She blinked. “Men reach for hands all evening. It is the nature of a ball.”
“And you are my wife,” he said again, as if that explained arithmetic to a child who had not been given the numbers. “I fail in many things. I will not fail at the obvious.”
“But…” She broke off as they separated and met again. “But you have never been… possessive.”
“No,” he allowed. “Because I am not fond of the quality. It makes men foolish. And yet.”
“And yet?” she prompted, because the word wanted company.
“And yet,” he said, “I find I have limits. I can endure nonsense. I cannot abide presumption.”
“Presumption?” she echoed, half-laughing now, trying to ease him. “You nearly sounded like a husband.”
He did not laugh. His hand firmed at her back, and the line of his jaw set in a way that felt like a promise turned into bone.
“Maria,” he said, soft and unyielding, “I am your husband.”
The words landed in her like a stone tossed into deep water, and heat climbed her neck. Her breath shortened, then remembered itself. For a moment, she could not see the room, only the exact shade of his eyes as they watched her take the meaning in.
“Oh,” she said, because she could not say anything worth the air.
He did not press. The next figure separated them; his hand left her, returned, found its place again as if it had its own memory.
“You are angry with him,” she said, because she needed to pull the conversation onto ground that would hold.
“I am,” he said. “Briefly. I will not stay so.”
“Because anger is common?” she ventured, lifting her chin.
“Because it is unattractive,” he said dryly, “and because it makes me careless with you.”
The step required a close pass; their joined hands shifted, brushing the edge of her bodice. She wondered how something so slight could make her think of heat and the way heat lingers in a room after the fire is banked.
“Careless?” she repeated.
“With words,” he said. “With the way I look. With the impression I make on a woman who has had to become braver than is fair.”
“What impression?” she asked, and hated how bare the question sounded. She seemed to have set aside her careful armor without meaning to.
“Of a man who wishes to stand between you and nonsense,” he said. “Even when the nonsense is clever at bowing.”
“That is not a poor impression,” she managed. “Only.. unexpected.”
“From me?”
“From anyone,” she admitted.
He absorbed that in silence, head slightly inclined as if listening to a logic he recognized. “Do you object?” he asked then, with a precision that made it feel like a real question.
“To being protected?” she said. “Not excessively.”
“And where is the line?” he asked. The bow of his mouth was almost a smile, but his eyes were intent. “So that I do not cross it by accident.”
“When I cannot breathe,” she said, surprised at herself for knowing. “When I feel arranged instead of accompanied.”
“Arranged,” he repeated, something in his face altering at the word. “I will not arrange you.”
“Good,” she said, and found she meant the syllable more than she had meant any longer sentence today.