I n his entire existence, Callum had never seen someone so transported by what was taking place on a stage. They had been to the theater many times. But this was different. This was the ballet.
He had learned that Cymbeline danced almost every day. Her dancing master came and taught her ballet, along with her Aunt Margery and her male cousins.
Callum had yet to take part.
But after watching her this night? He might have to join.
He sat in the ducal box next to Cymbeline, watching her, not the ballet performance taking place on stage. He wanted to reach out and take her hand. Could he manage it? Could he do such a thing without being noticed by the vast array of people watching them and watching the performance at once?
Did he dare?
Bloody hell, he did. He did not care. He cared not, because she evoked a passion in him so wild and deep that all the passion he had heretofore known felt hollow.
And he had been a passionate person all his life.
It was so all-encompassing that he shoved away all common sense, all thought, and slowly reached out to take her hand in the candlelit darkness.
She did not look back at him when his hand brushed hers.
She was so enraptured by the performance below. He knew he should watch the ballet dancers gliding across the stage, moving in graceful symmetry. But instead, he continued to watch her watching them.
He adored the way her soft pink lips were parted in amazement, the way her eyes glistened with tears of wonder, and the way her breasts rose up and down, her breath rapid as if she too was dancing upon the stage. The theater belonged to her aunt, Lady Margery.
He knew that.
It was the first true ballet theater of its kind in London, taking the dance form to a new level in England that had only heretofore been known in France.
He never would’ve thought that he would love the ballet.
And perhaps, if he was quite honest, if he had had to come and sit in the candlelight and watch the ballet take place below, his mind might have done what his mind often did—racing off in a million different directions—and then he would feel compelled to stand up, leave, and do something.
He always needed his mind to be well exercised.
But here, with her, it was something different altogether.
She was his new passion. From the moment he had arrived at her family’s estate, he had begun to truly understand that.
No, that was a lie, a complete and total lie.
From the moment he had walked into that small room and seen her fiddling with the binding under her shirt, and he had realized that she was a woman, she had become his new passion.
A passion that burned him up and down and all around.
And he wished to be scorched by it. Of course, he still lived his life with passion in the causes that fulfilled him and in the duties of being the Duke of Baxter. He would never stop that. It drove his life. It always would, and he would ultimately sacrifice whatever it took for the dukedom.
But this? This was something else altogether, something that he could barely control, something that rippled through him and made him determined to do whatever it took to make Cymbeline his wife. He no longer felt the need to simply find a wife who would suit him.
No one else would ever do.
Oh, no, he had to have her. So each day of this strange test that she had created for him, he committed himself to it fully.
Sitting in the warm candlelit glow, her fingers curled around his, he felt his own breath hitch in his throat. Her acceptance of his touch was like a balm, so cool, so pure, so perfect that he longed to give himself over to her entirely.
Whatever she asked of him, he would do to make her his duchess.
Here in the candle-kissed darkness, all he wanted was to take her into his arms, feel her pure love for the dancing below, and feel her pure spirit lift him up and give him strength for that which was to come.
And she would give him strength. He knew it in his core.
At last, she finally glanced at him. “What are you doing?” she whispered almost inaudibly.
“I am enraptured,” he growled softly.
“Isn’t the dancing wonderful?” she murmured.
He nodded. “As are you.”
She smiled at that and blushed. “Why, thank you, Your Grace,” she said, “but don’t be ridiculous.”
“You must call me Callum now. No more Your Grace.” He squeezed her fingers gently, stroking his fingers over her knuckles, wishing he could stroke other parts of her. “And I am not being ridiculous. You are more marvelous than any ballet could ever be.”
She shook her head and whispered, “Only because you don’t love the ballet or the theater as I do.”
“Will you dance for me then…?” he dared to ask, letting his gaze trail down the line of her throat, longing to see her do something she truly loved.
She looked at him, amazed. “You wish me to dance for you?”
He bit his lower lip and said, “It would give me great pleasure to watch you move about a room, touched by passion.”
And it was true.
She was so devoted to the arts, whether it be dance or Shakespeare. He could not even imagine what it would be like to spend one’s life so focused on creativity. He spent most of his life dealing with people and solving problems.
She beamed at him. “Perhaps you should join me.”
He laughed softly. “Perhaps I should.”
And as the ballet came to an end and the dancers took their bows in the crowded theater, he wanted only one thing. It was a thing he could never truly have. For in that moment, he wanted to see the world through her eyes.
To see the beauty of it, the art, the slow, perfect moments of creation.
But he would never have that; it was not how his mind worked.
“Come,” she said, standing and slipping her hand from his.
He stood too, looking for her family in the next box.
But she gave the smallest shake of her head and slipped out into the cooler hall. “Come with me now,” she whispered softly.
Her family lingered in their box, greeting people, doing what great families always did, which was to make connections and speak with the most important people in the land, as well as their friends.
Quickly, Cymbeline found a way for them to wind down the back staircase and out to one of the coaches waiting below on a quiet side street.
“Won’t they miss us?” he asked, wondering if she had arranged this. She had to have done. “Surely, they’ll be upset if we slip off.”
She gave him a sly smile. “My family? No, they will be overjoyed.”
The footman jumped down, unfolded the steps, opened the coach door, and Callum handed her up into the darkness.
As she took her seat on the luxurious bench, he climbed in after her and the door was shut. The coach tilted to the side as the footman climbed up, and then they rumbled down the road towards the house on the river.
He sat across from her in the darkness.
It was a long drive.
Her breasts pressed to the scoop of her gown, her lips were parted ever so slightly, and her eyes shone with anticipation.
She smiled at him slowly. “Now, sir, whatever will you do with me?”
Callum knew exactly what he wished to do, and so he pulled down the curtains.
There was something tantalizing about the way Callum pulled down the curtains of the coach.
Her whole body seemed to spring to life with promise.
They had been dancing about this now since the kiss the other night.
He had been unwilling to go further then, but now, she knew he was going to allow them to sample what they both wanted so much.
He was such a big man. He filled much of the coach, and his legs stretched out in their taut breeches, his boots brushing the hem of her gown.
Instead of reaching across and grabbing her as she thought he might, he leaned back and his gaze crackled with a slow-burning heat that whispered through her and sent an impossible ache between her thighs. An ache she knew that only he could satisfy.
His gaze traveled slowly over her face, then to the swells of her breasts pressed against the cut of her high-waisted gown. That gaze grew hooded, feral even. He pulled his lower lip with his teeth and let out a low growl before he leaned forward.
She assumed he was going to kiss her, but he did not. Oh no, he slowly eased her back against the soft squabs of the coach seat and angled his way towards her.
He crossed the distance, sitting beside her, and then he let their gazes mingle.
“I’m going to show you pleasure now. I will not take you. Not here. Not until you are my wife. Do you understand?”
She let out a moan of protest. She wanted him to take her. All of her. But his meaning was clear and so she nodded her head, unable to reply.
Without another word, he turned his attention to her lips.
Much to her surprise, the kiss wasn’t reserved or slow or tentative.
No. This was a kiss by a man who knew how to take, if he chose, and how to awaken.
His mouth worked over hers, teasing, seducing, until she opened to him, and his tongue thrust in to tangle with her tongue.
His hands slid over her body. Those hard, strong fingers of his worked over her curves, and she clasped on to him, feeling spun about and tossed on the winds of growing pleasure.
As he kissed her, teasing her lips, he slid his hand up her skirts, exposing her thigh. And then, oh then, he slipped his fingers to her core and teased her there as he teased her mouth.
All thought vanished from her as she trembled under his masterful touch. He stroked his fingers over her slick folds, and she clung to him, shocked by the power of it.
And then, gently, he stroked a finger against her opening before sliding it inside.
As he tasted her mouth, he thrust another finger deep within her, stretching her ever so slightly, stroking until he found a place she had not even known existed. And she bucked against his hand.
“Yes,” he growled against her lips. “Ride it. Ride your pleasure.”
She did not really understand, but instinct took over and her hips began to undulate as she rocked against his hand and fingers. And then his thumb found the most sensitive spot at the top of her folds, and whatever she thought she knew about life and love and men and women vanished forever.
Callum’s touch transported her to paradise, and she knew she never wanted to leave.