“I never truly understood the allure of ballroom dancing. Until tonight.”
—JOURNAL OF CLARY RUTHVEN
“They’re here!” Clary waved through the long sash window of Stanhope House before picking up her skirts and sprinting toward the front door. Slippers skidding on marble, she passed the appalled housekeeper and cheerily called back, “I’ll get the door, Mrs. Simms. It’s my friend Helen and her student.”
Sophia and Grey’s new housekeeper, a steel-haired lady with a back as straight as a fire poker, looked supremely unimpressed. “Very well, Miss Ruthven.”
Clary yanked the door open before they had a chance to knock, and Helen let out a gasp.
“My goodness, you look like a fairy-tale princess.”
“Stop talking nonsense and come inside.” Clary smiled as Sally and Helen, their eyes aglow, took in the dusk-gilded facade of Sophia and Grey’s London home. “You both look magnificent.”
Helen wore a simple, elegant gown of dark green velvet. Sally had chosen a riotous pink from among the fabrics donated to Fisk Academy. She’d added ribbons and neatly stitched rows of seed beads around the bodice. Clary thoroughly approved of the girl’s style.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Helen said as Clary led them both to the ballroom. “London traffic is always full of surprises.”
“You’re early enough. Though a few guests have begun to arrive, dancing won’t start for a good half hour.” Clary realized Helen was no longer following her and turned back to find her friend had stalled on the ballroom threshold, examining the ceiling and walls and spacious polished floor. Musicians had already assembled in a corner, and Helen tapped her foot in time as they warmed their instruments with a lively allegro. Sally swept toward the center of the room and pinwheeled around, giggling with glee.
“It’s magnificent,” Helen pronounced. “Truly the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”
The pale dove walls were opalescent on closer inspection, as flecks of mica had been added to the paint, according to Grey. And the ceiling had been decorated with a glorious fresco—fat cherubs and svelte angels frolicking against a bright blue sky filled with wispy clouds. The wainscoting had been gilded, as had every fixture in the room. Though gaslight had been installed throughout the house, candle sconces burned on the ballroom walls to give the space a warm glow.
“I’ll have to thank your sister again for loaning us use of her home.” Helen began tapping her lip, no doubt plotting where to position herself to give the speech she planned to make to the assembled guests.
“She was glad to do so, and she’s promised a generous donation too.” Clary hoped Kit and the many others they’d invited would share Grey and Sophia’s philanthropic impulses.
“And I did mean what I said. You’re downright princess-like tonight,” Helen mused.
“Stop.” Clary patted the coiffure Sophia’s maid had spent far too long fussing over. “Do you want to take a bet on how long it will be like this before it all comes tumbling down?”
“Your dress is too pretty for anyone to notice.”
“Thank you.” Unwilling to spend more money at the modiste, Clary had altered and embellished her favorite purple gown, taking the tight-sleeved bodice apart to create one that left her arms and shoulders bare, except for a dark purple cluster of velvet rosettes that served as straps. “These are the worst part.” Clary tugged at the long white gloves Sophia had loaned her. On Sophia’s slim arms, they sat precisely as intended, but Clary found them gathering at her elbows and feared she’d spend the entire night yanking them up.
“Ladies, you look stunning.” Grey appeared at the ballroom threshold, utterly dashing in white tie, though his coppery locks were as disheveled as ever. “Clary, do you wish to help greet guests? The carriages are beginning to line up out front.”
Clary nodded at her brother-in-law and told Helen, “Mrs. Simms will show you to the drawing room after you’ve had your fill of the ballroom. You’ll have a chance to mingle with donors before the dancing begins.” She gave Helen’s hand an encouraging squeeze and followed Grey into the entryway.
“Don’t be afraid to speak of money tonight,” he said as he led her to the door. “We aristocrats can be odd about lucre. I suspect your father’s etiquette books claim the topic is unfit for polite society, but name a sum that Lord and Lady So-and-So donated, and the others will be desperate to outdo them.”
Clary grinned up at him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll help, of course.” He sniffed in mock haughtiness. “I can be very persuasive. Just ask your sister.”
On the verge of nudging him playfully with her elbow, Clary’s breath snagged in her throat.
Gabriel Adamson stood on the threshold, waiting as a footman took his companion’s wrap. The lady was the same who’d visited him at the offices—Miss Morgan—and she gazed at Gabriel as if he were Prince Charming in the flesh.
When he noticed Clary, his body jerked as if he’d been shocked by an electric current. Their gazes locked.
“He’s the one from the office, isn’t he?” Grey asked as they paused halfway down the hall.
“The ruler of Ruthven’s,” Clary said when she caught her breath. “That’s what the clerks call him.”
“Is he as awful as everyone says?” Grey teased.
“Worse,” Clary rasped as Gabriel approached with Miss Morgan on his arm.
“Welcome to Stanhope House,” Grey boomed in his gregarious way. “You’re Adamson, the ruler of Ruthven’s, so I hear.” He winked at Clary, who concentrated all her energy on keeping her cheeks from turning as pink as the roses overflowing in tall vases near the door.
After formal introductions, Clary offered her hand to the young lady. She looked rather bereft, clinging to Gabriel’s arm as if she didn’t wish to get lost. “Miss Morgan, we’ve yet to meet, though I saw you when you visited Ruthven’s.”
“Miss Ruthven, of course. Gabriel mentioned you during the carriage ride over,” Miss Morgan said softly.
“Did he indeed?” Clary cast him a quick glance. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that carriage and know how he’d described her.
“How enterprising you are to wish to work for your family’s publishing business,” Miss Morgan said, though she emphasized enterprising as if she didn’t intend the word as a compliment. “I cannot imagine throwing myself into employment or attending to the workaday world as gentlemen do.”
She was perfectly polite. Soft and gentle in manner and speech. And whether by intention or accident, she’d neatly emphasized that she was everything Clary was not and didn’t wish to be.
“May I lead you to the drawing room?” Clary struggled to sound cheerful, but even she could hear how her pitch had turned brittle. As she strode ahead to lead them, there was no relief in having Gabriel at her back. Thoughts of the other time he’d been behind her came to mind. He wasn’t close enough for her to feel his breath against her nape, but some ridiculous part of her wished he was.
Inside the drawing room, Sophia held court, receiving new guests and chatting with those who’d already arrived. At the threshold, Clary stopped, and Gabriel swept past her, his coat sleeve brushing her arm. He glanced back, and his clear gaze seemed to see straight inside her. Right to the spot where she’d hidden her wayward, jumbled feelings for him.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, his gaze never wavering from hers.
“Enjoy the evening,” Clary bid him and then turned to start down the hall.
The farther she went, the faster her gait, until she was virtually running for the library. On the other side of its heavy door, she bent at the waist to catch her breath, calming herself on the scent of book leather and beeswax polish. There was one enormous window in the room, but Grey and Sophia left it covered to keep the book spines from fading. She rushed to the window, shoved back the drape, jerked up the wide pane, and sucked in deep gulps of the night’s cool breeze.
She’d known all of this might happen. That if he came this evening, he would likely bring that shy young lady who’d visited him at Ruthven’s. Clary had prepared herself. And why should it matter whom he escorted? She wasn’t even sure what she felt for the man—only that seeing him with another young lady on his arm had her stomach twisted in knots and the center of her chest burning as if she’d swallowed a hot coal.
He was the same humorless, arrogant, joyless man she’d met five years ago. She told herself that over and over, yet the damnable part was that now she knew her characterization wasn’t quite true. She’d seen flashes of more. And that was the man she truly wished to know.
Someone tried the knob on the library door, and Clary sank back into the shadows, loath to be seen. She didn’t want to speak to anyone, and she definitely didn’t want to sit in the back of a ballroom watching others glide merrily across the dance floor.
“Miss Ruthven?”
Clary pressed a fist to her chest where her heart thumped wildly. “I’m here,” she answered. The two words were shockingly hard to get out.
Gabriel stepped in and closed the door behind him as the gaslight sconce near the door devoted itself to gilding the side of his face.
“I thought this was the door you hid yourself behind.”
“I’m not hiding. Just enjoying a bit of solitude.”
“The window’s open. Were you thinking of escape?”
“Maybe.” If only getting away from him was that simple. Even if she fled the house tonight, she’d have to face him on Monday morning. And he’d no doubt crowd her thoughts every day in between. “Where’s Miss Morgan?”
“Mingling, as your sister insisted she do. Lady Stanhope has taken Jane under her wing.”
“Jane?” Clary let out a rusty chuckle. “Finally, someone you’ll call by her given name.”
“She’s a family friend.” He flicked his coat back to place a hand on each hip. “I’ve known her for years.”
“You’ve known me for years.” Clary swallowed, hating the petulance in her tone. More softly, she said, “She seems kind and completely enamored with you.”
“She shouldn’t be. Her father was a friend. My sister encouraged me to invite her.” He drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve come to ask something of you.”
For a stupid, folly-filled moment, she thought he’d come to ask for a dance. But that didn’t make sense. He’d come with another, and etiquette dictated he show her special deference. Seeing as he took etiquette far more seriously than she did, Clary doubted he’d breach the rules.
“What is it, Mr. Adamson?”
“Reciprocity.” After swallowing hard, he squared his shoulders and said, “I taught you how to jab a man in the throat. Would you teach me how to dance?”
“You came to a ball without any notion how to dance?” She tried hard to temper her surprise. But not hard enough, judging by the tightening of his jaw.
“Never mind,” he bit out before turning back toward the door.
“Wait.” Clary started forward, tripped on her gown, picked up her skirt, and stumbled the rest of the way. She reached out to keep herself from slamming into him, and he pivoted just in time for her to plant her palm against the hard wall of his chest. “I’ll teach you,” she said breathlessly. Not because of her bumbling journey to reach him but because she could feel his heart thrashing as riotously as her own.
“The first dance is the quadrille,” he said, pronouncing the word as if it pained him. “According to your sister.”
“Ah.” Clary pulled away from him and clenched her fingers to trap his heat against her hand. “That’s a dance with multiple partners but fairly simple. Come this way.” She strode to the center of the library, a large open space between settees on one side and a massive desk on the other. “First, you must bow while I curtsy.”
Clary dipped, and he bent at the waist, but unlike the times her brother or dance instructor had partnered her when she was young, Gabriel kept his gaze fixed on her as he lowered and straightened again. Clary licked her lips and tried to remember what came next.
“Now you’ll come toward your partner as she approaches you. We’ll join hands, and then you’ll pass me to the next gentleman as you take the hand of the next lady.” Clary started forward slowly. “Like this.”
He approached and took her hand, but rather than continue on, he stopped as she swept forward, pulling him along behind her.
Clary laughed. “You have to let go of me and move on to the next lady.”
Like the first time he’d touched her, he didn’t wish to let go.
Her laughter warmed his chest, loosening the tension that had been building about this evening. He’d dreaded the moment he would face her with Jane Morgan at his side. Though he didn’t owe her an explanation for his actions, he longed to offer one.
When she’d fled after greeting them, every bit of etiquette he’d learned, everything he knew about behaving like a proper gentleman, dictated that he should remain with his guest rather than follow Clarissa.
But he had.
Jane seemed content to speak to Lady Stanhope, and he’d given in to impulse. The desire to be near Clarissa Ruthven was beginning to outweigh reason and all the careful control he’d clung to for years.
“When we come back around, there’s a silly bit where we dance toward each other and then back.” She circled around him, the train of her gown lashing his ankles, and then positioned herself in front of him. “Like this.” She gripped the edges of her gown, lifting her skirt slightly, and pranced toward him, then ducked back. Her scent hit him in a mouthwatering wave, vanilla and a profusion of flowers. “Now you come toward me.”
Gabe stepped forward and was rewarded with a little grin. Stepping away from her was much less appealing.
“Good,” she praised. “Do that twice. Then join hands with your partner and circle around with her.” She came forward and pressed her gloved hands against his bare palms. “Now we move together.” She started moving, and Gabe followed.
He twirled in a circle with her and then again, until she stumbled forward and began laughing again. Catching her around the waist, he pulled her closer than he needed to do. Closer than he should.
“Only one revolution is required, but I find twirling to be the most enjoyable part,” she said as she pressed both palms against his chest. One hand wandered to his lapel. “This is a very fine suit. Do you attend many balls?” She swept a finger down the line of buttons to the tip of his waistcoat. “Very pretty buttons too, Mr. Adamson.”
She was torturing him. Never mind the innocent look in her eyes or the laughter lightening her tone, she was a vixen. Touching him, taunting him by repeating his surname, making him ache to hear her call him—
“Gabriel?” She seemed to read something in his eyes.
He lifted a hand to her nape because he needed to feel her bare skin. Needed to thread his fingers into the silken waves bound in an elaborate pile of braids and curls. He ached to know if her hair was as soft as he imagined. Softer.
Her eyes burned with a fire he felt in his chest, kindling low in his belly. If he she kept looking at him with that hunger, he’d rebel against every damned rule, throw over every bit of etiquette, and rush headlong into a pursuit that would ruin them both.
Mercy, how he wanted her.
He hovered his lips near her forehead and whispered against her skin. “I should go. Tell me to go.”
He needed her to redraw the line that had blurred for him—what he should do and could never have when it came to her.
She stilled in his arms. A terrible empty tensing of her body, a cessation of her bright vibrating energy. “Then go, Mr. Adamson.”
“Clary . . . ” He wanted to—needed to—make her understand why whatever was between them couldn’t be.
Before he could find a single word, she lifted onto her toes, braced a hand on his shoulder, and pressed her mouth to his. A soft tentative brush of her soft, plush lips. “Gabriel,” she whispered as she edged away.
He couldn’t let her go. With his hand at the small of her back, he tugged her closer. He stared into her eyes a moment, willing her to stop him. To tell him they’d gone too far. Instead, her mouth fell open as her breath quickened, and he bent to take her mouth.
Soft. Hot. Her lips, her breath tangling with his, the little moans humming between them. Clary undid him. He deepened the kiss, pulled her tight against him, needing to feel her, taste more of her sweetness. She arched against him, slid her fingers into his hair, slid her tongue into his mouth. Still, he wanted more. He’d never get enough.
When her hand came up between them, Gabe tensed and reared back, fearing he’d gone too far. That she was pushing him away. Instead, she reached for the buttons of her glove. “I want them off,” she said huskily.
Together, they tugged and pulled at the fabric, and as soon as she was free, he pressed a kiss to the center of her palm. Higher, he laved the petal-soft flesh of her wrist and drew a delicious gasp from her.
“Clary?” A woman’s voice sounded through the closed door.
“It’s Sophia,” Clary whispered. “She’ll try the door.” She pressed a palm to his cheek, stroking along his jaw as if they had all the time in the world. “I needed to touch you with my bare hands.”
Every stroke drove him closer to the edge. Nearer to the mad impulse to lock the bloody door and escape with her through the open window. To take her someplace where it didn’t matter who she was or what he wasn’t.
“We should go before my sister bursts in.” She retrieved her gloves, collecting them into one hand while she swept the other down her gown and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll go first, and then you can follow in a moment.”
He was on fire, his brain melted and useless, his body aching and hard, but she was cool and blithe and without an ounce of shame for what they’d done. On the threshold, she turned back and gave him a look that spiked heat down his spine. A look full of hunger. He suspected she could see the same mirrored in his gaze.
And then she was gone. Slipping through the door without allowing the countess a peek inside.
Gabe stumbled to one of the settees, slumping onto the worn leather. He raked a hand through his hair, balled his fist, and still couldn’t make the tremors rippling through his body cease. He pressed a fist to his mouth. He could still taste her kiss. More than anything, he wanted to find her, haul her into his arms, and taste her again.
What was happening to him? Weeks ago he’d planned to leave Ruthven’s. Now he rushed to work each day because she was there.
This is madness. Swiping a hand across his mouth, he struggled to focus on what needed to be done. He made a list in his mind, as he did each day at Ruthven’s. Dance the bloody quadrille with Jane. Endure an evening of trying to keep his eyes off Clary. Forget all of that had passed between them. Behave like a damned gentleman, not a raving fool.
For years he’d practiced control, learning to bury his impulses deep. Apparently, not deep enough. She’d excavated his heart in less than a month.
Clary was the last woman he should pursue. The last woman he had a right to touch or kiss or hold in his arms.
If she knew his secrets, she’d agree.