dance
Sunlight drenched the room, filtering in through the large windows, the corners of the space accented in flower arrangements of purple, white, and blue. The conservatory was beautiful as always and Radie felt a thrill of excitement jolt through her at the prospect of dancing in such a lovely room, her fingers tightening around Séamus’. He lifted her hand to his lips for a brief moment.
“Eager, are we?” he teased her, lips brushing her knuckles.
She spun towards him, using their clasped hands as leverage to pull him closer, and placed her free hand atop his shoulder. “I’m not known for my patience.”
She looked at him expectantly, but he scoffed out a chuckle. “What are you doing?”
Radie bounced in place, jostling Séamus along with her. “Learning to dance.”
“You are impatient,” he noted, but his lips were quirked with amusement.
She frowned and jostled him again, as though she were planning to push him along the steps of a dance herself if he wouldn’t lead.
His smile turned sly. He lifted her fingers to his lips again before stepping away from her. A crease formed between her brows as she watched him try to slip out of her grasp, her fingers tightening again around his. She turned his earlier question around on him. “What are you doing?”
“Teaching you to dance,” Séamus said, as though it were obvious.
“But…”
Séamus gently extricated his hand from hers, and at her consternated look, explained, “We’re not practicing a waltz today.”
Her consternated expression turned into something a puppy would shoot its master after being kicked. “But I like that one.”
Radie thought that was the one she liked, anyway. She didn’t know all the names of the dances, but she wanted to learn one that was gentle and full of swaying and spinning. She wanted to watch the edges of her dress twirl around her ankles as she moved. She wanted her hands on Séamus’ shoulder, his waist, his chest.
“You’ll like this one, too,” he promised. And before she could offer a protest, he gestured at a musician that had escaped Radie’s notice, a man in a starched uniform, his shoes so polished they gleamed ridiculously in the bright room. He sat at a harpsichord, several more purple and white flower arrangements tangled about its legs. At Séamus’ motion, the man inclined his head, his fingers jumping into motion on the instrument’s keys.
The music, Radie supposed, was lovely at least. She couldn’t remember for sure if she had heard the tune before, nor could she discern any sort of pattern to the notes to pick out any obvious tempo to the dance that accompanied it. Séamus, on the other hand, knew exactly when the music invited the dancer into its beat and began to move with liquid grace. He stepped around her as he moved, sometimes gliding greater distances away from her, but always returning as though he were but a moon in her orbit, drawn close by a gravitational pull.
“Watch my footwork,” he whispered as he passed her one time.
She tried to; tried to parse out a pattern to his steps; tried to figure out what he was doing with his hands, which seemed to be as much a part of the dance as his legs. Her eyes continually moved back to his face, though. As he moved, he absorbed the light from the sun-drenched room. The copper and bronze strands of his hair caught fire, his lashes a beautifully burning inferno framing the bright embers of his eyes. He was poise and grace, like a great cat stalking. Radie didn’t think of herself as a prey, but in this moment, she was helpless but to watch him, captivated by the sight of him.
The notes from the harpsichord faded, Séamus timing his steps so that he paused right before her.
“Were you watching?” he asked her softly, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Hm?” Radie’s eyes slid to the bridge of his nose where his freckles were scattered in various constellations. How she wanted to drag her finger across them and map out those constellations.
“Were you watching?” Séamus repeated, the curve of his lips sharpening as his smile deepened.
“Oh. Yes,” she replied distractedly, her eyes drawn to the corona of light that crowned his head, illuminating him in an aura of red and orange, blessing his hair in fire. Such striking colors…
“And what did you think?” he pressed gently.
Radie caught his gaze, their eyes locking. “Beautiful.”
“And here,” he teased, “I thought you were disappointed you couldn’t waltz.”
Radie wasn’t sure what that had to do with this and peered at him quizzically.
He laughed, a bloom of red swirling through the freckles on his cheeks, a lovely flush. “You weren’t talking about the dance, were you?”
Radie unabashedly shook her head, her lips quirking into a sly smirk. Her voice was equally sly, masked in mock-coyness. “I’m afraid I missed the footwork. Show me again?”
He indulged her request, as she knew he would, motioning for the musician to replay the number. She didn’t even try to hide her wandering eyes, drinking in the sight of him as he glided around her, her moon caught in her orbit. If she forgot once more to try to learn the steps, to watch how his body and arms moved, but instead grew drunk on the sight of Séamus as the sun dappled his face and hair—well.
He had all day to try to teach her this dance, and if she couldn’t move next to him, her hands moving along his body as he led her through the steps, then she could not be faulted for growing distracted by the sight of him in motion.
Séamus had nobody to blame but himself for not teaching her the waltz.