LITMIR.BIZ

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Henry and Mistress Boleyn were at the head. Nicolai led Marguerite to their places at the end of the line.

      But she had to ask one more thing before the steps of the dance parted them. “Will you marry your Señorita Alva, then?”

      Nicolai laughed. “Mademoiselle Dumas, marriage is not for such people as you and me. Another lesson I thought you had learned.”

      The music began, and he blew her a kiss from his fingertips. Marguerite could vow she felt it land softly on her cheek, where he had kissed her earlier.

      The dance was a passamezzo, a livelier version of the pavane and much less dignified. Henry and Anne clasped hands and twirled down the line, all the other couples peeling off after them. Marguerite’s hand reached out for Nicolai’s, and they, too, spun away.

      The steps were quick—as the duke said, prancing and trotting. Marguerite hopped and swirled around Nicolai, until his hands caught her about the waist and lifted her from the floor, spinning her around and around. The crowd shifted and blurred, a humid, wild tangle, like a dream. Marguerite laughed helplessly, leaning her hands on his strong shoulders as he lifted her higher and ever higher. Surely, with his touch she could fly!

      It was even better than running away to Madrid. This was leaving the ugly, deceptive earth altogether, free of everything but his touch, which kept her safe.

      At last he lowered her back to the floor, grounding her, yet she still felt as light as the earth itself.

      Yes, he was a fine dancer, just as she suspected he would be. He turned and moved her so easily, she was hardly aware she moved at all. The banquet hall, the other dancers, even all that awaited her when the music ended, disappeared.

      The music built and built, faster and faster, the lines growing tighter and closer until at last the great finale arrived. Nicolai lifted her again, spinning her until she gasped dizzily, laughing in sheer delight. She stared down at him, at his smile, his glowing face. Had she thought his eyes cool? Nay, they burned with the light of a dozen suns, and she basked in their heat.

      The song ended in a crash, and Nicolai lowered her for the last time, slowly, slowly, their bodies in a delicious friction of satin on velvet, flesh on flesh. In the rush of the crowd, Marguerite pressed her forehead to Nicolai’s shoulder, inhaling the heated scent of him, her breath tight in her throat.

      She had the fearful sense that, if she let go of him, she would fall.

      His hands held on to her arms, strong and solid, warm through the thin silk of her sleeves. She felt the rise of his chest as he breathed, and her own breath moved in unison with his. For this one, ephemeral moment, she sensed what it was to have something to cling to when the cold winds of the world howled.

      But then the moment was gone. Nicolai stepped back, and the winds swept around her again. Marguerite threw her shoulders back, held her head high, resisting the urge to wrap her arms tightly around herself against that icy hollow in her belly.

      Nicolai did not smile, did not even really look at her, gazing somewhere above her head. “Shall I take you back to your seat, mademoiselle?” he asked tightly.

      Marguerite shook her head. She couldn’t face Father Pierre just yet, nor even Dona Elena with her sweet smiles. “I cannot breathe in here,” she murmured. “I think I shall walk outside for a moment.”

      “Let me go with you.”

      She shook her head again. He was part of her confusion, the very worst part! When he was near she could not think clearly. She could not be the Emerald Lily, cold, merciless. “You should return to Señorita Alva.”

      Nicolai laughed. “In truth, Mademoiselle Dumas, I cannot catch my breath in here, either. There are far too many people, too many wine fumes. And I would not like to encourage Dona Elena where any of her ladies are concerned. Please, at least let me see you safely to your lodgings.”

      Marguerite longed to protest, to run away, but she feared her legs would not carry her. She felt lightheaded, and so very sad. She nodded, and he took her hand in his and led her through the milling, laughing crowds. The press of people, the roil of their drunken chatter, King Henry’s loud bellow—it was all too much. It was her world, the one she had fought so hard to belong to, make a place in, but tonight she couldn’t bear it.

      What was wrong with her? Surely she just needed fresh air. Needed to clear her muddled head and regain her sense of purpose.

      Maybe the only way to do that was by pushing Nicolai Ostrovsky into the Thames!

      As they emerged from the banquet hall into the chilly night, Marguerite chuckled at the image of Nicolai cartwheeling into the river. Vanishing under the waves, leaving her to be as she was before, whole and cold and untouchable. The only trouble was, he might very well drag her in with him.

      “And what makes you laugh so, mademoiselle?” he asked, as they turned down one of the pathways, shining white in the starlight. They ducked behind a concealing hedge, away from curious eyes.

      Marguerite shook her head. “Merely a jest of my own.”

      “I am glad to see you catch your breath enough to make jests.”

      She drew in a deep breath of the cold, smoketinged air. She was surprised to find that she had caught her breath, that her lungs were expanding, opening up so she could smell everything. The clear breeze, the chimney smoke, the frosty river, the flowers slumbering under the ground. The stones and grass and wine. Nicolai’s scent, his hair and wrist and neck.

      Her world tonight kept expanding and retracting in ways she could never have imagined. She remembered what it was to fly free in the dance, and now she twirled in a circle, her head tipped back to take in the night sky. The endless expanse of stars. She imagined herself soaring up into the endless blackness, free.

      What had got into her tonight? The wine, the music? She could not fathom it. She could only twirl faster, her arms outstretched to take it all in.

      The world would retract again soon enough, pull back inside to that one pinpoint that was her life—to deceive and defeat.

      Nicolai laughed, catching her hands in his as she twirled. He tried to still her, but she would not let him. Instead, she pulled him into her circle, and they whirled and whirled until the sky and the palace and England itself were nothing but a buttery blur.

      “Who is this mad creature?” he cried. Just like in the dance, he caught her around her waist, lifting her up and up until she flew into the sky. She lifted her hands as if she could grasp the very stars and pull them down to put into his beautiful hair.

      “What has possessed you, Marguerite?” he said. “My wild rusalka.”

      “I am possessed,” she gasped. She buried her fingers in his hair, the warm strands slipping silkily from her grasp. “Come, Nicolai, be mad with me. We shall have to be sane again soon enough.”

      “I fear one of us will have to be sane right now,” he said, lowering her to her feet. “Or trouble such as we have never known in our very troublesome lives will descend on us.”

      “Non, non,” she said, still caught deep in the moon’s spell. “Kiss me, Nicolai.”

      “Marguerite…”

      She grasped his hair again, and drew him toward her. Their lips met, and there was no practice to it, no artifice. Just a hot, blurry melding of their mouths, their passionate needs, so long denied.

      She remembered Venice, how for one fateful moment she lost herself in him there. Just as then, she fell into him, into that bright essence of him, drowning, overwhelmed. She could not pull away, could not reach for her dagger. She threw herself heedlessly into him, deeply, madly. She held onto him as if she would never, ever let him go. She was his captive, but he would be hers, too.

      He tried to draw away, to resist her. She could feel it in the tension of his shoulders, the supple arc of his back. She refused to let go, though, and he surrendered with a groan, falling

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