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“Is this sculpture the artwork we’re ‘playing’ tonight in honor of old Malcolm?” he asked. “Are you going to make me waltz nude with you?”
“Can you waltz?”
“Well enough not to humiliate myself or break your toes.”
“Good.” She took a heavy breath.
“Nervous?”
“Why should I be?” She gave him a look that told him quite clearly that wasn’t a question he was supposed to answer out loud.
She turned to the mantel. “She was originally nude, too.” Regan stroked the bronze folds on the skirt of the woman inThe Waltzsculpture. “Art critics savaged her for that. Can you believe it? Male sculptors had been portraying female nudes since Zeus ran the world, but God forbid a woman in 1905 sculpted a female nude. They excoriated Camille, and she added the skirt so as not to offend their wounded male sensibilities.”
“Men are fools,” Arthur said, nodding. “You don’t have to tell me. My mother and sister have me well-informed on the matter.”
“Perhaps I’m reminding myself.”
“Why would you need reminding?”
“Oh, what do they say? I’m a sucker for a man in uniform.”
Flirting? He knew he shouldn’t press his luck. He did it anyway.
“I keep thinking about you,” he said. “I can’t seem to stop.”
“What do you think about?”
“Trying to figure you out. One second you hate me. The next second you seem to almost like me.Almost.It’s like you want to hate me but can’t. You work constantly, until nine at night, too busy to date, but you admit you hate the work. And practically blackmailing me to sleep with you when you could have anyone you wanted… I don’t know. Nothing fits.”
“Everything fits,” she said. “You just can’t see the big picture. I can.”
“I wish I could.”
“No, you don’t. I wish I couldn’t…” She sighed and her grey eyes looked suddenly sorrowful. Then she turned them on the sculpture of the couple waltzing. “But we have no say in which cards are dealt to us at birth. We can only decide how to play the hand we’re given. And I’ve decided to play for high stakes. Why not? We all lose everything in the end anyway.”
Her words were so pessimistic, so dark, he wanted to shake sense into her. “Regan—”
“I’m fine,” she said, then smiled widely. “Don’t mind me.”
“Your first officer mentioned the hunt ball was being thrown by friends of your husband’s. Are you nervous about seeing them again?”
“Lord and Lady Somers. The wife, Caroline, is fine. She’s a harmless gossip. But Sir Jack and Nigel were close. They always hold the ball at The Pearl. This is the first time in ten years I’m not there with Sir Jack. I’m expectingcommentary.”
“I won’t embarrass you.”
“No, you won’t. But I fully intend to embarrass you. Come on. Let’s go and get this over with, shall we?
He held out his arm to her, but she ignored it and walked alone to the door. He followed and held it open for her. They said nothing to each other in the lift on their way down, and Arthur was wounded by the silence until it occurred to him there was a very good chance Regan was simply sick with nerves.
“They won’t expect me to bring a date,” she said when the lift arrived at the main floor. “That’s all.” It was as if she were answering a question he hadn’t asked but was clearly on her mind.
“It’s not the Victorian era,” he said as the doors opened. “Widows are allowed to date after six months.”
“Tell that to them.”
“If you want me to,” Arthur said, “I will.”
When he held out his arm to her this time, she took it. ‘
