Page 55 of A Family Bargain with the Duke

“I was,” Julian admitted. “Thank you.”

Lady Fairmont sighted her and crossed over hurriedly, and somehow guided Louisa to a corner near the musicians and, having secured a thoroughly captive audience, launched into an exhaustive account of the relative merits of French lace over Brussels. Louisa had, by her own estimation, nodded no fewer than fourteen times.

The orchestra struck the opening notes of the next dance. Around them, conversations dissolved almost at once as gentlemen crossed the ballroom in search of partners, gloved hands extended, skirts rustling as ladies accepted and moved toward the center of the room. Lady Fairmont, however, seemed entirely oblivious.

Louisa glanced almost wistfully toward the dancers beginning to assemble.

Surely…

But no, Lady Fairmont showed no inclination whatsoever to release her.

“You must agree,” the older woman continued earnestly, “that a lady’s choice of lace reveals a great deal about her character.”

“It undoubtedly⁠—”

“There you are.”

The familiar voice slipped so neatly into the conversation that for a heartbeat, Louisa thought she had imagined it.

Julian stood beside them, one hand behind his back, looking every inch the composed duke Society expected him to be.

“Your Grace,” Lady Fairmont greeted brightly.

“I wonder if I might borrow my wife.” There was no invented dispute or fictitious emergency. He simply held Louisa’s gaze. “The dance is starting.”

Only then did Lady Fairmont notice that half the guests had already taken their places on the dance floor.

“Oh, goodness.” She laughed lightly. “Of course. I have kept the Duchess quite long enough.

Julian offered his hand to Louisa. “Would you do me the honor, Duchess?”

Louisa placed her fingers in his. His hand closed gently around hers, warm despite the cool kid leather of his glove, and the simple pressure stirred a faint flutter in her stomach.

He led her across the dance floor, his palm warm and steady on her waist, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through the silk of her gown, close enough that the glittering ballroom around them seemed, for the length of that first turn, to recede into something considerably less significant than the small space between their bodies.

“You dance rather well, Your Grace.”

“I had an excellent tutor, growing up. My mother insisted on it, before she died.” His hand tightened slightly on her waist as they turned. “I confess I have not enjoyed dancing nearly so much in a very long while as I find myself enjoying it tonight.”

Louisa looked up. “Careful, Your Grace.”

His mouth curved. “Someone might mistake that for a compliment?”

She laughed softly. “Precisely.”

“It was entirely meant as one.”

Louisa felt her breath catch and found herself, for the length of several turns, unable to look anywhere but at his face, the candlelight catching the sharp line of his jaw, his eyes fixed on hers with an intensity that made the rest of the ballroom blur out of focus.

His hand on her waist felt warmer with every step, his thumb resting just slightly against the small of her back, and she was acutely aware of every point where they touched, of how very little distance remained between them, of the charged quality of his silence and the intensity of his gaze on her as the music carried them through another slow turn.

Good heavens. This is only a dance, she told herself, but did not entirely believe it.

People danced every evening of every London Season without their pulse behaving in such an utterly ridiculous fashion.

And yet…

She had danced before. She had never before felt as though the space between her and her partner had become the only space in the room that truly existed. She wondered, against her better judgment, whether he felt it too.