“We don’t need one.” His hand left her cheek, skimmed down her arm, and laced itself between her gloved fingers. He began leading her out of the storage room. “What is your favorite tune?”

“‘The Fairy Wedding Waltz.’ The first one I danced to at my first ball.”

“I know it. If you had a pianoforte, I could play it for you.”

“You play the pianoforte?”

She had expected him to take her upstairs to her lodgings, to her parlor where there was more room—although she quickly realized he wouldn’t know that. Instead he stopped in the middle of the area that separated her counter from the walls of bookshelves that ran perpendicular to it, faced her, and released his hold on her. She nearly snatched back his hand. “My mother insisted. When I was a lad, I hated the lessons. But she told me if I practiced diligently, I would acquire very deft fingers. I’ve found they make me quite popular with the ladies.”

The seductive way he looked at her made it difficult to draw in breath, and when she thought of his fingers doing more than touching her cheek as they had earlier, she had a strong urge to unfasten lacings and hooks and invite him to play a tune over her skin. Why was it that when she was with him, she wasn’t content to be separated by a few inches? Why did her musings conjure up images of bared flesh and limbs entangled, kisses and embraces?

Bowing slightly, he held out his hand. “Miss Trewlove, may I have the honor of this waltz?”

She didn’t know why she was more nervous than she’d been at the ball, why it was imperative she not trip over her feet, but dance to perfection. She wanted to impress him, to demonstrate that her lessons hadn’t been a waste of Mick’s coins. With a sigh to calm her rioting nerves, she placed her hand in his, taking comfort from the surety with which he wrapped his fingers around hers. His other hand came to her waist, and she placed hers on his shoulder, her posture perfect.

He began humming and, with the slightest dip, glided her over the floor, past the shelves that housed books on various countries, continents, and wildlife, around the edge of it, and up the aisle where one could find information on constellations, down a row where biographies brought long-ago personages back to life. They circled round and round, past romantic novels and detective stories, past Dickens, Brontë, and Austen. This waltz was better than any she’d had earlier because he took her along a route that encompassed all she loved and adored.

All night she’d longed to have a man look at her as though he’d waited his entire life to have her in his arms. Matthew never took his eyes from hers.