And Then She Fell(18)
She, and the waltz, took his breath away.
He’d wanted a distraction from the other young ladies, a reward for his diligent application over the past hours, and she’d agreed and given him all he’d wished for; wholly focused on her, on the waltz, on the welling pleasure, he shut his mind to all else and enjoyed.
Henrietta couldn’t catch her breath, but not breathing didn’t seem to matter. She felt light as thistledown, floating and swooping in a deliciously delightful way—carried in his arms, swept along by his strength, cradled and protected and powerfully directed, yet free in a way she’d never felt before. As if her senses had expanded and broken their fetters and were no longer restricted to the mundane world.
The waltz was eye-opening on several fronts. She’d waltzed times without number, with gentlemen beyond count, but none before had held the key to this new and novel and wholly beguiling landscape. The sensations of his hand firmly clasping her fingers, of his other hand at her back, entirely correctly supporting her yet with his touch all but burning through the layers of fine silk, registered, impinged, yet they were only one set of waves amid a sea. The brush of his thigh between hers as they whisked through a tight turn, the sheer power of their movement up the floor, thrilled in ways she hadn’t before experienced.
And she was enthralled. This was waltzing at a different level, of a different degree.
Some part of her levelheaded mind wanted to observe and catalog each aspect, yet his eyes were on hers, and the tug of the soul that shone through the brown tempted and lured, and she dispensed with all anchors to reality and let herself follow him, let her senses soar.
Let the dance, and him, sweep her away.
Into uninhibited enjoyment.
When the music finally ended and they whirled to a halt, and, breathless, she had to step out of his arms and curtsy, all she felt was disappointment that the moment had ended.
That they were back in the real world, with its attendant demands.
“Thank you.” She could have waltzed with him for at least another hour; she smiled in honest and open appreciation. “That was indeed a pleasure.”
He was watching her, as if seeing her anew, but he inclined his head and smiled easily in reply. “It was.” He looked around, surveying the crowd about them. “Perhaps we could simply stroll for a while, without any defined agenda?”
She was ready enough to set aside looking for more young ladies, at least for the moment. “If you wish.”
He offered his arm. She hesitated for only an instant before accepting and placing her hand on his sleeve; she’d managed to survive a waltz, after all. And if her fingers tingled at the feel of the hard muscle beneath his sleeve, and her still giddy senses purred at the sensations engendered by him standing so close, crowded even closer by the press of bodies all around, she would, she decided, find some way to cope.
They strolled easily, joining this circle, then that, stopping to chat with acquaintances—some hers, many his, most known to them both. Neither of them was all that young and, socially, they moved in similar circles.
Henrietta relaxed, and found herself enjoying the interactions, engaged and drawn in, both wits and senses more acute, heightened in an unusual way as she bantered with James, even outright flirted, exchanging views and barbed comments, her attention wholly focused on him . . . they’d been strolling and chatting for nearly half an hour before the warmth of the necklace, especially of the rose-quartz pendant dangling above her breasts, registered, and she remembered she was wearing the charm. . . .
Oh, God! She stared at James, who at that moment was speaking with George Ferguson and thankfully didn’t see her sudden shock. But even as she tore her gaze away and schooled her features into a pleasantly smiling mask, her mind was scrambling, tripping . . . this couldn’t be what she was thinking, could it?
Hell and the devil, could it be?
Was the damned necklace working on her after all?
She didn’t know whether to feel aghast or ecstatic. But when she looked again at James . . . it was as if the proverbial scales fell from her eyes and she saw him in an entirely different light, from an entirely new perspective.
The shift in view was disorienting.
But before she’d done more than frame the obvious questions—What should she do now? Should she act on her newfound understanding, and if so, how?—a stentorian bellow of “Ladies and gentlemen!” rolled across the room.
Conversations broke off and the crowd turned toward the source of the salutation—Lady Marchmain’s butler, standing to rigid attention at the top of the steps leading down into the ballroom.