Page 22

“Oh dear. Clumsy me! I’m making a mess of it …”

Gideon looked down to find Rune struggling with the stem of the rose—which was snagged in her hair.

“Here, let me …”

Rune dropped her hands as Gideon worked to separate the strands of gold from the wire stem. They stood so close now that her fragrance filled the air. Gideon braced himself, remembering another girl, another scent. But there was no reek of magic on Rune. All he could smell was the salty sea air blowing in through the open windows.

Which means nothing.

After a long soak in the bath, Cressida hadn’t smelled of magic either.

Cressida.

The name was a growl in his mind. Had Cressida ever dined beneath this roof? For all he knew, Cressida and Rune might have been friends.

He swallowed the sick feeling in his throat, carefully tucking the silk flower into the weave of Rune’s hair until it sat snug and fashionably to one side. The way his mother used to wear the flowers his father made her.

Before he could step back, the music started. Gideon glanced up to find himself surrounded by pairs of dancers on all sides.

Rune’s eyes sparkled as she reached out her gloved hand, positioning it high in the air. She stepped in closer, settling her other hand on his shoulder. “Ready, Captain Sharpe?”

Beneath the soft weight of her grip, Gideon tensed.

What am I doing?

He didn’t know this song, never mind the steps of whatever dance it cued.

Unlike the couples already moving around him, mirroring each other as they glided and twirled along with the melody, Gideon stood frozen as a statue while Rune held herself gracefully poised, ready to dance.

Her eyebrows arched, as if to say,What are you waiting for?

His neck grew hot beneath his collar. “Miss Winters …”

She must have heard it in his voice, because she quickly lowered her hands and stepped back. “Oh. You …don’t know how.”

Most of her friends still watched them, some of them murmuring behind their hands. Were they laughing at him?

Wasshelaughing at him?

He thought again of another girl. Another party. One where he’d been paraded around and humiliated.

Gideon thought he’d extinguished that shame. But it flared now like glowing embers.

Harrow was mistaken. Gideon had no chance in hell of successfully courting a girl like Rune. He’d just arrived and was already embarrassing her. When she realized he had no wealth or grand estate—he’d given his spoils of war to Alex after the revolution—she would join in their laughing, if she hadn’t already.

He needed to salvage this.

Remembering Harrow’s advice, he closed the distance between them.

“If we were at a different type of party,” he said, close to Rune’s ear, “I could give you a different answer.”

Another memory seeped up, filling his mind with the fast-paced melody of a fiddle. He could see his little sister in her cotton nightgown, still awake despite it being far past her bedtime.The humidity of the kitchens made her hair curl and stick to her sweaty skin as she danced with the dishwashers, cotton towels tucked into their waistbands. The cook, cheeks pink from the ovens, stood in the corner slashing his bow across his fiddle as the palace staff clapped and stomped and passed around a skin of ale before joining in the dancing themselves.

Sweet memories were rare for Gideon.

This one almost made him smile.

But as the memory faded and the flickering lights of the room around him came back into focus, he remembered that Tessa wasn’t here. He’d buried his little sister deep in the earth, where she’d never dance again.