Rebel Magisters (Rebel Mechanics #2)(67)

I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath and looked up to find that Henry was now the one who held me. “I really can’t allow my staff to be treated in such a way,” he said with a crooked smile and raised eyebrow. “I shall have to give Verity extra pay for subjecting her to the torture of that dance.”

Henry’s waltz was still stately, since that was the only way to dance to that music, but I didn’t get the impression that he was mocking anyone. He was merely dancing, steering me carefully around the furniture. I’d danced with him once before, at the ball at the governor’s house. Then I’d been intensely conscious of our surroundings and the fact that we were planning to warn the Mechanics of an impending raid as soon as we were able to get away from the ball.

Now, though, it was just us and Henry’s two friends, and soon I even forgot about the friends. It felt like we were alone together in a world where we both belonged. When the music ended, it broke the spell. Both of us stood there, blinking. I knew I was coming back to the parlor and the reality of the separate worlds in which we lived. Henry looked equally lost, but I couldn’t read his face to tell what he was thinking.

“I don’t suppose you have a different reel for this thing,” Philip said. “Something more lively.”

Henry blinked again and released me, stepping away as though just then realizing that we’d been standing there in each other’s arms for what had seemed like hours. “Oh, yes, um, in the cabinet there. They were supposed to be sorted, but I have no idea what the children might have done. Flora likes recordings of the works she’s learning to play, so there’s a lot of piano music.”

The reel Philip found was still more piano music, but it was a jaunty polka. He spun around the room with an imaginary partner as the rest of us laughed. Henry glanced at me, raising an eyebrow in invitation, and I smiled as I took his hand and let him lead me. I had little experience with this dance, so I stumbled and trod on his feet far too often, and soon we were both laughing so hard we couldn’t dance any longer. I leaned against his shoulder, making sure it was the uninjured one, to catch my breath, and then I didn’t want to move, but I knew I had to.

Hoping the flush on my cheeks would be attributed to my dancing, I forced myself to back away from him. “Oh my, I haven’t danced like that, ever,” I said, fanning myself with my hand. Geoffrey filled a glass for me, but I shook my head. My wits were already addled enough. Champagne would not help matters. “And it is getting very late for me, so if you gentlemen will excuse me?”

I felt like I barely had to walk up the stairs to my room. I seemed to float upward on a cloud of bliss at the memory of being in Henry’s arms like that. I knew it couldn’t go much beyond that unless we managed to change things, but we’d made some important steps. Maybe there was hope for us.

*

Henry was more social the next couple of days than I’d ever known him to be. He had a constant stream of visitors in the few hours he was home. The rest of the time, he was visiting friends, and he even went out on Saturday night. Sunday, we barely made it out of church, there were so many people wanting to greet him, and he was out again that evening.

He was in high spirits at breakfast Monday morning and agreed to walk Rollo to school, much to Rollo’s glee and Olive’s dismay. “May I come with you?” she asked.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” Henry said. “I have an appointment near Rollo’s school, so I won’t be coming back home until later, and you would find this appointment terribly dull.”

“We will have more time for lessons,” I said. Olive was the rare child for whom that sounded like a treat, and Henry gave me a grateful smile.

He didn’t come home again until late that afternoon, after I’d already retrieved Rollo from school and had turned all the children over to the music teacher. I was on the upstairs landing when he came bursting through the front door and ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

When he reached the landing, he grabbed me around the waist, picked me up, and spun me around. “We did it!” he exclaimed, keeping his voice too low to carry far, though his enthusiasm was still evident.

“Did what?” I inquired, a trifle dizzy either from the spin or from being in his arms like that.

He pulled me aside into the doorway of the nearest room, an unused bedroom. “It’s not just the young people anymore. There’s an earl who wants to form committees and create a colonial congress. That’s the first step toward having our own government.”

“An earl?”

“Yes! He’s one of the baron’s friends, and he was the one who asked to meet with me. Of course, there are details to be worked out, but this is proof that it’s not just the dream of some crazy kids. If we do form a congress, I want to make sure everyone’s represented. I wonder if there’s anyone among the Mechanics who might be statesman material. Are they all students?”

“I don’t really know. I’ll have to ask next time I see them.”

“Of course, that’s if they’re willing to throw in with us. They might still be leery of us and of any enterprise with an earl in charge.” For a moment, his grin faded, but it was soon back again. “We did it, Verity! That article did exactly what we hoped it would. Now we can start taking definite steps. This may really happen!”