Page 84 of Again, Scoundrel

“I don’t dance.”

There was little space between them, but he stepped closer anyway, cutting the small distance in half.

“There is no reason not to dance. And if there is, let go of it. It isn’t so hard, letting go of what doesn’t serve you.”

“There is a reason,” she said, meaning the words as a rejection. But her hand moved anyway and placed itself in his outstretched palm.

“People will talk,” he murmured as he pulled her close and they began to move. “Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“Then tell me.” He pulled her even closer still. “Why do you never dance?”

She felt so warm and comfortable in his arms. Their bodies moving together in synchronicity as they always had. Their hearts and minds were so often at loggerheads, but their bodies—they were in accord.

He turned her in time to the music, and she let herself remember the night that James died.

“I was eighteen,” she whispered. “Just home from England and beginning my season. I wanted a beau who would thrill me, as you had.”

He pulled her even closer still. Too close to effect the actual steps of the dance, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she could feel his body pressed to hers. And that he let her talk.

“I wished for someone who would make me feel alive and wanted and precious. And one evening, I thought I found such a gentleman. He asked me to dance not once, not twice, but three times.”

“Ah,” Alistair said into her temple. “It signified.”

“It did. So, I begged my parents to stay. Just one dance more, just a little longer. And then a little longer still. What did it matter if we arrived home late? James was eighteen too, my twin, not a child that needed looking after.”

“And?”

“And by the time we finally made it back home, James had tired of waiting on me and had taken the stallion out alone. We often rode out at night together. He was a fine horseman, but the animal must have startled for some reason and thrown him.

“We found him hours later. His collarbone was broken, protruding from the skin, and the fever that would kill him had already set in.”

“And you stopped dancing,” Alistair said.

“Yes.”

“What’s done is done, Violet. You must know that denying yourself is not redemption.”

“It’s not denial so much as a lack of want. I haven’t wanted to dance, not since that night.”

“And now?”

“Don’t ask me that.” The music ended but they still clung to one another. “There is no way for me to answer that will do either of us any good.”

She pulled herself away from him. “I should go back inside. They’ll make the announcement soon, and Catherine will want to be able to see me.”

Violet peered through the French doors and paused, craning her neck.

“Alistair,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Is that Williams? I believe he’s looking for you.”

Chapter

32

Alistair heard the words come out of Williams’s mouth, but it still took him a moment to understand.

He had just been to Kent. Had just seen Darius and had the conversation he was still trying to unpack in his mind and in his heart. The one about his brother and his father and that long ago summer that had changed everything.