With that, he guided her through the motions of the dance.
Concentrating her attentions on each one-two-three step, she fixed her focus on the snowy folds of his cravat.
Off to the side, Mr. Dour punctuated the song count. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
Julia missed a step and trampled on Harris’ boot. She winced. Perhaps success didn’t hinge upon one’s dance partner or instructor after all.
“One, two, three,” she mouthed and tripped again.
God, she was dreadful at this. It didn’t matter who instructed her. She was out of her league in every way. Her absolute absence of grace was a product of who she was.
“It is a one-two-three count, my lady,” the dance instructor called in his nasally whine.
“Did I ever tell you about my math tutor when I was a boy?”
One, two—
It took a moment for Harris’ words to penetrate her counting. Julia lifted her gaze from his jacket front. “My lord?” She immediately stomped on him once more. “My apologies,” she muttered. This was futile.
“My math tutor. Mr. Digits.”
She snorted out a laugh, to the audible displeasure of her instructor. “That is nearly as unlikely to believe as Mr. Dour for my mean-spirited dancing master.”
“Oh, yes, well, mine I named myself. I was a boy who despised math, and he was someone who quite loved it, and so I said he should have a name that better suited him. He indulged me.” He flashed another wry grin. “Which, in retrospect, had a good deal more to do with the fact that I was a marquess’ son.”
Julia tripped over Harris’ toes, but this time, he righted her before she could falter and whisked her in a dizzying twirl that wrought havoc upon her senses.
If Harris had been even a hint as remotely charming a boy as this grown man before her, then servants and instructors and peerage alike would have been hard-pressed to deny him anything.
Nay, that is more the effect he has upon you.
He was a man who muddled a woman’s senses.
“Well, Mr. Digits insisted math was fun.”
“And you disagreed?”
He waggled his eyebrows, those tawny slashes giving him a devilish look that pulled a laugh from her. “Oh, quite strenuously. Until he lined up peppermints and biscuits and rock candies, and my ability to earn those treats was tied to my ability to use those numbers to properly count them and multiply them and divide them.” He lowered his head closer, his breath tickling her cheek. “And do you know what I learned, Julia?”
She managed to shake her head, and this time as she missed her footing, it had nothing to do with her miserable attempts at dancing and everything to do with the dazed state induced by Harris Clarendale, the Marquess of Ruthven.
“That, when made enjoyable, math wasn’t the struggle I took it for, and it more than had its uses. Now, close your eyes.”
She made a sound of protest. “Harris, I’m going to tread over your feet all the more.”
“It’s not seeing the steps. It’s not counting them. It’s feeling them.” He adjusted his hold on her waist, angling her body closer to him, and she curved reflexively in his embrace, like those strings being strummed so expertly by the violinist, her heart quickening. “Do not think of it as counting one, two, three,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear. “Think of it as feeling that count.”
Her lashes fluttered shut, and she turned herself over to the magic of being in his arms.
Harris swung her about in another dizzying twirl.
“One, two, three. One, two, three.” His husky baritone counting the rhythm of the waltz took the clinical aspect of Mr. Dour’s earlier instruction and infused a seductive quality that pulled her deeper under his spell as she became lost to the steps of the dance and the feel of his arms.
Once, when she’d been a girl, she had indulged Adairia’s fantasy, escorting her back to those streets of Mayfair. They’d snuck off after selling their flowers and taken up a place outside of a sprawling residence. Together, they’d pressed their noses against the windowpane and taken in the crowded ballroom, watching the fine lords and ladies dancing as Julia now did. In that moment, and in so many moments to follow, she’d dreamed of being held as Harris now held her. She’d closed her eyes briefly and imagined it, wished for it, and her mind was all muddled as to whether that yearning had, in fact, materialized into this, a moment that was nothing more than a dream. For none of her longing could have properly prepared her for what it was to be in Harris’ arms, completing the intricate steps of a waltz while he guided her, applying the slightest pressure to direct her as needed.
All magic, however, invariably ended.
Harris brought them to a stop, and she forced her gaze open as reality intruded.
“Not a single misstep, Julia,” he said softly. Raising her knuckles to his mouth, he placed a lingering kiss upon them. And with that touch of his lips upon her heated flesh, Julia discovered just how powerful and quixotic nothing more than the brush of a modest kiss upon a hand, in fact, was.
Her fingers trembled in his hand, and he applied a slight pressure with his palm, briefly enfolding hers, and she didn’t want him to release her. She didn’t want him to stop touching her or—
“Bravo, my boy!” The duchess’ pleased cry slashed across the moment, recalling Julia to the present and the reality of the audience across the room surveying her—their—every action.
Hurriedly disentangling her fingers from Harris’, Julia stepped aside.
“Now, you curtsy,” the countess called, all matter-of-fact business that reminded Julia for all the ways Harris had wrought havoc upon her senses with his dance, this
