Jessica’s note: While reading Meredith Duran’s Written on Your Skin recently, I was struck by how lovely and important a brief bit of dancing in the country was to the couple’s developing relationship. I thought right away about another book, Julie Ann Long’s To Love a Thief, in which the hero teaches the heroine how to dance as part of a general education in how to be a lady, and gets schooled himself. I thought it might be nice to do a post on dancing in romance, and to ask readers to share their favorite dance scenes. Janet offered to take the lead. Thanks, Janet!
Doing without Dancing
By Janet Webb, aka @JanetNorCal
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue to any body or mind;—but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
—Jane Austen, Emma
Dancing, in historicals that are accurate (mostly) for the Regency era, can be a time out of time. When else could a man and a woman speak together without the presence of a chaperone or a group of friends? I am speaking in particular about the waltz, although other dances certainly allowed for conversation as well. And more than conversation: sometimes the repartee and just the sensation of closeness seem like a first sexual encounter. Intensely moving and sometimes setting the tone for a relationship.
In Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Darcy is invited by his friend Mr. Bingley to dance with Elizabeth Bennett. He declines and his reasons, rather snobbish and patronizing, are overheard by Elizabeth. Her pride is hurt and she is prejudiced against him. They do eventually dance though, and different feelings and emotions are felt by them both. This is the essence of a meaningful “minuet” LoL: feelings change, sometimes, through physical proximity.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBgaO9Va5cA
Of course, “Our” notion of dancing in historical romances almost entirely focuses on the waltz and the truth is, dancing was more like Scottish country dancing today — dances done in groups. This is why, for example, in Georgette Heyers’s Friday’s Child, there is a scene at Almacks when George, Lord Wortham tries, yet again, to convince Isabella Milbourne of his undying love for her, but is constantly interrupted by the movements of the country dance — and their increasingly heated and uncomfortable interchange amused everyone watching. Dancing was not a deux, or at least not often, in Regency times.
Or consider Sylvester by Georgette Heyer: Sylvester arranges for Phoebe to come to London after he rescues her from a carriage accident. She is on the road in the first place because she is running away from a marriage proposal from him, a duke! He is quite insulted when he learns she would rather become a writer, living with her former governess, than marry him (not that he wants to marry her!). He’s a duke and very prideful and he’s both intrigued and insulted by her behaviour. Wait, there’s more. Phoebe wrote an extremely clever roman a clef based on her horrific London season the year before: Sylvester is the erstwhile villain. It is published soon after she returns to London and although it is fiction, it is hauntingly accurate. Sylvester is furious. As one might expect, the rumours of authorship start to fly and Sylvester insists that Phoebe waltz with him: ostensibly to quell the rumours but he rips into her and she flees the dance floor. One doesn’t have to be a scholar of Freud to understand the sub-text: both of them have feelings for each other that are by no means entirely negative.
Occasionally the dance floor can be the first place where a couple interact with equal footing, like in An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley. Lucien is a marquess, a dangerous and glittery blond. Beth, his fiancée, a former school teacher, is quite terrified of the feelings he evokes in her and the power he holds in the relationship. Their first dance is at their engagement ball and it’s a courtly minuet a deux. Here’s a passage:
They turned to face each other. She watched him carefully. When, as she expected, he performed an elaborately deep full bow, she sank into as deep a court curtsey as her skirt would allow, her eyes correctly on his at all times. Then she rose slowly with smooth control. She did not place her hand in his outstretched one until the last moment to make it clear to all that she needed no assistance in rising.
This was somewhat of a turning point for them. In a pleasing reflection of that pivotal moment, they dance the same dance at their wedding.
Sometimes a dance allows a gentleman – or more likely a rake – to cut through convention. This happens in A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh. Kit has bet his friends that he can convince the most Ice Princess-like lady of the ton to marry him. Of course, he has not even met her when he agrees on this wager and when he arrives at a ball that Lauren is also attending, he knows he’ll never be able to get past the phalanx of her over-protective family. A friendly matron presents Kit to Lauren as an acceptable partner (remember, there always has to be an introduction if a couple has not previously met) and Lauren agrees to waltz with him. That act of deliberate stepping outside her role on Lauren’s part starts the chain of events moving. And of course Kit speaks to her in an unusually double-entendredrish way.
In Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous, Christine has formed a very poor impression of Wulfric, the duke of Bedwyn. She has been in attendance at a house party with him – and others – for a week or so. At the closing ball she changes her opinion of him. Wulfric asks a homely, overlooked gentlewoman to dance, and Christine is forced to admit to herself that nothing but sheer gentility and grace on Wulfric’s part could have been the impetus. Christine and Wulf also have one of Balogh’s trademark natural surroundings sexual coming-togethers … because their dance was interrupted when a clumsy oaf landed heavily on Christine’s foot, they continued their waltz outside in the garden and, as they say, one thing led to another.
Concluding with another Balogh, A Christmas Bride, one sees how a dance can restore – or at a minimum, paper-over – a damaged reputation. Pris, the former mistress of Precious Jewel, is now married to Gerald, but their married life is lonely because they removed from the ton because of her former profession. Edgar, the hero of A Christmas Bride, sets a scheme in motion whereby Gerald and Pris join him and his family and an assortment of aristocrats, including the very haughty and reserved Duke of Bridgewater, for the Christmas season. When the duke asks Priscilla to dance with him at the Christmas Day ball the reader knows that from then on, Priscilla and Gerald will be able to rejoin their peers in English society. It is an intensely satisfying moment.
Thank you, Janet!
Like Janet, all of my examples are from historicals. Which makes me wonder: can dancing be significant in a contemporary romance, given we know the couple can just go get naked if they choose? Are couples in paranormal too busy fighting the bad guys to dance?
What do you think are some of the most memorable dance scenes in romance?
