His attention drawn by a large gathering at the base of the master staircase, he approached warily, a lion circling its hunting ground. To his annoyance, there were no redheads to be found in the crowd. But therewasa slight brunette trapped in the midst of the melee, her diminutive frame nearly lost in the sea of people.
The urge to protect her caught Weston off guard.
Quite frankly, he was not the rescuing type.
Which was why he surprised himself when he surged forward, fighting his way through the dukes and the debutantes to where the young lady stood, holding her own but losing noticeable ground.
“Do you care to dance?” He hadn’t signed her card. He didn’t even know her name. But that didn’t matter. When she turned her head and he caught his first glimpse of her cornflower blue eyes, nothing did.
Noise faded. Color receded. The crowd melted away.
There was only Weston…and the most stunningly beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
A fairy, was his first irrational thought. Plucked from the woods and waters wild.
She studied him for a moment beneath high, arching brows a shade darker than her hair. Her skin was ivory tinged with the slightest hint of rose on the apples of her cheeks. Her mouth was full, the top lip just a tad heavier than the bottom and shaped like Cupid’s bow. As Weston gazed at her, utterly transfixed, she smiled, slow and sure. Then she held out her gloved hand.
“I would love to.”
They walked out of the crush and into each other’s arms. The Viennese waltz required its participants to be intimately close and their steps to be perfectly in tune lest they fall out of rhythm. As with all other things, Weston was a good dancer. It wasn’t that gracefulness required of such a dance came naturally to him, but rather that his governesses and tutors had never allowed him to be subpar at anything.
A boy of eight should have been hunting for frogs in the stream or racing his pony through the fields. He had been walking circles around the drawing room, a vase filled with freezing cold water balanced on his head and his arms trembling from the weight of the books his dance instructor had forced him to hold.
The lessons, however barbaric they might have been, had paid off.
Weston rarely—if ever—made a misstep, and if he did, he was his own harshest critic.
He did not expect perfection.
Hedemandedit.
Which was why it was a pleasure to discover that his blue-eyed fairy was just as good, if not better, than he was at the waltz.
She moved with a natural grace that could not be taught, her hands fluttering from his shoulder to his waist and her small feet moving with impeccable timing. He spun her away from him and then brought her back, his retraction a bit more forceful than necessary so that she bumped against his chest.
“I am sorry, my lord.” Her voice was as soft and light as the rest of her; a rainbow dancing on a sunbeam.
“The error was mine,” he said without apology, as the act had been intentional and he did not regret her breasts pressing against his jacket. Countless layers of clothing between them, and he’d still felt a shock.
When was the last time he had been shocked by anything, let aloneanyone?
The edge of her mouth curled upward. “I suspected as much, but am always loath to point out other’s errors unless they are deserving of it.”
“And I am not deserving of critique?” he asked, arching a brow.
“That remains to be seen,” she said coyly.
They stepped seamlessly around a slower, clumsily moving couple.
Weston adjusted his grip on her waist, his hand enveloping a large portion of her back and the slightest curve of her bottom. “What is your name?” he asked. “You are not from around here.”
“Was it the accent that gave it away?”
“That, and I never forget a face.”
“Do you find it memorable?” She tilted her chin. “My face, that is.”
“You’re beautiful.” It wasn’t praise so much as a statement of fact. “Only a blind man could forget you.”
