Page 64 of One Perfect Dance
He allowed the distraction. “You have already given me the privilege of being your chosen betrothed, my love. That makes this the second most memorable birthday of my life.”
“The second?” she prompted.
He took her hand to his lips again. “The first was the day of my twenty-first birthday, when you and I waited out a dance.”
He knew what to say to melt her. She found herself leaning towards him, then straightened. The present! It was no longer scandalous to give it to him. “I have something for you. I will just get it.”
He let her go, and she brought him the box, waiting anxiously for his reaction.
“What could it be?” he asked, as he undid the string and then opened the box. He lifted the items within one by one. At first sight, they might appear as simple dancing slippers, but every inch was covered with tiny images, stitched in black silk onto very fine kidskin of the same color. A butterfly. A dragon. A sailing ship. A camel. The stories of Ash’s travels covered the surface.
She had started the embroidery months ago, during the winter, long before she knew when he would arrive. Long before a romance between them was more than a fireside dream.
Two weeks ago, she had enlisted Lord Arthur’s help to take a pair of his slippers to give to the cobbler, who had formed her embroidered leather into the shoes he now examined closely, running his fingers over the shapes, his smile tender.
He turned that tender look on her when he found the raised heel on the second shoe. “Perfect,” he said. “Ginny, I knew from other gifts you’ve sent me that you were a talented artist with your needle, but these are exceptional. How on earth did you make such wonderful things in the short weeks since my return?”
“I sewed them over the winter,” she admitted. “A gift to acknowledge a friendship.”
“And more?” he coaxed. “Did you dream of dancing with me, Ginny? For I have dreamed of dancing with you ever since your birthday ball, sixteen years ago this day. If it were not for this stupid leg, I would get up right now and show you.”
“There will be other balls,” Regina assured him. “Ever since you wrote to me about how your built-up heel made it possible for you to join the dancing, I have wanted to dance with you.”
“There will be other balls,” he agreed. “Come here and let me kiss you, Ginny, to thank you for the most beautiful dancing slippers anyone ever had.”
He set them to one side and opened his arms, and Ginny moved into them.
Just then, someone knocked on the room’s door. “Mr. Ashby? Regina, are you in there with Mr. Ashby? Open the door.”
Regina scooted off the bed. “It’s my mother!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Tidy your cravat,”Regina whispered, as she did up her buttons.
She unlocked the door, and Lady Kingsley swept inside. Wilson stammered apologies, but Regina waved him off. Her mother was a force of nature.
“Go back to your post,” she told him, and closed the door. If her mother was going to make a fuss, she didn’t want her servants and her son to hear.
She turned to ask her mother to explain her presence, but Lady Kingsley spoke first, to Elijah. “Do I need to ask your intentions towards my daughter, Mr. Ashby?”
“No, Mama,” Regina said. “I am a grown woman, and my actions are my own business.”
Lady Kingsley turned a chair around from the desk to face the bed. “You are right, Regina. I withdraw the question.”
Regina’s indignant response to the lecture she expected died on her tongue, and for a moment, she had nothing to replace it.
“My apologies for not rising, Lady Kingsley,” Elijah said, lifting himself off the pillows enough to bow his head, and then collapsing back with a grimace.
Regina’s mother frowned. “Are you unwell, Mr. Ashby?”
“Elijah was injured last night, fighting off some attackers,” Regina explained. She resumed her seat in the chair next to Elijah’s bed, so they were facing her mother together.
“Last night?” Mother asked. “Then youwerewith Regina, Mr. Ashby?” She turned a concerned gaze on Regina. “There is gossip about your activities yesterday evening, daughter. I want to know how I can help counter what is being said.”
“What is being said?” Elijah asked.
“That Regina had an assignation with Mr. David Deffew in an apartment in Peach Tree Lane. That you broke in, Mr. Ashby, tied Mr. Deffew up, and threatened to shoot Mr. Deffew if he followed. Mr. Deffew claims that Regina has promised to marry him and is threatening to have you arrested for abducting her.”
