Chapter 15: The Greymont Reception
The sapphire silk whispered against her legs as Selina descended the grand staircase, a sibilant promise in a sea of pastel chiffon and ivory lace. The gown was a declaration. It cut across her collarbones, leaving her shoulders bare to the chandelier’s heat, and swept into a train that hissed like a secret over each step. The single diamond at her throat was a cold, deliberate point of light.
She felt the moment he saw her.
It was a physical pull, a shift in the atmospheric pressure of the room. She didn’t search for him. She simply knew, her eyes finding him effortlessly as she reached the final curve of the banister. Burke stood apart from the receiving line, a slice of darkness in formal black and white. He was perfectly still, one hand clenched behind his back. The casual lean he’d employed at her garden gate was gone, replaced by a soldier’s rigidity.
His gaze swept over her—not the polite, appreciative glance of a ballroom acquaintance, but a comprehensive, devastating assessment. It lingered on the line of her neck, the exposed slope of her back, the way the fabric clung and then released. Hunger, raw and unchained, flashed in his eyes before being ruthlessly banked. His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering along its edge.
The hum of a hundred conversations, the shimmer of violins tuning, the clink of champagne flutes—it all dissolved into a low, meaningless roar. For three heartbeats, four, they were the only two people in the cavernous, glittering space. A silent, furious communication passed between them: his astonishment, her defiance, the shared, illicit memory of a lock yielding in the dark.
Selina allowed a slow, knowing smile to curve her lips. She extended a hand gloved in the same deep blue, her fingers steady.
“Shall we, my lord?” she murmured, the words barely audible.
He moved then, crossing the space with a predator’s fluid grace. He took her hand. His fingers, through the kid leather, trembled.Just once. A tiny, betraying spasm she felt in her very core. The contact was a completed circuit, sending a jolt of awareness up her arm.
“You look,” he said, his voice low and rough as he brought her hand to rest on his sleeve, “precisely like the dangerous instrument you are.”
“One must dress for the occasion,” she replied lightly, allowing him to lead her into the swirl of the ballroom. The heat of his body beside her was a brand. “Is our friend in attendance?”
“Near the south terrace doors. Pretending to be fascinated by a particularly hideous urn.” Burke’s smile was a thin, pleasant veneer for the crowd. “He’s already glanced at the long gallery stairs four times. The study is directly above.”
They moved through the throng. Selina nodded and smiled at acquaintances, her performance automatic. Lady Tinsley complimented her gown. Sir Reginald made a ponderous joke about the weather. All the while, her senses were tuned to the man beside her, to the calculating scan he was performing of the room.
“Nervous?” he asked suddenly, his head bending close to hers as if sharing a delightful confidence.
“Terrified,” she answered honestly, smiling at the Dowager Marchioness as they passed. “It’s wonderfully clarifying. I highly recommend it over champagne.”
He chuckled, a real, warm sound that vibrated against her. “When the ambassador begins his toast, the household staff will be at attention in the service corridor. The footmen by the gallery will be staring straight ahead, hoping not to be noticed. We’ll have seven minutes, maybe eight.”
“An eternity,” Selina said, her mind already mapping the route from the ballroom floor, up the side staircase, down the hall. A lock. There would be a lock. Her fingers itched for the feel of cold metal.
A waltz began. Burke turned to her, his expression shifting into one of polite expectation. “A dance, Lady Selina? For the sake of appearances.”
She placed her hand in his again. His other arm came around her waist, his palm a firm, searing pressure through the silk. He pulled her closer than was strictly proper. Much closer.
They swept into the motion. He was an exceptional dancer, leading with subtle, confident authority. The room became a blur of light and colour, the other couples mere obstacles to be navigated.
“You haven’t asked what we’re looking for,” he whispered into her hair, his breath warm on her temple.
“You’ll tell me when we’re inside.”
“You trust me that much?”
“I trust your desire to ruin him,” she said, spinning with him through a tight turn. “It matches my own.”
He held her gaze, his own dark and unreadable. The music swelled. For a few bars, they simply danced. The mission, the danger, receded, replaced by the pure physical poetry of the movement, the solidity of his frame against hers, the dizzying scent of him—bergamot and starch and something inherently wild.
“After this,” he said, his voice barely a vibration against her skin, “things will be different.”
“I should hope so. I’ve invested a rather expensive gown.”
“Selina.”
The use of her name, here amidst the crowd, was more intimate than his touch. She missed a step. He caught her effortlessly, his grip tightening.
“After this,” he repeated, “there will be consequences. For both of us.”
Before she could respond, the music ended with a flourish. They parted, applauding lightly with the rest of the room. A palpable shift occurred. A portly, serious-looking man with an impressive chain of office was being ushered toward the makeshift dais.
The French ambassador.
Burke’s hand found the small of her back, a guiding pressure. “Now,” he breathed.
They melted backwards, away from the centre of the room, as the first sonorous words of the toast began to echo off the gilded ceiling. “Honoured guests, distinguished friends…”
At the edge of the crowd, by a potted palm, Burke’s hand slipped into his pocket and emerged with a small, flat object. He pressed it into her palm as they turned toward a shadowed servants’ door. It was warm from his body.
A modern, precision-made tension wrench and a pick with a delicate, twisted end.
“My tools,” she whispered, her fingers closing over them like a sacrament.
“Your weapons,” he corrected, his eyes already scanning the empty corridor ahead. “The game is live. Let’s go take what’s his.”