CHAPTER 17: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She kicked her feet beneath the covers, a wild, childish tantrum in the privacy of her own room.

Finally, her anger spent, she turned over with a long, shuddering groan and stared up. The moonlight was just bright enough to trace the faded threads.

"Just like that night," she whispered. "He also talked to me sweetly at that ball."

The memory of his face, so serious and so close in the dim hallway, flashed in her mind. He was so cold now. So distant. He looked at her as if she were a complicated puzzle he had no interest in solving.

He wasn’t always this way.

Her mind drifted, pulling her back, away from the embarrassing encounter in the library, back two years. To the night he and Rowan had returned from the war.

It was a ball. Of course, it was a ball. A massive, glittering, suffocating affair to "welcome home the heroes." The ballroom was sweltering, packed with sweating, laughing, shouting members of the ton.

Rowan, looking impossibly handsome and serious in his uniform, was already surrounded, swallowed by a crowd of admirers and politicians.

Ines was in her normal position. An alcove near the lemonade table. It was her preferred habitat, partly hidden by a large, drooping fern. She was nursing her first (and likely only) glass of the night, fanning herself, and counting the minutes.

A voice, deep and familiar, cut through her thoughts.

"Are you alone again?"

Her hand, holding the glass, paused halfway to her lips. She froze. She knew that voice. It was not Rowan.

She turned her head, slowly.

"Carcel?" she breathed.

He was standing there, smiling. Actually smiling. It was a small, quiet smile, but it reached his dark eyes, making them crinkle at the corners. He had left a boy, all sharp angles and restless energy. He had returned a man. The war had carved new lines into his personality, but it had not, it seemed, stolen his warmth.

"If you were going to enjoy solitude, there’s no reason for you to come to the ball, right?" he said. His voice was a gentle, teasing rumble.

Ines felt her cheeks warm, but she found herself being honest, something she rarely was at these events. "I have no choice," she said, gesturing with her fan. "If I don’t attend, my brother Rowan will get upset. By the way, I was dragged here."

He looked at her for a long moment, taking in her words. He glanced at the packed dance floor, then back at her. Then, he did the most astonishing thing.

He stretched out his gloved hand. He bowed, a perfect, formal, yet somehow intimate bow.

Ines stared at him. She was confused. What was he doing?

"In that case," he said, his voice still low and laced with that gentle humor, "may I dare to make your boring ball even more uninteresting?"

He was asking her to dance.

Her heart, which had been beating in a dull, bored rhythm, gave a single, violent thump. No one asked her to dance. Not really. Sometimes Rowan would force a young, terrified lord to do his duty, and it was always an awkward, silent, miserable shuffle.

But Carcel was asking. He was here, a celebrated war hero, the Duke of Carleton, and he could have any woman in the room. And he was asking her.

Slowly, as if in a dream, she placed her gloved hand in his. His grip was warm and firm.

He led her onto the floor. The orchestra was starting a waltz. She felt a hundred pairs of eyes lock onto them. She could feel the whispers start, like the rustling of dry leaves. The Duke of Carleton? With Lady Ines? The Hamilton Ice Queen?

She was terrified. Her feet felt like lead. Don’t step on his boots. Don’t trip. Don’t look at anyone.

He placed his hand on her waist, and it felt as though she had been touched by a small, contained fire. He pulled her into the first steps of the dance. She was stiff, her shoulders up by her ears.

"Breathe, Ines," he murmured, his voice for her alone. "It’s just a waltz. I promise not to let you fall."

She chanced a look up at him. He was not looking over her head, or at the crowd. He was looking at her. His kind, dark eyes were steady.

And so, for three whole minutes, Ines danced. It was, she thought, the single most terrifying and wonderful three minutes of her life.

When the music ended, he bowed, thanked her, and returned her to her alcove as if she were a precious jewel. He had left her with another small smile and gone to join Rowan.

The memory faded, dissolving like sugar in water, leaving Ines alone in her dark, quiet bedroom. The contrast between the warmth of that moment and the cold, awful encounter in the last ball made her heart ache.

She sighed, the sound heavy with a sadness she rarely allowed herself to feel. She pulled her pillow close, hugging it to her chest as if it were a shield.

"Come to think of it," she murmured to the darkness, her voice small and sad, "Carcel was the first person who danced with me since my social debut. The first one who... i actually wanted."

But as soon as the hopeful thought formed, her practical, self-protective mind rushed to destroy it.

"But that was probably just because he is so close to Rowan," she argued, her voice becoming flat. "That’s all it was."

She knew their history. She had grown up with it. "They both attended the same boarding school together," she whispered, reciting the facts like a lesson. "They have been like brothers from the very beginning. A few years ago, when the war broke out in that distant country, Rowan and Carcel were deployed together. They even went to fight together."

They had survived battles. They had seen things she could never imagine. Their bond was not just friendship; it was forged in fire and blood.

She hugged the pillow tighter, pushing her face into it.

"Maybe he just talked to me because he felt pity," she reasoned, the thought a familiar, bitter pill. "He saw his friend’s younger sister, the one who was like a brother to him, standing alone. The pathetic wallflower. He felt sorry for her, so he did his duty. He danced one dance."

It made a cold, perfect sense.

"Maybe that’s why he became so distant lately. He paid his dues. He danced his one dance of pity. Now he is here on business, and he doesn’t want to be bothered with his best friend’s strange, spinster sister."

She closed her eyes, forcing the image of his smile from her mind.

"Let’s not misunderstand," she told herself, her Icy Lady mask settling firmly into place. "I am not so foolish that I wouldn’t notice something like that. It meant nothing. He is Rowan’s friend. He is polite. And I am... a complication."

Let’s leave it be

She had to stop this. She had to stop thinking about him. She was a writer. She had a new, complicated scene to plan. She had a business to run. She did not have time for a young girl’s crush on a man who clearly saw her as a burden.

With a final, weary sigh, Ines pushed the pillow away. She turned on her side, her back to the door, and reached out to the small lamp on her bedside table.

She put out the light.

The room plunged into darkness. She pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes, forcing her mind to go blank.