The Gown(34)

“No,” Ann whispered back, shaking her head. “There’s a resemblance, but it’s not him. The lieutenant is in his early twenties, but this man must be closer to thirty.”

“Too bad. Imagine if we’d been able to say we saw him on our night out!”

Just then he turned and, as if he somehow knew she’d been talking about him, fixed his gaze on Ann. She shrank in her chair, although she knew there was no way he could have heard what she and Ruthie had been saying. And it wasn’t as if being compared to Princess Elizabeth’s fiancé was an insult, after all.

He smiled at her. He smiled until a dimple appeared in his cheek and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and all the time he never looked away.

She wanted so badly to check behind her, for surely he was looking at someone at the table beyond. Someone he knew and liked, and in a moment he would brush past her and she would know, definitively, that his smile had been too good to be true.

She must have had a questioning look on her face, because he nodded, just the once, and then he walked over to her. To her, not anyone else, and he held out his hand. To her.

“I beg your pardon if I’m intruding, but I should very much like the favor of a dance,” he said, and his voice was as attractive as the rest of him.

“With me?” she asked, not even trying to hide her disbelief.

“Yes. With you. If your friends don’t object.”

“Go on,” Ruthie said, nudging her sharply. “Don’t make him wait.”

“But—”

“Leave your bag. We’ll keep an eye on it.”

Ann looked to Miriam, but her friend only shrugged in that annoying French way of hers that never gave the slightest hint of what she really thought.

What else could she do but take his hand and let him lead her to the dance floor? It was a dream, a dream she’d never have conjured on her own, this moment when he set his hand at her back, his hand that was so wide she could feel the heat of it from her shoulders to her waist, and she let her hand rest on his shoulder as he pulled them into the mass of dancers, two more fish in a rushing stream, and he was still smiling at her, his teeth so white and straight, a film star come to life in her arms.

The band was playing a fox-trot, the melody unfamiliar, and she wasn’t sure, at first, how she would manage to keep up. It had been so long since she danced. But he was a wonderful dancer, so assured in his movements that he could make even the clumsiest partner appear elegant, and after a few measures her fears melted away.

They danced across the floor and back again, and though she knew she ought to try to make conversation, even if only to talk about the infernally warm weather, her voice remained trapped in her throat. She felt the muscles of his shoulder flexing beneath her touch, marveled at the way her other hand was engulfed in his strong, warm grasp.

Their movements slowed, the music faded away, and she realized the dance had come to an end. It had been a lovely interlude, but—

“Surely you aren’t going to abandon me now?” he asked, and before she could say anything they were moving again. It was “Fools Rush In,” one of her favorites.

“I love this song,” he said, bending his head to her ear. “It must have been early ’41 when I first heard it. One of the chaps in my company unearthed a gramophone and a stack of records from God only knows where, and this was one of them. We’d sit in our smelly old tent in the middle of the desert and listen to the records, night after night after night. I remember how I wondered if I’d ever have the chance to dance with a pretty girl in a ballroom again. And here I am.”

“You were in North Africa during the war?” she ventured.

“I was. Wounded at Tobruk, but they patched me up well enough. Sicily and Italy after that.”

“Are you still in the army?”

“In a manner of speaking, though I’m not really supposed to talk about it. All rather hush-hush, I’m afraid.”

“Of course,” she agreed. “Loose lips and all that.”

“See? I knew you’d understand.”

She braced herself for him to ask her a question or two in return, but he seemed content to simply listen to the music and dance. When the band played the final bars of the song, she held her breath, hoping it would be another fox-trot, or even a waltz. She still remembered how to waltz.

But it was a jitterbug, a dance that half the ballrooms in London still banned, and even if she’d been completely certain of all the steps she wouldn’t have dared to dance it with a stranger.

“Do you mind if we leave this to the younger crowd?” he asked. “I don’t much relish making a fool out of myself in front of half of London.” Taking her near hand, he tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Why don’t we get a drink before returning to our tables? In a quiet part of the room? Somewhere we can talk?” His expression, as he gazed down at her, implied that talking with her was likely to be the highlight of his evening.

He led her around the room, to the smaller of the bars under the mezzanine, and they joined the short queue. “Do you mind lemonade? I gather that’s all they have on offer tonight.”

“That’s fine. I’m not really used to anything stronger,” she admitted.

“My mother would approve. She’s always twittering on about young women and their lack of decorum. Would you believe she insists that trousers are the real problem? That was the moment, she maintains, when our civilization turned toward disaster.”