I squeezed my eyes shut, willing my heart to stop its torture of me, but when I opened them again, the man, wholooked so much like my love, still remained, head tilted slightly and a smile touching his full lips.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” he murmured, stepping closer until the heat of his body touched my skin in a sensual caress.
His proximity stole the breath from my lungs. I felt faint, undone, and foolish. What could I say to that?
Yes, perhaps I have. Perhaps my mind wants so badly for you to be the man I once dreamed of marrying that you wear his face and your voice carries the same lilt?
No. I suppose I couldn’t say that.
Instead I swallowed hard and forced a brittle smile. “As you said, sir. Perhaps I shouldn’t drink the champagne so quickly.”
He smiled back, a slow, deliberate curve of his perfect lips as though he could read every unspoken truth trembling behind my mask.
He reached for my hand and I expected the customary brush of lips to my knuckles, but he surprised me.
I watched, breathless, as he slipped my glove off and turned my hand palm up, bending slowly before pressing a gentle kiss there.
I sucked in a sharp breath when the heat of his tongue traced a slow, sinful circle, just once, over the delicate skin there before he released me.
Heat flared beneath my ribs and I inhaled sharply as my knees threatened to give way.
“Bold of you, sir,” I commented softly, my voice wavered, half indignation, half desire so startling it rattled me.
“Is it?” He asked, the corner of his mouth lifting as he searched my eyes. His thumb brushed lightly against my wrist. “I fear the way your pupils dilated and your pulse quickened may contradict your words.”
“Again, you assume,” I said quickly, my cheeks blazing beneath my cheap mask.
“I never assume,” he countered. “Dance with me so that I might prove you a seductress.”
Seductress…
If only he knew how laughable that word felt on my skin, which had only known the brush of propriety and consequence.
Still, the way he said it coaxed something reckless from me.
“Very well,” I agreed, infusing the words with a flirtation I did not feel, but had practiced well enough.
Without another word, I placed my hand in his.
The orchestra swelled.
He drew me into him—closer than any gentleman ought, closer than any gentleman dared—and the world narrowed to the heat of his body and steady command of his hand at my waist.
The waltz wrapped around us in dizzying circles. The floor seemed to move beneath us, and the light around the chandeliers blurred into halos. He smelled faintly ofexpensive brandy and something sweet, a scent that tugged at a memory just out of reach. His hand was steady, his touch unyielding.
“You dance beautifully,” he murmured. His voice was low, polished, and utterly calm.
“As do you,” I managed, my tongue suddenly feeling heavy.
He leaned closer, breath ghosting my ear. “You shouldn’t hide behind a mask. It dims you.”
My laugh came out thin and nervous. “You speak as though you know me.”
“Perhaps I do.”
Something in the timbre of his voice, the familiarity threaded with something colder, made the hair on my neck stand on end. Those infuriating thoughts of Sylum infiltrated my mind until I could no longer stand it.
“Tell me your name,” I whispered.
