The Courtship Dance. Candace Camp

garden at Dancy Park. The sun was warm upon her back, and the air was redolent with the scent of roses. In the golden light, flowers bloomed in a riot of color: purple larkspur, white and yellow snapdragons, the huge pink and red bursts of peonies, and everywhere roses in all shades, climbing trellises and spilling over walls. A breeze ruffled the flowers, sending their heads nodding and petals floating on the air.

      “Francesca.”

      She turned, and there was Rochford. The sun was behind him, and she could not see his features clearly, but she knew his voice, his form, the way he walked toward her. She smiled, emotion welling up in her.

      “I saw you from my study,” he went on, coming closer to her.

      His face was all angles and planes; she wanted to trace her fingertips along them. In the sunlight, his dark eyes were lighter than they appeared indoors, the irises the color of warm chocolate surrounding the coal-black of the pupils. Her eyes went to his mouth, firm and well-defined. His lips, she thought, looked succulent, and at the idea, something twisted in her abdomen, hot and slow.

      “Sinclair.” His name was no more than a breath upon her lips. Her chest tightened, her throat closing up as it often did when he was near. He was as familiar to her as this garden or this house, and yet whenever she was around him these days, she was as skittish and eager, as thrumming with energy, as if she had never seen him before.

      He raised his hand, cupping her cheek in his palm. His hand was hard, and warmer than even the sun’s caress. His thumb smoothed its way across her cheek and brushed against her mouth. Featherlight, he traced the line of her lips, and the exquisitely sensitive flesh blazed to life beneath his touch.

      Tendrils of heat twined through her body, tangling deep in her loins. A pulse sprang to life between her legs, surprising her, and she drew a quick breath.

      She watched in anticipation as he lowered his head to hers, finally closing her eyes in sweet surrender as their lips joined. His hand upon her cheek was suddenly searing. He wrapped his other arm around her, pressing her into his body, his hard flesh sinking into her softness.

      Francesca was aware of her heart thudding like a wild thing in her chest, and her insides seemed to be made of molten wax. His lips pressed against hers, opening her mouth. An unexpected, unknown hunger roared through her, and she squeezed her legs together against the ache that blossomed there. She trembled all over, heat surging in her, yearning for something that seemed just beyond her reach.

      Her eyes flew open, and Francesca lay in the dark, staring blindly up at the tester above her bed. Her chest heaved, and her skin was damp with sweat. Her heart thundered within her, and there was a sweet, aching warmth between her legs. For a moment she was lost, unsure of where she was or what had happened.

      Then she realized. She…had been dreaming.

      A trifle shakily, she sat up, glancing around her as though to make certain that she was still in her bedroom at home. The dream had been so vivid, so real….

      She shivered and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. The air was cool against her damp skin. She had dreamed of Rochford in his garden at Dancy Park before they came to London for her first Season. Had it been the youthful Rochford she had seen? She could not remember exactly how his face had looked.

      She could remember quite clearly the sensations the dream had caused, however; they quivered in her still. She closed her eyes, drifting for a moment in the unaccustomed feelings. It was so odd, so unlike her, to have that sort of dream, drenched with heat and hunger. Again she shivered.

      She felt, she thought, incomplete…aching for she knew not what, caught in a void between emptiness and wonder.

      Was this, she thought, desire? Did it always leave a woman feeling this way—alone and unsure whether she wanted to smile or cry? She remembered the inchoate longing that had once kept her awake at night, thinking of Sinclair and his kisses, daydreaming about the day when she would belong to him.

      She had known nothing then of what “belonging” to a man entailed. She had found that out on her wedding night as Andrew drunkenly pawed her, shoving up her nightgown and running his hands over her. Francesca remembered the humiliation of his looking at her naked body, the sudden fear that she had made a terrible mistake.

      Her husband had leered down at her as he unbuttoned his breeches and shoved them down, his manhood springing from its restraint, red and pulsing. Horrified, she had closed her eyes as he pushed her legs apart and climbed between them. Then he had thrust into her, tearing her tender flesh, and she had cried out in pain. But he had been unheeding, continuing to shove himself into her again and again, until at last he collapsed on top of her, hot and damp with sweat.

      It had taken her a moment to realize that he had fallen asleep that way, and she had needed to wriggle and squirm her way out from beneath him. Then she had pulled her nightdress back down over her naked body and turned away from him, curling up into a ball and giving way to sobs.

      The next morning Andrew had apologized for causing her pain, assuring her that it was only the first time that hurt a woman. In the light of day, she had hoped that it would get better. Had not her mother hinted, in her tight-lipped way, about getting the worst out of the way on the wedding night? Francesca had not known what she meant, but clearly that must have been it. Besides, Andrew had been drunk from the wedding feast. Surely he would be more tender, more loving, when he had not been drinking. And now that she knew what was involved, it would not be so frightening or embarrassing.

      She had been wrong, of course. It had not been as painful, that was true. But there had been none of the sweet eagerness, none of the glowing happiness, that she had once believed would await her in marriage. There had been only the same feeling of awkwardness and humiliation as he ran his hands over her, squeezing her breasts and shoving his fingers between her legs. She had endured the same harsh thrusting into her tender flesh, leaving her bruised and battered. And her tears had flowed the same afterwards—except that this time Andrew had been awake to hear her, and had wound up cursing and leaving her bed.

      It had never improved in any real way. As time passed, it did not hurt as much—sometimes only a little and sometimes not at all. But it was always uncomfortable and humiliating. And, she found, Andrew was more often drunk than otherwise. She dreaded his coming to her bed, his breath stinking of port, his hands grabbing at her breasts and buttocks, his body invading hers in rough, jarring thrusts.

      She had learned to close her eyes and turn her head away, to think of something else as she lay beneath him, and before long it would be over. Andrew would curse her for her lifelessness and call her cold as ice. The cheapest whore gave him a better ride than she did, he told her bitterly, and if she complained to him about his faithlessness, he reminded her that he would not have to turn to a mistress if she were a real woman.

      Francesca wished that she could deny his words. But she suspected that he was right, that she was not like other women. She had heard other married women talk and giggle over what happened in bed or how virile their husbands were. She had heard whispers behind fans of the prowess of a certain man and murmurs praising the form of this fellow or that, speculations regarding some lord’s performance beneath the sheets. Other women, apparently, enjoyed the marital bed rather than dreading it.

      She had wondered if something had died within her when Rochford broke her heart. However, she also could not help but wonder if Rochford had perhaps sensed the coldness that dwelt within her, even before they married, and that it had been her lack of passion that had driven him into Daphne’s arms. She had assumed that it was gentlemanly restraint that had kept him from trying to sneak into some corner to kiss and caress her. But what if he had not done so simply because he realized that she was as cold as a fish?

      At least she would get children out of it all, she had told herself, but even there, she had been wrong. Six months into their marriage, she had gotten pregnant. Four months later, as she and Andrew had been arguing about his gambling losses, he had grabbed her arm as she stormed away from him. She had jerked herself free and stumbled backward, crashing into the railing at the top of the stairs and falling down several steps. Within hours, she had miscarried, and her doctor, frowning, had warned