Of what? What did they expect? What did they fear? What did they want?
What did she want?
Her fingers shifted anxiously against each other at her side, the sensitive skin of each feeling abraded by the smooth fabric of her gloves. Everything was heightened somehow, everything on edge, and staring at Michael made her better and worse in equal measure. Equal burning, searing, breath-stealing measure, and she could feel her composure unraveling with each beat of her rampant heart.
She blinked and recollected the dance, turning to promenade with Tyrone again, trembling in his hold.
“Steady,” he murmured, no hint of sarcasm in his tone. “You all right?”
“In a manner of speaking,” she whispered. “Would you care very much to douse me in a glass of port?”
“Douse you? In what way?”
“Over my bloody head,” she managed to say, her voice hitching on the words.
Tyrone tsked softly. “Sorry, pet. Port does not do well on silk, and I’ve a valet that will summarily execute me for marring such exquisite fabric.”
“More’s the pity.” She parted from him with a tight squeeze of hands and prayed she could finish the dance without embarrassment.
This time as Michael came to her, Charlotte wished she could have fled. She would have run from the ballroom, out onto the terrace, and into the gardens. She’d have run all the way home, into the house, up the stairs, and flung herself under the bedcovers in her room until she felt more herself.
At the present, she barely felt human.
Her hands reached out for Michael’s the moment they were able, and her eyes locked with his. He said nothing this time, and neither did she. Neither could she. There were no words for such an experience, such a captivation with one person whose touch was the breath of life to her. There was only the feel of his hands in hers, the heat of his body as she passed it, brushed her back near it, passed it again to face him once more, a delicious friction with nothing touching at all.
It was a dizzying, drowsy feeling, weakening her knees and squeezing her lungs until each breath took more effort than it rightly should. Yet the pace of all was as it should have been, her heart a cadence for the dance, her lungs natural in their rhythm. A cacophony of sensations in and around her, with only her eyes to tell her which way was forward.
Forward was Michael.
Forward was right.
Michael was right?
She blinked unsteadily, the spell breaking as she resumed her position, her mind reeling. What had just happened? What had she felt, what had she realized? Something had been decided, she felt sure, but there was no insight into what that might have been. Only that it was Michael.
Michael…
Charlotte couldn’t look at him, not the rest of this dance, not the rest of this evening. Could not be clouded when she needed clarity. Clarity and certainty.
And a glass of port.
Chapter Nineteen
Denial is not a powerful defense. When it is gone, a person is rather exposed. Better, then, to choose something else for one’s fortress. You won’t want to be in denial when it comes tumbling down around you.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 29 December 1818
“Michael, what are you doing?”
“Reading. Why?”
“There’s a card party going on, and the people are out there.”
“Which is why I prefer to be here.”
Elinor Sterling plucked the book out of his hand and gave him a severe look.
Michael peered up at her. “What?”
She shook her head. “I had such hopes for you. The better clothing, the more social activity, the courtship. You were doing all the things a gentleman does, finally, instead of being lost in the melee of it, as you did before. Questions were being asked about you. Interest was aroused. Only last week, you stepped foot into the ballroom, and any young lady would have begged for a dance with you.”
“I hardly think it was that extreme,” Michael scoffed, waving a hand.
Elinor’s expression showed she was not amused. “I heard them, Michael. You were watched the entire evening. Your jaunt into the card room after a few dances was noted. Your reentry was praised. Your return to dancing gave them hope.”
At least the dance with Charlotte wasn’t mentioned. Or the dance where Tyrone danced with Charlotte. Michael hadn’t danced with her.
Officially.
He couldn’t explain what had happened, but it rather felt like their experience in the square room of the theater. The same breathlessness, the rush of energy and feeling while being powerless to resist, the inability to think or comprehend anything but her. Yet they had been constrained by the dance, by the parts they had to play there, and by the company they were in, feeling so much while being unable to act as instinct demanded.
It had been somehow more powerful than kissing her. Then again, he’d only kissed her the one time. Several times, but the one occasion. One occasion, but one much repeated in his mind.
Resisting such thoughts was getting rather old.
“And you danced a second time with Diana Palmer,” Elinor went on, completely ignorant of the content of his thoughts. “And had my husband dance with her so you could have additional moments in the dance with her.”
Michael smiled as she brought that up, given he’d done the exact same thing so he could dance with Charlotte, yet it was not remarked upon.
“People are wondering about a proposal,” Elinor pointed out, her arms folding before her. “Are you engaged?”
“No,” Michael told her easily. “Not yet, at any rate.”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “Is there an understanding?”
“That is between her and I, thank you.” He batted his lashes, knowing it would irk her, as it would have his own sisters.
“Are you bound to her in any way at this present time?” Elinor demanded, not put off at all by his lack of answer.
He frowned at that. “No…”
“Then come with me and attend
