Love in Three-Quarter Time by Dina Sleiman Page A

Years ago, Mother had added a thick lavender sash to lower the waist nearer to the latest style, but then the trend had changed to a waist just beneath the bust this season and to a higher, wider skirt this dress could never attain. Constance surrendered. The dress would simply have to suffice.
    Taking one last moment to run her hand along the textured black-and-white pattern of the wallpaper in her appointed bedchamber, Constance sighed in delight. Mrs. Beaumont had insisted on housing her more as a guest than a servant for the sake of her mother. And if Constance didn’t know better, she would think she had finally come home. So much space, open and bright from the massive windows.
    Stepping into the expansive hallway, Constance stretched her arms wide and breathed in the scent of magnolias. For a moment all her issues with high society and plantation life vaporized into the air as she danced her way along the polished hardwood floor. Her steps melted into the soothing three-four cadence of the waltz. She spun around the corner toward the mammoth curving stairwell.
    And there crashed against a solid object in the center of the hallway.
    She let out a most unladylike shriek, echoing back to her hoyden days. Still dizzy from spinning and reeling from the collision, she couldn’t make out the obstruction blocking her path. Strong hands grasped her forearms and steadied her before she toppled. The feel of them brought comfort and warmth, as if Prince Charming had come to whisk her away to the ball. The last time she experienced such a sensation was when…She shoved the thought away.
    But as the haze cleared, she looked up into a pair of stunning blue eyes precisely as she had on that fateful evening long ago. “You!”
    A sardonic smile lit Robbie’s face. “You. I heard from the twins that a Miss Cavendish had come from Richmond. I thought surely it must be someone else.” He chuckled, although not entirely with mirth. A smear of dirt accented the hollow under his chiseled cheekbone. Once upon a time, Constance would have brushed it away.
    He raked grimy fingers through his disheveled black hair, still as silky and waving as she remembered it. “But of course it is you. Who else would come barging around a corner so, as if the world must part way like the Red Sea to let her eminence pass?”
    â€œI…I…” She did not know what to say to that. Gingersnap, belle of the ball, deserved such an indictment. But Constance had changed.
    He laughed again, this time more of a snicker. “I thought as much. Not all of us stand at your beck and call, Madam Temptress. Your spell over me was broken long ago.”
    How dare he stand in this hall and mock her? He was the one who abandoned her—in her hour of need, no less. Seething anger seeped through her veins. That emotion, she could manage. Constance found her words. “Broken along with my bank account?”
    â€œIf only you knew.” He shook his head.
    In his eyes she spied…sadness? Disappointment? She did not know what to make of that. “I’m sorry to intrude upon you, sir. This is a shock to both of us, I assure you. I assumed you would be at your own plantation—or gone as usual.”
    â€œI recently returned. And I’m staying here as you can see. Mother wrote that a dance master would be coming, but I assumed him a man and had no idea it might be an old…acquaintance. I should know by now to correspond with Mary about such issues. Mother would leave her head on the nightstand if not for Mary’s charts and schedules.”
    Constance’s thoughts, so recently recovered from confusion, fell into disarray once again at his nonsensical tirade. “Mary?”
    His snicker made way to a sneer and an actual laugh of derision. “Of course, a slave would be too
stupid
and
ignorant
to run a household, let alone pen a blasted chart. Comforting to know that some things never change,