Chapter Six
“So what is this all about? I’m standing here right smack in the middle of a friggin’ Victorian ballroom!”
Standing right smack in the middle of a friggin’ Victorian ballroom, Jasmin stared with wide eyes at her ethereal surroundings. She beheld a room bordered on all sides by crystalline mirrors and topped by an ivory corniced ceiling that came further adorned with a full bank of decorative chandeliers—sleek brass luminaries that cast the entire room in an aura of courtly romance.
Although clad in a resplendent, full-skirted satin gown that fell graceful to her feet—a dazzling effort of burgundy and gold that came complete with a lush floral print corset and bustled flowing skirt and a refined black lace trim—Jasmin felt a bit awkward and out of place in such upscale surroundings. Especially since she failed to come armed with her shield of a meal cart, demanding of everyone within earshot, ‘Would you like chutney with that?’
“So what do we do here?” she asked Nathaniel, himself adorned in a suit of royal blue silk that molded and accentuated his firm muscled body; a sharp evening suit accented by knee high black leather boots and a slick white shirt underneath.
She took in her breath as her attentive date swept her up in two muscled arms, sweeping her also onto the surface of a clean tiled dance floor.
“We dance, Love,” he informed her on a whisper, continuing as he pulled her closer to him, “That’s what we do here.”
Jasmin felt all tension fall immediately away from her as her lover swept her, in a graceful flourish, across the breadth of the polished floor; engaging her in a spirited reel that also managed to be highly intimate in spirit.
Wrapping her arms around his broad muscled shoulders as her buxom breasts crushed his broad massive chest, Jasmin thrilled as their hips also joined between them to claim a flawless rhythm. Their dance proved one that kept time with the music of a lone violinist that played his classically influenced tunes in a far corner of the room.
After learning more than her fair share of ballroom dance steps, earning praise as she did so from her ever attentive instructor, Jasmin turned the tables on an amused Nathaniel by teaching him some of her favorite moves, ripped straight from her own era.
The entire ballroom looked on with keen amusement as the vivacious newcomer to their elite social scene—often known as the Ton—engaged her date in a number of curious, if highly energetic, dance moves that seemed to know little rhyme or reason in their performance. Her movements seemed to prompt some to wonder if the woman who performed them had been possessed by some form of demonic force—if not an out and out case of the dreaded St. Vitus Dance.
Showing off some most curious moves that she identified under the equally curious names of Electric Slide, the Achy Breaky and Gangnam Style, she soon encouraged everyone in the room to form what she called a ‘dance line’, mimicking her outrageous and slightly uncoordinated steps as the poor wide eyed violinist struggled to play along.
Nathaniel, for his part, claimed the head of the line as he launched his tall, muscular body wholeheartedly into the fun of the evening. He followed the lead of his enchanting date as they frolicked to the jaunty beat of what Jasmin so adorably referred to as ‘One mean fiddle’.
He marveled as she persuaded a whole gaggle of prim and proper Victorian ladies to ‘raise the roof’; lifting their lace-gloved hands in the air like they just didn’t care.
“Isn’t she just a delight?” he inquired of everyone who would listen, doing his best to master every one of his newly acquired dance steps.
“You’re rockin’ it, babe!” Jasmin praised him at one point.
Nathaniel grinned.
“Good to know that I do indeed—um—rock,” he replied, shaking his fist in the air to an adorable effect.
Finally towards the end of the evening, the couple settled once again into a romantic dance; their bodies moving closer together as he wrapped his strong arms tight around her waist and cradled her close.
“I must say it, Jasmin. This night has been magical,” he whispered in her ear, pulling her closer still. “You’ve brought so much light and color into my life, and so much laughter. You truly are a gift to me, milady.”
Jasmin smiled.
“Well, you ain’t so bad yourself,” she praised him, hugging his hard-planed body to hers as she rested her head on his sculpted shoulder. “Seriously, Nathaniel, this night—along with every other moment we’ve spent together—has been absolutely magical. I really do feel like I’m living the dream, and have only you to thank.”
With these words, the impassioned woman erased all distance between them, searing his full sumptuous lips with a hot passionate kiss. They lingered for just a moment as their mouths merged and melded to convey the deepest passion, and Nathaniel ran his magical fingertips down the length of his lady’s spine.
Jasmin moaned, frustrated, moments later, as her besotted dance partner broke their kiss; drawing slightly away from her with an apologetic smile as he whispered, “As much as I dearly would love to continue kissing you, love, I fear that the dictates of my antiquated society command us to stop.”
Taking a quick cursory look around them, Jasmin bit her lip as she noted the exorbitant number of cold, condemning stares being shot in their direction.
“Oh, that’s right,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes heavenward. “I forgot that we’re currently standing in the era where a kiss on the hand can send the elders of the ton reaching for their smelling salts. Even Miss Austen, in her progressive works, never dared to write as much as a kiss between her heroes and heroines.”
Nathaniel chuckled.
“As the folks of your time would say, true this,” he agreed, adding as he pulled her body flush up against his, “So what do you say that I take you somewhere more private?” He paused here, promising in a sultry purr, “In that way, we could continue our dance alone, with no prying eyes to intrude upon our privacy—or, for that matter, on our passion.”