Chapter Six: A Dance Between Shadows
1290 Words
As her third dance ended, Lottie floated back toward Eveline and Lady Harwell, glowing and breathless.
“This is Miss Charlotte, my dearest daughter. Lottie This is The Dowager Duchess, Lady Thorne .” Beamed Lady Harwell
Lottie dipped in a graceful curtsy, though her eyes darted from Lady Thorne’s serpent brooch to the Duke’s strange coat. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
“The pleasure is ours,” said Lady Thorne. “Come, Dorian — let’s not trap these young ladies. The music is starting again and that means the dessert table is opening.”
Dorian. Eveline barely had time to register the name before they had passed, gliding through the crowd like smoke through candlelight.
Lottie turned immediately. “That man is either a genius or a ghost.”
“Dorian Romani,” Eveline murmured. “What a name.”
Lottie gave her a sidelong glance. “You look bewitched.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Entirely.”
“He’s just... curious.”
“He’s the final chapter of a romance novel. I could smell it on him.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Eveline whispered.
Lottie changed the subject. “He complimented my laugh,” she said dreamily. “My laugh, Eveline! I sounded like a goose being startled by fireworks and he liked it. Mr. Everly was taken by my laugh.”
“I’m thrilled for you,” Eveline said honestly. “You looked like a sunbeam on parade.”
Lottie twirled once, then linked arms with her again.
They laughed again, arm in arm, moving toward the corner where the punch glistened and the next string quartet began tuning.
Unseen, just beyond the edge of a pillar where the candlelight dimmed, a figure lingered in shadow — not hiding, not intruding. Simply watching.
The night moved like clockwork wound too tight.
Eveline danced.
She danced with Mr. Farnsworth, who stepped on her toes twice and earnestly apologized both times. She danced with Lieutenant Bellamy, who spoke exclusively about his hounds and offered to name one after her—“if she wouldn’t find it too forward.” She danced with Cousin Reggie from Somerset, who seemed to be under the impression that he was in competition with a ghost for her attention. Lastly Mr. Everly, whom she reluctantly agreed to only because it was his house after all.
And through it all, she looked for him.
The ballroom spun in a waltzing blur of lavender skirts and black coats, ribbons and roses, flickering chandeliers and the scent of sugared almonds. But her eyes, ever so subtly, drifted toward the edge of the crowd—searching for charcoal grey and stillness among the movement.
The Duke was always just beyond the music, near the columns, or beside a long velvet curtain. Watching. Waiting. Not hiding, precisely—but never fully in the light.
Once, she caught him looking at her. Just briefly. But his gaze held long enough to send a chill over her arms despite the warmth of the room. And then he looked away, like he hadn’t been watching at all.
It was maddening. And oddly thrilling.
When the strings swelled once more and the dance master announced the tenth set, Eveline felt her pulse shift.
Her final dances.
She stepped to the edge of the floor and found him already there.
Dorian.
No fanfare. No flourish. He stood like a secret too long kept; one hand extended toward her with the quiet inevitability of nightfall.
She placed her gloved hand in his.
The orchestra struck the first notes of a waltz, soft and unhurried, the kind written not for performance, but for seduction.
They moved together — slowly at first, as if testing gravity. His touch was careful, guiding. Not possessive like Whitcombe’s, nor awkward like Everly’s. The Duke did not lead; he invited.
Eveline let herself move with him.
“You’ve been watching me,” he said at last, his voice just above a whisper.
She arched a brow. “So modest of you to assume.”
He gave the barest smile. “It wasn’t modesty. It was certainty.”
A pause. Her breath caught. The floor seemed to tilt slightly.
“You’re quite unlike the others,” he said after a moment. “Most people here dance in circles. Even when they aren’t dancing.”
“And you prefer straight lines?”
“Don’t you?” Dorian replied.
“In a ballroom?” she asked, arching a brow. “That’s very modern of you.”
“I’ve never had much use for artifice.”
“Then you’re in the wrong city.”
“I hear that often.”
She laughed softly. “And here I thought you were difficult to read.”
“I listen to silences,” he replied. “They’re usually more honest.”
“And what do my silences say?” she asked.
He considered her for a beat too long. “They say you are not where you wish to be.”
“Am I not dancing with you?”
“You are,” he said. “But that’s not what you’re asking.”
She could not respond, not with anything clever. The space between them felt charged—not with flirtation, but with something darker and older. Something still unspoken.
“You speak in riddles,” she murmured, voice low. “Do you ever answer plainly?”
“When plain speech will not do harm.”
She tilted her head, intrigued. “Are you afraid of being known?”
“Only by those who would use what they find.”
“And if I promise not to?”
His eyes met hers, the faintest gleam in their depths—mirth, maybe, or melancholy.
“Then perhaps I will let you ask me a real question.”
She smiled faintly. “Why don’t you dance more often?”
He studied her for a long beat. “Because I don’t forget the faces of those I dance with. And I’m told that’s terribly inconvenient in society.”
Eveline blinked. It was a strange answer — oddly gentle and intimate, yet distant all at once. As if he carried too many memories already and wasn’t looking to collect more.
“Well,” she said, forcing a small breath of laughter. “That certainly sounds inconvenient. Especially if the last face you remembered belonged to someone appalling.”
“On the contrary.” His eyes never left hers. “The last face I remembered was… extraordinary.”
Eveline felt the warmth rise to her cheeks, but she did not drop her gaze. “You speak like a man who has far too much practice at making women blush.”
“I’ve never been good at making women do anything,” he said softly. “They either stay or they don’t.”
There was a weight behind those words that made her throat tighten. She couldn’t explain why.
The final notes of the waltz unraveled like silk.
Eveline realized she didn’t want to let go.
As they bowed and curtsied to one another, the distance between them felt suddenly, impossibly wide.
“You’re unlike anyone I’ve met,” she said, not entirely meaning to say it aloud.
He reached for her hand again—briefly—lifting it toward his lips. But instead of kissing it, he paused, his eyes fixed on hers.
“I hope,” he said, voice like velvet in dusk, “that you mean that kindly.”
She tried to smile. “I’m still deciding.”
He turned without another word and vanished into the drifting crowd.
And Eveline stood very still, her hand tingling, her breath caught somewhere between fascination and fear.
- Writer
