Good. That was good.
This next game was a whole new challenge—a fancy ball. Hewiped his hand against his damp brow, catching his reflection in the mirror. “You’re not exactly Prince Charming material,” he muttered. Couldn’t tell a waltz from a Texas two-step to save his life. A high school PE teacher had tried to teach him ballroom moves once, and it had been a disaster. He’d gotten a C, the only time he’d ever tanked a grade in that subject.
But tonight wasn’t about stressing his nonexistent dance skills. It was making damn sure Lizzy didn’t regret having him there. The twenty-first century might be light-years away, but he could still sharpen his mental game. Being around Lizzy Wooddash meant finding that delicate balance between being on high alert and staying cool. Just when he believed he’d nailed it, memories of how she tasted—sweet on her tongue, salt between her legs—would hit him like a freight train. This week’s mission: master the art of being in her presence without getting lost in fantasies of peeling her down to her silk stockings.
The intense workout did the job, and he collapsed into a dreamless sleep. When he woke up, it was light out and he was starving. Top priority: determine the breakfast situation. Pulling the door open, he almost collided with Henry, who appeared to have been skulking in the hallway. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Henry made a face. “I was about to knock.” He peered over Tuck’s shoulder as if he could take in the contents of the room. “I’m going to assume you are not prepared to be outfitted in appropriate evening dress for a ball?”
“Define appropriate.” How was this stuck-up clown related to Lizzy? They had similar eyes, but where hers were curious and intelligent, his were clouded in judgment and disdain.
“Let’s start with the basics.” Henry pointed to Tuck’s feet. “Boots won’t do. Gentlemen may not enter a ballroom in boots. You could break a lady’s foot at worst or ruin the floor at best. Andyou’ll need better-quality knee breeches and stockings. Those are hopelessly out of fashion.”
Tuck prayed that neither Georgie nor the ghost of Edward ever heard the slander.
“Gads.” Henry pinched his nose. “Of course, it’s going to be up to me to manage all your colony ill manners so you don’t show up like a barbarian and undo the inroads this family has made.”
“What kind of roads are we talking about?”
“The Wooddash family lacks one of the ancient names. My father’s grandparents were not nobles, nor did they possess grand country estates. Across generations, we’ve diligently nurtured respectability and wealth. Both Lizzy and I hold a duty to perpetuate that progress. She has chosen to attach her fortunes to a person of obscure identity and no social standing; thus the responsibility falls on me.” His smile was tight and humorless. “Thank you for this weight. Nevertheless, you require proper shoes and anything but buckskin. Not for your sake, but for mine. Now get dressed and fetch a hat. We are going out.”
“Why for your sake?” Tuck inquired, attempting to tie his cravat as best he could. He struggled on a good day, and this was definitely not that. “I’m not quite grasping your thinking.”
“Make haste, Taylor.” Henry beckoned him to follow. “I’m not about to ruin my prospects of marrying Olivia Abbot Davies, who has a dowry of thirty thousand pounds.”
“That’s good, I take it?”
“My dear man, you know it’s very good,” Henry exclaimed. “Considering you’ll be lucky if Father bestows upon you a shilling, I can see your envy. I’ve been courting her throughout the season, offering charming compliments, always observing her ribbons and such. She possesses a robust constitution and will undoubtedly secure me my heir and spare. Moreover, she speakslittle and thinks even less. What more could a man desire in a wife? And with my position and society connections, she’ll have no complaints.”
“Lucky Olivia Abbot Davies.” He shuddered to think of Lizzy surrounded by men like her brother.
“Indeed.” If Henry registered Tuck’s sarcasm, he didn’t let it show. “Now let’s go to my club.”
It felt like a lifetime later, but was realistically only a few days. Tuck waited in the wide marble foyer staring up at the stairs, willing Lizzy to appear. It wasn’t that his desire to attend the ball had increased—if anything, it was the direct opposite. But he’d spent the past days at Henry’s club or in the empty house as she attended dress fittings or made social calls, and he missed her. He missed her gaze, the way she’d look at him with a combination of fondness and exasperation. He missed her smell, like a summer garden.
He missed the fact that being around her made him come up with dumb shit like thinking she smelled like a garden.
This fact should bother him a lot more than it did. In fact, it didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world that he had a wife who lived in a different time. But he wasn’t sure what this meant either.
He fidgeted with his tailcoat, double-breasted with a high collar that scratched his neck, stopping above his waist in the front and hanging down his back. Henry had found friends—if that’s what the smug pack of bastards could be called—to loan him clothing. Tuck was dressed for a ball, but he felt so far outside of himself that he had to rock in his low-heeled buckled shoes to keep grounded.
Where was Lizzy?
Then she was at the top of the stairs. Tuck knew next to nothing about fashion, but her pale blue dress only made her eyes deeper, like a mountain lake that he knew would be too cold to swim in, but it didn’t matter because reason had no place here. He would jump, and he would endure whatever discomfort because, for real, if he had to drown, it might as well happen here in Lizzy and all her lace and feathers. He’d never seen anyone look this beautiful, and it almost made him angry—not angry at her—just at the world that this person could appear in his life and be so totally unable to stay by his side.
“Hello,” she said softly, taking another step down. Her cheeks were bright.
“You look beautiful,” he blurted, voice more jagged than he wanted.
She looked startled, but her eyes measured him. “Y-you too.”
He glanced down, smoothing his silk waistcoat. “Guess I don’t clean up so bad.”
She lost her footing on the next stair. Her mouth formed a silent O of surprise, and then he was rising to catch her, grunting as her weight made an impact, but he could still steady her.
She stared up at him in shock, pupils dilated, still in his arms as if they had nowhere else to be for the rest of tonight. She didn’t just smell like a summer garden now; it was as if she were the full Garden of Eden and he wanted knowledge.
“Please put me down,” she whispered.
