Madly, he felt himself blush. “I haven’t felt that way dancing since before I can remember.”
“Well then, let’s practice more.”
He agreed. “Show me the dance for Romeo. Whatever moves I don’t know yet that are in the dance, I’ll learn when I see it done.”
He managed to keep his smile hidden when she quirked her brow at him, on the verge of accusing him of making an excuse to make her dance. “Miss Darling,” he continued, “I was made to learn by watching.”
She finally nodded and walked to the center of the dance hall, where she turned to face him. She aligned herself and lifted her head, lengthening her neck and her torso, then rolled down until the backs of her hands were flat against the floor.
Gray walked to the single stair where he’d often sat to rest after hours of practice. He sat now to watch her, and he found that he couldn’t look away. Her body moved with fluid grace into a hinge. Her arms gently pinwheeled like a cascading waterfall as she arched her back.
For Gray, Aria Darling became the most beautiful being he’d ever seen while she danced. Her body swayed like reeds in a summer breeze. She danced the part of Romeo and Gray imagined every sorrowful emotion she portrayed with her movements. The forbidden love, demonstrated in the skillful push and pull of her dance, the secret intimacy portrayed in her sinuous, seductive movements, and the tragic ending that, if Gray didn’t know any better, would believe she had lived through. Her dance was so moving, he forgot to breathe and could barely see out of his misty eyes.
The fact that she hadn’t performed a single jump or leap in the dance hadn’t escaped him. They were the most difficult, most satisfying moves in a performance. But she was too afraid of breaking again to be truly free.
“You seem to be good at improvising,” she said when she returned to him. “I’d like to see what jumps you’ll add.”
“Miss Darling,” he told her, trying his best to keep his heartbeat from making his voice shake, “you bring music to life. Not many can do that.”
She studied him for a moment, as if she were trying to read him. Then, she smiled. “You can.”
*
Aria lay awakein her bed an hour after leaving the marquess. For the first time in as long as she could remember, her parents’ hardships weren’t what was keeping her awake.
She’d never fawned over a guy in her life, but the Lord Grayson Barrington Marquess of Dartmouth got her blood flowing. She’d seen enough male dancers come and go to know that not all of them had what it took to be successful, much less to become famous. The handsome marquess was engaging and expressive while his body and the masterful way he moved it stirred heart and soul—hers mainly. From the instant he achieved a hinge without practice and then lifted his shirt to show her his abdomen she’d been doomed. She hadn’t had time to look away, which she would have done for her own sanity, before he let go of his shirt and let it drop again. But she’d seen enough. In fact, in that brief instant that felt like an hour, she saw too much. His abdominal muscles were cut into a tight pack of six between his well-defined obliques, which disappeared on either side beneath his breeches and made her a little dizzy. He’d stood, slightly jutting out his hips and creating a sensuous concave curve in his torso. He wasn’t overly muscular, but lean and lithe, his body honed for dancing, or… she remembered to breathe and opened her eyes.
She couldn’t allow herself to think of him in a sexual way. But honestly, from the instant his feet hit the dance floor he became a different kind of animal. Something dark and dangerous, some that used his body to communicate not only his emotions but his virility, for it flowed from him in waves.
He had a photogenic and movement memory, remembering every move he saw, enabling him to learn whatever dance his heart desired. His first dance tonight had been a masterpiece of longing and pain—a window into his wounded soul. But when he danced contemporary, mastering over a dozen new moves, it was clear that joy filled him.
With his eyes closed and his smile radiant with rapture, he remembered every step she’d demonstrated and made them better. It was the first time she’d seen him happy since she’d arrived in this century. He was truly glorious and breathtaking. When he performed a body wave, moving like a snake and wearing a half smile of scandalous intentions, her legs had nearly given out beneath her. She didn’t think she could ever be more attracted to him than in that moment on his dance floor. But when his dance had ended, he turned to her with the residue of his joy sparking his eyes, and with his lips slightly puckered and turned upward, he wrinkled his nose, making one eye close.
She knew if she didn’t find her door soon and get out of here, she would fall and fall hard for the Marquess of Dartmouth.
And that’s what was keeping her awake. She didn’t even know him. It was his dancing that was turning her heart. His deep, passionate love for the same thing she loved. He could be a terrible tyrant—and according to Harry Gable, he had been a demented soul at whose command forest animals attacked Harry and his father, killing the latter. And all while the marquess smiled. She’d seen him dance at his stepmother’s ball in his macabre style with no trace of mercy or affection in his gaze. She understood that he was harnessing his emotions because he was afraid of them. He didn’t break away from the strings that pulled him along because if he did, his emotions would break free as well, and people might die. He was a puppet and the one pulling the strings was him.
Did she want to be here when all those emotions exploded?
She decided in the dark hours of the night that there was something magical about him. He was, after all, the grandson of a woman who lived in the twenty-first century since leaving him fifteen years ago.
If this was all true, and Aria believed it was because she was living it, then Mrs. B. was a time-traveler, who possessed articles, like a gold key, and handed them out to a woman who had been forever indebted to her.
What had the marquess told her? That she could potentially bear him sons? Why was giving him sons so important? Aria hadn’t asked him. Would she stay and do what Mrs. B. wanted for her grandson? No. No loyalty came before that which she felt toward her parents and her brother.
Would she have a choice to stay or go home? Maybe all the doors were closed for good, or at least until she bore the marquess sons! She wouldn’t choose to stay here and leave her family. She would never forgive Mrs. B. for this. Even if she succeeded and found her door and went home, she wouldn’t forget that Mrs. B. had sent her back to her grandson so his memory could haunt Aria for the rest of her life.
When she finally fell asleep to the sound of birds singing somewhere outside her window, she didn’t dream of how her brother would pay for college, or if he would even attend, or how much more her mother would have to work to feed them. She didn’t dream of the handsome marquess or how he smiled at her while he danced. She didn’t dream at all—and it was wonderful. She slept like a log.
The next time she opened her eyes, sunlight brightened her room enough to make her squint when she opened her eyes. She heard someone scurrying off and disappearing outside her room.
Sarah appeared a few minutes later and with the marquess a step or two behind her.
“Miss Darling, you worried Sarah. Why are you sleeping three hours past noon?”
Aria sat up. Her loose hair tumbled about her shoulders and face. She smoothed it away and tried to think more clearly. It was three o’clock? “Sarah, I’m sorry I made you worry. I didn’t fall asleep until the morning,” she explained, rubbing her eyes.
“Why did you have trouble sleeping?” Sarah asked.