Chloe stood, sat again, and smiled a zigzag smile at Lady Anne, who patted Chloe on the knee.
The dancers formed a circle for “Sel enger’s Round.” They circled to the left, then to the right. Sebastian and Henry and their respective partners, like distant planets, traveled in an orbit far, far removed from Chloe’s universe.
She didn’t even belong as a guest in this bal room. How could she have dreamed of being the mistress of an estate like this? She didn’t know how to care for two-hundred-year-old painted ceilings or gold chandeliers that hung fifty feet off the ground. How did you clean two-story floor-to-ceiling silk draperies anyway?
She felt herself shudder and tried to watch Sebastian, but her eyes kept gravitating toward Henry.
“Henry real y knows these dances,” said Lady Anne.
Chloe agreed. He moved through the dances with such ease. His doctor friend kept screwing up, but somehow he corrected her and made it look like she knew what she was doing. Fascinating as it was to watch just how he did this, Chloe just couldn’t watch him arm in arm with another woman. She had to turn away.
Final y the dancers formed a circle again, and everyone’s backsides swirled in front of Chloe, including that of the blue-gowned London doctor.
Lady Anne pressed her hand on Chloe’s knee just as the music grew louder. “You haven’t taken your eyes off Henry the entire time we’ve sat here, do you know that?”
“I haven’t? I keep looking at Henry?” Chloe forced a smile. “Wel , I can hardly see a thing. I don’t have any glasses on. And neither do you, I might add!”
Lady Anne laughed.
The dance ended and Sebastian asked Chloe to dance once again. She accepted. He seemed to want to be with her.
They danced “Le Boulanger” and this time Chloe had to concentrate to remember al the figures and steps. Another thing she hadn’t practiced as much as she should’ve!
Sebastian seemed to know this one and kept talking as he danced. He told her about the sixteen-inch fish he caught fly-fishing the other day. And the regimen of log lifting and a red-meat diet his trainer was putting him through to prepare for a boxing match. Then he recounted the moment he first saw her, their time in the castle ruins, and how he carried her from the hedge maze, al in incredible detail. “The best memories I have of these past six weeks are of moments I spent with you. Only you.”
As she counted her steps, his eyes began to wander, and as they were waiting their turn to dance up the line, he stared at a certain woman who leaned against a column. Chloe squinted. It was Fiona, dressed up in a golden gown with a white plume in her hair. It looked as if she’d just arrived.
How could Sebastian be wooing her and scoping out Fiona at the same time? Then again, she had just kissed his brother in the library, not more than an hour ago. Although technical y, he had kissed her.
Chloe spotted Henry, arms folded, blond brows furrowed, and hair fal en into one eye. He glared at her and Sebastian from across the room.
Something raced through her.
Henry was smoldering!
She danced up the line opposite Sebastian with renewed energy. When she reached the top of the line, she looked back toward Henry, but he was gone.
“May I have the pleasure of one more dance?” Sebastian bowed and his biceps bulged under his tight jacket. A man asking to dance with the same woman twice in a row was a strong signal that he was serious. Anyway, if she refused him, according to manners of the day, she’d have to sit out at least two more dances. That was an entire hour.
“You may.” She curtsied.
But before the orchestra started in, she heard a familiar voice above the din. “Attention! Attention!” George, al suited up in Regency attire, stood on a wooden platform and the crowd gathered around him. George looked like he was dressed for Hal oween; the breeches, coat, and cravat didn’t mesh with him at al . Stil , Chloe was happy to see him. So much had happened this evening that the concerns of the modern world seemed to have disappeared.
“The next dance wil be a waltz,” George said. The crowd clapped and he nodded.
A cameraman jockeyed for a better angle at George, who raised his voice. “Which, the participants in our show know ful wel , was very controversial in 1812.” The beautiful people looked at Sebastian and Chloe.
“The waltz, first introduced during the 1800s, al owed a couple to touch in a slight embrace. And in 1812, it caused quite a scandal.”
The crowd laughed.
“You laugh, but the participants in our show have hardly touched each other during al the weeks of filming.”
If he only knew.
“Unlike the present day, touching actual y meant something during the Regency. It was a sign of commitment. Now, without further ado, I present to you what is sure to provide one of the most risque endeavors of our entire stay . . . the waltz.”
Chloe licked her lips.
George raised his arms and the orchestra struck up.
Just as Sebastian’s gloved hand was about to encircle Chloe’s Empire waist and her gloved hand reached out for his shoulder, Fiona, white plume pumping, slid between the two of them.
