Simply Unforgettable

“Thank you, sir,” Viscount Sinclair said in such a stiff, haughty voice that Frances looked sharply at him. He held a quizzing glass almost but not quite to his eye. “But Miss Allard is the personal guest of the Earl of Edgecombe.”

Mr. Blake bowed, and looking at him, Frances was not sure he had understood that he had just been dealt a frosty setdown. She felt indignant on his behalf. Did Viscount Sinclair feel that he had been imposed upon by having a mere physician presented to him? Good heavens, she was a schoolteacher.

“Is it now too much to hope,” Mr. Blake asked her, “that you are free to dance the second set with me, Miss Allard? I had already spoken for the opening set with Miss Jones before I saw you.”

“Miss Allard is to dance the second set with me,” Viscount Sinclair said.

Frances had a brief moment in which to decide whether she would brawl openly with him or let the matter go. She glanced at him and saw that one of his eyebrows was cocked. Perhaps, she thought during that one moment, he would be quite happy if she took the first course. There was an open challenge in that eyebrow.

“Yes.” She smiled into his eyes. “Lord Sinclair most particularly asked for it while escorting me here in the carriage.”

“Ah,” Mr. Blake said. “The third set, then, perhaps, Miss Allard?”

“I shall look forward to it,” she told him.

The first set was being announced, she realized then, by the Master of Ceremonies, and the orchestra sat poised to play. All annoyance, all embarrassment, fled as she turned her attention to the dance floor. She was excited even though she did not expect to dance much herself. She would at least be dancing the second and third sets, and that was more than she had expected.

But she was not to miss the opening set of vigorous country dances after all. Mr. Blake had gone to claim his partner and Viscount Sinclair had led his sister onto the floor and Frances had found a vacant seat. But Mr. Gillray, Mr. Huckerby’s brother-in-law, to whom she had been introduced after the Christmas concert at school, came and asked her if she would dance with him, and so she had all the pleasure of participating in the ball right from the first moment.

And a very definite pleasure it was too. She found herself smiling and then laughing through some of the more intricate turns and twirls, the steps fresh in her memory as she was always the one who partnered Mr. Huckerby when he taught the girls. Amy Marshall, farther down the line, was openly enjoying herself too. Viscount Sinclair watched her with an indulgent smile on his face though he once caught Frances’s eye and held it for a long moment.

And she was to dance the next set with him. She did not know whether to be glad or sorry. He was easily the most handsome and distinguished gentleman present, and just the thought of dancing with him again made her want to swoon. But the farther she stayed away from him, the better for her peace of mind, she knew. Her precious peace.

Her contentment.

But, heaven help her, that old magic was weaving its web about her again with every passing moment.

She did want to dance with him again—she desperately wanted it.

Just one more time.

Mr. Algernon Abbotsford was presented to Amy after the first set was over, and he very properly asked Lucius’s permission to lead her out into the second set. Having granted that permission, Lucius was free to turn his attention to his own partner, who was conversing with a lady he did not know.

Truth to tell, his attention had not been far from her ever since their arrival. And if he had ever deceived himself into thinking that he had not been looking forward to this evening with almost as much eagerness as Amy and that he had not taken pains with his appearance because he was to see Frances Allard again, then he was finally being forced into facing the rather lowering truth.

Damnation!

And if she truly believed that she was a woman made for placid contentment, then she was even more given to self-deceit than he. A woman less designed to dwindle into old age as a spinster schoolteacher he could not imagine. Her cheeks, her eyes, her whole demeanor, glowed with a passionate enjoyment of the occasion even though this was a mere Bath assembly.

He knew, as no one else did, how easily and totally her love of dancing could be converted to sexual passion.

Not that he intended to effect quite that conversion tonight!

“Ma’am?” he said now, bowing before her. “This is my dance, I believe?”

Her eyes swept up to meet his, and he knew she remembered that they were the exact words he had used in that cold, dingy Assembly Room at the inn before they waltzed and then made love.

He was not really sure why he felt compelled tonight to remind her of that occasion. Sheer devilry, perhaps? Or perhaps he felt the need to confront her, to force her out into the open, to . . . Well, he did not know what it was he was up to. He rarely thought about the motives for what he did and said. He had always been a man of impulse and action.

“I believe it is, my lord,” she said, setting her hand in his. “Thank you.”

“It is not, alas, a waltz,” he told her as he led her onto the floor. “There are to be none tonight. I have inquired.”

“I have heard,” she said, “that the waltz is not often danced in Bath.”

“It is a damnable crime of omission,” he said. “But if it were to be danced here, Frances, we would dance it together.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and turned her head to look into his eyes.

Something fleeting and wordless passed between them at that moment. Desire, yearning, knowledge—he was not sure which. Perhaps all three. Certainly there was full carnal awareness there.