She narrowed her eyes. “I always thought it rather shocking that ladies couldn’t decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to dance a particular dance.”
“Does that refer to the waltz, or the fact I all but dragged you onto the floor?”
Her face relaxed into a smile. “I suppose you’ll have to guess. But to answer your question, yes, I do have permission to dance the waltz.”
“Good, good,” he mumbled, scanning the surrounding faces for Diana. He didn’t see her.
She was there, though. She was always there, and she missednothing.
Chapter Eight
The waltz wasnotAbigail’s best dance.
She didn’t consider herself particularly graceful, having never had the opportunity to practice very often. An expensive dance tutor had been engaged when they were younger, but mainly for Scarlett’s benefit. The tutor had adored Scarlett at once, and spent hours with the girl, ignoring Abigail almost entirely. She’d learnt the dances, naturally, but once the steps had more or less lodged herself into her mind, Abigail had avoided both dancing and her tutor as best as she could.
The waltz was fairly new to Society, and still considered shocking by some. Perhaps it was the proximity, the forced intimacy of the dance, or perhaps it was simply amusing to compel the ladies and gentlemen of the ton to adhere to frivolous conventions.
***
Could have been any one of those reasons. Or all, perhaps.
Either way, the point was that Abigail had not danced the waltz before in company. Never, in fact, outside their own drawing room, which had been repurposed as the dancing room when the tutor was in residence.
For the time being, then, she ignored any opportunity to talk, and instead focused on putting her feet where they were meant to be.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Miss Atwater.”
Her head snapped up. Lord Alexander was not looking at her. He wasaddressingher, of course, but his eyes were fixed over her head, mouth drawn in tightly at the edges.
“It’s alright,” she heard herself say. “I’m not uncomfortable.”
“I asked a Miss White to dance about two years ago. There was such a flutter, and I had no idea what I’d done wrong. They ushered her out and went home, I think. I learned later that the dance was to be a waltz, and Miss White was only permitted to waltz with a man she was engaged to. It was a rather unfashionable viewpoint, even then, but I never intended to make her feel so uncomfortable. Certainly not to force her to leave. My father was furious. I thought he’d beat me, I really did.”
Abigail’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, perhaps to ask a question, but closed it again. Alexander had gone quiet, too.
“Well, I am not uncomfortable,” she managed at last.
Was this what it was going to be like? Awkward conversation, exchanging the same old points of views and opinions – the fashionable, boring ones – until the dance ended and they went their separate ways?
For some reason, that idea was not a pleasant one. A disappointing one. His fingers, wrapped around her gloved ones, flexed almost subconsciously. It was odd, having a man’s hand at her waist like that.
Perhaps this is why Scarlett enjoys the waltz so much,she thought wryly.She loves attention, after all.
The dance demanded that they circle around, until Abigail was facing the section of the crowd Alexander had been facing before.
Out of all the people standing there, she knew exactly who he had been staring at.
A woman stood there, not anyone Abigail knew, and she was achingly beautiful. Tall, slim, blonde-haired and creamy-skinned, the woman was resplendent in black satin. A widow, then, but young and beautiful, and likely to marry again before the Season was out, if she wanted to.
A peacock, besides which Abigail would look like a drab old peahen.
I’m used to that, of course,she thought bleakly. The woman’s eyes were fixed on Alexander, a veiled look in her eyes. Then she looked at Abigail, and cold water ran down her spine.
It was not a pleasant look. It was the sort of look that implied the woman would like to come storming across the ballroom floor, wrench Abigail out of the arms of her partner, and perhaps bang her head on the floor a little.
The dance spun them away and moved them away entirely. Abigail cleared her throat.
“So, did you ask me to dance in order to avoid that woman, then?”
