Vampyre Bride ✔️

XIII⎮The Very Worst Kind Of Shade

If ever eternity could be experienced in one momentous instant, this dance was that moment for Emma. Time seemed to stretch on interminably, but in a way that was profoundly dreamlike; in point of fact, it slowed and then ceased altogether.

It happened each time she met his eyes; with each fleeting touch of their hands.

She would, in truth, have likened the experience to surrealism. Dancing with Winterly had been like floating beneath the surface of a mulled wine, muffling the sounds of the ball the while she'd drowned in his intoxicating gaze.

Then all too soon the dance ended. Winterly thereat bowed, even that gesture imposing and regal, and took her hand to lead her from the other dancers, his black eyes drifting languidly athwart her features. "You are beautiful."

How on earth did he inject such a wealth of feeling and profundity into such a simple phrase. She was certainly not beautiful. He, however, appeared to be quite sincere, subtle as it was to detect. But he was wrong.

His flattery was both undesired, and unwonted. She would handle his statement as she handled all flummery - by employing humor. "Then I am not intelligent," she said, trying to ease the weighty force of his regard with light teasing. "A woman, so I'm told, cannot be both, you see." She was funning at Lady Middleton's expense, but his eyes only hardened.

"Agatha Middleton is an imbecile. She does not understand what beauty is."

Emma smiled, delighted with him. "I've always thought beauty to mean a brilliancy of spirit and of mind." And, by his remark, she deduced that he felt the same. Furthermore, she could now accept the compliment he'd paid her because he was undoubtably referring to her mind ... not her plain, little face. It was good of him to appreciate in a woman what most did not.

But, as per usual, Winterly confounded her the very next second when he said, "It is why she and the lady patronesses dislike you: you threaten them threefold..." Once again he seemed to drink of her body; her lips especially. "For you possess the resplendence of all three."

"All three?"

"Of the mind; the soul; and of the body."

She lowered her eyes from his, having no talent for accepting compliments because she was always dubious of them. In consequence of that, she was able to offer nothing but abstracted silence which, at all events, he seemed not to mind. She rather thought he bedeviled her on purpose and relished the times he reduced her to quietude. 

Winterly, meanwhile, guided her away; not back to their party as she'd have expected, but towards the supper rooms instead. Although she was still half bemused by him, she gladly quit the assembly rooms, her hand resting at his elbow, eager enough to avoid his abstruse sister and that odious Lady Middleton.

She had been too nervous to eat all day, and now found that she was suddenly ravenous, her stomach crying lustily for sustenance as she perused the refreshments. But her choices were limited to dry biscuits, plain bread, and stale cakes. Turning her nose at the fare, she noticed that Winterly was watching her again. Indeed, when was he not?

"Almack's," said he, "is not known for its appetizing comestibles; I'm afraid if you've come here for the food, such as it is, you shall be sorely displeased."

It was from the salver of an attentive footman that he obtained for Emma a glass of orgeat. She thanked him, sipped it, and set it down directly, for it too was unpalatable and weak. "Will you not have some?" she asked him.

He lowered at the glass as though it were filled with vinegar. "They do not serve what I drink."

She nodded, understanding him to mean a fine claret or an expensive madeira perhaps. Of the spread before them, he partook of none, and she began to wonder at the strange propensity he had for never eating or drinking in public.