Heavens, she looks divine.
Oscar had seen beauty—statues, paintings, even the moonlit gardens of his own estate—but none of them prepared him for Nancy as she entered the drawing room on the evening of the ball.
The green dress fit her like a secret, the silver embroidery catching the light in a manner that suggested sorcery more than tailoring. Her red hair, swept up with only a few deliberate escapes, glowed against the high white of her skin and the unapologetic cut of her collarbone.
She paused at the threshold, letting the full power of her presence settle over the room. Oscar felt himself go, for the briefest moment, entirely useless.
Nancy caught him gaping. She arched one brow, a dare and a reprimand in equal measure. “Is there something on my dress, Duke?”
Oscar recovered enough to draw a breath. “Only you, Duchess. And that is more than sufficient.”
She stalked closer, skirts rustling like a scandal. “If you persist in staring, I’ll have to charge you admission.”
“I would pay it, and handsomely.” He circled her once, slowly, as if she were an object at auction. “The color is—” he broke off, searching for the word, and failing. “It is the most perfect green I have ever seen. No painter would dare it. They’d never capture the truth.”
Nancy did not drop her gaze. “I assume you mean the dress and not my eyes.”
He felt himself smile, which was rare enough to startle him. “Both. But I have never seen your eyes so….” He searched again. “Alive.”
Nancy blushed. She never blushed. It was an event so rare that he catalogued it instantly, filed it beside sightings of comets and other portents.
He pressed the advantage. “The hair is a perfect contrast. I had a suspicion it would be so. I am, for once, delighted to be right.”
She shot him a sidelong look. “You should not say such things to a woman, Oscar. Especially not to one you are only obliged to admire by contract.”
He ignored the deflection and took her gloved hand. The silk was cool, but beneath it, her fingers were not steady. “You are magnificent, Nancy. If the rest of the city is not already writing sonnets, it is because they have all fainted dead away.”
She tried to yank her hand free, but he held it fast. “You’re making fun of me.”
He shook his head. “I am not. I am trying to memorize the exact color of your dress for when the vision inevitably fades and I am left to doubt it ever existed.”
She swatted at him with her reticule—he’d half-expected a fan, but this was more in character—and he caught it with his other hand, holding both in a parody of a dance position. “Let me go or I will be forced to tell the children you are a brute.”
He did not let go. “Let them know. I will sign any confession you write.” The room seemed suddenly too small for both of them. He noticed, with some pride, that Nancy was breathing only a little more evenly than he.
She dropped her head, then looked up, daring him again. “It is only a dress, Oscar.”
He inclined his head. “And yet it has utterly ruined me.”
She stared at him, and in the quiet that followed, he could hear the slow shift of her lungs, the soft unfurling of whatever armor she had brought into the room.
He raised her hand to his lips, kissed the knuckles through the silk. It was a court gesture, but for once he meant it absolutely. “Thank you for wearing it, Duchess.”
She made a face. “You are ridiculous.”
He grinned. “Perhaps. But I suspect you rather like me this way.”
A beat, and then she nodded. “Only a little.”
He let her hands drop, then offered his arm. “Shall we go stun the rest of society?”
She hooked her arm through his. “Lead on, Duke.”
As they made their way toward the waiting carriage, Oscar felt the world balance itself around them. He’d been anxious, but now he was—if not calm, then at least sure. Tonight, he was the luckiest man in London.
He risked a glance at Nancy, and found her watching him, green eyes bright as emeralds. For once, she did not look away.
He wondered, as they stepped into the night, if there would ever be another color in the world for him.
