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She did not add—far cleverer than I.
‘Does she? She will have her work cut out for her. He is convinced he is not marriage material with his scars.’
‘She is patient. And determined. She will wear him down in the end.’
‘I hope so.’ He hesitated and then held out his arm. ‘Come.’
She went, stepping into the lie that he wanted her there, that she looked lovely in her borrowed gown, that unlike those horrid balls years ago she would not be invisible, unremarked, overlooked. That she was not merely an impecunious widow-cum-governess invited to the ball as an act of casual kindness, but the Jo that Jamie saw in her—wondrous and wise and worth caring for.
Her head dipped and she watched the tips of her slippers. They were the only thing she wore that were originally hers and they were a little scuffed. There would be no hiding them, not even under her lovely dress.
He stopped abruptly at the head of the staircase and she wavered and almost slipped on the top stair. His other hand caught her at the waist.
‘Steady. Not even falling downstairs will be acceptable as an excuse not to attend. Look at me. Are you crying?’
Oh no. She could feel the tears straining to slide down her cheeks. She had not counted on sympathy. She was not experienced enough with it to counter it as she did indifference and criticism and anger. She shook her head.
He led her back to her parlour and her heart and mind raged. She had won her battle not to go to the ball, but she didn’t want to win. She did not quite understand what was growing inside her, but it was fierce and hot and it wanted to go to the ball. With him.
‘Here, look at me.’ His voice was soft and she closed her eyes and shook her head, but he raised her face and she felt the cool press of linen on her eyes and cheeks, absorbing her tears.
‘Is it so very bad?’ he asked. ‘I know you never enjoyed balls when Bella was coming out, but it is different now. You aren’t Miss Watkins, being shunted between relations. You are Mrs Langdale, and my guest. I won’t allow you to be slighted, you know.’
‘That isn’t it.’ She touched her fingertips to her eyelids, stopping the tears. She was growing weak. In the past she never would have allowed this to happen. It was his fault.
‘Then what?’ His voice was so gentle it ached.
‘It is foolish.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
She grasped for something, anything to say. Strangely what came was the truth, just not the whole truth.
‘I never had pretty dresses when I married Alfred. His mother died a week after the wedding and we wore mourning, and two weeks before the year was up he fell from his horse. I thought... I wish he might have seen me in such a dress...’
As the silence stretched on she forced herself to look. He was very close, she could see the peculiar grey-green of his eyes, the colours of the cliffs and sea beyond.
‘I am sorry for him, too. But he was a lucky man to have you even so briefly. A smart man, too.’
He raised her hand, just touching it with his lips, his hair dark against the pale orange of her skirts. His words rang inside her like the vibrations of a bell and she fisted her other hand against the impulse to touch the silk of his hair. It was not an effusive testimony to her transformation by the dress, but it struck her as so much more personal. Like Alfred, though in a different way, this man saw her. It was not enough, leagues and leagues from what she craved, but it still warmed her.
‘Thank you, Benneit.’
His hand tightened on hers as he straightened, but he dropped it and stepped back, holding out his arm as he had before.
‘You are welcome, Jo. Come. Now more than ever I will not allow you to hide. Once I do the perfunctory dances with the dragons and their offspring, we will share a dance for your Alfred. Tell me you can waltz.’
‘Yes, Your Grace, I can waltz.’
‘Good. Your fate is sealed.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
It had been foolish to worry.
He watched Jo standing between Donald MacGregor and Duncan McCrieff and wondered again at her transformation. She was laughing, her cheeks warm from the dance and her lovely mouth curved in an enticing smile. The two men were both leaning towards her like rods of metal towards a lodestone, clearly enchanted. She was nothing like the stiff and repressive girl of six years ago—the simple green bud had released the lush rose bloom within and the insects were circling, he thought with a stab of resentment, trying to feel happy for her.
