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H elene stepped onto the stage on the balls of her feet. Her first rehearsal as a principal! To dance with Vestris, the company’s virtuoso, and be coached by Langley? It felt like a dream.

She dropped her handbag and turned in a slow circle, like an awed Hamlet contemplating the ‘ majestic roof fretted with golden fire .’ Her heart swelled with pride and a pang of longing. What would her mother say if she could see her now? A small hiccup escaped her throat, and she quickly wiped the moisture from her eyes. Here she was—overwhelmed before the overture!

“Ah, Helene, there you are.” Langley’s voice snapped her back to the moment.

The choreographer beckoned her and Vestris. Helene rushed to the front and curtsied.

Vestris acknowledged her with a friendly nod. Gas lamp light reflected on his blond hair, and his muscles rippled beneath his practice tunic. Famous throughout Europe for his jumps and turns, he was ballet’s most celebrated virtuoso—an Apollo in white stockings and ballet slippers.

Langley smiled indulgently and caught her hand. “La Sylphide will be the greatest ballet this stage has ever witnessed. It will have it all — the best dancers in the world, costumes by Karinska, state-of-the-art scenery, and the first ballerina to dance a full ballet on the tips of her toes.”

Helene glanced at the empty boxes. If the duke could see her now, would he consider her more than an object?

“La Sylphide is more than a mere divertimento. It tells a story. You must be actors as well as dancers,” Langley said, and turned to Vestris.

“Your character, James, is a proud Scottish Laird. He is engaged to Effie, a down-to-earth village girl. Still, you cannot help your passion for the Sylph.”

Vestris kissed Helene’s hand. “I'm eager to be enchanted by you, Miss Beaumont.”

A wave of heat rushed to Helene’s cheeks, and she straightened her practice clothes. Why couldn’t she find a witty reply? The famous dancer would surely think her hopelessly gauche.

“The Sylph is a character of contradictions, Helene,” Langley said, searching her gaze. “You are strong but frail, sensual but chaste, in love but fiercely independent.”

Helene nodded briskly. Contradictions. Yes. Whatever it took.

“We will begin with the overture.”

Langley clapped his hands, and a stagehand brought a chair and placed it center left.

“When the curtain opens, James is asleep. La Sylphide kneels by his side. She observes him. He is dreaming, but she is alert and alive—emotionally remote but filled with desire. She flits around as the music quickens, agitating his peaceful state, and finally kisses his forehead. He awakens and pursues her, but in vain—after making him fall in love with her, she disappears up the chimney.”

Helene positioned herself by Vestris’ side.

“A glorious part.” The dancer winked at her. “To be asleep. See you in my dreams.”

When the pianist sounded the overture trill, Helene rose with a gentle port de bras as if stretching, then bent backward in cambré . She lifted her leg into arabesque, leaned forward over the chair, and performed petites battements on the tips of her toes, circling the sleeping James. She breezed through the melody until the first pirouette.

With the right impulse, she did a double, finishing in attitude derriere. Then came the allegro jumps, her forte. Smiling, she moved with the whimsical music.

“Stop!”

Helene halted. Wringing her hands, she approached Langley. Her slippers felt too loud on the silent stage. What had she done wrong?

“Was it the arabesque? I can make it higher.”

“The technique is perfect. You execute the steps flawlessly.”

Helene hugged herself, breathing through her mouth. Then what?

“You are trying to feel with your feet, but I want you to use your heart. You want James. Can you imagine the longing, the impossibility? A creature of air who falls in love with a mortal? You dare to approach him, even knowing he is from a different world. You desire him to the point of risking your life. Make the audience believe you are in love.” Langley said, his voice still calm.

Helene nodded, biting her lip as if she had understood. What kind of correction was that? She could oblige if he wanted her to jump higher or balance longer, but love? She felt her face contorting in a grimace and softened her expression. How did one show love? Ballet was about art and artifice—not impossible emotions.

Helene knelt by Vestris’ chair. The empty theater loomed like a colossus, its vast, shadowy spaces pressing in around her, while she fluttered like a butterfly, too small.

The music started again. How would a fairy in love act?

Pasting a dreamy smile on her lips, she elongated her movements, making them more languid. Her feet burned, but she performed the bourrées graciously. When it was time to kiss Vestris’ forehead, she lingered a second more. There. That should do.

When she finished the sequence, her gaze sought Langley.

The ballet master shook his head, his stern gaze slicing through her. “Once more.”

The silence of his disapproval felt louder than applause.

Embarrassment colored her face, and her eyes welled up. The experienced dancer must think her a fraud. And how could he not? Certainly, Sara and all the principals he danced with had no trouble feigning emotions.

Stomach twisted in knots, she knelt again.

It went on all afternoon — once more. Once more. No. No… Again. Again. Again. Try again. Again. More love, more feeling. More.

Helene finished the overture for the twentieth time. Her legs hurt from the stiff position at the beginning, her thighs alternated between shaking and tingles, and a bleeding in her toe had stained her new slipper.

She placed her hands over her knees, nauseated. Her ears could only hear Langley’s frustration.

When the music started again, her body wouldn’t obey her. She was not ready for this. Why had the duke demanded her promotion? Terrible, arrogant, gorgeous tyrant! William—a beautiful and willful name. He had not given her leave to call him by his Christian name, but she would start now, if only in her head, just to spite him.

William, William, William.

She gazed at Vestris slumped in the chair, and her vision blurred. Instead of the blond, easy-going dancer, she saw brown hair, windswept, and lighter on the tips. A midnight beard grew on the dancer’s fair skin, and when he gazed at her, his eyes were changeable, stormy.

The duke grinned at her, showing his teeth in his sardonic smile, and asked her if she would give up. And then he lifted his hand, inviting her to dance for him—if she dared.

Oh, she dared. To haunt him, she dared. When the notes swelled, Helene felt it—a shift within, a tether loosening. She turned, keeping her eyes on him, not admiring his stern profile, but taunting him. She flitted around him, touching his broad shoulders, teasing him. The music blended with her playfulness, and the air lifted her skirts as she pirouetted. She tapped her toes in fast bourrées , drifting away from him, daring him to catch her. When he tried, she darted away, only to return when he pretended to give up. She admired his lips, and her mouth parted, and when she escaped him, she wished he could follow her into her own world.

When the music ended, the silence startled her.

Then she heard clapping. It was Langley. Langley was clapping!

Panting, Helene blinked repeatedly.

Vestris shook her hand.

Langley patted her back. “Much better, child, much better. You convinced me.”

Helene covered her mouth. She had danced for William, le duc , even in his absence.

Langley laughed. “Enough for today. Tomorrow, we will start the pas des deux .”

She offered a quick nod and left the stage, retreating from the warmth of his praise as if it scalded. What had come over her? Why had thinking of him made it all feel so natural? William? No, not William. Better call him Monsieur le Duc , Duke of Albemarle, the Silent Sovereign. The heavier the titles, the easier it would be to keep him at bay.

Why, she didn’t love him. She didn’t even like him.

Shivering, Helene wrapped her arms around herself and hurried toward her dressing room—until a splash of a familiar livery caught her eye.

A servant stood mid-corridor, clearly out of place amid the rush of dancers and dressers. And on his coat? The unmistakable insignia of the bane of her existence. The Goliath to her David. The Claudius to her Hamlet. The Cassius to her Caesar—The Duke of Albemarle.

What now? Was it not enough for the Duke to invade her thoughts in the most vexing ways?

The performers and stagehands did not pay the duke’s servant any attention, too caught up in their own post-rehearsal routine to acknowledge the stranger.

Heart racing, Helene approached the boy. “Do you need help? This place can be quite the labyrinth.”

Relief flickered in the servant’s eyes. “I’m here on behalf of the Duke of Albemarle. I’m looking for someone by the initials H.B. He is expected to attend His Grace tonight. For dinner.”

Helene hid a gasp behind her palm. Wasn’t he the most conceited male in all of Europe?

She wouldn’t join him for dinner—not even if she were starving and he held the last croissant in all of Christendom. And yet… unbidden, an image flashed behind her eyes—the duke awaiting her, sans neckcloth, framed in candlelight and arrogance. Heat shot through her spine, quickly chased by a shiver.

She cleared her throat and extended her hand. “May I see the note?”

The seal was real. His handwriting polished and demanding.

“Ah. H.B. Of course,” Helene murmured, furrowing her brow with mock understanding.

A plan bloomed—full-grown and wicked—and she returned the invitation to the boy with a serene nod.

“Please wait here while I fetch H.B.”

***

As William strode through the theater’s corridors, performers flattened themselves against the faded wallpaper to make way for him. The memory of the evening’s fiasco seared through his thoughts like a branding iron. When he had entered the secret apartment and saw that—that pimple-riddled youth, bewildered and awkward, sitting amidst the dinner he had overseen for her…

Clenching his hands into fists, William tried and failed to leash his temper. What was this pull she had on him? She was a sorceress—a female Morpheus. Not content in haunting his dreams, she had taken human form to cause mischief in his waking life.

Cavendish had been right. This was madness. Yet, reason could not more change his course than a broken dam could restrain repressed waters.

Voices fluttered from the opposite direction.

Then—her voice. Helene’s soprano. Breathless. Light. Alive.

He moved before thinking, stepping into shadow.

The moment she passed, he caught her wrist and pulled her into a storage room. She gasped, but he kicked the door closed before sound escaped her lips.

Her eyes widened in the dim alcove—twin moons, startled and bright.

The flimsy light cast flickers along her damp skin. A fine sheen of sweat shimmered at her collarbone. A curl stuck to her flushed cheek, and William’s restraint buckled.

One step. Then another. Until he pressed her against the wall.

“I don’t like to be played with.”

She lifted her chin, her gaze veiled by spiked eyelashes. “I thought this was what we were doing with each other—playing.”

William brushed his nose along the damp skin of her neck, inhaling her scent—rosemary and his dreams. Then he took her bottom lip between his teeth, reveling in the power of claiming even so small a piece of her.

She startled. Behind the bravado, her eyes couldn’t quite hide the emotion churning beneath.

“Little One,” he murmured, voice like silk pulled taut. “When I play with you… you’ll know.”

His hand slid into her chignon and tugged, tilting her head until her throat arched for him. Her mouth opened—perhaps in protest, perhaps not. It didn’t matter.

He took her mouth—ravaging it with lips, teeth, tongue. Bruising. Branding. Pouring in everything he could not say, everything he shouldn’t want.

The kiss spun out of control.

His pulse jackhammered against his ribs. Each breath dragged harsh and loud in the tight air. He pressed her against him, desperate to feed the ache inside—this reckless, burning need that had no name and no rules.

While he felt about to combust, she stood rigid, a marble statue, her lips receiving his onslaught, her eyes shut.

“Yield to me, damn it, yield to me, Helene,” he whispered against her cheeks, her neck, her lips, his voice ragged, rough, desperate.

Nothing. His heart sank. The Duke of Albemarle had once brought a Spanish flagship to its knees, had steered men through cannonades and storms, and carved his name into the smoke of battle—but he could not breach the walls of one slip of a girl.

He pulled away, resting his forehead against hers, his heaving breaths ruffling her hair.

“Yield to me.” A whisper now, tired, against the top of her head.

He wanted her—by God, how he wanted her.

William caressed her cheeks, soft where he had been rough, already cursing his outburst.

Her lips parted, her breathing shallow and uneven.

William shut his eyes, disgusted with himself. Why couldn’t he control himself when she was near?

She lifted her hand, and he braced himself for the well-deserved slap.

Instead, her thumb traced his jaw. Soft. Questioning.

“You are impossible,” she murmured.

Their eyes met—hers shining, unreadable—then dropped to his mouth. Not in fear. Not even in defiance. But in surrender.

Groaning, William licked the seams of her lips and pulled her closer. Just when he had feared she was made of marble, she melted into him—this female Morpheus of his—changing from taut curves to liquid response. His heart thudded, spreading heat to his limbs. She inflamed him. Something cracked open in his chest, emotion surging like a dam bursting, sweeping away all else in a tide of raw passion.

She moaned, and William diminished the pressure, allowing her to breathe. He didn’t have to ask her this time, and her tongue moved against him.

A kiss was not enough. He craved more.

He trailed caresses from her neck to the bodice of her dress, and then lower. Like he did every night, he tested the breath of her waist, pressing her against his erection. Open-mouthed, savage-like, he drank her gasp, her moan. William hooked his hand behind her thigh and lifted, opening a space for his hips. His fingers slid up her leg, from the crook of her knee to the soft flesh beneath her skirts. He followed their path with his gaze, stunned by the truth of it—he was finally touching her.

Breath rasping, he cupped her backside, kneading the taut muscles he’d only imagined until now. A whimper escaped her lips as her forehead dropped against his chest, her hands clutching his coat for balance.

He kissed the side of her neck and nipped her earlobe. “Why did you refuse my dinner invitation?”

“For a fancy dinner? You should find yourself a courtesan. My suppers are much simpler. When I have the time to eat, I do it in a Covent Garden stall.”

“Is this a proposition, Miss Beaumont?” William pulled up her tunic.

Her naked thigh glinted in the dusty light.

“It’s a statement of facts.” Her voice trembled, a breathless whisper. “We simply do not suit.”

He drew the letters of his name over her buttocks, reaching closer to the apex of her thighs with every letter. Watching her eyes widen, her panting breaths, her pulse speed, he reached the slit of her pantalets. When he found her moist for him, a roar erupted from his chest. With his thumb, he circled her clitoris, gathering moisture, then parted the lips of her sex. She was tight, and slick, and he wanted to devour her.

Relentless, he penetrated her with his finger, a sultry movement he mimicked by pushing his tongue between her lips.

William flicked her bud, and a shudder coursed through her. “Do you still think we don’t suit?”

Eyes heavy-lidded, hips moving languidly against his hand, she whispered, “Oui… Non. We don’t.”

William stopped the caress. It took all his willpower to step back, leaving her wanting more. After all, wasn’t that how she always left him—teetering on the razor edge of desire, battling to maintain his self-control?

Eyes wide, she held the wall for support as the dress slid down her thighs.

“You are wrong.” William sucked his finger, savoring her lush taste. “We suit perfectly.”

Then he turned and walked out, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

He had convinced the battered Austrians to join the Third Coalition against Napoleon, surely, he could persuade a single ballerina that she was a perfect fit for him.