“Thank you,” she said gently. “I would be honored to dance with you.”
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll find you against the wall nearest the ratafia table,” he told her.
And so, her heart all but galloping, she preceded him down the stairs. They could hardly be seen strolling together from an upstairs hideaway, after all.
A few moments later, he followed her, and found her, and bowed.
Then extended his arm and raised his eyebrows.
His smile was barely that: a lift at the corners of his mouth.
She realized then that every muscle of her body had always contracted ever so slightly at the sight of him, like a heart leaping.
And it did that now, at the prospect of touching for the first time.
His arm tensed a little beneath her hand, his muscles flexing as if he was preparing to lead her out over the backs of sleeping crocodiles.
Her heart a steady bass drum in her chest, thusly they promenaded together to join the other dancers.
She was conscious even then of heads turning toward them.
She curtsied to him, as prettily as she was able when she was nearly dizzy with nerves.
He bowed again.
After the minutest hesitation, as if he sensed it was an irrevocable act, he gently closed his fingersaround her hand. When his other hand came to rest on her waist, it suddenly seemed like something essential that had long been missing from her.
And they merged with other dancers, as if they had done it dozens of times before.
She’d never danced with his sort of man before. The way he moved his body, his gaze, and the way he’d touched her—everything felt like intention. As though he never put his hands on anything or anyone without the determination to possess it wholly. The gravity of whoever he was and the things he knew seemed to communicate themselves to her body through his hands.
And just like that, her skin felt as if it was made of a thousand tiny lamps, all softly blazing. As if her every cell had raised a violin to its shoulder and drawn a bow.
Judging from the temperature of her face, she was likely a shade of raspberry. Her only consolation was that this likely looked well enough with the shade of green she was wearing.
And as they moved together in the familiar, graceful rhythms of the waltz, he wore a faint frown. His eyes were fixed on her and they burned as if his entire being was marshaled to the task of seeing her.
Heat rayed through her from the places their bodies touched: her hand at his back. His at her waist. Their linked hands. His mouth seemed strangely beautiful to her, long and fine, and she knew by this dance she would be able draw it with her eyes closed, anytime she wished. What she wanted was to trace his lips with a finger. To discover the textures of him. His hair, his skin. An odd ache began in her chest, and her eyes stung with some nearlyoverwhelming emotion she could not quite name. It felt like yearning. Inherent in yearning, she knew, what made it so enticing, so romantic, was the notion that it would never, ever be satisfied. That it was out of reach. Perhaps even wrong.
Surely he could feel it in the rise and fall of her ribs, just above where his hand rested at her waist. Or the kick of her pulse in her hand.
Oh, look at me now, Lady Hackworth and Miss Seaver, she exulted silently.
“You do dance passably well,” she said finally. Because it seemed clear he was not going to speak. “Perhaps you should do it more often.”
He finally smiled faintly. “Your effusiveness is going to make me blush, and then we really will have a scandal on our hands. This waltz only has value because it’s rare, Keating. I allowed it to appreciate in value, like a priceless antique.”
She laughed, breathlessly. “Thank you for spending it on me.”
His reply was a subtle nod.
“Are they watching?” “They” being the ballroom at large.
“If you look up you can see Lady Sedgewick’s molars. Her jaw has dropped.”
She didn’t want to look anywhere but at him.