Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(49)

Rosalie tried to prevent herself from hanging out of the carriage window in an unseemly way as Rand pointed out the strange and delightful scenes they passed: the open-air summer restaurants, the huge mass of the uncompleted Arc de Triomphe, the Tuileries Gardens, and the Palais Royal, wbere numerous small shops beckoned to the passing tourists. Across the Seine reposed the dwellings of the secluded aristocracy along the Right Bank. Every part of the city was filled with the delicious smells of a multitude of the finest restaurants.

The first night in Paris, Rand took Rosalie dancing as he had promised, to a public ball that was crowded with the most varied assemblage conceivable. It was filled with gamblers, prostitutes, aristocrats, and elegant ladies, who intermingled as if the sharp class distinctions they usually sought to protect did not exist. There was an orchestra at either end of the dance hall. The music of the fiddle, clarinet and the cornet a piston floated out of the huge Gothic doors to the small garden walkways that were lit with colored paper lanterns. Inside, Rosalie went to the refreshment table after the first quadrille and eyed the drinks with dismay.

“Warm March beer,” she commented, and out of nowhere Rand managed to produce a cup of tart lemonade. “You’re a magician,” she accused, laughing up at him and then downing half the drink in a few rapid swallows. She was careful not to let the pink liquid spot either her long gloves or the immaculate high-waisted, puff-sleeved gown she wore. The daylight-blue gown was at first glance demure, but the neckline was cut so deeply that it riveted the attention of all who saw her. The fragile inset of Valenciennes lace did nothing to camouflage the alluring vale between her br**sts.

“Be careful,” Rand said, picking up a fresh threecornered puff and eyeing it with interest. “You might come to find me indispensable.”

“Tonight I do,” Rosalie said, biting off the corner of the puff and allowing him to finish the rest of it. “You’re a better dancer than anyone else here.” She felt like she was flying when they moved together. She had felt the stares of many people on them as Rand had whirled her around the ballroom, and strangely she had not minded being regarded as his woman.

Rand smiled at her, wondering at her relaxed openness with him. It was a new attitude, one which interested him greatly. It seemed that there had been a few changes in Rosalie since he had first brought her to France.

“A dancer is only as good as his partner.” “Not true,” she corrected, taking another refreshing swallow of the sugar-fruit-and-water concoction. “I know the extent of my capabilities. You enhance them greatly.”

“False modesty. Are you looking for more complimerits from me?” Rand accused softly. Their gazes caught and melded together in an electric completeness, and then they became aware that the orchestras were playing the unmistakable accented rhythm of a waltz. “The first waltz,” he said, and took the lemonade from her to set it down on the table. “We’re obligated to dance again.”

“Really,” Rosalie responded dryly, and she allowed him to pull her into the center of the crush of couples before it became any more crowded.

“I must speak with Madame Mirabeau about your clothes,” Rand remarked, sliding an arm around her waist with the caution of utter propriety.

“My clothes?” Rosalie repeated, wrinkling her nose at him in a flirtatious manner that was utterly unlike herself.

“You’re only a fraction of an inch away from being underdressed,” he said, and as his gaze flickered to the plunging neckline of her gown it was obvious as to where he would have added the extra inch of material. “If you’d bother to look around, you’d see I’m the most overdressed woman here.”

Rand made some noncommittal sound, having no desire to look at any other women. As he stared down at her and smiled, Rosalie was suddenly consumed with a rush of feelings that threatened to suffocate her. Why did this night ever have to end? she thought, caught in an indescribably painful moment of realization that no hour, no minute of her life would ever be this perfect again.

It seemed that they danced the entire night without stopping. Rosalie clung to each moment until it was wrenched from her, reveling in the cloud-woven hours as Rand turned the considerable amount of charm at his disposal completely toward her. One minute he would entice her into laughing out loud, and in the next he would look into her eyes with an enigmatic and steady gaze as he swept her around in wide, circling steps. Their clasped hands, the music, the privacy of an intimate glance—it was a sweet flash of fulfillment, too brief, elusive. She was caught between night and day in an insubstantial dream, able to do nothing except follow where he led.

I’ve allowed it to happen, she thought, and her breath caught in her throat. I’ve brought it on myself. She had fallen in love with him. She loved a man she could never, never have, someone that perhaps no one could ever have. And worse yet was the knowledge that if it had happened despite her best efforts to resist, her flourishing love for Lord Randall Berkeley would likewise be impossible to dispel.

Seven

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream

Come back in tears,  O memory, hope, love of finished years.

—Christina Rossetti

A breeze flew across Rosalie’s skin as the carriage door was opened, a cool brush of gossamer that sent soft chills chasing through her body. The faltering moonlight barely illuminated Rand’s set features as he helped her out of the vehicle. His eyes flickered with a brief smile, but the set of his mouth was inscrutable, the expression of his features almost emotionless. Rosalie accepted his hand as she descended to the ground, wondering why her fingers were cold when his were so warm.