Page 16 of Her Heartless Duke
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asked her softly, his dark eyes boring into hers.
She flushed and nodded. “A little, I suppose.”
“Do not be.” He drifted his hand to her waist while his other hand found hers. “We are only here to dance.”
She nodded in agreement. “Yes. Only that.”
His proximity was doing things to her sanity, her heartbeat ratcheting up until she swore she could hear it pounding in her ears even as she tried to focus on counting to the beat of the dance.
“You are too focused on the technicalities,” he told her softly. “Forget about it for a moment and just dance.”
She glanced up at him in confusion. “But it is so difficult without music…”
He smiled at that. “Have you never danced without music before?”
She shook her head. “Never. My dance tutor used to play the music just to get me to pay attention to the beat.”
“Dancing should be like a conversation.” His voice dropped to a lower, almost husky register. He spun her around unexpectedly before catching her, causing her breath to momentarily escape her lungs. “Back and forth, step by step… an exchange between two people. One does not need music for that. Not really.”
Olivia nodded stiffly. How exactly was she supposed to focus on the dance itself when she was growing dizzy, her breath coming out shorter? She did not recall Fiona relaying the same experience from dancing with Isaac at the Townsend ball.
Perhaps I am just nervous, she told herself.But what do I have to be nervous about?
This was Isaac, one of her brother’s oldest friends. Someone she had known since she was a young girl.
Why was it that she was having the most unusual reaction to him now?
He spun her around again and she turned, following his lead… and then he caught her, their bodies coming incredibly close… much closer than what should have been proper had they been in a crowded ballroom.
They stayed that way, swaying to a music that only they could hear, beneath their counted breaths. Her heart, however, had become a wild thing, beating fiercely as if it meant to tattoo itself onto her chest.
For Olivia, it felt as if their silent dance lasted an eternity, like the world had ground to a halt as they moved with each other.
She had danced with gentlemen before—it was only to be expected in the whirlwind of the Season. Yet none of them had ever affected her in this manner.
She looked up and found his gaze boring down into hers, his eyes like twin pools of unfathomable mystery. Slowly, his face descended down towards hers.
Closing her eyes, she braced her hands on his chest, his heartbeat all but tattooing itself on her right palm, before she pushed herself away from him with a nervous laugh.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear—a nervous habit from childhood.
“I think that should be enough for one night,” she said in the jauntiest tone she could muster. “It is already late. I should be heading home.”
For a moment, his eyes were shuttered and cool. Then, he nodded curtly at her. “I suppose you are right.”
“I should be getting a cab.”
“I shall hail one for you.”
She nodded and moved to grab the cloak she had draped over the chair earlier, but he was much faster, his strides longer. He reached it first and then draped it carefully over her shoulders, before he gently tied it securely under her chin.
Olivia did not trust herself to meet his gaze.
Wordlessly, they walked out of the room and down the creaky staircase. When they stepped out of the building, the cool night air felt like a soothing balm on her warm cheeks.
A lone cab clattered up the street and Isaac flagged it down. The ride back to Bennet House was fraught with silence, with not even awkward conversation to break through the tension of the atmosphere.
When the cab finally stopped a short distance away from her home, he helped her down the coach. She felt his fingers curling over hers slightly, almost reflexively, but then he released her before she could make too much of it.