Page 27 of An Unlikely Debutante

Chapter Nine

Alex felt unsettled and he knew exactly the reason why. Seeing Victoria again had set him on edge and he hated that she could affect him so deeply even after all this time. It wasn’t that he still had feelings for her—any remnants of the love he had once felt for her had been washed away when he found out the underhand way in which she’d conducted her affair with Winchester—but he was realising how many of his actions over the last three years had been influenced by what Victoria had done to him. It wasn’t just the functions that he’d avoided or the desire to stay an unmarried bachelor rather than risk his heart again, it was the friendships he’d let slip. Alex could acknowledge that he’d buried himself in his work the past few years, partly that was because he enjoyed the thrill of the race, but it was also a way to avoid people.

Well, no longer. He wasn’t proposing he give up training his horses, but he would stop avoiding situations just in case he came across Victoria. He’d survived his first encounter with her without serious injury, he could manage to be civil in the future, too.

‘If you do not move your hand this instant, I will punch you so hard you’ll be lucky to keep all your teeth.’

Alex paused outside the drawing room door, suppressing a smile.

‘I assure you, madam, this is the correct hold for a waltz.’

‘And I can assure you, sir, that I don’t care if it is how you would hold a nun. Move your hand or I will hurt you.’

Stepping into the room, Alex saw the spritely dance teacher swiftly step away from Lina, his hands outstretched placatingly.

‘I trust everything is going well?’

‘She is unteachable,’ Monsieur LeBon declared with a flourish.

‘There is no such thing as unteachable,’ Lina said sweetly, ‘just an incompetent teacher.’

‘I am the highest-regarded dance teacher in society!’

‘Then teaching a country girl to dance a waltz shouldn’t be that much of a challenge.’

‘If you would follow a single instruction...’

‘I’ve told you a thousand times. I. Do. Not. Speak. French.’

‘Of course you speak French. All ladies speak French.’

‘I speak Spanish,’ Lina said, ‘and Romani and a little German.’

The dance teacher flinched and took another step away.

‘I think you’d better leave, Monsieur LeBon,’ Alex said, his voice low, ‘before you say something you might regret.’

With a horrified glance at Lina, Monsieur LeBon gathered his belongings and hurried out of the room.

‘I apologise,’ Alex said quietly.

Lina shook her head and gave him a sunny smile, but Alex wasn’t fooled. The dance teacher’s reaction to Lina’s snippet of information about her origins had upset her.

‘Monsieur LeBon is a fool...’

‘It doesn’t matter, Alex. People like the music and cheap labour we provide at the country fairs, but they are suspicious and distrustful of us in any other situation. We have a reputation for stealing, for taking work away from the locals. My mother always used to say it was because we lived a different lifestyle—people always are fearful when someone is brave enough to go against the accepted norm.’

Alex remembered Lina’s fingers slipping into his coat the first time they had met. It was true; he hadn’t been surprised when he thought she was trying to pick his pocket, he’d been more surprised when she hadn’t followed through with her action.

‘Perhaps I could take you through the steps of a waltz?’ Alex suggested.

‘It’s no use. I can’t dance without music. I find it impossible, always have.’

‘That is easily remedied.’ Alex strode from the room and into one of the numerous sitting rooms where Georgina was reading through her correspondence. ‘We need your talents for a few minutes.’

Quickly, Georgina followed him into the drawing room and took her seat at the piano.

‘A waltz, please, sister. Something slow.’