Page 74 of Love & Letter Charms
We may converse honestly, without the tedious pretense of courtship.
And yet … the way he looked at her now suggested something entirely different. She drew a steadying breath and looked away before the feeling could completely overtake her.
“I’m feeling wonderfully drowsy,” she said, needing to break the moment. “I should return to my chambers before I accidentally fall asleep beneath the stars.”
“Rest easy,” he said, that teasing tone creeping back into his voice again. “I would carry you back to your bed, should that occur.”
She shook her head, though she found she was not nearly as scandalized as she ought to be. “If your aim is to shock me with impropriety, I’ll have you know I’m developing quite an immunity to your scandalous suggestions.”
“Then I shall simply have to become increasingly creative in my impropriety.”
She laughed at that. “You are incorrigible.”
“I do try to be consistent in my character.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth before he tilted his head, a touch of hesitation softening the easy charm in his manner. “May I ask one more thing before I escort you back?”
“That depends entirely upon what you’re asking.”
“Would you …” He drew a careful breath. “Would you play for me? Not the pianoforte—though I count myself fortunate for every time you’ve permitted me to remain in the music room with you and listen. What I mean is … your own music.”
The request was so unexpected, so earnest, that she could only stare at him. He’d heard her music before, of course—it had escaped often in his presence, and he’d been present at the musicale early on in her stay at Solstice Hall, when all the Crown Court ladies had been expected to perform. But this was different. He was asking her to deliberately share this part of herself that she treasured most deeply with him and only him.
“Please?” His eyes captured hers, the blue of them seeming darker, depthless. And it was surely only the haze of the driftshade, the enchantment of the night, but she felt herself sinking, helplessly, into their depths.
“Very well,” she whispered, though she couldn’t seem to look away, nor remember how to move her hands.
He reached for her then, his touch slow, deliberate. His gaze never wavered from hers as his fingers found her wrist. “You removed your gloves at the Opening Ball,” he murmured, hisvoice low, the words curling through the night like a secret. “And again at the musicale. Do you always do that?”
But he was already easing at the tiny buttons along her wrist, one after another, his movements unhurried, almost reverent.
She swallowed. “Yes,” she managed, though the word came out unsteady as he gently grasped the fingertips of her glove. “It … it allows me to …” A shuddering breath escaped her as the glove began to slide down over her hand. “To better feel the magic around me,” she finished on a breath.
The fabric slipped free beneath his hands, satin whispering against her skin, leaving his palm warm against the bare skin of her forearm. His fingers traced a slow, lingering path downward, following the curve of her arm until his hand found hers.
Then he reached for her other hand, fingers moving to the buttons there, undoing them with deliberately aching slowness. And surely this was the driftshade’s influence, because she wouldnever,ever, under any normal circumstances, allow a gentleman to undress any part of her, no matter how small. Yet she could not look away from his face, from the intensity in his eyes as he revealed her bare skin inch by careful inch.
By the time the second glove lay on the grass beside the first, she could barely breathe.
“There,” Prince Ryden murmured, his voice rough as his thumb brushed across her bare palm before releasing her. “Now you are ready.”
Ready? She was the very opposite of ready. She’d quite forgotten what she was even meant to be doing.Music, she reminded herself with another shuddering breath, her skin still tingling beneath the memory of his touch.
“Can I—that is—would you mind if—” She took another steadying breath, forcing herself to look away from him. “I find it easier if I close my eyes.”
“Of course,” he said.
She let her eyelids fall shut and drew several deep, steady breaths, willing her pulse to slow. The driftshade was still there—soft and heady—curling through her veins, loosening her restraint, quieting every careful thought. She let her mind wander toward the melodies and harmonies that were ever-present beneath her skin suspended, invisible, in the air around her, waiting to be caught and shaped into something beautiful.
She breathed again.
Slow … deep …
In … out …
Then she lifted one hand and swept it through the air in a languid arc before her. Music unfurled like silk ribbons in the dark—low, velvety cello notes weaving with the crystalline shimmer of harp and viola. A meandering melody that wound and looped around them both, encircling them in a cocoon of sound. Her hands moved in slow, graceful patterns, tracing arcs and spirals through the air as the music swelled, gathered upon itself, and rose toward a shimmering crescendo before softening once more. Gradually, the sound gentled, each note folding into the next until it faded to near stillness, like the final sigh of a dream.
When the final note drifted into silence, Aurelise opened her eyes to find him watching her with an expression that made her chest tighten painfully. Did it touch him the way it did her? That sensation of being threaded through with something that was like warmth and color and light, and yet somehow none of those things.
“Has anyone told you before how utterly extraordinary you are?” Prince Ryden murmured.
