Page 112 of No Place in Time

A few minutes later, Alard was dancing with another attractive lady, dark-haired this time, a little older, with the confident bearing of a girl who knew she was admired. Alard was attentive and charming. His eyes did not wander toward Cecily once.

She felt Finn arrive beside her without hearing him approach.

They stood together at the edge of the hall, watching Alard lead the dark-haired girl through the final figure of the dance.

“I think it’s working,” Finn said quietly.

Cecily let out a breath that felt like she’d held it for weeks. “Hush, you’ll curse it.”

He almost laughed. “I’m serious. Look at him. He hasn’t looked your way in an hour.”

∞∞∞

The music shifted to a round dance, and someone pulled Finn and Cecily into the set before either could decline. Suddenly, they were facing each other in the line with a dozen other couples.

The dance brought them together and pulled them apart in the way such dances always did, hands meeting, releasing, circling back. Cecily was acutely aware of every moment of contact. The warmth of his hand on hers. The way he moved, unhurried and certain, even in something as frivolous as a feast dance.

They came together in the center of the set, close enough to speak without being heard above the music.

“You’re a better dancer than I expected,” she said.

“Surprised?”

“I am a little.”

“I’m full of hidden talents,” Finn said gravely. She laughed, and the dance pulled them apart again before she could answer.

When they came back together for the final movements, his hand found hers and held it a beat longer than the dance required.

“You look beautiful, Cecily. I wish I could kiss you right here,” he said quietly.

The words were so simple and so direct that it took her a moment to find her breath. Heat rose in her face before she could stop it.

Finn glanced at her, and his expression changed into something warm and insufferably pleased. “You’re turning as pink as the campion,” he said.

“I am not.”

“You most certainly are.”

“Someone will see us,” she said, but she was smiling too, and the dance ended before either of them could say anything more.

∞∞∞

The hall had grown warmer as the evening deepened. Cecily slipped away from the high table and moved toward the entrance passage at the edge of the hall, where the air was cooler and the music came through muffled and distant. She could still see the dancers through the archway, still hear the voices, but here the noise fell back and she could breathe easier.

Finn found her a few minutes later.

They stood close together in the passage. Behind her skirts, his hand found hers. At his touch, the sounds, sights, and smells of the evening receded into a drifting blur.

From somewhere outside came the distant sound of horses in the stable yard.

“Do you think it will take hold?” Cecily asked. “Will your father consider me too wild and willful for a sensible man to take as wife?”

“I think so.” Finn was quiet for a moment. “He’s interested in the Hartley girl. I’ve seen him talking to her father twice tonight.”

Cecily absorbed this. “That would be—”

“Yes,” Finn said. “It would.”