Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

“ A good morning to Her Grace!” Sophia heard distantly, like a voice through a dream.

She shifted in her bed, unwilling to open her eyes. She had never slept so well. Surely, she had more time to luxuriate in sleepy memory, dreaming awake of Thomas and his tongue. Besides, whoever that voice belonged to, she didn’t know it. It was probably someone from the staff she hadn’t met yet. They would go away soon enough.

“I said ‘good morning’ to Her resplendent Grace!” the voice called again.

“Good morning,” she shouted back, her eyes closed still. “Please inform my husband that I’ll be downstairs for breakfast shortly.”

“Breakfast? Goodness, no. We have work to do, Your Grace, and breakfast won’t be ready for at least two hours!”

Sophia now opened her eyes, confused. “Who… who are you?”

The door opened, and a slender, well-dressed man strode in, mistaking her question for permission to enter her private quarters. She yelped and pulled the coverlets to her chest as the man came to a halt with the posture of an army general and the flair of an opera singer.

“What are you doing in my room?” she squeaked.

The man bowed. “My name is Pietro, Your Grace. You can call me Peter. I will be your dance instructor.”

His accent was odd. Definitely not English or any other she had heard before.

“Pietro what? What is your title?” She grappled for some semblance of dignity, too embarrassed to tell him to get out.

Perhaps, where he hailed from, it was perfectly acceptable to walk into the bedchamber of a duchess while she was in her nightdress, her hair resembling a bird’s nest.

“No title, Your Grace. Just Pietro. You are expected to be in the music room in ten minutes. Do not be late,” he commanded and waltzed out of the room as abruptly as he had entered.

Sophia stared around her in confusion. She checked her window and, in the crack between the drapes, realized that the sun was just now starting to rise.

What… what time is it?

She brushed her hair from her face.

Oh, I shall box your ears for this, Thomas. You are doing this on purpose.

Heaven forbid she should be allowed to steep in the memory of the previous night. Evidently, Pietro’s rude arrival was a message— Don’t think that what happened between us has changed anything.

She sat in listless quiet for a while, considering whether to go back to bed or get up and obey the dance instructor. The pillows whispered to her, and the bed felt so soft.

No, I won’t give him the satisfaction of having to drag me out.

She felt her stubbornness punching through her tiredness and untangled herself from the coverlets.

After a few minutes, she had put on a comfortable dress—deliberately in the pea-green shade that Thomas disliked—and shoes, and then rushed downstairs to the music room, only stopping momentarily to avoid dizziness, her brain still half asleep.

You won’t succeed.

Whether her thoughts were directed at Pietro or Thomas, she didn’t know.

The music room looked as if she had decided to redecorate, the chairs and tables moved to the side to create a dance floor of sorts. Another figure sat at the pianoforte, not so unknown to her. Apparently, the butler was to be witness to her ineptitude.

Meanwhile, Pietro stood silhouetted against the garden doors at the far side of the room, his back to her.

“Good. You are here. Let’s begin with a country dance.” The dance instructor whirled around, gesturing to the butler. “Sir, something lively if you please.”

“Mr. Pietro, please… I just woke up. Have mercy on me,” Sophia said, the first notes of a jaunty tune rattling up her spine.

“Hard work waits for no one, Your Grace,” Pietro replied, smirking. “Of course, I am no monster. Drink this first.”

He picked up a small glass from the top of the pianoforte and held it out to her. It resembled something scooped from a pond, bits floating in the brownish liquid.

“What is this?” she asked warily.

“For waking you up. For lively dancing!”

Sophia took the glass and brought it up to her lips. She tried to down a small gulp, but the smell hit her nose before the taste hit her tongue. ‘Vile’ was not a horrendous enough word to describe the flavor.

It made her neck lurch forward and spill some of what hadn’t indelibly coated her mouth.

“Are you trying to poison me?” she spluttered.

“Not at all, Your Grace,” Pietro replied cheerily. “It’s naught but beef broth, goat’s milk, the yolk of a raw egg, and mashed celery. Added one touch of brandy. Very good for you.”

“How can something that tastes so… abhorrent possibly be good for you?”

If anything, Sophia felt a little queasy.

“Grandmother Vasilka taught me that the worse something tastes, the better it is for your health. She lived till one hundred and two years old.”

“Good for her.” Sophia bit back several insults towards this man and his grandmother.

There’s no point, Sophia. Just smile and do whatever he tells you.

“No, no, good for you .” Pietro grinned, prompting her to sigh again.

I will get you for this, Thomas. I promise.

She gulped down the rest, cringing all the while. After the initial shock, the rest of the rancid concoction went down smoother, but it still left a foul aftertaste that she had no doubt would linger until at least luncheon.

“Are you sure you are a dance instructor?” she asked, dabbing her mouth with the handkerchief she kept tucked in her sleeve. “You’re not a thespian that His Grace pulled off the street to torment me?”

“Only the best tutor in Europe, Your Grace,” he said proudly. “Now, that country dance! Beginning positions!”

Sophia took a step back and sighed, hands at her waist, echoing the stance she had adopted at her debut. It was the only beginning position of a dance that she knew.

Pietro tsked. “Is this a duchess I see before me or perhaps a fishwife who has been bent over baskets of oysters all day, every day, for a decade?”

“I beg your pardon?” she sniped, too half-asleep to be polite. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“If you want me to treat you like a duchess, then you need to stand like a duchess!” Pietro changed his posture and mimicked her, hunched over like some sort of cave-dwelling monster.

“Here”—he lightly tapped the middle of his stomach and halfway up his back—“is an invisible string that goes all the way to the top of our heads.” He pretended to pull on it, his posture straightening into the elegant form of earlier. “It must always be tight. Neck, long. Head, erect. We do not bend, we do not lean, we do not draw in our shoulders.”

I think I know that string, she mused, her lips curling into a smile.

It was the same invisible string she had felt in Thomas’s study and the library; the channel along which her pleasure crackled and thrummed. Although hers also branched down to her legs and the apex of her thighs.

“Smiling is good!” Pietro cheered. “Always smile.”

Sophia balked, dropping her gaze so he would not see her thoughts written all over her face.

“Your feet—no pigeon-toes. They face forward, heels raised unless you are at rest.” He pointed at his feet and waited for Sophia to mimic his stance. “Your body needs to be in a harmony of controlled relaxation. Not too stiff, not too lax. When you move, you place the ball of the foot first! Not the toes, not the heel!”

She took a frustrated second and adjusted her body, trying to keep the bombardment of instructions in mind. Her thoughts went back to all those times she had seen the older ladies of the ton dancing with their partners during the balls.

Did they also have to go through all of this?

She stopped at a pose she thought was good enough and checked to see Pietro’s reaction.

“Passable.”

“Now what?” she asked through a barely open mouth.

“Now you step. You will step only at my clap. And you will repeat. Observe. One.” He took one step forward. “Two.” And another. “Three.” And stepped sideways. “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, Two, three.”

Pietro moved with faultless precision.

He takes this very seriously…

“Now, repeat on my clap. One.”

Sophia tried to move, but Pietro immediately groaned.

“Wrong.”

“What? I barely even moved.”

“You looked down, Your Grace,” he replied sharply. “Will you also look down when taking to the floor with your husband? You are supposed to look him in the eyes.”

“But… I need to get used to it. I don’t know where I am stepping?—”

“The room is empty.” Pietro gave her a dry look. “Are you afraid you will stumble, perhaps? Are you afraid you will knock into another couple? The tables, perhaps? Again!”

She tried her best, flinching at every disapproving bark that came from the strict instructor. But it was no use.

“The string, Your Grace!” Pietro stalked over and prodded Sophia in the stomach, his other hand resting all too intimately on the small of her back. “You must remember the string! You are… lolloping around and threatening my reputation with every graceless plod!”

Holding her as if her waist were the meat of a palm sandwich, he moved her about the floor in a rough manner, grumbling “One, two, three” as if it would suddenly improve her.

“Do not touch her,” a low voice snarled from across the room.

Pietro jumped away, his eyes wide. “Your Grace!” he yelped, smoothing a hand over his hair. “Punctual, as always.”

Sophia didn’t know when Thomas had arrived; she had been too busy not melting into a puddle of humiliation.

The moment Pietro’s hands left her stomach and back, she felt she could breathe again… only to have that breath stolen away by the sight of Thomas. He stood just inside the doorway, wearing an unusually casual shirt and trousers, and nothing else. And the dark look in his eyes, flaring with protectiveness, couldn’t be ignored.

“Why were you teaching her a waltz?” Thomas continued, his voice cold. “I asked you to make her a respectable dancer. There is nothing respectable about a waltz.”

Pietro seemed to flounder. “It is the simplest to teach, Your Grace. And I only touched her to instruct her, I assure you.”

“Don’t do it again,” Thomas warned, waving a hand to the butler at the pianoforte. “A country dance, if you please.”

“She is not ready,” Pietro urged, clasping his hands together. “She keeps looking at her feet, thinking when she ought to be feeling .”

Thomas’s eyes darted to a bag on the floor. He went to it, drawing out a length of fabric. “Perhaps she was too distracted by a stranger’s hands on her,” he said roughly. “I expect better from you, Pietro.”

The instructor bowed his head. “Yes, Your Grace. Apologies.”

“This is the first lesson I was ever taught,” Thomas said, approaching Sophia from behind. “I am going to cover your eyes now.”

“You mean to tell me that little Thomas took dance lessons?” Sophia said, her heart thundering in her chest at the thought of him blindfolding her. It pounded so violently that there was no way he couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t know why you sound so surprised,” he replied, bending his head close to her ear. “You have seen me dance. One must practice often if one wants to be very good at something.”

Her lungs took the lead from her heart, heaving frantically. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

Do not let him toy with you! she chided herself, fighting to regain control of her faculties.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you when I sprain my ankle,” she muttered, aiming for nonchalance.

“I’ll be here to catch you if it goes awry,” he said, his breath tickling the nape of her neck.

“Oh, consider me so thankful,” she managed to utter, but she immediately felt her throat close up as the fabric covered her eyes.

She could feel his hands behind her head, tying the soft fabric, careful not to catch any of her hair in the knot. As darkness replaced her vision, she became a little too aware of him, all of her other senses compensating.

The brush of his breath was somehow as thrilling as a caress. The scent of him—woodsmoke, mild soap, and vetiver—overwhelmed her, as heady as if she had sprayed his perfume directly on her face. The sound of his movements behind her—the faint rustle of his shirt, the scuff of his boots—heightened her anticipation. Unfortunately, the only thing she could taste was that awful drink.

Control yourself, Sophia. It’s a dancing lesson, and you are about to humiliate yourself all over again.

“Is it too tight?” he asked, his voice startling her.

She hummed loudly to clear her throat. “No. It’s… fine.”

“Well then, let us begin the lesson,” he said in a soft, stirring tone, lightly touching her waist and turning her around. “Your issue is not one of body, Sophia. Your issue is one of confidence.” He lifted her hand and held it there between them, his body so close that she could feel it. “A duchess doesn’t think of whether her decisions are right or wrong. A duchess simply knows, and a duchess simply acts. ”

She felt her stubbornness and desire boil together, like the innards of a volcano.

But I can’t do as I please, not with you.

Pietro clapped.

Thomas whispered, “One.”