Chapter 2: Champagne and Scandal
The ballroom air, thick with the cloying sweetness of too many flowers and the weight of a hundred perfumes, hit Kate like a wall. She paused at the threshold, one hand subtly pressing against the frame as if to steady a world that had tilted on its axis just minutes before. Beneath her layers of silk, her skin felt oversensitive, alive with the memory of his hands, his mouth, the unforgiving edge of the piano. A faint, deep ache throbbed insistently, a secret she now carried within her.
She forced her eyes to focus, to scan the whirl of colors and noise. And there she was. Edwina.
Her sister stood by the champagne fountain, a vision in soft lilac, her head slightly tilted as she watched the bubbles rise in a fluted glass. The same glass, Kate noted with a cold twist in her stomach, that Anthony had abandoned on the fountain’s rim. Edwina’s slender fingers reached out and idly traced the crystal rim, right where his lips had been.
A wave of nausea, sharp and acrid, rose in Kate’s throat. She swallowed it down, the taste bitter.
“There you are!”
Edwina’s face lit up as she spotted Kate, her smile guileless and warm. She waved, beckoning her over. Kate painted on a smile, her facial muscles protesting the fraud, and began to weave through the crowd. Every brush of a passing sleeve, every jovial laugh, felt like an assault.
“I was just looking for you and Lord Bridgerton,” Edwina said, linking her arm through Kate’s the moment she was close enough. Her touch felt like a brand of accusation. “I thought I heard voices in the music room, but it must have been the servants.”
“Must have been,” Kate echoed, her voice thankfully steady. She glanced at the glass. “You are not drinking?”
“Oh, no. It is Lord Bridgerton’s. I was simply… keeping it for him.” Edwina’s cheeks flushed a delicate pink. “He excused himself rather abruptly earlier. He seemed… agitated. Do you think I said something to upset him?”
Before Kate could fabricate an answer, the string quartet at the far end of the room drew their bows across the strings in a unified, sweeping motion. The opening notes of a waltz filled the air, supple and inviting.
A current seemed to run through the crowd. And then Kate saw him.
Anthony was entering from a side door, his expression a mask of collected civility. But his cravat, usually a masterpiece of precise folds, was slightly disheveled, the linen less than pristine. Kate’s own fingers twitched with the memory of clutching at it, of dragging him closer. His gaze swept the room and found hers with an unerring, gravitational pull.
Across the sea of silk and tailcoats, his eyes held hers. The noise of the ballroom faded into a dull roar. In the space between them, the air crackled with everything unsaid, everything undone. She could almost feel the ghost of her teeth marks on his shoulder, a phantom pain beneath his waistcoat. A possessive, shameful heat flared low in her belly.
He began to move, not towards her, but with a purpose that carved a path directly through the guests.
“Oh, he is coming over,” Edwina whispered, her grip tightening on Kate’s arm with excited anticipation.
Anthony stopped before them, executing a flawless, shallow bow. “Miss Sharma. Miss Edwina.” His voice was calm, the practiced baritone of the Viscount. But his eyes, when they flicked to Kate, were storms.
“My lord,” Edwina curtsied, beaming. “Your champagne.” She presented the glass with a small, playful gesture.
“Thank you.” He took it, his fingers briefly overlapping where hers had been. He did not drink. His attention was fixed on Kate. “The waltz is beginning.”
“It is a lovely melody,” Edwina agreed.
“Miss Sharma,” Anthony said, his voice dropping, cutting through the formal address. “Would you do me the honor?”
A jolt of pure panic, laced with an unbearable thread of desire, shot through Kate. Dance with him? Now? With the memory of his body pressed against hers so fresh, with the scent of him still clinging to her senses? It was a form of public torture.
“Lord Bridgerton,” Kate managed, her tone laced with a warning only he would understand. “Surely, your first dance should be with your betrothed.”
“Nonsense!” Edwina chirped, her smile never wavering. “You are my sister, and soon to be his. It is perfectly appropriate. Please, Kate, dance. I shall enjoy watching you.”
Trapped. By her sister’s innocence and by the viscount’s bold, reckless will.
Anthony extended his hand, palm up. A command. An invitation. A threat.
After a frozen second, Kate placed her fingers in his. The contact was electric, a bolt of awareness that traveled up her arm and coiled tight in her chest. His hand closed over hers, warm and sure.
He led her to the floor, his grip firm, as the couples began to turn and sway. He took her in his arms, one hand settling with deliberate pressure on the small of her back, right where the piano’s edge had dug into her. The other held her hand aloft. The proper distance between them was a mockery.
The music swelled. They began to move.
He was an expert lead, his steps confident and smooth. She followed, her body remembering the rhythm despite the chaos in her mind. They revolved, a isolated island spinning amidst the other dancers.
“Are you unwell?” he murmured, his voice low enough that only she could hear it beneath the strings. His eyes scanned her face, missing nothing. “You look flushed.”
“Do not,” she breathed, keeping her gaze fixed over his shoulder at a particularly ugly pastoral scene on the wall.
“Do not what? Inquire after your health? A mere courtesy.”
“It is a farce. All of this.” She dared to meet his eyes then. “You are a farce.”
He spun her, a quick, graceful turn that brought her momentarily closer, his breath against her temple. “What happened in the music room was not a farce, Kate.”
The use of her name, here, in the open, felt more intimate than anything that had transpired in the shadows. She stumbled slightly; his hold on her tightened, keeping her upright.
“It was a mistake,” she whispered fiercely.
“Your body did not think it a mistake.” His words were blunt, vulgar, and they sent a fresh wave of heat through her. “You bit me to keep quiet. You came apart around me while your sister called my name. That is not a mistake. That is a truth you cannot outrun.”
She wanted to recoil, to slap the smug certainty from his face. Instead, she found her feet moving in perfect time with his, her body betraying her again by responding to his lead, to the pressure of his guiding hand.
“You will marry Edwina,” she stated, as if saying it could make it real, could rebuild the shattered walls between them.
“I will.” His jaw tightened. The mask of the composed lord slipped, just for an instant, revealing the raw, possessive man beneath. “And every time I look at her, I will see you. When I take her to my bed, I will close my eyes and see you against that piano. I will imagine it is your skin under my hands, your breath in my ear.”
“Stop.”
“Why? You asked for honesty.” He drew her through another turn, his voice a dark thread winding around her. “You said you could never marry me. Fine. But that does not mean you are not mine.”
The waltz was reaching its crescendo, the music soaring. The other couples whirled in a blur of color around them. Kate felt dizzy, unmoored. His words were a poison and a promise, seeping into her veins.
“I belong to no one.”
“You are wrong.” He pulled her fractionally closer on the final, sweeping note, his mouth nearly brushing her ear as the dance ended. “Every tremble, every gasp, every silent scream I pulled from you tonight belongs to me. Your body is mine, Kate. Your sister will have the title. But this?” His hand flexed against her back, a brief, claiming pressure. “This is mine.”
The music stopped. He released her immediately, stepping back into the role of the polite gentleman. He bowed. She curtsied, her legs threatening to buckle.
As she rose, her eyes flickered over to the champagne fountain. Edwina stood there, clapping lightly, her face a picture of delighted approval. She gave Kate a small, encouraging wave.
Anthony followed her gaze, his expression smoothing back into impassive courtesy. He offered his arm. “Shall we rejoin your sister?”
Kate took it, her fingers numb. The ghost of his touch, his words, his possession, clung to her as they walked back across the floor, each step feeling like a march towards a gilded, inevitable ruin.