You should see it when I mean it.”
The grin wavered, and she laughed merrily at that, her steps lighter for it.
The list of his idiotic ideas was growing longer by the second, it seemed, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
As if dancing with Grace the first time around hadn’t ruined everything for him, he’d thought the best way to rejoin the fault-finding festivities would be to do so again.
Because he was somehow a martyr, a glutton for punishment, and a person lacking any real sense of self-preservation. Which was bewildering, as he’d always considered self-preservation to be his greatest motivator in life. Yet here he was, literally sacrificing himself on the altar of Grace Morledge without a single concern in his mind but that of making her smile and laugh.
Well, at least that had been accomplished, though he may have sold his soul several times over in the process. If his current state of nausea, panic, and a bizarre euphoria was anything to go by, he most certainly had. Each part of the quadrille had become more and more enjoyable, and he had a long-standing tradition of hating the quadrille. It was too involved, there was too much to remember, and one was rarely paired with couples who could complete each part with the necessary precision.
None of that had mattered here. He’d actually wished the quadrille had gone on longer so that he could have more ti
me clasping Grace’s hand, or turning her about, or skipping in a rough estimation of a circle beside her. He’d wanted more of it all, and his joy had to have been apparent to the rest of them.
By the end of it, they had all been laughing and barely able to get a single word out with any sort of clear translation.
Then Charlotte had recovered and informed the group that they would have a waltz next.
Oh, hell no.
If he was beginning to fray in the quadrille, the waltz would incinerate him.
“Not for me, thank you,” he announced pleasantly, waving his hand. “I’ll never be able to assess properly if I am waltzing myself, being so abysmal a partner. I’ll stand over here and observe.”
The entire room looked at him with varying degrees of curiosity, the highest of which belonged to Grace and Henshaw.
A flash of hurt crossed Grace’s face, and he felt an echo of that same hurt lance him somewhere under his ribs. He would likely earn himself a second round of damnation for putting such an expression on her face, but he was willing to go so far if it gave him a few moments of uninterrupted clarity.
Henshaw merely looked startled by the pronouncement, which was undoubtedly to be expected. They hadn’t discussed Aubrey’s current state of emotional discord, nor had he revealed to the man anything resembling Camden Vale’s outlandish claims, for fear of almost certain death. But Henshaw was a cunning and observant man, and Aubrey had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew.
Aubrey cleared his throat and gestured to the group. “Henshaw, you partner with Grace. Charlotte and the rest can determine who knows the male part of the dance best and go from there.”
Henshaw’s eyes narrowed, but he smiled. “Of course, I only need a moment to catch my breath. The quadrille, you know. Most laborious.”
Grace’s eyes continued to linger on Aubrey, confusion mixing with the hurt and curiosity there, then she turned to the others and began to converse in low tones.
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