Reluctantly, she placed her hand in his, and the contact sent a sharp spark through her veins as he raised her to her feet.
Alexander’s hand remained around hers as he guided her toward the drawing room, and the easy strength of his grip was infuriating in the effect it had on her. He walked as though he had always belonged at her side.
“You appear unsettled,” he murmured, his tone pitched for her alone. “Do you not like to dance?”
Diana angled her head slightly. “Do not presume you have the right to read my reactions.”
“I presume nothing,” he replied, and she hated how easily he said it. “I simply observe.”
Lady Salford reached the drawing room first and turned with bright impatience, her silver-topped cane tapping once against the floorboards. “Come, come, both of you. I have not breathed properly in months for want of amusement, and I refuse to waste another morning speaking of tea when there is an entire Season waiting to be conquered.”
Diana’s fingers tightened on Alexander’s hand, anchoring herself.
The drawing room was airy and elegant, all pale walls and tall windows. It was a room built for music and conversation, for polite society and measured smiles. It felt suddenly too intimate when Alexander stood beside her with that fiery focus in his green eyes.
Lady Salford settled at the pianoforte with the satisfaction of a commander taking her seat at the head of the table.
“Now,” she said, cracking her knuckles with scandalous cheer, “a simple quadrille tune, nothing that will exhaust us, though I do hope you will not make me regret the decision.”
“We should not dream of it,” Diana said.
Alexander gave a faint sound that might have been agreement, but his gaze never left Diana’s face. It was the look of a man who had decided she was something worth watching.
Lady Salford began to play.
The first notes were light and brisk, familiar in their structure. Diana tried to let the rhythm settle her. She turned toward Alexander, lifted her chin, and placed the appropriate distance between them as they took their positions.
Alexander stepped closer. Not drastically, but enough that Diana’s breath shortened before she could stop it. The warmth of his body seemed to radiate through the air and make her too aware of him.
“Your Grace,” she said under her breath, keeping her smile in place because Lady Salford was watching, “we are not required to stand as though we are attached at the shoulder.”
His mouth curved slightly, and the expression did something wretched to her composure. He seemed pleased.
Diana’s stomach tightened. She made herself lift her hand, as proper, and he took it at once, his fingers closing around hers with unhurried confidence. His hand was warm, his grip steady, and the contact sent a sharp spark through her veins that she resented with all her soul.
They began the steps.
Diana kept her movements precise, her posture impeccable, and for the first few beats she managed to focus on the dance itself. The quadrille demanded attention. Forward, back, turn, exchange. A rhythm of society, of predictability, of rules.
Then his hand settled at her waist, and her breath faltered so sharply she nearly stumbled. She recovered on sheer will alone, and the effort made her pulse thud hard enough to feel beneath her collarbone.
“You are holding me improperly,” she whispered, her smile fixed so tightly it hurt her cheeks.
His breath brushed the shell of her ear, and the sensation sent a shiver down her spine that she could not prevent, no matter how fiercely she commanded herself to remain composed.
“Improper,” he repeated, and there was a note of dark amusement in his voice. “If this is improper, then I cannot fathom how we ever survived the wedding night.”
Diana went hot in an instant. The flush began at her throat and spread upward as though her skin had been set alight, and for a brief, dreadful moment, she could not find the air to respond.
Her mouth opened, then closed again. Her fingers tightened around his hand.
She kept dancing. Her smile was faint and controlled, while her entire body burned with a combination of anger and mortification and something else that was worse because it felt like longing.
Her grip on his hand tightened, her breath catching in shallow, uneven pulls as she waited. Every nerve was drawn taut, braced for the next thing he might do.
Alexander’s gaze lowered to her face, and she saw the moment he registered her silence. His expression shifted, subtle but real, like a door half-opening. The amusement faded, replaced by a sharpened focus that made her stomach tighten. His eyes darkened as they lingered too long, tracing her mouth, the line of her throat, until even her breath felt like an invitation she could not take back.
Lady Salford played on, oblivious and delighted. “Look at you!” she said, clapping once between phrases of music, then returning to the keys as if applause were simply another part of the tune. “You move together beautifully. That is what I like to see. A husband and wife who look as though they are deeply in love.”
