Meanwhile, Darcy danced the third set with Jane—protective, courteous, guiding her through the figures, and Jane smiled serenely, the way Allegra had advised, while Bingley jittered at the sidelines, wringing his hands and spilling punch.
But when Darcy danced with Mary, Elizabeth’s heart jammed in her throat. Mary was stiff and awkward, but Darcy matched her pace, holding her hands with such gentle care that by the second figure, Mary was smiling—shy, but real. Elizabeth’s eyes stung, and she had to look away before anyone saw what it did to her composure to watch a proud man treat her plain sister like a duchess.
And then, the supper dance was announced—a waltz.
A flurry of excitement rippled through the room. Fans snapped shut, and countesses shifted on the sofas for a better view. Men moved purposefully through the crowd in search of their fair partners.
Elizabeth’s heart abandoned all pretense of composure, thudding against her ribs like a bird discovering an open cage.
Had Darcy read the initials on the card? Would he heed her choice, or was Lady Matlock’s authority too great? Darcy had always held his family’s name above all other matters. Would he concede to Lord Coke, despite the “F. D.” she had so boldly scrawled?
And then, just when she glimpsed Lord Coke making his way through the crowd, aiming his trajectory at her, Darcy arrived.
The blue coat. The white waistcoat. That impossible height she’d resented in Hertfordshire—still impossible, still infuriating. His shoulders blocked the candlelight, and the shadow felt like a hand pressed over her heart. And his eyes—God, those eyes—locked on hers until the whole ballroom faded to gold and noise and nothing.
There was only him. The steady warmth of a man looking at her like she was the only real thing in a room full of decorations.
“Miss Bennet.” Low. Pitched for her ears alone, as though they stood in a private room instead of a public ballroom, and the intimacy of the pitching traveled through her like a note struck on the lowest string of the Broadwood, resonant, vibrating, felt more than heard. “I believe this dance is mine.”
“Yes,” she curtsied, low and deep, “It is.”
Her voice stayed steady, her knees held, but her pulse hammered, and she had to lick her lips.
“As arranged.” His eyes seemed to twinkle as he took her gloved hand.
She swallowed, set her hand on his shoulder, and the music began. Darcy’s arm circled her, pulling her closer than any man ever had. Even the dance master had used a female assistant for the turns.
Darcy’s hand caressing the ivory silk, and the swaying and turning, caught her with dizzying fire. The sensation traveled through the silk and stays to her skin beneath, warm, heated, and possessive. And her body responded, spinning and twirling as she tried to keep the count of three, but failing and simply allowing him to lead.
She felt the pressure of his palm: the warmth radiating through the fabric, spreading through her belly like wine drunk too quickly, pooling low and sweet and alarming. Their bodies pressed together, moving in concert, matching—not in size, he was twice her breadth, but in rhythm, in intention, in the synchronization of two hearts locked in the same tempo.
“You are dancing,” she said. “But not conversing.”
“Then I shall dance and converse. Did you not think it possible to do both?” He spun her around fast and dizzyingly, but she had no fear. He would never allow her to fall.
“You are dancing the waltz with me, Mr. Darcy, and you are looking at me as though I am the only woman in this room.” Her voice caught.
“Aren’t you?” His gaze was luminous on her. “I do not believe I noticed another.”
His mouth rearranged with an amusement visible only to her. And she stared up at him, completely entranced. His eyes, so deep, and his mouth—she wondered how his lips would feel, and that chin, stubborn and aristocratic. The crinkles at his eyes, and then he was grinning and so was she—the wide unguarded grin of being swung around a London ballroom in the arms of the only man who’d had both the gall and the nerves to honor her wishes after so devastating a refusal.
“I am happy, Mr. Darcy,” she admitted. “The waltz is scandalous, but I am glad you are the one to take me through it.”
“I shall oblige you.” He turned her around, pressing her closer so that she felt the beat of his heart.
There was no proper distance, and she did not wish for the minutes to ever tick down. Every inch of this man—the solidity, the warmth, and the restrained strength—all of him was invigorating, and she could not catch her breath.
“Mr. Darcy, I never imagined a dance could—” She stopped because the sentence was hurtling toward a cliff. That this was the only dance that had mattered tonight—not because it was the waltz, but that he was the only partner whose hand at her waist had set her on fire, and the only man whose approach had made her stomach drop–dismantling in less than three minutes, her carefully constructed fortress of wit.
“This dance,” he prompted, “you were saying?”
“It is the best that I have had tonight,” and the honesty arrived before the wit. “You, Mr. Darcy, are improving.”
“Only for you, Miss Elizabeth, because you require excellence.” His eyes grew dreamy, half-lidded, and his gaze dropped to her lips.
For a breathless moment, she imagined what it would be like, and she didn’t care who watched, or that she was twenty, orthat something inside her was burning, and she had no wish to quench it.
“You are providing it. In everything.” It was reckless, and she knew it. This was a man who had curated her joy and danced with her sister as though Mary were a duchess and who was looking at her now with an expression that she would remember for the rest of her life. One, she reflected back at him. Of falling, and yes, she was falling. Fast for the cliff was behind her, the air was everywhere, the ground was nowhere, and the falling was the most terrifying, exhilarating, intoxicating sensation she had ever experienced, and she did not want it to stop.
