“I believe the musicians are readying for a waltz.” Lord Fairmont held out his hand to her. “May I have this dance, Miss Templeton?”
Six years of theton’s scorn, six years of their smirks and whispers. Six years of loneliness, and shame, and heartbreak. Six years of hiding, of making herself as small as she could, and it had all come down to this moment.
Six years, one stubborn earl, a dozen waltzing lessons, and a single, devastating kiss.
Now here she was, her heart in her throat as she gazed up into the blue eyes of the only man who’d ever trulyseenher.
She drew in deep breath, smiled up at him, and rested the tips of her fingers in the palm of his hand. “I will, indeed. Thank you, my lord.”
It should have been terrifying, the moment his fingers closed around hers and he led her to the dance floor with the weight of dozens of curious gazes upon them.
If it had been anyone other thanhim, perhaps it would have been.
But the clasp of his fingers around hers, the warmth in his blue eyes, and that half-smile tugging at the corners of his lips were so familiar to her now, there was nothing strange in it, nothing to fear.
It felt like coming home.
“The left foot first,” he whispered, grinning down at her as they took their places on the floor and assumed the first position. “You remember, don’t you?”
“I do. I remember everything, my lord.”
Every moment of every dance they’d shared in Lady Fosberry’s empty ballroom was etched in her mind, a favorite image she’d come back to over and over again after she left London, and this strange interlude with him was nothing but a memory, a wonderful dream she’d once had, a long time ago.
But she was here now, and with every shared breath between them, she fell deeper into the moment, grasping at it with numb fingertips even as it slipped from her hands.
The firm, steady pressure of his fingers around hers, and the strength in his right shoulder under her fingertips. The dizzying slide of his hand across her back, and the thrill of his palm resting between her shoulder blades, left bare from the daring cut of her gown.
His touch burned her through the silk of his gloves, as if he held a flame in his hand, the heat setting her heart fluttering against her ribs. Her toes curled inside her silk slippers as they stood together, unmoving, waiting as the musicians finished turning their instruments.
They struck the first chord. It trembled there for an instant, high and sweet…
Then they were off, James sweeping her into the first turn, then the next, the world shifting and fragmenting into a blur of faces and colors and a swell of violin strings, the crushing weight of hundreds of eyes upon them.
She might have been frightened then if he hadn’t pulled her closer, the long, lean muscles of his arm flexing against her waist, his voice a low rumble in her ear. “Look at me, Euphemia.”
She lifted her gaze, her eyes finding his, so blue, sleepy under the weight of his thick lashes. He leaned closer, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, his breath stirring the wisps of hair at her temples. “You’re safe.”
And she was. Here, in his arms, she was safer than she’d ever been.
Safer, perhaps, than she’d ever be again.
Thetonhad already taken so much from her, but they couldn’t havethis.
She wouldn’t let them.
So, she forgot the staring eyes, and let the moment take her, the music flowing through her in a heated rush, filling all the lonely spaces inside her, and flooding every dark, shadowy corner with light. The cobwebs that had gathered there over the past six years fluttered away, the thin, delicate threads vanishing into the air as he spun her from one turn into the next, his gaze holding hers, and his hand warm and firm against her back.
It was over too soon, just as all the sweetest moments were, the dream slipping from her grasp like water falling in silvery drops from her fingertips.
She came back to herself as the couples near them shifted, the rumble of the voices in the ballroom rising as the last note of the music faded.
But for one fleeting moment, neither of them moved.
In that instant, as they stood facing each other, time seemed to go still.
And it was strange… so strange, that the one thing she wanted the most in the world then was to lay her cheek against his chest, close her eyes, and hold onto it forever.
Chapter
