‘Yes, of course, Lieu tenant, but only inside this room,’ Julia assured him gravely, suppressing her own giggles. ‘Why don’t you go and get changed, and I will see what I can do with your deportment—and Major Carlow’s.’ She turned to look at Hal. ‘Are we trying for humorous effect or realism?’
There should be awkwardness between them, but despite the quivering sense of awareness, as though her skin was bare, she was managing to keep up a bland façade in front of these men. She supposed Hal was too. Or perhaps that kiss was simply not of importance to him.
‘Humour,’ he said gravely; she wondered how he managed to look so very masculine despite his attire.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, making the others laugh. Lieu tenant Hayden stumbled in after a few minutes, red in the face and making a ludicrous woman. ‘Now, ladies, stand up straight, shoulders back—no, not like that, Lieutenant, you are not on parade. Like this.’
She walked up and down while they studied her. ‘Small steps, you see? And hold your skirts up, just a very little. You do not want to show your ankles.’
‘They aren’t swaying much,’ the big man remarked, regarding the rear view of his colleagues as they minced up and down the room.
‘What kind of ladies are they, Captain Grey? Respectable ones?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then they need to glide, not sway,’ she said repressively. ‘Like this.’
Half an hour later, neither man was clomping any more and Hal, at least, could unfurl a fan with dextrous grace. Julia considered that he showed altogether too good a facility with a fan—learned, no doubt, in dubious circumstances. ‘I must go,’ she said, hearing the clock strike twelve. ‘I had quite lost track of time.’
‘Let me show you out.’ Hal emerged from the other room, dressed as a man again.
‘Thank you. Gentlemen, good luck with your entertainment.’
They bowed and thanked her and she left, feeling happily that she had made friends.
‘What are you doing here?’ Hal demanded, when they were out in the corridor again. ‘They will not talk about seeing you, by the way; you have my word on it.’
‘I know.’ She smiled, finding that, after all, it was possible to be alone with him without embarrassment. ‘I liked them all very much. Do you often do this sort of thing?’
‘Dress up as a woman? No, I am happy to say. Although we are in the habit of regimental entertainments from our days in the Peninsula. But what are you doing here?’
‘Lady Geraldine asked me to persuade Madame Catalani to sing at her reception for the duke. She wrote to her and received a refusal, and now Lady Geraldine is unwell and cannot deal with it herself.’
‘Come along then. Where’s her dressing room?’
‘It is just down here. You will help me?’ Julia looked up at him, ‘Oh, thank you. I was so nervous.’ And I should be nervous of you, she thought as Hal smiled back and her heart skipped a beat. There was a shadow behind those smiling eyes: he had not for got ten the forest glade.
‘Of course I will help you.’ He stopped, just as they turned the corner, and took her hand. ‘Julia, am I forgiven for…for the picnic?’
‘When you kissed me,’ she managed to say without stumbling over the word, ‘I should have told you not to. But I kissed you back. I do not know why, but it was very wrong of me.’ He started to protest, but she shook her head. ‘No, I should have known better, especially when you warned me that you are a rake. As for the carriage drive, it is I who should beg your pardon,’ she murmured, looking down so that she was not staring up into those troubling eyes. Then she found that she was looking at his big brown hand enveloping hers, and that was equally troubling. ‘I should not have spoken so sharply when you were only trying to help me.’
‘You had experienced a long and rather difficult day,’ Hal said, the bitter edge to the words making her flinch.
‘Parts of it were difficult,’ Julia agreed. ‘I enjoyed others.’ She could feel herself blushing. ‘The picnic and the forest and the views were all delightful,’ she added hastily, in case he thought she was referring to that shattering embrace.
‘I enjoyed parts too,’ Hal said. Her fingers were still in his grasp and, although he was not holding her tightly, somehow they had become meshed with his.
‘We had better find the right door,’ Julia said, a little breath less.
‘Mm,’ Hal agreed, not moving. ‘May I ask you something?’ He began to play with her fingers.
‘Yes.’ Then Julia thought about it. ‘But I will not promise to answer.’
He laughed, and she looked up and smiled in return. ‘Wise woman. I just wanted to know: is it very tiresome, being so well-behaved?’ Julia stared. ‘My younger sister, Verity, is good because her spirits are crushed if everyone does not think well of her. And she is very, very innocent and trusting, so it does not occur to her to get into scrapes. My elder sister, Honoria, was extremely fast—’ He broke off, perhaps reading Julia’s thoughts on her face. ‘Yes, like me, but not as wicked. She’s married now—happily, I believe—to a man as wild and unconventional as she is.
‘But you, I think, are good, because you know you should be and it is your duty to be well-behaved.’
‘You sound as though that makes me an exotic creature, difficult to under stand,’ Julia said, puzzled.