“I mean it. You’ve grown too big. And I haven’t grown at all— Oh!” She gasped as he spun her into a turn.

He grinned down at her. “You do know how to waltz, don’t you?”

“Do you?” she countered. “This isn’t the way you were waltzing with Miss Steele.”

“That was an English waltz. Not exciting at all.” St. Clare tipped his head to hers. “The waltz is danced differently on the continent. A man and woman hold each other close.” His arm tightened around her. “Like so.”

Her pulse fluttered at her throat. “Goodness. How daring.”

“It is, rather.” He spun her round.

A thrill went through her as he waltzed her across the terrace. Her skirts swirled about his legs in a cloud of glittering blue silk. There were no missteps. No clumsy fumbles. It was easy. Effortless. Like something from one of her girlhood daydreams.

She gazed up at him in the torchlight, a smile spreading over her face. “We’re waltzing together.”

He looked steadily back at her. There was nothing cold in his countenance now. It was warm and open. “That we are, my darling.”

The casual endearment sent a flush of warmth through her. She wanted to fling her arms around his neck. To stretch up and kiss him. To call him Nicholas.

But she didn’t do any of those things.

She merely danced with him, letting him guide her through steps quick and slow, through turns that made her stomach quiver with excitement. All the while he stared down at her with single-minded attention, holding her in an unyielding grip—strong and sure and safe.

“Is a continental waltz longer than an English one?” she asked at last.

A look of immediate concern crossed his face. “Have I tired you out?”

“On the contrary.” The giddiness of the dance made her bold. Foolishly so. “I wish it might last forever.”

He smiled. “Until you wear through the soles of your dancing slippers?”

“Like a princess in a fairytale.”

They both laughed, so consumed by their own pleasure that Maggie didn’t hear the sound of one of the terrace doors opening. It was only as St. Clare steered her into another swooping turn that she saw Fred. He was standing at the door, frozen to the spot, watching them.

He looked just as he had so many years before when he’d discovered them laughing and dancing in the clearing. His brawny fists were clenched at his sides, his brow clouded with equal parts anger and resentment. And in his eyes—

But no. The look in Fred’s eyes wasn’t the same as it had been so long ago. This time, there wasn’t murder in his gaze There was something worse.

Maggie very much feared it was recognition.

Chapter Fifteen