The Black Prince: Part II Read Free

dancing began anew with a different song.
    Tristan stood. “I believe, darling, that we should dance.”
    His tone was cold. Flat. Isla looked up, startled. She could hardly refuse, especially now that all the table’s eyes were upon her. Quinn, and Callas, who did dance on occasion but who, vexingly, had returned to the table for refreshment and further conversation and whose expression was unreadable. Those others fortunate enough to have been offered a place at the main table. It was a rotating cast of characters, Tristan being wise enough never to display too much favoritism or for too long.
    The longer she waited, the more awkward things became. Someone coughed. She stood.
    He held his hand out to her, palm up. She placed her fingertips against his cold, hard skin and felt the vise of his fingers closing around them. She swallowed.
    He led her onto the open floor, about which the tables had been arranged for best viewing. Theater in the round, and she the presentation. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. And like, instead of just one table’s, the world’s eyes were watching. But all those eyes together had nothing to the weight of Tristan’s, which held hers as securely as he held her hand.
    The musicians in the gallery above stopped, seeing that the duke was taking the floor, and then began again.
    Tristan and Isla faced each other.
    He cut an imposing figure in the black he favored. His surcoat was well tailored, drawing attention to his broad, muscled shoulders and to how his equally muscled chest tapered to a trim waist. It hit him just below the knee, and yet managed to hide nothing of his grace or indeed of his raw athleticism. There could surely be no woman in all of Morven who, seeing him right now, would not feel her heart beat faster. Wonder, despite her better judgment, how his hands would feel on her skin. His lips. Whether he’d be a forceful lover or a gentle one. Whether he’d coax her moans from her, slowly, or pull them from her almost against her will in a rush of passion.
    He dropped his hand to his side. They each took two steps back. The other couples did the same.
    The music began again.
    Tristan took one step forward and bowed, a brief half bow with one hand at his belt. Then he took one step back, and another. Isla, after a beat, took one step forward and sank down into an equally brief curtsey. The battle lines had been drawn.
    Tristan made the same movement again but, this time, he offered her his hand in a stylized gesture. She accepted and let him lead her forward one step, and another. And then back one step, and another.
    They separated, repeating the process again and, this time, when they came together and he offered her his hand, he led her around in a slow circle. One hand in the air, the other held at an angle against his back, his eyes bored into hers in the low light. Like embers, she’d first thought when she met him. And they were embers still, burning with something she didn’t understand and yet was scarcely contained. Every line of his body fairly sang, like a thousand taut bowstrings.
    They paused, parted, came together and reversed direction.
    Back one step and then forward, each hand meeting its opposite.
    And then back, and again.
    All the while their eyes locked, lover and beloved engaged in a contest of minds where no words were spoken.
    This time, when they came together, instead of a light touch on her back as the dance dictated, as they moved forward through the stylized phases of courtship that the dance represented, he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. His fingers dug into the small of her back. And continued to move, gracefully and deliberately, as though nothing were amiss. Three turns to the right and then three turns widdershins.
    If the world was watching them, if there were even other couples on the floor, Isla didn’t care.
    And neither, clearly, did Tristan.
    “You’re mine.” The words were harsh.
    “Because you own me?” Her return