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H elene’s fingers quivered as she adjusted her slippers. Despite the chill on the stage, a bead of sweat trickled down her spine. While she stood in the glare of the lamps, the duke lounged in the dimly lit auditorium. A shaft of light illuminated his crossed legs and leather Hessians. He watched her, his face inscrutable. How could he be so passionless when she was about to pour her soul for him? Verón perched close to him, his head bent as if telling him a secret.

Helene assumed her position at the center stage, trying to visualize the music of The Sylph's Variation in the Forest. The tempo was tricky, oscillating between languid adagios and demanding allegros.

She nodded at Philip. Eyes bloodshot and complexion pale, the overworked pianist’s fingers trembled over the keys.

After forcing a smile at Langley, she began her variation. But something was off. The music mocked her, its notes slipping away, refusing to let her in. Why was the pianist struggling? His touch heavy where it should have been light, rushing through passages that required lingering.

“No, no, no!” Langley shouted.

Helene stopped mid-arabesque and wiped her sweaty brow with her wrist. Shame colored her cheeks, and against her will, her gaze drifted to the theater’s audience. Her muscles were rigid, a cramping mass of tension. What if Verón regretted his decision to promote her?

“Helene, you are not yourself today. Again.”

Exchanging a look with the pianist, she repositioned herself in the center. But the connection to the music remained elusive, and she struggled through the scene, each step feeling heavier than the last.

“Enough.”

The duke’s bass rang through the cavernous space like a cannon blast.

The piano jolted, notes colliding into silence.

Helene pressed a hand to her chest. This time, his high-handedness had crossed a line. What right had he to interrupt? They were making art—not politics.

Her gaze darted from his towering figure to Verón. The theater director ran a finger under his collar in a not-so-subtle threat, and her throat burned as if she had swallowed sawdust.

Boots struck the stage steps—measured, unhurried, ominous.

The dancers scattered. The stagehands vanished. The room reshaped itself around the Silent Sovereign, air tightening with expectation.

But Helene stood her ground.

He crossed the stage like a stormfront—silent but electric. She waited, breath tight, expecting him to turn, or at least be pulled closer by some invisible current.

But he didn’t. He passed her—close enough to graze her—but didn’t speak. Didn’t even look.

He only stopped at the piano, looming behind poor Philip, who tugged his cravat, forehead slick with sweat.

“Your tempo is wrong,” the duke said, voice low but slicing.

Philip bobbed his head in apology, eyes wide.

Helene frowned. Did he even understand the score?

“You’re playing the notes,” the duke said, gaze locking with hers, “but not the music. You must see her—feel her. A ballerina doesn’t want accompaniment. She wants a partner.”

A long pause. “Allow me.”

Philip tripped over his own feet trying to rise, bowing twice before fleeing.

The duke seated himself at the piano.

The room held its breath.

He removed his kid gloves, finger by finger, with the deliberate care of a man shedding armor.

Until now, his skin had been a mystery—aside from the clean line of his jaw and the bruises below his ribs. But here were his hands—long, dexterous, startlingly elegant. She drank in every inch of those fingers, wondering how something so refined could wield such control.

And then he touched the keys.

Clearly, he and the piano were old companions who had quarreled, reconciled, perhaps even shared nights of wild, wordless confession.

His eyes flicked to hers. His brows lifted, just slightly, as if he’d caught her watching too closely.

“From the beginning, Miss Beaumont?”

Helene assumed her position, part resentful of his intrusion, part curious of his prowess at the piano, part tingling as if she had rolled naked in the snow.

As the first notes unfurled, all parts of her hushed. Eyes closed, she listened. His music opened a door—and she stepped through without hesitation. The melody was intimate, a secret garden woven just for her. Each chord, a vine she climbed. Each arpeggio, a flower blooming beneath her touch.

The lower chords became earth beneath her feet, grounding her as she spun. The high notes sparkled like dew-laced leaves, and she tiptoed across them, airy as a sylph.

She sought his gaze—and found it ablaze. His hair tousled, his eyes lit from within. The music had set his fire free, and she felt it inside her now, stoking her own. He sped the notes, and she flew. He twirled them, and she pirouetted. He lifted them, and she rose in arabesque. He pulsed, and she trembled. When she drifted, he drew her back. When she faltered, he gave her wings.

The duke played—God, how he played—his fingers racing, plunging, deliberate and divine. A virtuoso. How had she not seen it before?

They said every dancer had their perfect musician. For her, it was him. The realization should have shaken her. Instead, it settled into place like a truth long known. Had Apollo denied Terpsichore? Had Homer shunned Calliope? When graced by a muse, an artist simply bowed and obeyed.

The final note fell, lingering in the air like a held breath. Silence clung to the theater.

She didn’t care for the nodding heads or the quiet awe of those around her. They were just bystanders to what had passed between them.

Her reverence belonged to him. And when her gaze met his—steady, searing—she knew.

She would never unsee him again.

***

William finished playing, holding the ivory keys as the last notes resounded on the stage. Helene gazed at him, her chest fluttering like a bird’s, her eyes shining. Her reverence was for him alone. A tide of longing for that winged being surged within his chest.

While he played and Helene danced, his awareness of her was more visceral than his connection to his fingertips while they stroked the keys. When he pulled in a breath of air, it was she who exhaled. When he struck the high notes, her pirouettes robbed his balance, and when she went on pointe, he had soared.

A throat was cleared. The cocoon of intimacy burst and their surroundings sprang into life.

He became acutely aware of others staring at him. Faces around him were frozen in various shades of shock, eyes wide, mouths slightly agape.

His fingers still trembled from the raw power he'd expressed. Why had he exposed himself like that?

This obsession had gone too far. Suddenly, he understood her power over him—the power to destroy him. William stood, the stool scraping on the stage floor.

He needed to distance himself from the theater, from her. This was not his world, and by crossing this barrier, he was upsetting society’s balance.

He turned his back on the company and strode toward the stage’s wings. He didn’t look at her, not even a glance, though the beast inside his chest clawed violently, raking at his lungs, each breath a struggle against the tightness threatening to crush him from the inside.

He had reached the corridor when a hand on his shoulder made him stop.

William closed his eyes, his breath shuddering out of him. He knew who it was—her touch alone could burn through the fabric of his coat.

The air moved as she flitted around him. Sweat glistened on Helene’s skin like diamonds—or the first dew of summer. A lock of hair teased her brow, her cheek. William wanted full, intimate ownership of that single strand.

She was his dream. And she was not.

The sprite and Helene blended into one—a dream walking in daylight, a fantasy spun into truth.

His heart thudded in his ears, drowning out any attempt at reason. He had to leave—now.

Eyes shimmering, she placed his hand over her breast. Her pulse leaped beneath the damp fabric of her tunic. Was it the rigors of the dance—or him?

“Your music touched me today. Merci.”

A flutter of wings, heart-stopping, and then she rose onto the tips of her toes and kissed his lips.

Consuming and consumed, he lost himself in her lips. Desire roared inside him, threatening to burn every ounce of his will.

With brutal effort, he tore himself from her bliss, his chest heaving with the exertion.

Their breaths mingled in the charged silence of the corridor. She tilted her head, unable to hide the flicker of hurt in her eyes.

The beast inside him cried out, desperate to take her in his arms and soothe her pain. But he had to fight the urge. To yield would be to lose himself, to be ruined by this madness.

With a wrenching finality, William walked away. Though every fiber of his being screamed to return, by God, he walked away.