“Dance with me.”
Her head snapped toward him. “What?”
“You heard me. Dance with me.”
A startled breath left her. “I don’t dance. I never learned how.”
“I don’t either. Not in any lordly sense. But it didn’t stop me from asking.”
She glanced toward the floor, at the sea of moving bodies. “People will see us.”
He heard what she didn’t say:Wouldn’t you be ashamed?
Once upon a time, he might’ve been. He’d feared how she’d move, feared her limp would draw sneers. Worried she might stumble. Worried others would laugh, or scorn.
Now, he didn’t give a damn.
“Let them see.”
Her eyes widened. He held out his hand. For a moment, she didn’t move.
Then—slowly, tentatively—she placed her fingers in his.
He guided her to the edge of the dance floor, close enough to join, but not so central as to make her even more uncomfortable.The music had changed to a more sedate tempo now, more a turning promenade than the elaborate sequences from earlier.
“I still don’t know the steps,” she mumbled.
“That’s alright.” His voice was low, lips close to her ear. “You’re the most perceptive woman I know. You’d be able to follow just by watching them.”
Her right hand was small in his, the other trembling slightly on his shoulder. She moved stiffly at first, unsure, glancing down at her feet as though afraid she might misstep, swallowed by the room’s expectation. But he held her steady and let the rhythm settle between them. He didn’t try to lead with any real precision, only enough to guide their motion in a gentle turn, his movements fluid enough that hers could follow without strain.
“I’m counting too much,” she rasped, brow furrowed.
“You don’t need to,” he said. “Just look at me.”
The world around them fell away. The music, the dancers, the watchful eyes—all of it dissolved into the space between them. He saw her then,just her.And in her eyes, he saw the same fear he felt, the same desperate hope. Something shifted in his chest, unlocked.
Gradually, her gait shifted. Her shoulders loosened. Their timing found a common beat. She was still learning, still feeling the motion, but no longer braced for it. He matched the shorter reach of her right leg and the pattern bent around them.
“You’re doing well,” he told her, his voice low.
“I can feel the limp.”
“I feel onlyyou,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll match the rest.”
Her breath hitched—almost a laugh—and for the first time all evening, a true, unguarded ease shone through her gaze.
The sight of it—not trust yet but something like it—flickering back to life, was the most terrifyingly beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed. It felt like holding a candle flame in a hurricane—precious, precarious, and entirely in his care not to extinguish.The music swelled. They turned together, a single smooth revolution. The court and its stares fell back, drowned out by the drum of his own heart.
The only thing that mattered was this: she was in his arms, and she chose tostay.
CHAPTER 44
JINGYI
The music slowed. Dancers bowed in a flurry of silk and smiles. She remained in his hold, her hand over his heart, steady under her palm.
She’d been taught to expect humiliation, that she would never fit their idea of ‘beautiful.’ But here, beauty wasn’t the measure. She needed only herself and him, the way he shifted to meet her shorter step, and the dance shaping to their rhythm, not the other way around.
