Free Barbara Metzger by Valentines Page A

“I do. I’ll show you. Just relax.”
    In his arms? Mere inches from the masculine scent of him, spices and lemons and… Dree shut her eyes, but the whole room started spinning. She giggled.
    “You’re foxed, minx. No more champagne for you. Now, listen to the count and let me guide your steps.”
    She did, and soon found herself floating on the strains of the music, in his embrace. Truly this was the most glorious night of her life, she thought. It was going to be over all too soon, of course, but at least she would have this memory.
    At the end of the music, she curtsied, he bowed, and they separated without saying a word.
    Letting Audrina go off with her next partner was the hardest thing Max had ever done. Avoiding Viola and her platter-faced misses for the next half hour was almost as difficult.
    Then came the supper dance. And it was a rollicking country air, because Vi had threatened to dismiss the orchestra if they played another waltz. Max had always intended to ask Audrina to sit out with him, to take a stroll away from the stifling ballroom toward the hallway and the empty room whose key he held. Unfortunately he’d shown he could dance, without a hint of a limp.
    “But it’s Valentine’s Day,” she reminded him. “Everyone dances. Please?”
    Oh Lud. He knew she loved to dance. He did, too, for that matter. And he desperately wanted to hold her again, even if merely to twirl her lithe young body in the figures of the dance. He reached up and patted his pate. No slippage. If he was ready to put his fate to the test, he may as well go all the way. Hell, if he was too old to dance with her, he was surely too old to wed with her!
    Everyone in their set was laughing and hopping about, dancing with joyous abandon, even the Earl of Blandford. In the face of Audrina’s pleasure, he was able to forget his own worries. Then disaster struck.
    It was a calamity so unexpected, so catastrophic, that for a moment all of Max’s battle-hardened responses fled. He stood stock-still, staring, as a stocking popped out of his partner’s bodice, sailed through the air, and unrolled itself at his feet. He shouldn’t laugh. Oh Lud, he couldn’t laugh, not once Max saw the stricken look on Audrina’s face. He’d seen less pitiable expressions on trapped hares. Gathering his wits, he scooped the silk garment into his fist, having pretended to stumble in the dance steps. He whisked the stocking into his pocket and gave Audrina a wink.
    She was still standing rigidly, though, color by turns flooding her cheeks and draining away to leave a few freckles in stark relief. Max had seen enough panicked raw recruits to know she wasn’t going to budge, not in her mortification. The other couples in their set were already starting to lose their places in the figures, bumping into each other. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed that Miss Rowe wasn’t moving, that she was, in fact, listing to starboard as it were. The poor puss couldn’t replace the stocking here, nor could she remove the other one with all eyes turning in her direction.
    With cries of “For the honor of the regiment” echoing in his mind, Max did the only thing possible. He snatched off his hairpiece, tossed it toward a row of dozing dowagers, and yelled, “Rat! Rat!”

Chapter Nine
    Viola Halbersham was never going to forgive him. She might even urge Gordie to call him out for ruining her party—if Gordie stopped laughing long enough to issue a challenge. No matter, Max thought, it was worth it. In the ensuing pandemonium, he’d been able to tug Audrina out of the ballroom with no one giving her a second glance. Everyone was too busy rushing for the exits or tending to swooning ladies.
    Max bustled Dree into a small room and locked the door behind him, blocking out the screams and shouts in the hallway. Dree turned her back to him, her shoulders shaking.
    “Ah, sweetheart, it’s not worth crying about. No one saw.”
    But she wasn’t