He shook his head. “But it didn’t stop me.”
“It’s in your blood,” she said quietly.
He heard her. What did she know of what was in his blood? Even though she was correct. Dancing flowed through his veins, and it was pleasant to speak to someone about it.
“You tell a story with your body,” she went on, “and with your heart baring itself on your face.”
He stared at her. “How do you understand these things?” he asked so quietly she moved closer to hear him. The scent of jasmine wafted through his nostrils and went to his head.
“I teach dancing at home,” he heard her silken voice in his ears, his head.
She taught dancing?
“Do you dance?”
She didn’t answer but sipped from her cup of wine. He waited, then finally pinched the sleeve of her white top beneath her pretty saffron colored stays.
“No!” she pulled away with a short laugh. “Don’t eventhinkabout dragging me to the dance floor. After the car accident my body doesn’t like to move that way.”
“Car… accident?” he asked seemingly confused. “Yes. My leg was broken in four places along with my pelvis, collarbone, six ribs, and my ankle.”
His face drained of color. “How did you live through it?”
“Broken bones are easy to mend though sometimes they can break again. It’s better than what my poor father and brother are suffering.”
Broken.She’d been broken, even worse than he. She knew what it was like not to be able to dance. She also had a father…a poor father and brother who suffered with her. More than her. What a hell she must be a prisoner to. He could barely think of it. “You cannot dance so you teach it instead.”
“Right!” she smiled as though it weren’t the worst punishment in the world.
“Perhaps you could teach me,” he said quietly.
“I really don’t think there’s much I could teach you. You’re better than anyone at my school.”
“Even Jake?”
She laughed and nodded.
“Who’s Jake?” Will Gable asked.
“One of her students,” they both answered together. It made Gray want to smile—so he did. Slightly. His gaze settled on Harper and then away again when she gave him a stunned look.
“Are you going to dance again?” Miss Darling asked him.
“Perhaps,” he teased. “But now I’ll feel as if I’m being judged.”
“By me?” she asked with a playful smile. She laughed when he nodded. “My lord, really, you’re outstanding. You’re Romeo.”
At this he grinned and that broke into a quick, short laugh that felt as if it shook his entire body.
“Then I think I will.” He rose up and with one last look at her, he stepped out onto the dance floor. He danced the minuet alone and with his own special spin that made the onlookers either burst into applause or scandalous gasps that left his father slumped in his chair.
Gray couldn’t care less if he was applauded or reviled. He danced because he enjoyed—no, he loved it. It was in his blood. He swept across the dance floor, spinning and flying in the air in perfect grand jetés. He didn’t know how long he’d been dancing before he looked toward his table. Miss Darling and Will Gable were gone. He looked around, casting his well-practiced smile at Miss Clementine, daughter of the earl of Aimsley, when he met her gaze. He only spared her a brief instant before his eyes searched the ballroom for Miss Darling.
When the dance was over, he walked to his table and looked around again. Harper was also gone. Were they together? He cast his stepbrother and Cavendish’s mother a steely glance. Miss Darling was not with them. He moved through the guests, searching their faces. Miss Darling was no longer in attendance. He strode toward the doors. Would she just leave without a farewell? His belly burned. What did she owe him that he should expect a farewell? He swallowed a short laugh bubbling upward. When had he become such a pathetic creature?
If she left, good riddance, he thought, making his way upstairs to his rooms. He hadn’t wanted her there in the first place. His dances were ugly. That’s how he intended them. Especially tonight’s dances. But she’d shown up. She changed her mind, and that lowly creature Gable had followed her.
She’d called him Romeo. Everyone knew who Romeo Montague was—the male protagonist in William Shakespeare’s masterpieceRomeo & Juliet. Gray smiled to himself, liking the compliment. It was the first he’d received that he believed was sincere.