She glanced over her shoulder as the sound of Lady Roundtree’s snores wafted down the corridor.
“Curtain call has been delayed.” Nora peered up at him. “She tends to nod off at this time of the afternoon. I’m sorry you wasted your visit.”
Mr. Grenville’s warm gaze melted her to her core. “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. “Haven’t you come to speak to the baroness?”
He glanced away. “I’ve just come from Bond Street, where I gave up my dancing master position to another man.”
Nora blinked in confusion. “You give dancing lessons on Bond Street?”
“At my sister’s boarding school in St. Giles,” he corrected, his voice warm with affection. “I ran into their new instructor on Bond Street.”
“I see,” said Nora, although she was not at all certain that she did. “And coming here is how you choose to spend your free time instead of dancing?”
He grinned. “One can dance anywhere, can you not?”
“I cannot,” she whispered softly. “The only way I ever attend balls is as a servant, not a young lady with a dance card.”
She thought her admission would splash a dose of much-needed reality into this beautiful, fairytale moment. Remind them both of the roles they played and the rules they were meant to follow.
Yet the air around them seemed to sizzle with a delicious tension.
“One does not need a dance card in order to dance,” he said softly. “Why wait for an orchestra when we can waltz right here?”
“Here?” she stammered, her pulse racing out of control.
He lifted her fingers in his and curved his other hand about her hip.
Nora stared up at him in wonder. She placed her palm to his shoulder.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Listen to the music.”
She could hear nothing but the erratic pounding of her runaway heart as he led her in small, sweeping circles about the empty parlor into a plane where only the two of them existed.
Her fingers trembled in his. She rested her other hand on his shoulder tentatively, unsure if she could trust herself not to run her palm down the fine black coat sleeve to feel the ridges of the muscle beneath.
She had dreamed of a moment like this for so long. Filled an entire sketchbook with images of what it might be like in his arms. She had underestimated his power tremendously.
Yes, he could be sweet and kind and charming. But that was only part of who he was. He was also strength and passion and arrogance. He hadknownshe yearned to find herself in his arms. And he had known he would not disappoint.
He executed the measured half-circles of the waltz with precise, perfect control. But the hunger in his gaze spoke of something far less restrained. A sensation that he could sweep her into another waltz or into the closest bedchamber and she would follow his lead willingly.
He would not be so rash, of course.Shewould not be so rash. This was nothing more than a Court-approved, standard waltz, not a mating ritual between two lovers close to combusting.
And yet every half-turn, every sensitive, heated inch where his hand touched her body, all of it was enough to rob her of breath and lead her directly toward temptation.
No wonder this man was a dance instructor. Nora would have begged to be admitted to his sister’s school herself if it meant another opportunity to be swept away in his arms. Never had every inch of her flesh seemed so alive.
She could feel his heat through the layers of cloth separating them. If she moved her palm to his chest, would she be able to feel the beat of his heart? Her own rapid pulse must be plainly visible at the base of her neck, in the breathless sounds she tried to keep in her throat, in the way she stared up at him as if no orchestra in any ballroom could ever come close to capturing the magic between them right now.
He focused his hazel eyes on hers. “We shouldn’t be dancing like this.”
She held her breath. “I know.”
His gaze was unreadable. “Do you want me to stop?”
She shook her head and tightened her fingers in his. “I don’t want this dance ever to end.”
