David closed his eyes, the muscles in his neck pulling tight.
Mama dashed toward Julia at the pianoforte in a movement that made me quite certain she’d been watching the two of us. “Let me help you turn the pages, Miss Tate,” she said, standing next to Julia, both of their backs to us.
“It looks as though Mama would like us to have a private moment.” I laughed, but my laugh died when I looked back at David.
He wasn’t laughing.
His eyes had turned a dark, dusky blue.
Instead of sitting back down, he turned and pulled me with him toward the small alcove where the covered harp sat.
I eyed the instrument with marked civility. “If you think I have any skill with a harp, you’ll be sad to know I’ve never even set a finger to one.”
He tucked himself behind the harp and pulled me into him. Our heads would be visible over the instrument but only if Mama and Julia left the pianoforte and took a few steps toward us. The wall of the alcove hid us completely. Something in Mama’s earlier glances at David told me she and Julia would remain at the pianoforte for several pieces.
“At least ...” he said, his hand holding mine against his chest, “that would mean you hadn’t learned incorrectly.”
Our sudden privacy, made even more roguish by our cramped quarters between the harp and the wall, made me swallow hard. David’s face was so close I could make out delicate changes of color on his skin and the pupils of his eyes. Not to mention, my skirts and most of my side were pressed up against him. It would take only a relaxing of my spine and a sagging of my shoulders to curl into his chest completely. I forced that image out of my head as quickly as it had come.
With a deep breath and a smile I hoped conveyed friendship and not the look of a woman who might not mind being engaged, in truth, to the man holding her, I caught David’s intense gaze. “Are you saying I’ve learned the pianoforte incorrectly?”
He smirked, and a dangerous gleam sparked in his eyes. “Well—” he began.
I shook my head and allowed myself to sink into him the slightest amount, such a small amount that he probably wouldn’t even notice. “No,” I laughed. “Don’t answer that question. I’d rather keep what camaraderie we have and not spoil it.”
“I see.” His voice was low and gravelly, a man’s voice to match his hands and face. “After one harsh word from me about your musical prowess, I would no longer be a friend?”
“No, I’m not quite so fickle as that.” His chest was warm under my hand. I was too comfortable with him. Perhaps I should have allowed him to disparage me. I pulled my hand away from him andstarted to step back, but David stopped me by putting a hand on my waist and pulling me closer to him.
My right hand came to his chest again with a soft crash, just under the flowers he’d tucked into his lapel and on top of his front jacket pocket. Something flat and rigid lay inside. He’d been wearing a different jacket this morning, but for some silly reason, I thought it could be my note.
I’d told myself all day he couldn’t think of me as anything more than a woman who needed his help, but holding me like this was more than playful, wasn’t it? Was there any chance his heart was playing the same tricks on him as mine was on me? Or was he simply young and enjoying himself with no thought of how his glances might be misinterpreted by a woman who hadn’t ever had the chance to flirt or be held by a man?
I glanced to my side, trying to catch a glimpse of Mama over the harp, but she remained out of sight. I bit my lip. “Do you think we are enjoying this engagement a bit too much?”
“Oh, no.” David brought his face closer to mine, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “I’m enjoying it a lot less than I could be. We only just started on your list.”
“It isn’t a list. It is simply something I said. I didn’t know you were going to attach such meaning to it.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I happened to like your list. We are making good progress on it.” He lifted his hand from mine and raised one of his fingers. “Flowers. I was able to do that one quite simply, and right away.” He lifted another finger. “Walks. We have already had several, and they were all very pleasant. I can see why engaged couples indulge in them.” He glanced into the room behind us, Julia’s practiced notes floating into the alcove. “And we just finished a very remarkable duet on the pianoforte ...” He brought his hand back over mine and toyed with my fingers. Then he wrinkled his forehead as if he were trying to solve a difficult math problem. “I feel like thereis something missing from what you said in the library. What was the last thing?”
I knew exactly what he was thinking about, but he’d made an error. There was more than one thing left on the list. “Dancing at balls?” I asked.
His hand tightened on mine, and he looked me in the eye. “I think we will be forgiven for not dancing at balls if there are no balls to be had. No, it was something else.”
I swallowed. “Stolen kittens?” My voice had a scratchy quality that didn’t come from singing.
He snorted. “Definitely not kittens.”
I closed my eyes, not in invitation but in defeat. When I opened them again, David was there, holding me in his arms, with his face only inches from my own. “Kisses,” I managed to hoarsely whisper. “I believe it was stolen kisses.”
His face brightened. “Ah yes, that was it. How could I have forgotten?”
He tugged at my hand, which pulled me away from the harp and out of our little alcove. He must have been bluffing, for if he’d wanted to kiss me, he wouldn’t have brought us back into sight of Mama.
But he didn’t stop walking, instead leading me past the chairs, his pace hastening with each step until he was practically galloping to the door. With a hurried look at Mama and Julia still at the pianoforte, he turned the knob and pulled me into the corridor.
Where we would be well and truly alone.
