Crispin's voice rose above the general hum, carrying the easy authority of a man who had spent his life commanding attention. "The final waltz of the evening," he announced, his expression suggesting a host satisfied with his arrangements, and eager to see the results. "I encourage all of you to choose your partners with care. We shall not have another such occasion until next Season."
The crowd parted. Couples found each other with practiced ease while others hung back, affecting indifference. Alice remained still at the edge of the floor, her fingers pressed against the silkof her gown, feeling the weight of the glove in her hidden pocket.
She could stay where she was, watch the waltz from the sidelines, maintain the distance she had kept, and tell herself tomorrow that she had been wise, and the day after that, that wisdom had been enough. She could walk away from this ballroom as she had from the orchard, leaving behind another opportunity to be brave.
But her feet moved before her mind had authorized the journey.
The crossing felt both endless and instantaneous, each step bringing her closer to a destination she had not consciously chosen, each breath compressing her defenses. She watched Samuel across the diminishing distance, saw him register her approach, and noticed something shift in his expression that she could not quite categorize. Not hope, precisely; he was too careful for that, but something adjacent to it, something familiar.
He met her halfway.
The gesture was significant. He did not wait for her to come to him but moved toward her, closing the distance from both sides. They stopped with perhaps a foot of space between them, the air charged with everything neither had said across three days of avoidance.
Samuel extended his hand.
The invitation required no words. Alice looked at his fingers, steady, waiting, slightly trembling, and felt the weight of the choice pressing against her chest. To take his hand was to admit she had been wrong to run. To take his hand was to acknowledge that the fear of loving him was not greater than the fear of never knowing what loving him might become.
She placed her palm in his.
His fingers closed around hers with a pressure that conveyed both relief and restraint, and then they moved together toward the center of the floor, taking their place among the other couples as the orchestra prepared. Alice felt his hand settle at her waist, lower than propriety would have approved, firm enough that she could feel his warmth through the silk of her gown.
The music began.
They entered the waltz with the synchronization of two bodies that had learned each other's rhythms in more intimate circumstances. Alice felt the memory surface. Firelight, carpet, and the tenderness of the library—and pushed it down, not to forget but to maintain her composure.
"I trust your intentions tonight?" The questionemerged with practiced lightness, her voice finding refuge in wit.
"My only intention is to keep pace with you." His reply came low, pitched for her ears alone, and his gray eyes held hers with an intensity that made the lightness feel like pretense.
They turned through the opening figures, his hand guiding her through steps she could have performed in her sleep. The ballroom spun around them, candlelight and faces, but Alice found herself aware of nothing beyond the space they occupied together, the warmth they had created through proximity and movement.
"You've been avoiding me," she said, because someone needed to acknowledge the truth of the past three days.
"I thought it was what you wanted." His jaw tightened as he spoke. "I thought distance was the kindest thing I could offer."
"Kindness." She tested the word and found it lacking. "Is that what you call it?"
"I call it desperation." His hand shifted at her waist, drawing her slightly closer despite the watchful eyes of the guests. "I call it the madness of a man who cannot have what he wants and cannot stop wanting it."
The music swelled around them, strings soaringthrough a melody that seemed designed to strip defenses. Alice felt the walls she had spent five seasons constructing begin to tremble.
"I watched my mother disappear," she said, the words spilling out before she could stop them, raw and unguarded. "She loved my father with everything she had, and year by year that everything diminished until nothing remained. I swore I would never let that happen to me."
"And I swore I would never let my caring destroy someone else." Samuel's voice was rough, scraped raw by emotion he no longer tried to conceal. "I spent fifteen years building walls against feeling what I feel for you."
"We make such lovely matched fortifications."
"We do." His lips curved into a near-smile. "Both of us armed against the thing we want most."
The waltz carried them through another turn, their bodies moving together with ease. Alice could feel her heartbeat racing, sensing the pressure building in her chest, all the fear and longing she had contained since the library, since the orchard, since the first moment his gray eyes had found hers across a crowded room.
"I'm terrified," she admitted.
"So am I," he replied.
"I don't know how to do this without losing myself."
"Perhaps." His hand tightened at her waist, his breath warm against her temple as he drew her closer. "Perhaps we don't have to do it alone. Perhaps we hold each other's pieces while we rebuild."
