Page 60 of The Duke's Dream
“Hmm?”
Celeste laughed. “We have to celebrate. The dancers are going to the Pantheon. Vestris promised to take us in his carriage. Come.”
“You girls go, I’m tired.”
Everyone cheered, but, try as she might, Helene knew what she wanted to find would not be in the Pantheon.
***
A line of gentlemen waited in the green room, eyes fixed on Helene, arms burdened with gaudy bouquets.
The duke was not among them. What did she expect? According to him, some paths led to ruin, and she was one of them. With no one to help her change, she ignored the would-be suitors, grabbed her coat, and walked out.
Helene dragged her feet out of the theater, feeling as celebrated as an old broom. The street was frozen. The gas lamps flickered morosely, as if cold. Even the lonely hackney coaches seemed unable to move, caught in frost. She wrapped her shawl around herself and, keeping her chin low, treaded through the dimly lit streets.
If he could do it, so could she. She would freeze her heart. It would be frozen like the city, frozen like his eyes, frozen like his demeanor when he rejected her. She didn’t need a muse to perform. Apollo would be better without Terpsichore.
Helene hastened her walk, each step firm against the cold pavement.
When she arrived at her building, the only thing she had frozen was her feet. Cold to the roots of her soul, she carried herself up the stairs.
The mournful notes of her neighbor’s violin slipped through the walls, curling around her. Helene closed her eyes. A requiem? What a welcome for a ballet star.
Helene raced the last steps, wanting to outrun the sorrowful music.
At the top of the landing, she halted. Framed by the sooty light, confiscating the air of her building, more handsome than Apollo, lounged her renegade muse.
The Duke of Albemarle leaned against the wall, his black and white evening finery catching glints of light like a chiaroscuro painting. That attire had been invented for men like him—danger wrapped in civility, restraint tailored to perfection.
A single rebellious curl had slipped free, softening the severe angles of his patrician face. It was ridiculous how that one unruly strand undid her. Humanized him. Made him more devastating.
His gaze met hers. Only desire swirled in the storm of his eyes, and a breath she had been holding escaped her parted lips. And then he smiled, and she lost the rest of her air. His was the kind of smile that could turn a requiem into a tender adagio.
Helene let go of her death grip on the railing, schooling her expression into a mask of English restraint. “You came… Interesting. I thought some paths led us astray.”
His gaze found hers. “All the paths in this city lead back to you.”
The words, delivered in his smoky baritone, heated even her frozen feet.
But he had hurt her, and no one should have that much power over her, most of all a tyrant duke.
“Did you see the performance? How did you feel about the company? I certainly don’t want our poor crew of emigres to be out in the streets, or worse—”
“I didn’t pay attention to the company.”
“No?”
“I only saw you.”
Exhaling, Helene wrung her hands. “I made mistakes, and the last act was terrible. I was far from perfect.”
“You were not perfect.” He touched her cheek, a brief caress. His voice was soft, reverent. “You were sublime.”
How did he do that? Turned her from an old broom into a beautiful giantess? Look at her—so tall her head must be reaching the ceiling’s beams.
So much for willing her heart into ice.
What she felt for him, it seemed, could not be frozen at will. It heated the air between them, thickening and seething, coiling around her like smoke.
