I stared at him—this boy whom I’d gotten to know over the past few months, albeit not fully as myself, but that didn’t impact how I felt putting my trust in him as a young lady—and nodded. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said, and grabbed my hand just as the carriage pulled to a stop outside a building that housed a bustling theater, according to a worn blue awning. People crowded the streets…aristocrats, gentry, and commoners alike. Others shouted their wares for sale even at night, while drunk people stumbled between bars on the dirty cobblestones. It stank, and yet, the place was alive with laughter and shouting, the sounds of its residents having a wonderful time. Wild fiddle music poured out of a nearby tavern’s entrance, and I held Tarik’s palm tightly as he drew me down the steps to the open door.
“What are we doing here?” I asked in a hushed breath.
“We’re going to have an awful drink or two,” he said, and my eyes rounded. “But at least we can be ourselves. Two people away from the pressures of life, society, and the weight of expectations.”
I stared at him, his words settling somewhere right in the middle of my chest and loosening a knot in my gut.
“Have you been here before?” I asked him, excitement bubbling up inside of me.
“A few times.”
It was yet another thing I didn’t know about him…his familiarity with rowdy London taverns in more colorful parts of the city. But I did not feel afraid, not when he was at my side. He handed me a brown ale with an inch of foam at the top and clinked our tankards together. “To life!”
“To life,” I echoed. “And impossible dreams,” I added before taking a huge gulp and nearly choking on the bitterness of the drink. “What isinthat? Acid?” I spluttered.
Tarik chuckled, the rich sound of it warming me like sunshine as he reached forward to wipe a stripe of white foam from the top of my upper lip with his thumb. “It gets more palatable the more you have.”
“It’s disgusting,” I pronounced, smacking my lips and grimacing at the sour taste sitting on the back of my tongue. “But I love it!”
“That’s my girl,” he crowed.
Somewhat stupefied by the unexpected declaration, I gaped. Was Ihisgirl? Or was I nothing but a pleasant distraction while he found investors for his social club? Was he truly interested inme,or had I become an excuse to pass the time in London and visit old haunts like this one? Did it even matter? Knowing I wouldn’t find any agreeable answers right at that moment, I let the musings go.
“There’s dancing!” I exclaimed, watching some of the younger people in the adjoining room lifting their skirts over their ankles and cavorting around each other in a boisterous country reel. “Drink up, good sir!”
He downed his ale, and I valiantly attempted to do the same, but it was much too unpleasant for me to swallow all at once. I made an excellent effort, however, with more of it staining the silk of my gown than I could consume. No one here cared one whit that someone had spilled ale on their dress. “I win!” I said, holding up my nearly empty tumbler. “Now let’s dance!”
“I don’t know these steps,” he protested as I dragged him to the worn wooden floor, where people were already lining up for a rousing Scotch reel.
“Neither do I,” I replied, and threw my hands up into the air. “But that’s half the fun, isn’t it? Not knowing what you’re doing and letting the music take hold of you!”
“Lady Rosalin…”
I pouted prettily. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Mr. St. Clair.”
He sighed, his eyes falling to my jutting lower lip. “Don’t give me that lip, for the love of everything holy. Bloody hell, why can’t I say no to you?”
Beaming, I batted my eyelashes. “Because I’m adorable?”
He shook his head in resignation. “Because you’re adorable.”
We followed the lines of dancers, the women circling the men, skipping in a loop that closed in, then opened up. Tarik joined the men, and we ended up facing each other, his face so bright and unguarded that I found myself hooting as our legs kicked out, and then our arms intertwined like vines as we spun and spun and spun. The music was ceaseless, a visceral drumbeat that echoed in my soul, in my bones, in my very pulse. Until the roof and the lights made me dizzy…and all I could hear was my own giddy laughter.
Tarik twirled me in his arms, and I was lost and safe and the only place I desired to be. I never wanted him to let me go. “Your eyes are so beautiful, did you know?” I told him with a soft hiccup when we slowed, the last strains of music fading. “They’re endless like the depths of an ocean shot through with rays of sunlight. I could stare at them forever.”
We paused for a moment as he drew me back to a small alcove on the far side of the adjacent room where it was less loud. A cup pressed to my lips. “Drink this; it’s water.”
The cool liquid slid down my parched throat. “Do you not believe me? About your eyes?”
He smiled, that torturous dimple flashing. “I do. I love yours, too.”
“Why?” I wrinkled my nose. “They’re so boring. Just plain dark brown.” I nearly poked myself in the eye, but he redirected my wrist at the last moment, saving me from injury.
Tarik cupped my cheeks. “On the contrary, chérie. They’re a deep, intense, mesmerizing brown with flecks of chocolate and honey that I would willingly drown in if I could.”
Stifling a snort, I giggled and then blushed hotly as the French endearment lodged itself deep. “Sometimes you say the most romantic things, monsieur!”
