His voice was smooth and warm, and it reminded her of nothing good. She could not say why. The words were polite. The bow was correct. Everything about the man was correct in the way that a painting of a person was correct without being alive.
“Welcome to Thornhill,” she said. “I hope you enjoy the evening.”
George smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “I intend to.”
A man invited Valeria to dance.
She saw it happen in slow motion. His mouth opened. The words began to form. And then his eyes moved, just slightly, to Edward’s right hand, which was wrapped around a crystal glass that was making a sound a glass should not make—a high, thin creak.
The man’s mouth closed. Opened again. “That is to say, you should dance with the Duke, of course. Your Duke. Who is standing right here. With that glass in his hand.”
Edward released the glass. It did not shatter.
The man took a step back. Then another. He had the good sense to look relieved.
“Shall we?” Edward asked, holding out his hand.
His hand. Scarred across the knuckles. Open. Waiting. Valeria had seen those hands make a man back away without throwing a single blow. And now they were open. Proffered. Patient.
The contradiction of him in a single gesture.
She took it. His fingers closed around hers. Warm. Rough. Scarred. Then he pulled her onto the dance floor.
His hand found the small of her back, and she found herself close to him for the first time in four days. The relief of it was so sharp it was painful.
They moved together. He was a better dancer than she had expected. Not elegant, but steady. He led the way he did everything: with certainty.
She had expected him to dance the way he moved — sharp, deliberate, always ready.. Instead, he danced the way he had carried her through the storm. Steady and certain and surprisingly gentle. His hand on her back was firm without being forceful. He guided her through the turns with a confidence that did not need to be loud.
They had not been this close since that encounter in the drawing room. She could smell him. Road dust and horse, and underneath it the warm, clean scent that was uniquely him, the one she had buried her face in when she pressed his coat to her nose in the gazebo, the one she would deny noticing until her dying day.
The ballroom spun around them. Candles and masks and silk and the sound of two hundred shoes on parquet. She was aware of all of it and none of it. The only thing that was real was his hand on the small of her back, the heat of his body, and the wayhis fingers curled around hers as though letting go were not an option.
“I missed you,” she murmured.
The words left her mouth before she could stop them.
She had not planned to say it. She had planned to be dignified and cold and slightly furious, to make him work for every inch of warmth. Instead, she said,I missed you.
The truth of it stood between them like a third person.
His hand slid to her waist. She could feel the heat of him through the silk. The muscle in his jaw flexed.
He did not say it back. But his thumb pressed against the small of her back, firm and deliberate, and the sensation traveled the length of her spine.
His eyes were not on her, though. He was looking over her shoulder, scanning the room, his jaw tight.
“I understand you don’t want me,” she whispered. “You regretted what happened between us and ran away. But you can at least pretend to look at me when we are dancing.”
His eyes snapped to hers. Green, sharp, and full of something that wasnotregret.
“It is nothing like that,” he said, voice low. Only for her. “I just feel like we’re being watched.”
“Well, of course we are being watched. Everyone is looking at—” She did not finish.
He moved fast. One arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her hard against his chest. His other hand cupped the back of her head. He spun them so that his back was to the room and her body was between him and the wall.
The motion looked like a dance step. It was not.
