They filed out, oldest to youngest.
‘Don’t say anything interesting without us,’ Becca reminded them as she left.
One side of Wick’s mouth quirked up into a half-smile. ‘I promise we won’t.’
His sisters returned shortly after, with clean hands and large appetites. Wick was relieved that they were too busy eating to squabble with each other or him. Conversation passed by amicably, with the help of Mrs May and Lady Louisa. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the young lady’s excellent manners and thoughtful listening.
Frederica stood up first, tossing her napkin onto her dessert plate. ‘It’s time for dancing lessons!’
Wick balled up his napkin in his hands. ‘I don’t have time tonight.’
‘Please, Wick,’ Becca said, scrunching up her nose at him. ‘Helen is a horrible partner. Poor Louisa won’t know how to be properly led in the dance.’
This was true. He could only be grateful that Lady Louisa’s personality was neither stubborn nor wilful like his little sisters’.
‘I’m a better lead than you,’ Helen said.
Becca lifted her chin and sniffed. ‘Hardly.’
‘Besides, Wick,’ Frederica said, ‘if she is leaving first thing in the morning we won’t have another opportunity to be her teachers.’
‘I always enjoy watching a good dance,’ Mrs May said, with a twinkle in her smile underneath her cap. ‘And it is such good practice for your sisters. As well as keeping them out of mischief.’
The housekeeper is in league with my sisters!
Yet the prospect of dancing with Lady Louisa was not as repugnant to him as it should have been. He liked talking with her, and perhaps holding her in his arms for an hour would cure him of his unwanted desire for her.
He held up his forefinger. ‘One hour. I will give you one hour of my time.’
Becca grabbed his arm. ‘He said yes!’
Helen took his other arm and his sisters frogmarched him to the blue saloon, Frederica in the lead. She took her spot at the pianoforte. Mrs May sat next to her, ready to turn the pages. Helen partnered Becca, leaving Wick standing by Lady Louisa. He held out his hand to her and she placed her shaking fingers in his. Her eyes were on his cravat, as if she didn’t dare look up into his eyes. He hoped that he had not been too terse with her. She was a very comely young woman, and in other circumstances he might have liked her very much, but she was just another responsibility that he did not want, foisted upon him.
Helen folded her arms. Despite being the sister who looked the least like their mother, she had all the same mannerisms. ‘The first dance we’ll teach you is the Roger de Coverley. It’s a very popular country dance. Now, you and Wick will stand across from each other. Becca and I will be the other couple.’
Wick was only half listening to Helen’s instructions on how the bottom man and the top lady should advance, link arms, and then weave their way to the end of the group before joining hands and promenading up. He was focused on her shallow breathing and the way it made her chest rise and fall quickly. How her surprisingly dark eyelashes brushed against her freckle-kissed cheeks.
He watched her concentrate on following each of Helen’s instructions as she held tightly to his hand and then his arm. Her slender fingers shook. With excitement? Embarrassment? Attraction? Or all of them together?
His eyes kept darting to her lips and the freckle just above them that he longed to kiss. But he wouldn’t.
‘Very good,’ Helen said, dropping Becca’s hands. ‘Frederica, play us some music and we’ll try it again.’
Frederica’s nimble fingers began to play a tune. Wick worried that it would be too fast for Lady Louisa’s first lesson, but she took his hand. When they released their clasp she turned the wrong way and nearly ran into Becca. His littlest sister burst into giggles, but instead of stopping they kept dancing until Lady Louisa made the figure correctly and they promenaded together at the end.
Becca and Helen clapped their hands.
Wick found that he was reluctant to release his hold on her hand. It felt as if it fitted perfectly inside his own. The weight. The size. The shape. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, wishing that they weren’t both wearing gloves. That he could feel her skin against his.
Becca placed both of her hands on her hips. ‘Wick, you’re supposed to let go of her hand.’
Helen sniffed in a superior manner. ‘Maybe you need dancing lessons as much as Lady Louisa.’
Dropping her hand, he couldn’t help but smile down at her as he clapped. ‘It appears that I do.’
‘Good,’ Frederica said from the pianoforte. ‘Because we still need to teach Lady Louisa the waltz. Every fashionable ball has at least one.’
Wick could only be thankful that he managed to miss most ‘fashionable balls’, which were little better than marriage markets for the wealthy and titled. Not that he didn’t like pretty girls—he most certainly did. But matchmaking mamas were to be avoided at all costs. He wasn’t interested in marriage, and he knew that his mother was the most determined matchmaker of the lot. She’d already caught a duke for her eldest daughter, and had all but arranged a marriage for Frederica to the heir to another dukedom. He could only be grateful that at present she was on another continent.