“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I am not interested in you,” she said crisply. “I have no reason to be nervous.”
He laughed.
“You are the first woman to say that to me.”
“Then you should hear it more often,” she said. Her heart did a ridiculous skip, and she despised it. “Count.”
“Bossy,” he said, amused, and obeyed, “One... two... three…”
They moved again. It was easier to keep her chin level when she was arguing. He seemed to know it.
“You have improved since breakfast,” he observed eventually.
“I was perfectly fine at breakfast.”
“You were perfectly polite,” he said, tone even. “There is a difference. Step. Good. Again.”
They reached the far end of the gallery. He paused them with a shift of his hand and regarded her as if checking a column in an account.
“Again,” he said. “From the door to the window.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You enjoy ordering people.”
“I prefer ordering rooms,” he said, “Feet under; shoulders down; gaze on me—no, not there; here. Much better. One…two…three…”
They were halfway back when the right slipper betrayed her. The heel caught a narrow groove in the floor; her balance tipped;instinct saidbrace,and her body obeyed. She went rigid, and he caught onto her.
Then very slowly, he drew her back towards him.
“Again,” he said, “And this time, if you stumble,let me have you. Do not fight me while asking me to hold you.”
“Your ego,” she muttered.
“My hand,” he corrected.
She tried.
On the next small misstep, she did not flail; she let the hand at her back do its work.
“Good,” he said softly.
They turned slow circles, then quicker ones. Twice, he stopped them and shifted her hand an inch higher or lower, as if where sherestedcould matter as much as where she moved.
When the pace quickened, he said, “Trust the floor; it has not changed,” and when her shoulders crept toward her ears, he murmured, “Do not try to be polite with your bones.”
“You are frowning,” he observed.
“I am concentrating.”
“You are thinking too loudly,” he said. “You make noise in your head, and your feet try to hear it.” He smiled when she made a face.