“You—” He recovered, barely. “You have been admiring my?—”
“Mm.”
“—my shoulder.”
“Shoulders,” she corrected. “Plural. I am nothing if not thorough. Itseemed only fair, when you were forever standing about my kitchen being tall and broad and generally in the way of the light.”
“I do not,” said Kazrian, “have the faintest idea what a man is meant to say to that.”
“You need not say anything at all.” She was smiling up at him, entirely delighted with herself. “You have gone a most remarkable shade of red. It is very gratifying. I have been made to blush by you a hundred times over, and I think it only fair that it is now your turn.”
He considered that while trying to regain his composure. “A hundred times over,” he repeated. “Is that so?”
“Since the moment you walked straight into me and ruined the tray of caramels.”
“I really did feel so horribly guilty about those.”
She laughed. “I know you did.”
They danced. The music carried them through the turns, and the faelights drifted above, and Kazrian was aware, distantly, that there were hundreds of people around them—masked, enchanted, glittering—and he could not have described a single one. There was only Lucie. The press of her hand on his shoulder. The way her eyes stayed on his as though she, too, had forgotten the rest of the room existed. The smile she could not seem to stop, and the way it made him smile in return, helplessly, ridiculously, a grin he would have been mortified by in any other circumstance and could not bring himself to care about now.
Gently, gradually, he directed their steps as they danced, a half turn here, a wider arc there, guiding them by degrees toward the far edge of the floor where the crowd thinned and the music softened and one of the tall arched doors opened onto a balcony beyond.
He was not subtle about it. He had never been especially good at subtlety, and he suspected she knew precisely what he was doing, because she followed every redirected step without comment and with the faintest, most knowing curve at the corner of her mouth.
They reached the edge of the dance floor. The balcony was just there, a few steps past the open doorway, partially screened from the ballroom by a cascade of trailing ivy. With one final graceful arc, they were outside.
Lucie looked about. There was a little round table, and the stars above,and no one at all but the two of them. “Why, Lord Rowanwood,” she said, looking up at him. “Have you spirited me off?”
“I have,” he said. “I confess it was very deliberate. I have been plotting it since the dance began.”
His smile gentled, and the steadiness he had been holding onto all evening wavered, just slightly, because she was here, she was actuallyhere. Standing on a Rowanwood balcony in a golden gown, and she hadchosento be here, withhim, and he wanted?—
He wanted to see her face.
“Lucie. May I—that is, would you permit me to remove your mask? Only if you?—”
“Yes,” she said.
He moved behind her. The dark ribbons of the mask were knotted at the back against the soft arrangement of her hair, and he worked at them gently, mindful to keep his fingers from brushing any other part of her.
“You are always so careful with me,” she said quietly. “So very proper. Always keeping your distance, always waiting to be certain you have leave.” A small breath. “I need you to put it out of your mind, Kazrian—the idea that there was ever a moment when I did not want you near. There was not. Whatever I said, whatever I did, however far I sent you—I wanted you near the whole of the time. I have always wanted your touch.”
His hands went still on the ribbons. For a moment he could not speak at all. Then he finished loosening them, steadier now, and drew the mask gently away and set it down upon the little round table.
She did not immediately turn to face him, and he hesitated a moment, then lifted one hand and brushed his knuckles slowly down the side of her neck and over her shoulder.
He felt the shiver that went through her.
And then, because he had been wanting to kiss her since approximately five minutes after first meeting her, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to the skin at the curve of her shoulder. He heard the soft, shaken sigh of her breath, and it almost undid him entirely.
He turned her toward him. He lifted his hand and brought it to her cheek and drew his thumb slowly, softly, across the warm skin there. She closed her eyes and leaned into his palm, and he thought his heart mightsimply stop. It was a recognition, a homecoming, the first smooth turn of two gears that had been made for one another finally fitting together.
“Lucie,” he said. His voice had gone hoarse. He could feel the warmth of her breath against his wrist. “Whatever sort of life you want—I will gladly give it to you. It does not matter to me whether it is grand or simple or something in between, or what anyone else may happen to think of it. If you will have me, then whatever you want is what I want, because the only part of it that is important to me is the part where I am beside you.”
She was quiet for a moment. Her eyes shone. “I hear,” she said, “that there is an excellent storeroom at The Honeycomb.”
A laugh broke from him. “It is settled, then. When shall we take up residence?”
