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WHO: Briony & Percy
WHERE: Briony's family home
WHEN: April, 1878
WHAT: a chance meeting and a dance
WARNINGS: very scandalous- an ankle is glimpsed, bare hands touch
WHERE: Briony's family home
WHEN: April, 1878
WHAT: a chance meeting and a dance
WARNINGS: very scandalous- an ankle is glimpsed, bare hands touch
The strains of stringed instruments accompanied Briony as she slipped out of the ballroom and into the hall, her skirts swishing against her legs as she furtively ducked through another door and into the east wing. She was missing the waltz, but as her partner was an ancient acquaintance of her father, she felt little regret at the lack of dancing.
The ripping of her hem had truly been an accident. The grace drilled into her from before she could walk abandoned her in the wake of being appraised like a piece of prized horseflesh while her father watched on in what could only be approval. It was no shock that catching the eye of an Earl would gain his esteem, she’d simply hoped he’d hold his support for someone less far into their dottage.
She hadn’t meant to jerk back when the Earl drew closer. His foul breath had caught her off guard, causing her foot to get caught up in the hem of her skirt and ripping the flounce at the seam. It would be difficult to say who was the most alarmed at the action: herself, the Earl, or her father.
The reddening of her father’s neck was enough to snap her to attention and make her excuses as she fled the ballroom to mend her skirt. Father was loath to make a scene in most cases. The quivering of his mustache hinted he would be amenable to making an exception in the wake of her failure.
Doubtless, she would be called to his office the next day to receive a lecture that left her feeling smaller than the tiniest ant sculking across the ground. There was no avoiding it, only delaying.
Her feet carried her to the family library as her mind fretted over the looming confrontation, letting herself into the room with a sigh. She’d left her embroidery things beside the sofa. If she fixed her hem herself, she could at least avoid the scolding from Mathers, her lady’s maid, and how hard could it be to mend a hem?
It wasn’t until she was halfway across the room that she noticed it was already occupied, causing her to stop short at the sight of a man. The lecture would turn into an outright tongue-lashing if she allowed herself to be found alone in a room with a man.
“I beg your pardon. I hadn’t—” Briony’s shoulders dropped in relief as she recognized the figure before her. Percy was hardly going to ravish her in the library. As a friend of her brother, she wasn’t entirely certain he was aware she was a woman capable of being ravished at all. “Oh, Percy,” she continued with a little laugh, pressing her hand over her racing heart, “What are you doing here? You gave me such a fright.”
At the sound of someone approaching, Percy first straightened then stilled, as if he would avoid being spotted if he simply stood unmoving. It was, naturally, an unsuccessful attempt at escaping detection, but his tension eased upon catching sight of Briony. The smile he offered was small and tentative. "I'm not here to frighten you," he reassured her, "my apologies. I thought I'd have the space to myself." The vast majority of the ball's guests were there to socialize, find someone to wed, or gossip about others attempting to socialize or marry, none of which appealed to him. He expected the library to stay deserted, and a moment of quiet, surrounded by books who had always been the most comforting of friends, had struck him as the more appealing option.
Apparently he wasn't the only one looking to hide.
His fingers trailed fondly across the spines of the books in the shelf in front of him before he turned away from them to face Briony. "I don't know," he sighed. "Reading. Hiding. Looking for a rare book to borrow. Finding the perfect book to slip a note into for the next reader to find. Trying to determine the best spot for a clandestine meeting. Pick whatever explanation you find most entertaining."
“The best spot for a clandestine meeting?” The tones of her voice were shaded with amusement at the thought. There was no denying Percy was a handsome man— he was also a man hiding in a library during a ball. She laughed lightly as she completed the walk across the room to sink into the sofa, reaching out to take hold of the sewing box she’d abandoned earlier in the day and placing it in her lap to begin searching for thread that would best match the dove grey of her gown.
“Does that mean you’ve been skulking around the manor examining rooms? Where does the library rank on your comprehensive list?” Briony glanced up, catching his eye with a mischievous smile. “Have you been to the orangery?”
Percy scoffed. "I'm a gentleman, I don't skulk," he corrected, feigning indignation. "I prefer stealthily exploring— that makes it sound like my intentions are not so nefarious." And it sounded like he was doing something far more exciting than simply hiding.
"The library was ranking high until you came in, but alas, it seems it's not quite as private as I had hoped." This was not a real complaint, and while this whole conversation was in jest, he couldn't bring himself to act like he was bothered by the intrusion. "But I have not— should I? All that glass seems like an invitation to be caught."
“Not if you stand amongst the trees,” Briony responded with an idle wave of her hand that said he should have realized as much on his own. “Though I do suppose it depends upon the manner of your assignation.” She was quite certain she wasn't meant to know what sort of meetings a man might wish to carry out in secret. She was also in possession of two older brothers who weren't half as clever at keeping things hidden as they might think.
"Those details are only for myself and the one I am meeting clandestinely so I simply cannot share with you, dreadfully sorry," Percy answered regretfully.
Needle and thread secured and gloves discarded, she leaned down to grasp her hem, then paused and looked back up at Percy. “If the sight of my ankle is likely to send you into an apoplectic fit, you'd best look away. I have to mend my skirt and I happened to leave my sewing things in your hiding room.” Thus warned, she completed her earlier action, lifting up her skirt to examine the hem. Her legs were still fully covered in the various layers required to give the gown body, revealing only the briefest hint of said ankle before settling back down to cover it.
"Mhm, thank you for the warning, I'd rather not swoon right now." Percy politely averted his gaze but he was accidentally half a second too slow. He did not, mercifully, swoon, but he still felt like he had glimpsed something he wasn't meant to and he frowned at his flash of embarrassment. "What happened to your dress?" he asked, his gaze fixed firmly on the shelves.
“You know me,” Briony said breezily, her eyes flicking up to send him a smile, only to be greeted with the back of his head. With a delicate shrug of her shoulders, she returned to frowning down at her stitches. ”Clumsy as ever.” A white lie that would have sent her dancing master into the throes of anguish, but not one that she expected Percy to have paid enough attention to catch her in. “Two left feet.”
His eyebrows shot up— not that she could see. "Objectively false," he answered automatically before he could think better of it. Sense seemed to quickly catch up to him and he fell silent, lips pursed. It was another beat before he spoke again, words soft. "I've seen you dance. You're very graceful."
Her hands stilled in the middle of a (rather messy) stitch, her eyes lifting once more to gaze upon his back. His voice didn’t hold the edge of teasing that she would have expected it to hold, coming from the same person who had dropped a frog on her head when she was seven. Though she suspected Oliver had more to do with that than Percy, in truth.
“Does one of your hiding spots overlook the ballroom, then?” Her voice rang oldly high to her ears, and, realizing she was now staring at his shoulders, she dropped her eyes back to her hem. “Don’t tell me you’re skulking in the shadowy corners of the ballroom, Percy. That’s a shade too far.”
"I have never skulked a day in my life and I'm not starting now." There was no bite to his protest, playful or otherwise; he was still caught up in embarrassment that he saw her— no, more than that, watched her. With a sigh, he turned to look over his shoulder at her. "I did start the evening in the ballroom, observing the goings on very respectfully and in full light. It's not my fault you didn't see me though perhaps I can try a taller hat next time or some very bright color, to better stand out."
“That sounds exactly like what a skulker would say.” Briony hummed thoughtfully, carefully keeping her eyes on her stitches– only half because she suspected her face might be a trifle flushed. There really was no hope for it; they weren’t going to be neat. How it was that she could stitch perfectly well when embroidering and not when fixing a ripped hem was beyond her powers of comprehension. “I can’t imagine why a perfectly respectable gentleman wouldn’t simply ask me to dance, rather than standing around observing the act from a well-lit vantage.”
The silence stretched, and with each passing second, Percy knew it would be more difficult to maintain the pretense that this was all meaningless banter— not that he could pinpoint why or how their teasing had turned into something else. "I can't either," he finally answered, voice heavy with reluctance. He had not been skulking or standing around, however one would label it, contemplating asking her to dance and now, suddenly, he was doing just that.
He turned fully to face her. "Would you like to?"
This was quickly devolving into the sort of conversation one shouldn't be having with one's skirt bunched up in one's lap. Briony neatly snipped the end of the thread; the stitches were dreadful and she'd need to hide the gown from Mathers until she could bribe Emmy or one of the other maids to fix it for her. It would hold for now, and that's what really mattered in the moment as she sent the wayward hem back fluttering down to the ground where it belonged.
“What a silly question.” She stood up from the sofa to save from needing to crane her neck, clasping her hands in front of herself as she realized her gloves had tumbled down from her sudden movement. “I love to dance,” she said with a bright smile to mask the sudden thumping in her chest. Then, because she couldn't quite help herself, she added, “I've been told I'm very graceful, you know.”
His face warmed and he let out a soft huff of a laugh. "Careful, no one has ever called me graceful. You could regret agreeing," he cautioned. Except he didn't actually want her to change her mind, even though it struck him as silly to care at all about whether they danced.
He tilted his head towards the door. "Shall we return to the ballroom?" he asked before giving her time to actually consider refuting the offer to dance. "Or here, as a way to determine if your mending holds up?" No other reason.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the danger of allowing men to know she had ankles, even if the man in question was someone she'd known for what felt like her entire life. Percy had certainly never expressed so much as the slightest interest in dancing with her before the revelation.
Briony clocked her head to the side, a twitch of her lips the only indication of her consideration, and immediate dismissal, of telling him she hadn't yet agreed to dance with him. There was a limit to their teasing, and she found she had no interest in surpassing it and wiping the softness from his face. “Are you doubting my mending abilities?” She asked in a serious voice, stepping closer toward him. “That won’t do. I suppose we’ll have to dance here so you don’t fret over my hem. Though…” Her voice trailed off as she looked around the room as if only making the realization. “There’s no music, so you’ll have to hum.”
"Very sensible," Percy answered with a nod. "I am prone to fretting, and I have no real knowledge of your mending abilities that I can rely on to soothe my nerves." He hadn't expected her to say yes to dancing here— this seemed more borderline inappropriate than that fleeting glimpse beneath her skirts— but he offered her his hand nonetheless. They were— friends seemed like a strong word but they had known each other for years, she surely knew he would never intentionally tarnish her reputation, and there was no one around to witness this minor indiscretion anyway. "And rest assured, no one has insulted my humming— though in all honesty, no one has complimented it either."
“I suppose it falls to me to be the judge,” she said gravely, placing her gloveless hand in his. It would be difficult to narrow down which aspect of this would be the most disastrous if they were found, and that was without the imaginary intruder knowing about her ankle. Of course, it was all terribly innocent. Declan and Oliver sent their friends over to dance with her all the time. This was no different… other than the location and the reason behind his offer… and their hands were shamelessly uncovered. “I will tell you true, be it compliment or complaint.”
He nodded once more. "Thank you, your honesty is all I ask," he answered solemnly, placing a free hand on his chest in a show of sincerity (he could swear he could feel his pulse beneath his palm, and he quickly moved it to her back.) He hummed experimentally, all music eluding him for a moment until he recalled a piece from earlier in the night.
He smiled and despite his sudden and inexplicable feeling of shyness, began to lead her around the library. His steps were cautious at first and he was distracted by self-consciousness over their unconventional and practically scandalous waltz. The dance felt so much more intimate here without anyone to witness it. Fortunately, muscle memory soon took over though that did little to slow his overthinking.
The library had never been a room she considered the relative merits of dancing within. She would have assumed there wouldn’t be enough space to glide through the steps properly. Instead, the space opened up without the crush of other dancers filling it, while the silence made the sound of her skirts and her unexpected partner’s hum sound loudly in her ears.
Briony found herself oddly tongue-tied as he swept her around the room. It was expected to make conversation during a dance, being one of the few times one might be alone with a potential suitor. Of course, Percy wasn’t a suitor, even if he was behaving strangely, and so she didn’t press herself to make inane conversation.
Eventually, the song came to an end and they stilled. Words continued to elude her as she found herself looking up into his blue eyes, standing much too close as they’d not yet dropped their dance position. Briony strongly suspected her breathlessness had little to do with the dance and much to do with the man with whom she’d shared it.
After a beat she blinked, then stepped back, smiling widely at him as she did. “My mending held just fine,” she said with a little laugh, turning from him to press her hand against her stomach in a vain attempt to stop the fluttering within it. “And now I must return before I’m missed.” She crossed the room back to the sofa and sank down to fetch her abandoned gloves, sliding them on quickly. “And you’ll have your private room to hide within once more.”
Percy's brow furrowed before he recalled that right, this dance was an excuse to test her mending. "I'll hide for a little longer, lest anyone see us emerging together and get the wrong impression." Stupidly, frustratingly, he felt himself flush, just slightly— embarrassing as a dance shouldn't have been noteworthy. "And then it's time to inspect the orangery, to see how that ranks against the library."
He watched her ready herself and he couldn't say whether he was disappointed or relieved that she was leaving. No matter, it wasn't a feeling he intended to inspect. "And I'm sorry for doubting your sewing for even a moment." He had meant to tease her but his tone was wrong, too serious. "You do owe me an assessment on my humming before you go though."
“It was the best example of humming in three/fourths time I’ve ever personally witnessed.” Her voice rang out teasingly, though she didn’t risk more than a quick glance over her shoulder at him as she spoke. The somewhat belated realization of the intimacy of the moment between them left her itching with the urge to flee. Her hands continued to pluck at her gloves. “I’m afraid you might have missed your calling.”
He snorted a laugh. "Alas, too late for a career change, I fear, but I can tell my captain you said that so I can regale my next crew with my humming." He wasn't sure he could think of anything more mortifying but perhaps the mental image of him earnestly performing for a crowd of sailors would make Briony laugh.
But he shouldn't keep her for any longer.
"I hope you enjoy your evening though. Perhaps I'll see you inside."
“I’ll keep my eye open for anyone skulking in the shadows,” Briony said somberly, keeping the quick flash of her grin to herself as she walked to the door, pausing to add, “Enjoy the orangery,” before she let herself out into the hall.
With the door closed behind her with a soft snick, she pressed her hand against her mouth to muffle the slightly hysterical-sounding giggle that escaped her mouth. Who would have thought the night would lead to a waltz in the library? Perhaps the Mamas spoke about this when they warned against allowing a man to draw oneself from the crowd? All the more reason she should return herself to the ballroom. She smoothed out her skirts, then put thought to action.
The ripping of her hem had truly been an accident. The grace drilled into her from before she could walk abandoned her in the wake of being appraised like a piece of prized horseflesh while her father watched on in what could only be approval. It was no shock that catching the eye of an Earl would gain his esteem, she’d simply hoped he’d hold his support for someone less far into their dottage.
She hadn’t meant to jerk back when the Earl drew closer. His foul breath had caught her off guard, causing her foot to get caught up in the hem of her skirt and ripping the flounce at the seam. It would be difficult to say who was the most alarmed at the action: herself, the Earl, or her father.
The reddening of her father’s neck was enough to snap her to attention and make her excuses as she fled the ballroom to mend her skirt. Father was loath to make a scene in most cases. The quivering of his mustache hinted he would be amenable to making an exception in the wake of her failure.
Doubtless, she would be called to his office the next day to receive a lecture that left her feeling smaller than the tiniest ant sculking across the ground. There was no avoiding it, only delaying.
Her feet carried her to the family library as her mind fretted over the looming confrontation, letting herself into the room with a sigh. She’d left her embroidery things beside the sofa. If she fixed her hem herself, she could at least avoid the scolding from Mathers, her lady’s maid, and how hard could it be to mend a hem?
It wasn’t until she was halfway across the room that she noticed it was already occupied, causing her to stop short at the sight of a man. The lecture would turn into an outright tongue-lashing if she allowed herself to be found alone in a room with a man.
“I beg your pardon. I hadn’t—” Briony’s shoulders dropped in relief as she recognized the figure before her. Percy was hardly going to ravish her in the library. As a friend of her brother, she wasn’t entirely certain he was aware she was a woman capable of being ravished at all. “Oh, Percy,” she continued with a little laugh, pressing her hand over her racing heart, “What are you doing here? You gave me such a fright.”
At the sound of someone approaching, Percy first straightened then stilled, as if he would avoid being spotted if he simply stood unmoving. It was, naturally, an unsuccessful attempt at escaping detection, but his tension eased upon catching sight of Briony. The smile he offered was small and tentative. "I'm not here to frighten you," he reassured her, "my apologies. I thought I'd have the space to myself." The vast majority of the ball's guests were there to socialize, find someone to wed, or gossip about others attempting to socialize or marry, none of which appealed to him. He expected the library to stay deserted, and a moment of quiet, surrounded by books who had always been the most comforting of friends, had struck him as the more appealing option.
Apparently he wasn't the only one looking to hide.
His fingers trailed fondly across the spines of the books in the shelf in front of him before he turned away from them to face Briony. "I don't know," he sighed. "Reading. Hiding. Looking for a rare book to borrow. Finding the perfect book to slip a note into for the next reader to find. Trying to determine the best spot for a clandestine meeting. Pick whatever explanation you find most entertaining."
“The best spot for a clandestine meeting?” The tones of her voice were shaded with amusement at the thought. There was no denying Percy was a handsome man— he was also a man hiding in a library during a ball. She laughed lightly as she completed the walk across the room to sink into the sofa, reaching out to take hold of the sewing box she’d abandoned earlier in the day and placing it in her lap to begin searching for thread that would best match the dove grey of her gown.
“Does that mean you’ve been skulking around the manor examining rooms? Where does the library rank on your comprehensive list?” Briony glanced up, catching his eye with a mischievous smile. “Have you been to the orangery?”
Percy scoffed. "I'm a gentleman, I don't skulk," he corrected, feigning indignation. "I prefer stealthily exploring— that makes it sound like my intentions are not so nefarious." And it sounded like he was doing something far more exciting than simply hiding.
"The library was ranking high until you came in, but alas, it seems it's not quite as private as I had hoped." This was not a real complaint, and while this whole conversation was in jest, he couldn't bring himself to act like he was bothered by the intrusion. "But I have not— should I? All that glass seems like an invitation to be caught."
“Not if you stand amongst the trees,” Briony responded with an idle wave of her hand that said he should have realized as much on his own. “Though I do suppose it depends upon the manner of your assignation.” She was quite certain she wasn't meant to know what sort of meetings a man might wish to carry out in secret. She was also in possession of two older brothers who weren't half as clever at keeping things hidden as they might think.
"Those details are only for myself and the one I am meeting clandestinely so I simply cannot share with you, dreadfully sorry," Percy answered regretfully.
Needle and thread secured and gloves discarded, she leaned down to grasp her hem, then paused and looked back up at Percy. “If the sight of my ankle is likely to send you into an apoplectic fit, you'd best look away. I have to mend my skirt and I happened to leave my sewing things in your hiding room.” Thus warned, she completed her earlier action, lifting up her skirt to examine the hem. Her legs were still fully covered in the various layers required to give the gown body, revealing only the briefest hint of said ankle before settling back down to cover it.
"Mhm, thank you for the warning, I'd rather not swoon right now." Percy politely averted his gaze but he was accidentally half a second too slow. He did not, mercifully, swoon, but he still felt like he had glimpsed something he wasn't meant to and he frowned at his flash of embarrassment. "What happened to your dress?" he asked, his gaze fixed firmly on the shelves.
“You know me,” Briony said breezily, her eyes flicking up to send him a smile, only to be greeted with the back of his head. With a delicate shrug of her shoulders, she returned to frowning down at her stitches. ”Clumsy as ever.” A white lie that would have sent her dancing master into the throes of anguish, but not one that she expected Percy to have paid enough attention to catch her in. “Two left feet.”
His eyebrows shot up— not that she could see. "Objectively false," he answered automatically before he could think better of it. Sense seemed to quickly catch up to him and he fell silent, lips pursed. It was another beat before he spoke again, words soft. "I've seen you dance. You're very graceful."
Her hands stilled in the middle of a (rather messy) stitch, her eyes lifting once more to gaze upon his back. His voice didn’t hold the edge of teasing that she would have expected it to hold, coming from the same person who had dropped a frog on her head when she was seven. Though she suspected Oliver had more to do with that than Percy, in truth.
“Does one of your hiding spots overlook the ballroom, then?” Her voice rang oldly high to her ears, and, realizing she was now staring at his shoulders, she dropped her eyes back to her hem. “Don’t tell me you’re skulking in the shadowy corners of the ballroom, Percy. That’s a shade too far.”
"I have never skulked a day in my life and I'm not starting now." There was no bite to his protest, playful or otherwise; he was still caught up in embarrassment that he saw her— no, more than that, watched her. With a sigh, he turned to look over his shoulder at her. "I did start the evening in the ballroom, observing the goings on very respectfully and in full light. It's not my fault you didn't see me though perhaps I can try a taller hat next time or some very bright color, to better stand out."
“That sounds exactly like what a skulker would say.” Briony hummed thoughtfully, carefully keeping her eyes on her stitches– only half because she suspected her face might be a trifle flushed. There really was no hope for it; they weren’t going to be neat. How it was that she could stitch perfectly well when embroidering and not when fixing a ripped hem was beyond her powers of comprehension. “I can’t imagine why a perfectly respectable gentleman wouldn’t simply ask me to dance, rather than standing around observing the act from a well-lit vantage.”
The silence stretched, and with each passing second, Percy knew it would be more difficult to maintain the pretense that this was all meaningless banter— not that he could pinpoint why or how their teasing had turned into something else. "I can't either," he finally answered, voice heavy with reluctance. He had not been skulking or standing around, however one would label it, contemplating asking her to dance and now, suddenly, he was doing just that.
He turned fully to face her. "Would you like to?"
This was quickly devolving into the sort of conversation one shouldn't be having with one's skirt bunched up in one's lap. Briony neatly snipped the end of the thread; the stitches were dreadful and she'd need to hide the gown from Mathers until she could bribe Emmy or one of the other maids to fix it for her. It would hold for now, and that's what really mattered in the moment as she sent the wayward hem back fluttering down to the ground where it belonged.
“What a silly question.” She stood up from the sofa to save from needing to crane her neck, clasping her hands in front of herself as she realized her gloves had tumbled down from her sudden movement. “I love to dance,” she said with a bright smile to mask the sudden thumping in her chest. Then, because she couldn't quite help herself, she added, “I've been told I'm very graceful, you know.”
His face warmed and he let out a soft huff of a laugh. "Careful, no one has ever called me graceful. You could regret agreeing," he cautioned. Except he didn't actually want her to change her mind, even though it struck him as silly to care at all about whether they danced.
He tilted his head towards the door. "Shall we return to the ballroom?" he asked before giving her time to actually consider refuting the offer to dance. "Or here, as a way to determine if your mending holds up?" No other reason.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the danger of allowing men to know she had ankles, even if the man in question was someone she'd known for what felt like her entire life. Percy had certainly never expressed so much as the slightest interest in dancing with her before the revelation.
Briony clocked her head to the side, a twitch of her lips the only indication of her consideration, and immediate dismissal, of telling him she hadn't yet agreed to dance with him. There was a limit to their teasing, and she found she had no interest in surpassing it and wiping the softness from his face. “Are you doubting my mending abilities?” She asked in a serious voice, stepping closer toward him. “That won’t do. I suppose we’ll have to dance here so you don’t fret over my hem. Though…” Her voice trailed off as she looked around the room as if only making the realization. “There’s no music, so you’ll have to hum.”
"Very sensible," Percy answered with a nod. "I am prone to fretting, and I have no real knowledge of your mending abilities that I can rely on to soothe my nerves." He hadn't expected her to say yes to dancing here— this seemed more borderline inappropriate than that fleeting glimpse beneath her skirts— but he offered her his hand nonetheless. They were— friends seemed like a strong word but they had known each other for years, she surely knew he would never intentionally tarnish her reputation, and there was no one around to witness this minor indiscretion anyway. "And rest assured, no one has insulted my humming— though in all honesty, no one has complimented it either."
“I suppose it falls to me to be the judge,” she said gravely, placing her gloveless hand in his. It would be difficult to narrow down which aspect of this would be the most disastrous if they were found, and that was without the imaginary intruder knowing about her ankle. Of course, it was all terribly innocent. Declan and Oliver sent their friends over to dance with her all the time. This was no different… other than the location and the reason behind his offer… and their hands were shamelessly uncovered. “I will tell you true, be it compliment or complaint.”
He nodded once more. "Thank you, your honesty is all I ask," he answered solemnly, placing a free hand on his chest in a show of sincerity (he could swear he could feel his pulse beneath his palm, and he quickly moved it to her back.) He hummed experimentally, all music eluding him for a moment until he recalled a piece from earlier in the night.
He smiled and despite his sudden and inexplicable feeling of shyness, began to lead her around the library. His steps were cautious at first and he was distracted by self-consciousness over their unconventional and practically scandalous waltz. The dance felt so much more intimate here without anyone to witness it. Fortunately, muscle memory soon took over though that did little to slow his overthinking.
The library had never been a room she considered the relative merits of dancing within. She would have assumed there wouldn’t be enough space to glide through the steps properly. Instead, the space opened up without the crush of other dancers filling it, while the silence made the sound of her skirts and her unexpected partner’s hum sound loudly in her ears.
Briony found herself oddly tongue-tied as he swept her around the room. It was expected to make conversation during a dance, being one of the few times one might be alone with a potential suitor. Of course, Percy wasn’t a suitor, even if he was behaving strangely, and so she didn’t press herself to make inane conversation.
Eventually, the song came to an end and they stilled. Words continued to elude her as she found herself looking up into his blue eyes, standing much too close as they’d not yet dropped their dance position. Briony strongly suspected her breathlessness had little to do with the dance and much to do with the man with whom she’d shared it.
After a beat she blinked, then stepped back, smiling widely at him as she did. “My mending held just fine,” she said with a little laugh, turning from him to press her hand against her stomach in a vain attempt to stop the fluttering within it. “And now I must return before I’m missed.” She crossed the room back to the sofa and sank down to fetch her abandoned gloves, sliding them on quickly. “And you’ll have your private room to hide within once more.”
Percy's brow furrowed before he recalled that right, this dance was an excuse to test her mending. "I'll hide for a little longer, lest anyone see us emerging together and get the wrong impression." Stupidly, frustratingly, he felt himself flush, just slightly— embarrassing as a dance shouldn't have been noteworthy. "And then it's time to inspect the orangery, to see how that ranks against the library."
He watched her ready herself and he couldn't say whether he was disappointed or relieved that she was leaving. No matter, it wasn't a feeling he intended to inspect. "And I'm sorry for doubting your sewing for even a moment." He had meant to tease her but his tone was wrong, too serious. "You do owe me an assessment on my humming before you go though."
“It was the best example of humming in three/fourths time I’ve ever personally witnessed.” Her voice rang out teasingly, though she didn’t risk more than a quick glance over her shoulder at him as she spoke. The somewhat belated realization of the intimacy of the moment between them left her itching with the urge to flee. Her hands continued to pluck at her gloves. “I’m afraid you might have missed your calling.”
He snorted a laugh. "Alas, too late for a career change, I fear, but I can tell my captain you said that so I can regale my next crew with my humming." He wasn't sure he could think of anything more mortifying but perhaps the mental image of him earnestly performing for a crowd of sailors would make Briony laugh.
But he shouldn't keep her for any longer.
"I hope you enjoy your evening though. Perhaps I'll see you inside."
“I’ll keep my eye open for anyone skulking in the shadows,” Briony said somberly, keeping the quick flash of her grin to herself as she walked to the door, pausing to add, “Enjoy the orangery,” before she let herself out into the hall.
With the door closed behind her with a soft snick, she pressed her hand against her mouth to muffle the slightly hysterical-sounding giggle that escaped her mouth. Who would have thought the night would lead to a waltz in the library? Perhaps the Mamas spoke about this when they warned against allowing a man to draw oneself from the crowd? All the more reason she should return herself to the ballroom. She smoothed out her skirts, then put thought to action.
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