The dance ended too soon. Bainbridge returned her to the edge of the floor with a polite bow and a parting squeeze of her hand that said more than words. She was immediately claimed by another, a man whose primary topic of conversation was the alarming spread of hedgerows. Emma felt the walls of the ballroom closing in. The heat was becoming unbearable, the air thick with perfume and the scent of her own rising panic. The smiling faces, the endless music, the weight of Amélie’s stare—it was all too much.
She needed to breathe.
Murmuring an excuse about her shoulder, she pulled away from her bewildered partner and performed the humiliating feat that was becoming her calling card.
She fled.
Pushing through the throng of bodies, ignoring Nora’s sharp, questioning glance as she passed. She didn’t stop until her hand closed around the cool brass handle of the French doors and she stumbled out into the blessedly cold night air of the balcony.
The chill in the late-summer air was a shock, cold and clean against her flushed skin. Emma leaned against the stone balustrade, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath that tasted of salt and damp earth. The music from the ballroom was a muffled, rhythmic pulse behind the thick glass, the sound of a world she had gladly, if temporarily, abandoned. She closed her eyes, savoring the solitude.
“Running from that hedonist, Lord Bainbridge?”
The voice, a low melody laced with smoke, made Emma’s eyes fly open.
How had the duchesse found her so swiftly?
Amélie stepped through the French doors, letting them close softly behind her. She moved like liquid shadow against the star-dusted sky, withdrawing a thin cigarillo and jeweled holder from a silver case. The scratch of a match broke the silence, momentarily illuminating the sharp planes of her face, before she cupped the flame and touched it to the tip. The tobacco caught, glowing crimson in the darkness as she drew a long, deliberate breath and exhaled.
Emma’s heart, which had just begun to slow, resumed its frantic hammering against her ribs. “I needed air,” she said, the words sounding defensive and childish.
Amélie took a slow step toward her, the crimson silk of her gown whispering over the stone flags. “This air is better, is it not? It does not choke on unspoken things.” She took a delicate drag from the cigarillo, her lips parting slightly as she exhaled a fragrant cloud of smoke. “Would you care for one?”
It was a scandalous offer. Ladies did not smoke. But then, ladies did not do the things Emma did. Did not feel what Emma was feeling. “I don’t know how.”
“I will teach you,” Amélie said, the promise hanging in the air between them. She produced a second thin cigarillo and held it out.
Emma’s hand trembled as she took it. Amélie struck a match, the sudden flare of light carving her face from the darkness—the high cheekbones, the full, knowing curve of her mouth, the impossible depth of her eyes. She cupped the flame with one hand, shielding it from the sea breeze, and leaned in.
“Come closer,” she murmured.
Emma obeyed, stepping into Amélie’s orbit. Their faces were inches apart. The flame flickered between them, casting dancing shadows. Emma could smell the sulfur of the match, the sweet, earthy scent of the tobacco, and underneath it all, Amélie’s perfume. Emma drew in the smoke, coughed, and felt a dizzying rush.
As Amélie pulled the match away, their fingers brushed. The contact was brief, fleeting, but it sent a jolt of heat straight up Emma’s arm. Her hand shook so violently she nearly dropped the cigarillo.
Amélie’s smile was a knowing shadow in the returning dark. She moved to lean against the balustrade beside Emma, their shoulders almost touching. They smoked in silence for a long moment, watching the moon play hide-and-seek with the clouds over the black, restless water. The muffled music of the ball felt a world away.
“I have been watching you since that first dinner,” Amélie said finally, her voice soft, the French accent more pronounced than usual. “In a room full of people who are all performing, you are the only one who seems real.”
Emma’s breath hitched. She stared straight ahead, at the dark line where the sea met the sky. “I am told I am ill-suited for performance.”
“Thank God for that,” Amélie murmured. She turned, leaning her back against the cool stone, so that she was facing Emma fully. “I have seen the way you watch the world. The way you speak your mind, even when it costs you. It is so different from these English roses, so carefully cultivated to be lovely and silent. You are not silent, Emmaline Goode. There is a fire in you.”
The sound of her given name on the duchesse’s lips was a shocking intimacy. No one but her family ever called her Emmaline. The confession hung between them, a tangible thing. It was not a flirtation or a pretty compliment. It was a statement of fact, delivered with a quiet intensity that left Emma nowhere to hide.
Lord Bainbridge’s words echoed in her memory. You build a world within the world. Was this it? Was this the first step into that new country?
“I…” Emma began, her voice tight. She took another, less clumsy puff of the cigarillo. The smoke burned, but it also steadied her. “I feel…confused. When I am near you.” It was a paltry admission, a pale shadow of the raging chaos inside her, but it was the truest thing she could offer.
Amélie’s dark eyes seemed to absorb the moonlight, then glitter with it. “Confusion is often the prelude to clarity,” she said. “I am not confused at all. I know precisely what I want.”
The directness of the statement stole the air from Emma’s lungs. This was the game Bainbridge had spoken of, the one with different rules. The one she suddenly wanted to win.
To dominate.
The doors to the ballroom opened, spilling light and a wave of laughter onto the balcony before closing again. The intrusion shattered the fragile privacy of their moment.
Amélie crushed the tip of her cigarillo against the stone. “This is not the place for such a conversation,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Walk with me once again to the east garden. No one will find us there.”
