Y ou almost missed the first dance,” Wick hissed at him. “I’ve delayed the musicians as long as I was able, telling everyone that Sophonisba was taken ill.”
Gabriel felt as if he were in a dream. His mind, his heart, were locked upstairs, with Kate, with the silky, honey woman waiting for him.
The only thing that got him to the threshold of the ballroom was the iron sense of duty in which he had been drilled since birth.
“I’m here,” he said tightly.
“Not a good night,” Wick said, looking at him. “She’s over there.” He nodded toward Tatiana and her uncle, in the middle of a small circle of gentlemen.
Gabriel walked across the room like a sleepwalker and apologized to Tatiana for missing most of the evening meal. “My aunt is elderly, as you could see,” he said. “When we reached her chambers she wasn’t feeling well, and I’m afraid she is rather imperious in demanding attendance during those moments.”
“I admire a man who has a sense of his responsibilities,” Dimitri said, rocking back on his heels and smiling approvingly at Gabriel. “Family always comes first in Russia. I don’t care for the kind of fathering that you see in England, with a child scarcely recognizing his own blood relation.”
A little girl with Merry’s name and Kate’s face danced across Gabriel’s mind as he turned to Tatiana and requested her hand for the dance.
Tatiana danced like a feather, her curtsies graceful, her sense of timing impeccable. And Gabriel, trained to dance from the age of three, was as good as she was.
Dimly, from behind a haze of sensual frustration, he was aware of the pleasure of having a partner with whom he was truly in harmony.
“Perhaps we might dance again?” he asked, as the music drew to a close.
She bestowed a little smile on him. “Indeed, Your Highness, it would be a pleasure.”
“A waltz, perhaps,” he said, knowing that he was putting the seal on his coffin. The moment a waltz began and he stepped onto that floor with Tatiana held in his arms, it would be a matter of days until he was signing a marriage contract. The dance was considered too sensual and disreputable by many sticklers in the ton ; stepping onto the floor with an unmarried woman was tantamount to an announcement of their impending marriage. Not that anyone had any question about that.
She looked a little puzzled, as if a shadow of the bleakness that stabbed through his body had become visible in his eyes.
“I would be honored,” he said, getting a grip on himself.
Tatiana turned from him to take Toloose’s hand, giving him the confident smile of a girl who is discovering her power over men. “I should have to ask my uncle,” she told him, secret laughter in her eye showing that she understood the implication of a waltz as well as he did.
Gabriel took a breath. If he danced two or three more sets, and then told the orchestra to play the shortest waltz they had in their repertoire, then he could pretend to fall, or pretend to get drunk. Anything to get himself out of the room and back up to his tower.
A sharp rap on his arm brought him back to himself.
Lady Wrothe was standing at his side. “The music’s starting again,” Henry stated. The expression on her face was not entirely charming.
“Lady Wrothe,” he said, bowing. “Would you be so kind as to—”
“Yes, I would sit out this measure with you,” she said, interrupting. “Very kind of you, as I turned an ankle with these dratted heels of mine.” She headed directly for a secluded little alcove, just large enough for its padded settee.
“Now where’s my goddaughter?” she asked, without preamble. “I’ve been to her room, so I know that’s a taradiddle about her stomach. Kate’s not the sort to suffer any ailments; I’d be surprised if the girl spent a day in bed in her life.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched as images of just how he and Kate could spend a day in bed together crashed into his mind. “I’m afraid that I can’t assist you,” he said, through the roaring in his ears.
“Can’t or won’t?” Henry said, tapping him sharply again with her fan. “I’m not a jack-pudding, you know. That girl’s parents have both cocked up their toes, and so she’s mine now. And I”—she smiled with all the charm of a mother tiger—“will not be pleased if her heart is broken.”
“I would feel the same,” Gabriel said.
“Who would guess that, seeing you circle the floor with that over-nourished Russian girl on your arm?”
“Princess Tatiana is a very . . .” He paused. “She’s a lovely girl.”
“But would Kate enjoy seeing you make sheep’s eyes at a lovely girl?”
“Lady Wrothe,” Gabriel said. “This marriage was arranged on the basis of my bride’s substantial dowry and my title. It’s an old tale, and one we’ve all heard before.” His words came out like hard little acorns, one to each beat of his heart. His eyes flicked to her face. “I cannot marry Kate.”
“If you’re planning to weave me some sort of lament, don’t,” Henry snapped. “You don’t have to hide Kate away like some sort of doxy you hired for the night while you’re out there dancing with your bride-to-be. She can be here too, because there are plenty of men who would love to marry her, substantial dowry or no!”
Gabriel took a deep breath. “I cannot marry where I will.”
“I’m not saying you should,” Henry retorted. “There are men who throw the world at their lady’s feet, and then there are the rest of you, who see the world as a ledger in black and white. I encountered one of you early in life, so I know just what you’re like.”
He had never been so close to striking a woman before. “If you’ll forgive me—”
But her hand fell on his arm, and what he saw in her eyes stayed his tongue. “You’ve got a choice before you, prince,” she said. “You damned well better make the right one, or you’ll spend your life cursing yourself. That gentleman I mentioned just now . . . I don’t think the dowry he married made up for what he lost. And I believe he would agree with me.”
Gabriel turned, rather blindly, and walked toward the door. A gentleman lurched out of his way at the last moment.
Only Wick stepped in his way.
“I told Tatiana that I’d waltz with her,” Gabriel said in a low, harsh whisper. “Find her and tell her something.”
“A waltz ? I’ll have to tell her that you’ve taken ill.”
“I have,” Gabriel said. “Sick unto death, I think they call it.”