AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Guiding her to the floor, Joseph stood opposite her as the other dancers took their places beside them. She shouldn’t do this. ’Twas dangerous to be so close to him, to engage thus when her longing for him was already on a cliff’s edge, ready to fall backward at the slightest breeze. She braved a glance, and the look Joseph gifted her swung around her and pulled her fears to safety.
He did not hate her then? Where was the hurt she’d seen in his eyes, the shock and anger?
Lyrical and melodious, the music began, her body remembering the gentle movements as easily as she remembered the feel of Joseph’s touch. Curtsying, she dipped down, then back up, her breath chasing wildly at the longing that glowed from him when he bowed, his stare never leaving her as they began to dance. Close together, away again. Fingers brushing, air curling around them as they circled one another. They danced as if they had never been apart. Again he drew near, his gentle touch on her hand as intimate as a kiss.
Her breath stalled, while her heart fluttered in beautiful rhythms. Whispering, her lips spoke what her mind had wished to refuse utterance. “Why are you here?”
At that moment, they parted and stood opposite as two others danced around them. She read his silent, mouthed response. I came for you.
’Twas their turn, and they moved together. Circling her, he whispered. “I cannot think of anything but what you told me.”
Again they parted, moving around the others before standing in place once more. Regret pooled in his pained expression, the pleading so heavy she could feel it in his stare. Hannah’s skin flushed. His were not the eyes of a man who hated.
Pivoting, four of them took hands in a line, lightly moving up and back, releasing and crossing paths to wait at the other side.
When she met Joseph again, he drew her with his yearning, his quiet beseeching almost more than she could bear.
Bodies nearly touching as they turned, he whispered, “If I had known…”
There was no accusation, but still she felt it. “How could I tell you, knowing you had changed your mind—the idea of marriage being so disdainful to you.”
His frown was instant as he took her hands to turn her. “I wanted nothing else. But you hated me, and I would never force you to—”
“I never hated you.”
The floor wobbled, and she hurried back to her place before the other couples began. Standing motionless, the truth she once believed fell in severed pieces at her feet. Hannah raised her eyes to where Philo stood, and her blood chilled. Lord in heaven.
The dance continued around her, but her mind was stolen. All this time she’d believed one thing when the truth had been buried alive in a deep and loathsome grave. How had she never seen it before? How could he have done it?
“Hannah?”
Joseph spoke her name, but she couldn’t move. Her vision wavered, and her eyes burned, the stays around her chest growing ever tighter.
Losing balance, she put a hand to her chest and hurried from the ballroom, heedless of the chatter that whispered behind her. Let them think what they would, though they no doubt believed she fled to a fainting couch. And in truth she did, her lungs gasping for air as the cracks in her understanding flooded with cold realization.
“Hannah!”
She made it to the door, when strong hands held her shoulders, steadying her.
Joseph’s tone was warm with concern. “Come. There is a couch just here.”
He led her into the library and helped her to sit. Crouching in front of her, he kept one hand beside her, the other at her knee. “What can I get you? A drink, a cool cloth?”
She closed her eyes against the dizzying thoughts, but the darkness only filled them with life. Like a book of paintings, the past sorted through its ignoble portfolio, flashing visions of grief and unanswered questions, as if hoping this new revelation would at last provide the resolution it had long sought but never found.
Her breath came quick and shallow through her mouth. Somehow, her tight throat allowed a few words free. “He did it.”
“Who, my darling?” Joseph leaned toward her. “What do you speak of?”
She raised her eyes to his, grasping at the strength that flung to her from his gaze. “My father.”
In a swift motion Joseph rose and looked to the door, then sat beside her, taking her hands in his. “What did he do?”
The facts were nearly too painful to voice, their blades cutting up her throat as she spoke them. “I see now what I had not seen before.” She spun her head toward the man she loved. “He made us each believe…” Nay, ’twas too harrowing to comprehend.
The breath she inhaled was shallow, choppy. “He told me you came to the house when I was out. He said you wished to bid me farewell, that you r
ealized after our…our indiscretion that you didn’t want to marry. That you wanted a life free of vows. That you never wished to see me again.”
