Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (8 page)

Harrison's brows rose. “Come around to my studio. We'll talk further.”

Joseph nodded and headed for the door. When he reached the corridor, he could hear the orchestra lilting its way through a lively gavotte, two hundred slippered feet pounding along in synchrony. If he went toward the ballroom, he might find Lady Louisa Windham, twirling and smiling and looking elegant on the arm of some dandy.

She'd stand with her sisters between sets, putting their pale prettiness to shame with her more earthy beauty. The young men would approach—a greater variety of young men since the most recent ducal dinner—and to the lucky few, Louisa would grant a dance.

Each evening, Joseph watched this routine for as long as he could before slinking off to the card room, there to silently lecture himself about Cousin Hargrave's poor health and the girls needing a mother.

He tested his leg, which was in truth benefiting from the spate of milder weather, and then turned his steps not toward the ballroom but toward the peace and quiet—and unobtrusive exit—afforded by the garden.

***

Louisa had saved her supper waltz for Lionel—he'd all but asked her to when he'd greeted her for the evening—and yet, there he was, smiling down into the madly batting eyes of Isobel Horton.

Damn and blast.

But then, Louisa had danced last night's supper waltz with Lionel—she was to call him Lionel now, and he was to call her Louisa—and the night before that it had been a polonaise.

Louisa had the impression Lionel was trying to help her scotch the latest barrage of gossip sparked by her criticism of the Regent's Pavilion. This was kind of him, but the idea was still quite lowering.

Louisa's sisters were both taking to the dance floor. A lady did not want to be without an escort for supper, after all.

A lady did not in fact want to be seen lurking at the side of the ballroom, without sisters, gallants, or a potential supper escort. If Louisa lingered much longer, Westhaven would be standing up with her.

That would not do. Her brother danced quite well—for a brother—but his pity was the last thing Louisa wanted to deal with. She set her glass aside and slipped from the ballroom, turning her steps toward the fresh air and solitude afforded by the gardens.

***

The orchestra bounced its way through the gavotte, and the stomping and thumping on the ballroom floor came to an end.

Sir Joseph cast a look over his shoulder.

I
should
just
go, before anybody else thinks to escape into the torch-lit shadows of the winter garden.

Though it was already too late. A lone figure emerged through the French doors and stood for a moment, tall, slim, and lovely in the flickering light.

“You should not be out here alone, my lady.”

“Sir Joseph?”

“Over here.” He stepped closer to the torches positioned near the door, pointedly ignoring the mistletoe hanging from the trellis not eight feet away. “May I escort you back inside?”

“You may
not
.” She brushed past him, leaving a hint of citrus and clove on the night breeze. “I need some air.”

“There's a bench.” He took her by her gloved wrist and led her over to the stone bench in the shadows along the wall. Here in their hosts' walled terrace, the flames of a dozen torches made the night almost temperate. “Get your air, and then I will see you back to the ballroom.”

He waited while she sat. Lady Louisa did not lower herself gracefully and make a show of arranging her skirts. She plopped down with a huff and stripped off her gloves. “You might as well join me, Sir Joseph. They'll soon be starting up the supper waltz.”

A puzzled-male moment went by until he comprehended the difficulty. “You enjoy the waltz and did not want to sit this one out.”

She frowned then wrinkled her nose in a manner that put Sir Joseph in mind of little Fleur. “What woman wants to sit out the supper waltz? Are you going to have a seat?”

So testy, except she wasn't suffering pique or anger. As if he were assessing one of his daughters, Sir Joseph knew instinctively that Louisa Windham was a little hurt, a little unnerved, and a little tired of being hurt and unnerved.

He extended a hand down to her. “I have not danced the waltz in several years, and what memories I have of it are few and dim. Perhaps you'd take pity on a lame soldier and see whether he can recall it?”

He expected her to laugh. On his bad days he
was
lame, and most days he was at least unsound, as an old horse might be unsound. He had not danced the waltz since being injured, had never hoped to again because it required grace, balance, and a little derring-do.

Also a willing partner.

Louisa put her bare hand in his and rose. “The pleasure would be mine.” Her lips quirked as she stood, but she didn't drop his hand. “You must not allow me to lead.”

He'd watched a hundred couples dancing a hundred waltzes, and had enjoyed the dance himself when it was first becoming popular on the Continent. The steps were simple. What was not simple at all was the feel of Louisa Windham, matter-of-factly stepping quite close, clasping his palm to her own.

“I like to just listen for a moment,” she said, “to feel the music
inside
, feel the way it wants to move you, to lift your steps and infuse you with lightness.”

She slipped in closer, so close her hair tickled Joseph's jaw. Her hand settled on his shoulder, and he felt her swaying minutely as the orchestra launched into the opening bars. She moved with the rhythm of the music, let it shift her even as she stood virtually in his embrace.

What he felt
inside
was a marvelous sense of privilege, to be holding Louisa Windham close to his body, to have the warm, female shape of her there beneath his hands. Her scent, clean and a little spicy, was sweeter when she was this close.

She wasn't as tall in his embrace as she was in his imagination. Against his body, she fit… perfectly.

And with the sense of privilege and wonder, there lurked a current of arousal. Louisa Windham was lovely, dear, smart, and brave, but she was also a grown woman whom Joseph had found desirable from the moment he'd laid eyes on her.

He waited until the phrasing felt right, closed his fingers gently around hers, then moved off with his partner. She shifted with him, the embodiment of grace, as weightless as sunshine, as fluid as laughter.

“You lead well,” she whispered, her eyes half closed. “You're a natural.”

He was a man plagued by a bad knee and a questionable hip, but with Louisa Windham for a partner and the music of an eighteen-piece orchestra to buoy him, Joseph Carrington danced.

The longer they moved together, the better they danced. Louisa let him lead, let him guide her this way and that, let him decide how much sweep to give the turns and how closely to enfold her. She gave herself up to the music, and thus a little to him, as well, and yet, she anchored him too.

Dancing with a woman who enjoyed the waltz this much gave a man some bodily confidence. He brought her closer, wonderfully closer, and realized what gave him such joy was not simply the physical pleasure of holding her but the warmth in his heart generated by her trust.

She was dancing with a lame soldier, with a pig farmer, and enjoying it.

All too soon, the music wound to a sweet final cadence, but Louisa did not sink into the closing curtsy. She instead stood in the circle of Joseph's arms and dropped her forehead to his shoulder.

“Sir Joseph, thank you.”

What do to? Arousal hummed quietly in his veins, the citrus-and-clove scent of Louisa Windham wafted through his brain, and the voice of common sense started yammering in his ears.

Bow, idiot. Bow over the lady's hand, now.

He stroked a hand slowly down her back, reveling in the contour of her muscles and bones beneath his fingers. “The other night…”

She didn't step back, but he felt the tension infuse her spine. “At dinner?”

“I'm sorry. I've wanted to say that, but I haven't found the moment. I have no conversation, Louisa, and what few manners…” What was he trying to say? He knew arguing with a lady wasn't done, but it was more than that. “Prinny's Pavilion is an extravagance, regardless of how pretty or different, and you are entitled to your very sensible opinions.”

He allowed himself to rest his cheek against her hair, trying to memorize each pleasure the moment afforded him:

The pleasure of making reparation for a conversation he had not managed well at all.

The pleasure of her body next to his, warm from their exertions, and yet quiet in his arms.

The pleasure of her scent, clean and sweet and unique to her.

The pleasure of her simple willingness to remain close to him.

She obliterated all those pleasures with one more delight, one he could not have foreseen, could not have envisioned in his wildest imaginings, when she went up on her toes and kissed him.

***

A
woman
should
practice
kissing, lest she miss the cheek she was aiming for, and by purest accident, set her lips against a man's mouth.

Some corner of Louisa's mind marveled that her brain was capable of thought, while another noted that up close, beneath the hint of cedar, Sir Joseph's linen bore the scent of true lavender, the sweet, soft version of the flower that Her Grace kept in sachets to fragrance the Moreland dwellings.

Closer than that, with her lips on his, his kiss was soft, as well. Gentle, sweet, and alluring. She slid her hands up to link behind his neck, for stability.

Even a gentle kiss apparently could threaten a lady's balance—and maybe a man's too. Joseph widened his stance while Louisa leaned into his taller frame. When his hand slid into her hair to anchor at the nape of her neck, Louisa wondered why her impressions of a man were different once he'd been her dancing partner.

Sir Joseph's mouth was luscious against hers, a surprisingly sumptuous tactile bouquet that had vines of sensation trailing into her vitals. His kiss, a slow tasting of her mouth, made her feel both languorous and bold, both cherished and challenged.

Louisa noticed what was absent from this kiss: Sir Joseph wasn't in a hurry. He wasn't fumbling. He wasn't breathing sour wine all over her neck. He wasn't kneading her breasts like so much morning dough.

He wasn't unaffected, either. There was… tumescence. Not slight, or maybe such dimensions were normal for him?

He shifted a little so their bodies were not as close and the evidence of his possible arousal was no longer available for Louisa's investigation. She rested her forehead against his cravat and silently thanked him for exercising some sense when she had none to offer.

Men were odd creatures. The ones with war injuries could ride and dance more gracefully than they walked; the ones who'd never laid an improper hand on her could bestow a first kiss more sweet and intriguing than she'd ever imagined.

The ones who bore the scent of home and happiness could be untitled, socially retiring, and raising orchard hogs in the shires.

She was going to have to work on her aim, lest she encounter more mouths where a freshly shaven cheek ought to be. These realizations were disconcerting, and now Sir Joseph was probably entertaining thoughts about her she did not want him thinking. Worse, she was wondering things about him she should not, and felt a trickle of resentment toward him that this should be so.

He sighed, which made Louisa realize she was plastered to his chest.

His broad, muscular chest.

“My lady, as lovely as this dance has been in every regard, I fear the evening is growing cooler, and I had best escort you back to the ballroom.”

Louisa took one more whiff of him, her nose right at his throat, where body heat made the lovely scents—lavender, cedar, spices—pure and strong, and stepped back. Whatever he was trying to tell her—
in
every
regard
—he was right. In the space of one dance and one kiss, the evening had abruptly grown much cooler, and it was time Louisa returned to her sisters.

***

“Your Grace.” Joseph bowed deferentially in the greenery-bedecked foyer to the Earl of Westhaven's town house, only to earn a scowl from Westhaven's departing guest.

“For God's sake, Carrington, I'd rather you salute.”

“No, Your Grace, you would not. If I were saluting, that would mean we were back at war, and neither of us could possibly wish for that.”

Wellington's lips quirked. He was a handsome man of mature years, standing slightly less than six feet, popular with the ladies, and capable of charm when it suited him. “Arguing with me, Sir Joseph? Old habits die hard.”

“Being honest, Your Grace. To be anything else in present company would be disrespectful, also pointless.”

His Grace snorted through the feature that had earned him the sobriquet “Old Hookey.” “Spare me your flattery. How goes that little import business of yours?”

This was the problem with having served on the Peninsula. A man might muster out, but he was never entirely excused from the notice of his superior officers. Wellington had frequently referred to his direct staff as his family, and still gathered them together socially in his home from time to time.

“My little business thrives, Your Grace. Thank you for asking.”

The duke accepted gloves, top hat, and walking stick from a silent footman. “One wondered if you might lose interest. Some of your fellow officers would have. How's the leg?”

“Serviceably sound.”

“As good as can be said of most of us. See that it remains that way. Happy Christmas.” His Grace underscored his words with a momentary glower then swept out the door.

“Lord Westhaven will see you now, Sir Joseph, in the library.”