Page 83 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
With a grimace, Matthew took Eloise’s arm and led her over, still rubbing the back of his skull.
“You didn’t need to hit me,” he complained.
“It was a wee button, and ye were supposed to be paying attention. We found him. Eloise, can ye get him to give ye a waltz?”
“Of course I can,” she answered, with all the confidence of an eighteen-year-old who’d been the belle of the Season from the moment she came out. “Point him out to me.”
Once they’d done so, she fluffed the swan feathers on her mask, sent Matthew a quick, excited grin, and glided away. Temperance had the distinct feeling that Coll would have preferred to be much closer by in case of trouble, but with his height, he could at least see his sister speaking with Robert.
A moment later, Eloise returned, one hand to her chest. “My goodness, that was exhilarating.”
“Did it work?” Coll demanded.
“Yes. The first waltz of the evening. Luckily, he didn’t know that Matthew has already claimed it from me, but since I won’t actually be dancing with him anyway, I suppose it doesn’t signify.” She patted Matthew’s arm, as if comforting him. “The woman with him didn’t look very happy, though.”
“That’s his fiancée,” Temperance informed them. “You must have surprised him; Robert was never much of a dancer.”
As she spoke, it dawned on her all over again that she would be dancing face-to-face with her cousin in a very few minutes, and she stifled another bout of shivers. Surprising him might well be their most effective weapon, and she was certainly the best choice to do it.
“Ye still dunnae have to do this.” Coll moved in front of her, blocking her view of Robert. “We can find another way.”
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” she conceded, meeting his glittering green gaze through the fierce and fitting lion mask, “but Iamlooking forward to being finished with having to be afraid.”
Music for a quadrille, the first dance of the evening, began, and Coll held out one hand. “Do ye have a place on yer dance card for me, then?”
“Always.” Taking his fingers, she let him lead the way to one side of the ballroom, as far as they could manage from her own family. He danced well, graceful and athletic and very conscious of the people around him, who no doubt feared being trampled.
It had been ages since she’d danced more than a theatrical reel or two, and she was grinning and breathless by the end of the quadrille. Aden claimed her for the country dance, and Niall for the quadrille after that. If nothing else, those three dances were a forceful reminder that her life had changed. She didn’t have to stand alone any longer. If she fell, someone would be right there to catch her before she hit the ground—both literally and figuratively. It felt… empowering to have these men, this family, at her back. Even as a young girl, she’d rarely dared to stray from the path set out for her, because once a five-year-old heard that if she didn’t do as she was told she would be left outside for the gypsies, she tended to believe it.
After a brief respite for the orchestra, Lady Fenster announced the waltz. Temperance’s heart jumped, and she grabbed Coll’s hand and squeezed it hard. Then, without a backward look, she strolled forward and intercepted the rooster on his way to meet Eloise’s swan.
He took a half step backward as she blocked his path. “Excuse me. I have a partner for this dance.”
“Yes, the swan. I’ve traded with her.”
“That is not how—”
“Dance with me, cousin Robert,” she said deliberately.
Brown eyes widened behind the rooster’s beak. “Good… good Lord!Temperance?”
Chapter Eighteen
“It is a tale told by an idiot.”
MACBETH,MACBETHACT V, SCENE V
“Hush,” Temperance said, watching every twitch of his face carefully. “You don’t wish to cause a scene, do you?”
“I—where? How?”
She’d forgotten cousin Robert’s utter lack of imagination. “Dance with me if you want to chat,” she said, surprised to find herself more filled with annoyance than fear. If he was feigning his own startlement, he was doing it very well, and she couldn’t quite guess why—unless, of course, it was to hide the fact that he’d known who she was for at least a week and had been trying to kill her.
Damn him, anyway. Temperance clapped her hand against his, put her other hand on his shoulder, and practically dragged him into the dance. He continued to gawp, and she stifled a scowl.
“You feign surprise well,” she commented, keeping her voice pitched low so the dancers around them couldn’t hear their conversation, “but I’m unconvinced. When did you recognize me? Did you go to a performance ofAs You Like It, perchance?”
Beyond his shoulder, Coll swung by, his sister-in-law Amy in his arms. She ignored his inquiring look, though.This was not the time for her to allow herself to be distracted.
