Read Dancing at Midnight Online
Authors: Julia Quinn
"Belle, I—"
"Please."
He stared into those marvelous blue eyes and wondered how anyone found
the fortitude to deny
her anything. He glanced out the stable doors. "I suppose it is rather wet."
Belle nodded. "You'll surely catch the fever if you even attempt to ride
home. Come along." She took his hand, and together
they made a mad dash for the house.
By the time they rushed through the front door into the hall, they were
both rather damp, and Belle could feel strands of her
hair plastered to her face. "I must look a mess," she said
self-consciously. "I ought to go and change."
"Nonsense," John said, pushing a damp lock of her hair behind her ear.
"You look lovely—all misty-like."
Belle caught her breath, his touch still tingling on her cheek. "Surely
you mean musty-like. I feel like a dishrag."
"I assure you, Lady Arabella, you do not resemble a dishrag." He dropped
his arm. "Although I cannot imagine when you
would ever have seen one."
Belle stiffened. "I am not the spoiled child you seem to believe me to be."
John gazed hungrily at the breathtakingly lovely woman standing across
from him in the hall. Her hair had partially broken free
of its topknot, and golden tendrils, curled by the damp air, kissed the
sides of her face. Her long eyelashes glistened with
raindrops, framing eyes of an indescribable shade of blue. John took a
deep breath and didn't allow his eyes to stray below her
soft mouth. "Believe me, I don't think you're a child," he said finally.
Belle swallowed nervously, unable to keep her disappointment off her
face. Those were not quite the words she'd hoped to
hear. "Perhaps we should continue our conversation in the parlor."
She turned and strode across the hall, her back ramrod straight.
John sighed to himself and followed. He always managed to say the wrong
thing around her. He wanted to grab her in his arms, tell her that he
thought she was simply wonderful—beautiful and smart and kind and
everything a man could want in a woman.
If a man deserved a woman, that was. And he knew that he could never
marry, never accept the love of a woman. Not after Ana.
When John entered the parlor, Belle was standing at the window, watching
the rain sheeting against the glass. He started to
shut the door, then thought the better of it, and left it open a few
inches. He walked over to her, intending to put his hands on
her shoulders, but when he was but a foot away, she suddenly whirled
around. "I'm not spoiled," she said stubbornly. "I haven't
had a difficult life, I know that, but I'm not spoiled."
"I know you're not," John replied softly.
"Spoiled means that one is willful and manipulative," Belle continued.
"And I'm neither of those things."
He nodded.
"And I don't know why you must always make such awful comments about my
background. /Your /father is an earl, too.
Alex told me."
"Was an earl," John corrected, relieved that she thought that he was
pushing her away due to feelings of social inferiority. That was
certainly a consideration, but it was the least of his worries. "Was an
/impoverished /earl who certainly couldn't afford to support seven
children, the last of whom was, posthumously, me."
"Seven children?" Belle asked, eyes widening. "Really?"
"One was stillborn," John admitted.
"You must have had a lovely childhood with so many other children with
whom to play."
"Actually, I didn't spend very much time with my siblings. They were
usually occupied with their own pursuits."
"Oh." Belle frowned, not at all pleased with the family portrait he was
painting. "Your mother must have been very busy
having all those babies."
John smiled devilishly. "I imagine that my father was as well."
She blushed.
"Do you think we could start over for the afternoon?" John asked, taking
her hand and dropping a feathery light kiss on her knuckles. "I
apologize for assuming that you have never seen a dishrag."
Belle giggled. "That's the most absurd apology I have ever heard."
"Do you think so? I thought it was rather eloquent myself, especially
with the kiss on your hand."
"The kiss was marvelous, and the apology was very sweet. It was the part
about the dishrag that sounded funny."
"Forget about the dishrag," John said, leading her over to a nearby sofa.
"My mind is already completely blank on that measure," she assured him.
He sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. "I noticed that you have a
volume of Wordsworth's poetry with you."
Belle looked down at her forgotten book. "Oh, yes. You inspired me, I'm
afraid. But what I want to know is when you're
going to get to the task of writing some verse yourself. I know that
you'd be brilliant at it."
John smiled at her praise. "Look what happened when I tried to be poetic
this afternoon. I called you 'misty-like'. Somehow 'misty-like' does not
come to mind when I think of great poetry."
"Don't be silly. Anyone who loves poetry as much as you do must be able
to write it. You need only to apply yourself."
John looked over at her shining face. She had such confidence in him.
The feeling was new to him; his family, after all, had
never shown very much interest in any of his activities. He couldn't
bear to tell her that her confidence was misplaced, and
he was terrified of how she might react when she discovered what kind of
man he really was.
But he didn't want to think of this. All he wanted to think about was
the woman. The woman who smelled like springtime. He wondered how long
he could push the realities of his past from his mind. Could he do it
for more than a few minutes? Could
he gift himself with an entire afternoon of her company?
"Oh dear," Belle said, breaking into his tortured thoughts, "I forgot to
ring for tea." She stood and crossed the room to pull the bellcord.
John rose when she did, shifting most of his weight onto his good leg.
Before Belle even had a chance to sit down again,
Norwood entered the room on swift, silent feet. She ordered some tea and
biscuits, and Norwood left just as quietly as he had come in, closing
the door behind him.
Belle's eyes followed the butler as he exited the room, and then she
turned back and looked over to where John was standing
near the sofa. As she gazed at him from across the room, she was certain
her heart stopped beating. He looked so handsome
and strong in his riding clothes, and she couldn't help but see the
appreciation in his eyes as he gazed back at her. She
remembered his words from the day before.
/I'm not the man you think I am./
Was that true? Or was it possible that he was not the man /he /thought
he was? It all seemed so obvious to her. It was in the
way he had recited poetry and the firm embrace of his arms when he had
held her on his horse. He needed someone to show
him that he was good and strong. Dare she hope— he needed her?
Nervously, she crossed the room, stopping a foot or so in front of him.
"I think that you are a very good man," she said softly.
John caught his breath as a surging wave of desire rocked through him.
"Belle, I'm not. When you rang for tea I was trying to
tell you..." Christ, /how /could he tell her? "I wanted to say ..."
"What, John?" Her voice was exquisitely soft. "What did you want to tell
me?"
"Belle, I—"
"Was it the kiss?"
It was an erotic nightmare. She was standing there before him, offering
herself, and it was getting so damned hard to listen
to his conscience and do the right thing. "Oh God, Belle," he groaned.
"You don't know what you're saying."
"Yes, I do. I remember every moment of our kiss by the pond."
God help him, John leaned a little closer to her. His hand reached out
with no direction from his brain, clasping hers in a
warm embrace.
"Oh, John," she sighed, looking down at his hand as if it had the power
to heal the world of all its ills.
Such devotion, such faith, such pure beauty was too much for him. With a
groan that hovered somewhere between pleasure
and agony, he pulled her roughly against him. His lips found hers in a
frantic kiss, and he drank of her like a man who'd gone
years without nourishment. He sank his hands into her hair, savoring the
silky soft feel of it as his lips traveled the length of her face,
worshipping her eyes, her nose, the line of her cheekbones.
And at some point during the kiss, he began to feel himself healing. The
blackness in his heart didn't disappear, but it began to crack and
crumble. The weight on his shoulders didn't lift completely, but it
seemed to be lessened somehow.
Could she do that for him? Was she so pure and good that she could erase
the stain on his soul? John began to feel giddy, and
he clutched her to him more closely, raining light kisses along her
hairline.
And then she sighed. "Oh, John, I feel so good." And he knew that she
was content.
"How good?" he murmured, nipping at the corner of her mouth.
"Very, very good," Belle laughed, returning his kisses fervently.
John's lips trailed across her cheek to her ear, and he nibbled
playfully on her lobe. "You have such sweet little ears," he said
huskily. "Like apricots."
Belle drew back, a surprised smile on her face. "Apricots?"
"I told you I'm not very poetic."
"I love apricots," she declared loyally.
"Get back over here," he said in a laugh-tinged growl. He sat down on
the sofa and tugged her along with him.
"Oooh, as you wish, my lord." Belle did her best imitation of a leer.
"What a lusty wench you are."
"Lusty /wench? /That's certainly not very poetic."
"Oh, hush." True to his words, John silenced her with another kiss,
leaning back against the cushions and pulling Belle on top
of him. "Have I told you," he said between kisses, "that you're the most
beautiful woman I've ever met?"
"No."
"Well, you are. And the smartest, and the kindest, and"—John's hand
stole down the length of her body, cupped her buttocks,
and squeezed— "you have the cutest derriere I've ever seen."
Belle lurched back in shocked maidenly honor and then collapsed in
giggles atop him. "Nobody told me that kissing was so
much fun."
"Of course not. Your parents didn't want you running around just kissing
/anybody, /after all."
Belle touched the side of his jaw with her hand, rubbing against the
sandy stubble of his whiskers. "No, only you."
John didn't think that her parents particularly wanted her kissing him
either, but he pushed the thought out of his mind, unwilling
to give up the perfection of the moment. "Most people don't laugh so
much while they're kissing." He grinned boyishly and tweaked her nose.
Belle tweaked his back. "They don't? How unfortunate for them."
John pulled her tightly to him in a crushing embrace, as if he could
bond her to him by strength alone. Maybe some of her goodness would seep
into him, cleansing his soul, and... He shut his eyes. He was growing
fanciful. "You can't possibly
know how perfect I feel right at this moment," he murmured into her hair.
Belle snuggled closer. "I know exactly how perfect."
"Unfortunately, your pot of tea is going to arrive any second now, and I
don't think that the servants need to know just how
perfect we feel."
"Oh my God!" Belle gasped, nearly flying across the room. "Do I look all
right? Can you tell that I—that we—?"
/"I /can tell," John said wryly, trying to ignore the ache of
unfulfilled need that pulsed through his body. "But if you smooth
down your hair, I don't think that anyone else will be able to."
"It's raining," she said shakily. "Norwood will assume that that's why
I'm a bit of a mess." For all her forward behavior that afternoon, Belle
was not prepared to get caught in an amorous situation by her cousins'
butler.
"Sit back down," John ordered. "We'll converse like two reasonable
adults, and then Norwood won't suspect a thing."
"Do you think not? I'd be so embarr—"
"Just sit down, please, and we'll make polite conversation until your
butler gets here."
"I don't think I can," Belle said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Why not?"
She sank down onto a chair and kept her eyes focused on her feet.
"Because every time I look at you I remember you
holding me."
John's heart slammed in his chest. He took a deep breath, fighting the
increasingly painful need to leap over the settee, grab
Belle, and ravish her right there on the spot. Thankfully, he was saved
from having to reply to her emotional comment by a discreet knock on the
door.
Norwood entered with a tray of tea and biscuits. After thanking him,
Belle picked up the teapot and began to pour. John
noticed that her hands were shaking. Wordlessly he accepted the cup she
held out to him and took a drink.
Belle sipped at her tea, willing her hands to stop their trembling. It
wasn't that she was ashamed of her behavior; she was
simply shocked by the extent of her reaction to him. She'd never dreamed
that her body could feel so totally warm from the
inside out.
"Penny for your thoughts," John said suddenly.
She looked up at him from over her teacup and smiled. "Oh, they're worth
far more than a penny."
"How about a pound, then?"
For about one second Belle toyed with the idea of telling him what she
was really thinking. But for only one second. Her
mother had not raised her to be such a wanton. "I was wondering if you
want me to pour the tea on your leg now or wait
until it has cooled off a bit."
John stretched out his injured leg as far as he was able and looked down
at it assessingly, pretending to give the matter serious thought. "Oh, I
think hot, don't you?"
Belle picked up the teapot with a devilish grin. "If this works, we'll
change medical science forever." She leaned over him, and
for a second John thought she was really going to pour the tea on his
leg. At the last possible moment she righted the pot and
put it back down on the table. "The rain is coming down quite hard now,"
she said, glancing out the window. "You won't be
able to return home for some time."
"I imagine we'll be able to keep ourselves occupied."
Belle took one look at his face and knew exactly how he wanted to keep
them occupied. She didn't deny to herself that she
also longed to while away the afternoon in his arms, but there was a
good chance that Alex or Emma would happen upon
them, and the last thing she needed was to get caught in an indelicate
situation by her cousins.
"I think," she said finally, "that we may have to pursue a different
activity."
John looked so disappointed that Belle could barely stifle a laugh.
"What do you suggest we do?"
She set her teacup down. "Can you dance?"
*
*
*
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*Chapter 7*
*
*
John lowered his cup very, very slowly. "Belle," he said finally, "you
must know that I cannot." Nonsense. Everyone can dance. You have only to
try."
"Belle, if this is some kind of joke—"
"Of course it isn't a joke," she cut in quickly. "I know that your leg
is injured, but it doesn't seem to slow you overmuch."
"I may have taught myself to move with a reasonable degree of speed, but
I do so with a complete lack of grace." His hand strayed unconsciously
to his leg. Nightmarish visions of himself tumbling clumsily to the
floor played out in his mind. "I'm sure
we can entertain ourselves without my playing the fool trying to dance.
Besides, we haven't any music."
"Hmmm, that is a problem." Belle glanced around the room until her eyes
rested on the piano in the corner. "It appears that we have two choices.
The first option is that I could ask Emma to come in and play for us,
but I'm afraid she has never been
accused of possessing musical talent. I wouldn't wish her noise on my
worst enemy." She smiled sunnily. "Much less one
of my good friends."
The force of her smile hit John squarely in the heart. "Belle," he said
softly. "I don't think this is going to work."
"You won't know unless you try." She stood up and smoothed down her
dress. "I think it's agreed that Emma at the piano
is not an option, so I suppose I'll just have to sing."
"Can you?"
"Sing?"
John nodded.
"Probably about as well as you can dance."
"In that case, my lady, I think we may be in dire straits, indeed."
"I'm only teasing. I'm no diva, but I can carry a tune."
How much could it hurt to pretend—if only for an afternoon—that she
could be his, that she /was /his, that he could possibly deserve her? He
stood, determined to taste just a bit of heaven. "I hope you will have
the courtesy not to wince out loud
when I trod on your feet."
"Oh, don't worry, my lord, I shall wince very softly, indeed." On
impulse, she leaned up and quickly kissed John's cheek, whispering, "My
feet are very sturdy."
"For your sake, I should hope so."
"Now, which dances do you know?"
"None."
"None? What did you do in London?"
"I never bothered with the social whirl."
"Oh." Belle nibbled on her lower lip. "This is going to be more of a
challenge than I anticipated. But have no fear, I am sure
you are up to the task."
"I believe the more appropriate question is whether or not /you /are up
to the task."
"Oh, I am/' Belle said with a jaunty grin. "Believe me, I am. Now, I
think we should start with a waltz. Some of the other dances might be a
bit too taxing for your leg. Although perhaps not. You yourself said
that you are able to move with reasonable speed."
John bit back a smile. "A waltz would be lovely. Just tell me what to do."
"Put your hand here like this." Belle picked up his hand and placed it
on her slender waist. "And then I put my hand on your shoulder, see?
Hmmm, you're quite tall."
"Is that a compliment?"
"Of course it is. Although I wouldn't like you any less if you were
shorter."
"That is certainly gratifying to know."
"Are you poking fun at me?"
"Just a bit."
Belle shot him a teasing glance. "Well, just a bit is all right, I
suppose, but no more than that. I'm terribly sensitive."
"I shall try to refrain."
"Thank you."
"Although you sometimes make it very difficult."
Belle poked him in the chest and resumed their waltzing lessons. "Hush.
Now, take my other hand like this. Wonderful.
We're all set."
"We are?" John cast a dubious eye over their position. "You're rather
far away."
"This is the correct position. I've done this a thousand times."
"We could fit another person between us."
"I cannot imagine why we would want to."
John slowly tightened his grip around Belle's waist and pulled her to
him until she could feel the heat from his body.
"Isn't this better?" he murmured.
Belle's breath caught in her throat. John was barely an inch away, and
his nearness was making her pulse race.
"We would never be allowed in any respectable ballroom," she said huskily.
"I prefer dancing in private." John leaned down and let his lips brush
gently against hers.
Belle swallowed nervously. She enjoyed his kisses, but she couldn't help
but feel that she was getting herself into a situation she could not
handle. So with more than a few regrets she stepped back, loosening
John's grip on her until there was a respectable distance between their
bodies again. "I can't very well teach you to waltz if we aren't in the
proper position," she explained.
"Now then, the key to waltzes is that they are in three-four time. Most
other dances are in common time."
"Common time?"
"Four-four. Waltzes go 'one-two-three, one-two three, one-two-three.'
Common time goes 'one-two-three-four.' "
"I think I see the difference."
Belle glanced up sharply at him. Tiny lines around his eyes crinkled
with humor. Her own lips tugged upward at the corners
as she tried to suppress a smile. "Good. Therefore a waltz might sound
like this." She started humming a tune which had
been very popular in London during the last season.
"I can't hear you." He started to pull her closer.
Belle wriggled back into her original position. "I'll sing, then."
John's hand tightened gently around her waist. "I still can't hear you."
"Yes, you can. Stop your games, or we'll never get our waltzing lesson
underway."
"I'd rather have a kissing lesson."
She blushed a deep red. "We already had one of those today, and anyway,
Emma or Alex could come in any minute.
We must get back to work. I'll lead first, and once you catch on, you
can take over. Are you ready?"
"I've been ready all afternoon."
Belle hadn't thought it possible to blush any harder but soon found that
she'd been mistaken. "All right then, one-two-three, one-two-three." She
applied slight pressure to John's shoulder and began the slow twirl of
the waltz. She promptly tripped o
ver his feet.
John smiled boyishly. "Imagine my delight that /you /were the first to
stumble."
She looked up at him with a peevish expression. "I'm not used to
leading. And it certainly is not very gentlemanly of you to
point out my flaws."
"I didn't see it as a flaw. In fact, I rather enjoyed catching you."
"I'll just bet that you did," Belle muttered.
"Want to give it another try?"
She nodded and put her hand back on his shoulder. "Wait just a moment. I
think we need to switch positions." She slid her
hand down to his waist. "Put your hand on my shoulder. There, now just
pretend that I'm the man."
John glanced down at the enticing swell of Belle's breasts. "That," he
murmured, "is going to be exceedingly difficult."
Belle missed his desire-filled gaze, which was fortunate because her
senses were already quite overwhelmed. "Now then,"
she said blithely, "if I were the man and you were the woman, I'd just
put a little bit of pressure on your waist like this, and then
we would move like this." As she softly sang out a waltz, they began to
twirl around the parlor, John's bad leg moving with grace he'd never
dreamed he could possess. "Wonderful!" Belle cried out triumphantly.
"This is perfect."
"I agree," John replied, savoring the feel of her in his arms. "But do
you think that I could be the man for a while?"
Belle shifted her hand to his shoulder as her eyes caught his in a
sultry caress. She parted her lips to speak, but her throat went dry.