Page 160

“Have you seen his ears?”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re massive.”

“They aren’t.”

“Look at those things, scooping up the very air. Could he leave some decibels for the rest of us?”

Why was the only man who could make her laugh tonight a Fyren? Mordaunt could be a fine conversation partner if one set aside what he was. It was like setting aside gravity—doable, but only for brief moments.

Anyway, Aurienne didn’t wish to speak about Aedan. Desiring to move on from the cloying subject, she made some inapposite remarks about the weather. (The subject was cloying; Aedan was cloying—the more she was clung to, the more she desired escape.)

Mordaunt, with a notable lack of interest in the weather, said, “I’m your Friend du jour; surely that warrants a dance. People would think it strange otherwise.”

“As laudable as your commitment to the charade is”—Aurienne held up the shoes dangling from her fingertips—“I’m done for the night. Couldn’t do another minute in these.”

“Dance without them,” said Mordaunt.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No one can see your indecent ankles from down there. It’s only me.”

“Onlyyou?”

“Only. My near-death experience has left me humble and lamblike.”

Strains of music floated up to them as the first bars of the next song began. Mordaunt held out his hand to Aurienne. Aedan, looking everyinch the lovelorn pup, chose that moment to look up, and spot her on the balcony.

If he saw her refuse Mordaunt’s hand, it would send a signal to him, and Aurienne didn’t wish to send signals to Aedan. Well—unless the signal was that she had moved on with another. In which case—

Aurienne tossed her shoes to the side and took Mordaunt’s hand. “Very well. I will dance as nature intended.”

“Barefoot, tipsy, and with flowers in your hair.”

“You paint a lovely picture.”

“You are a lovely picture.”

“I thought I was an uptight little fusspot?”

Aurienne was rewarded by one of Mordaunt’s brilliant smiles. “Do you know,” he said, “sometimes I don’t mind being wrong?”

They came together, hands guarded from touch by gloves of leather and silk. Aurienne had lost the added height of her heels; she stood at eye level with Mordaunt’s mouth.

They danced slowly, because he couldn’t go very fast, and because the song was a low, romantic ballad. It meant nothing—it was a stupid little dance that was part of a stupid little charade—but her pulse was all aflutter. Aurienne took refuge in the clinical. She quizzed Mordaunt on any lingering symptoms: dizziness, confusion, palpitations, tachypnoea, and, finally, oliguria—“And when’s the last time you urinated?”

Mordaunt, who looked increasingly discontented as her evaluation progressed, said, “Really?”

“What?”

“We’re dancing and you’re interrogating me about urine?”

“It’s important,” said Aurienne.

“You really can wring the romance out of anything,” said Mordaunt.

“What romance?” asked Aurienne. “This is a sham.”