Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 41
Beatrice surrendered herself to Patrick’s hand with genuine pleasure, her heart fluttering at the memory of how carefully he’d inscribed his name on her Dance Card just moments before.
Their gloved hands met, and his right palm settled gently against her back. Between them lay only the prescribed span of Etiquette—yet that single hand’s breadth of distance burned with an intensity that caught her off guard.
“Lovely evening, this.”
Patrick smiled, a slight curve playing at his lips.
As the melody swept across the Dance Floor, their bodies glided together in slow, fluid motion. They never once looked away from each other, and soft laughter bloomed silently between them.
He’d been clumsy the last time they’d danced, but tonight Patrick led her with assured grace—his posture elegant and upright, his footwork flawless. Had he practiced for this evening? The thought sent warmth rushing to Beatrice’s cheeks.
“Patrick, look. The Unmarried Alliance is already proving its worth.”
As her face grew uncomfortably warm, Beatrice seized on the Alliance deliberately, hoping to cool her embarrassment with talk of strategy.
“Those men who were circling me earlier—not one of them dares approach.”
“I’m indebted to you as well. Lady Norton has been eyeing me like a hungry predator from beside that pillar all evening.”
Patrick’s reply came with such composure that Beatrice found no other emotion in his expression, and she was forced to remind herself of their alliance’s true purpose once more.
That was right. He and she, they had come to the Ball for the Unmarried Alliance’s cause. They were merely allies watching each other’s backs—nothing more could ever exist between them.
…How fortunate. Truly, how fortunate that was.
Beatrice applied slight pressure through her gloved fingertips and leaned into Patrick’s arm. He smiled and answered her gesture by turning her smoothly through a complete revolution.
As her skirts billowed and subsided, a memory she’d deliberately buried came creeping back to the edges of her thoughts.
His hand reaching toward her cheek. The flush he’d dismissed as nothing at all. The tumultuous way her heart had raced in that moment—she couldn’t deny it, not truly.
But looking at him now, that moment surely meant nothing. It had been merely an awkwardness born of unfamiliar contact, nothing more. She decided this was true.
“Oh.”
Lost in thought, she missed the beat. Her shoe caught the edge of his, and she stumbled forward. Patrick’s hand shot to her back, steadying her immediately.
“Are you all right?”
It had happened in an instant—but when their breath intermingled at such closeness, Beatrice’s heart thundered beyond control.
“I—I’m so sorry.”
“You’re fine.”
As Patrick’s kind words reached her, the first dance ended. He bowed with formal grace, and she curtsied, gathering the folds of her Dress.
But as they moved to leave the Dance Floor, Patrick hesitated and pulled her gently back.
“Beatrice. Would you do me the honor of another dance?”
Beatrice tilted her head slowly, meeting the blue of his eyes.
Looking into those calm, liquid eyes, a wish she’d been harboring in the depths of her heart rose suddenly to the surface.
One more dance. Just a little longer together.
Her cheeks flushed with shy delight, and she placed her hand readily into his. Patrick smiled in silent response and drew her close, his hand settling at her waist.
As the second melody began, the air between them grew noticeably warmer.
Heat seeped through her fingertips; each time his grip shifted, the contact of skin sent an exquisite tremor through her frame.
Patrick’s mind whirled helplessly. The delicate curve of her waist beneath his hand, the way she moved with feather-light grace at each step, the subtle jasmine fragrance that brushed against his senses—
The more he felt her presence all around him, the more his carefully maintained composure crumbled.
She was no longer a colleague. She was a woman his own age, attractive and alluring, intimate as though he need only reach out to touch her. This sudden awareness stirred him in ways he couldn’t ignore.
When the second dance drew to a close, Patrick found himself locked in an inner struggle—desperate to ask for a third.
Dancing three consecutive dances with the same partner at a Ball was tantamount to a public declaration of intimacy before all of High Society.
By tomorrow, everyone would be asking whether they were engaged.
“Why do you look like that?”
“…It’s nothing.”
As he wrestled with himself, the prelude to the third dance began. Patrick swallowed the words gathering in his throat and extended his arm in proper form.
“Will you dance with someone else?”
Around them, other men circled like jackals, hungry for a slot on Beatrice’s Dance Card. She glanced at them dismissively and shook her head.
“No. Never. I don’t want to.”
Her resolute answer brought him relief—though he never questioned why he felt such relief, nor why he took such petty satisfaction at the sight of those other men’s disappointment.
“Patrick. I’m thirsty.”
At just that moment, Beatrice linked her arm through his and leaned against him. Patrick led her gallantly toward the Refreshment Corner in the shadows.
As they passed deliberately before the other men, Patrick accepted the pettiness rising in himself.
The Ball he’d so despised had become, unmistakably, something rather enjoyable.
* * *
Meanwhile, Bennett and his wife, having arrived late, remained entirely unaware that their son Patrick had become the focus of the evening’s gossip.
The moment they entered the hall, they sensed something amiss in the air. Every face they passed turned toward them with a knowing look, and whispered conversations followed in their wake. Worry immediately bloomed in their hearts.
What’s going on? Has our son done something wrong?
Just as the Countess instinctively gripped her Fan, Bennett made a subtle gesture with his chin, indicating the Dance Floor.
“Look there, my dear.”
“Good heavens.”
The moment the Countess saw her son dancing with such elegance in the center of the floor, her eyes widened in astonishment.
“Is that Lady Somerset again?”
After all his protests that nothing was happening, perhaps something had developed after all? The Countess leaned forward eagerly, and those around her responded with knowing smiles and knowing looks.
“Madam, surely there hasn’t been some development between the two families?”
“Well, not yet….”
“My goodness, you mean you haven’t heard? Just now the Viscount formally requested an Escort from the Marquis Somerset himself — and the Marquis came out to meet him as though he’d been waiting all along.”
The woman fanned herself with a flutter of her fan, affecting composure, yet the Countess felt the sharp attention of the mothers with unmarried daughters all bristling around her. To escape the gleam of their bright, eager eyes, the Count seized his wife’s arm and drew her away.
“We ourselves know nothing of it yet. My dear, shall we find our seats?”
The Count cleared the area around them and withdrew to a secluded spot behind one of the great pillars. The two of them each took up a glass of Champagne and, catching their breath, watched the Dance Floor intently.
The scene was much as it had been at the Museum, yet tonight the two young people appeared even more intimate than before. They had been dancing together for quite some time, it seemed, and Lady Somerset’s spiraling turns and Patrick’s leading smile made their Dancing appear far more accomplished than it had been.
“Good heavens. What on earth is happening? And after he insisted it was nothing of the sort.”
The Countess, who had been watching her son and the young lady beside him with quiet satisfaction for some while, suddenly nudged her husband urgently, as though she had discovered something.
“My dear, do look there.”
Following his wife’s gaze, the Count saw the Marquis Somerset and his wife seated not far from where the young couple danced.
“Don’t you think we ought to pay our respects?”
“Yes, we should. Shall we go?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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