Horribly uncomfortable at overhearing this, Dufleur studied the guests coming in. Saille T’Willow finished his greeting to the hostess, stepped away from the receiving line, and met her eyes with an intense blue gaze. She found herself staring at him, his broad shoulders in the midnight blue coat, the bloused trous that could not entirely conceal the muscularity of his thighs. He looked different. Polished. Sophisticated. Out of her league.
She wrenched her stare away from him, looked toward the small stage set for the musicians. They stood or sat, watching the line of guests diminish. Trif Winterberry glanced uncertainlyat Passiflora, as if she wasn’t sure when to strike up the first dance.
But Passiflora continued to focus on Holm. He was saying, “Lark will be here later, I have her word.”
“Tinne?” Passiflora asked.
“He’ll be here, and Father will arrive a few minutes after dinner to take you ladies home, as we strategized,” Holm soothed.
“Genista?” Passiflora said in a small voice.
Dufleur glanced at her. She’d never heard Passiflora so uncertain.
Holm closed his eyes, gave the tiniest shake of his head. “She didn’t change her mind.”
“Trif Winterberry needs your advice, Passiflora,” Dufleur blurted, thinking she couldn’t bear seeing the loving Hollys hurt.
Passiflora drew in a breath, relaxed, smiled with charm that even made it to her eyes. She glanced at Trif, then at the receivingline and the hostess, and lifted two fingers.
With a single note of her Flaired silver flute, Trif Winterberryalerted the guests that the dancing was starting. Six beats later she initiated a slow waltz.
The hostess and host, AlderHeir and her HeartMate, swept out onto the floor. They were the oldest of the FirstFamiles, and both seemed slightly frail, but as he whirled her onto the floor and she looked into his eyes, the HeartBond love they shared filled the room.
The waltz ended after a single playing of the melody, and the Alders stopped at one end of the floor. “We are pleased to announce that Passiflora D’Holly has graced us with a new Grand March. Let the social season begin!” AlderHeir declared,with a look at Trif Winterberry.
All the instruments sounded together in the first notes of the stately dance. Dufleur clutched Holm’s arm. He patted her hand. “Easy, we all start dancing at the end of the first refrain.”
Quert Apple, Passiflora’s brother, owner of the Enlli Gallery, smiled at Dufleur and offered his sister his arm. Dufleur figured the Apple Family was completely involved in Passiflora’s plan, too.
Couples moved to stand in the opening lines. Dufleur observedthat they were all arranged according to rank. She sent a discreet glance around the room and saw that not all danced. Saille T’Willow had collected several people around him, includingsome young women, and was deep in conversation. That shouldn’t have bothered Dufleur, but it did.
“Ready?” Holm asked, taking her hand.
Ready, said Fairyfoot, joining them and standing to the outsideof Dufleur, whiskers twitching in pleasure.
“Trust me, your partner,” Holm said.
Dufleur did a quick count of the couples in her head, recalledthe pattern of the dance. “I won’t always be with you.”
He glanced to the head of the line and calculated. More by experience than arithmetic, Dufleur thought. His eyebrows raised. “Fast figuring.” He squeezed her hand. “Then follow the lady two in front of you.”
Fairyfoot lifted her nose. Follow me.
Dufleur smiled with gritted teeth. The Alders began the march. “Ready,” she muttered.
Thirteen
As two septhours wore on and Dufleur continued to dance, she loosened up, and the situation turned out not to be as bad as she had feared. Young Laev Hawthorn, nearly sixteen, had spread the word to the teenage boys who’d been forced to attend that Dufleur Thyme was easy to dance with, because she laughed at her own mistakes and didn’t laugh at theirs. So, she was popular with the youngest set, as teenaged girls gathered around her to meet the boys.
She’d just finished a fast reel with Antenn Blackthorn, when the musicians announced that the next dance would be a waltz. The boys streamed in a pack toward the snack table, even though this was the last dance before dinner. The Fams followed,sure of tidbits.
And Saille T’Willow, still cool and elegant to her flushed and perspiring, appeared before her.
Her nerves jolted. She took a step back and ran into the wall. He’d made her nervous before, with his attention, his presence in Dandelion Silk, but now she didn’t know if she could even face him. There was a subtle air of power around him. He was a GreatLord, she should not ever have forgotten that, despite his previously casual manner and clothes.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
Covertly, she scanned the room. She was far from Passiflora, who was flirting with T’Oak. Holm Holly’s HeartMate, Lark, had just arrived and been claimed by him.
Dufleur swallowed, risked a glance at T’Willow. His lips smiled, but his eyes were all too serious. Which made her even more nervous.
“Yes,” she said.
He held out his hand, and she placed her fingers in his and got the shock of her life.
He was her HeartMate!
She’d touched the HeartGift long enough to now recognize him. A small gasp escaped her.
One corner of his mouth quirked upward, as he spun her into the midst of other colorful couples. She couldn’t let go of his hand, and with his other palm pressed against her waist, she felt the burn of his heat through the fabric to her skin.
While she still struggled with the emotions streaming betweenthem, his deep satisfaction, her shock, bouncing back and forth, reverberating, as strong and potent as the winds of time, he whirled her around.
He moved fast, expertly. And she kept up with no misstep. There was no hesitation here, no worry that she’d make a fool of herself.
Her body followed his naturally.
All previous anxiety was crowded out by the sheer feel of him, his body powerful beneath her hands, his mind brushing hers. The vastness of his feelings for her, known and accepted by him, kept her mind off balance.
She could barely deal with this new realization.
“The HeartGift,” she gasped.
His eyes met hers. “My MotherDam hid you from me. I sent my HeartGift out into the world for you to find. Anything she could do to hurt your Family and keep you from me, she did. She did not like the idea that I would succeed her in her power, her Flair, her position.”
Too many lines of inquiry pushed at her mind.
He was her HeartMate.
He’d circulated a barely shielded HeartGift around Druida to find her!
She was the reason D’Willow had ruined the Thyme name. Too much. She narrowed the link between them that seemed as wide and as rushing as a river to a mere strand.
His breath sighed out, but he didn’t widen the connection.
Her wits settled a little, even as her body became most sensuallyaware of him. Heat flooded her as she recalled the times they’d connected in dreams and had loved. Now he was holding her, and she knew the touch of his hands, the scent of his skin. A few centimeters from her fingers on his shoulder was the thickness of his dark brown hair, waving under his earlobe.
In shared dreams she’d caressed his hair, his body, moved with him on a bedsponge.
Now she danced with him in reality.
“Dufleur,” he murmured, and it went through her—the sound of his voice in her dreams merging with echoes of the way he’d said it now and then when they’d met, resounding through time and space. Through her blood to her bone. To her soul.
When she shivered, he brought her even closer, caught. “Not caught,” he said, and she sensed the willpower it took him to loosen his grip. “Found.”
The music began to slow.
“All too soon,” he said. The last note sounded, and he took her to Passiflora’s side.
Still dazed, senses overwhelmed by him, she
thought she was still spinning. She stood in the circle of his arms a moment, sent a thought to him. I do not think I could dance with you again tonight.
His eyes narrowed. His mouth set.
She stepped away from him. Please, let me consider the ramifications of this. “Thank you,” she said aloud.
“My pleasure.” He made a punctilious bow, lifted one of her limp hands, and kissed it. “I’ll call tomorrow.”
Before she could deny him, he moved away and was immediatelysnagged by a GraceLady who said, “Can I discuss a delicatematter with you over dinner, T’Willow?”
After an instant’s hesitation, he nodded and let the woman grasp his arm to lead him into dinner. He’d be seated near the head of the table with the other Heads of Households.
He was doing a good business here. That might have been the reason he came, Dufleur told herself halfheartedly. But she knew it wasn’t. The thread that spun between them was strong. From only a dance. She didn’t know how to act. What to think. How to marshal her emotions.
Tinne Holly coughed. She blinked up at him. He offered his arm. “I’m your dinner partner tonight.”
That was right. His wife hadn’t come to the ball, but he was here to support Passiflora. Dufleur cleared her throat, concentratedon the moment. “Thank you.”
He smiled, but sadness lurked in his eyes. “My pleasure.” A lot of men had said that to her tonight. Only one had meant it sexually.
Dufleur picked at the lavish display of food, as course after course was set before her. Seated between a brooding Tinne and another second son—one of her teenaged partners focused on eating—her brain worried at the revelation of her HeartMate.
Saille T’Willow. She didn’t even like to think of his name, the same as his MotherDam’s. Her throat closed, and she waved away a dish of fowl.
Saille D’Willow had ruined her and her mother’s lives. Focuseda bright light on them in the depth of their grief. Coping with her father’s death, the destruction of their Residence, their poverty and homelessness had been a thousand times worse when almost everyone they’d dealt with sneered at and ridiculed them.
D’Willow had seemed gleeful in her malice. Dufleur and Dringal and the ruins of their Residence had been on the front page of the newssheets for two solid eightdays.
With fast talking, Dufleur had been able to convince D’Dandelionto let them use a couple of small rooms above the shop where she’d been selling some embroidery. She’d promised to work in Dandelion Silk and accept commissions to embroider gowns.
The next day, Dringal had visited D’Winterberry and found them another home. Dringal, at least, had been pleased with the situation, especially since she’d immediately taken up the orderingof the household.
All a year and a half past. Dufleur still grieved. Sometimes her loss crashed down on her until all she could do was curl in on herself and wait for the pain to pass.
To her horror, tears stung the back of her eyes. She grabbed for her glass of wine.
Dear Dufleur, whispered Saille in her mind, sending her soothing compassion. She couldn’t see him far up the table, and that made his touch even more intimate, like when they’d met in dreams to love.
Fairyfoot gently pricked her ankle, distracting Dufleur from indulging in her emotions. He is a good man, Fairyfoot said. He has adopted a feral Cat, just as you did, then, A small piece of that furrabeast steak please.
Dufleur gestured to a footman who served Fairyfoot as she ate beside her chair.
Now Dufleur thought back, the new T’Willow had first appearedin Dandelion Silk a few days after her attempted murder, requesting Dufleur embroider all his shirt cuffs with the bright green chain of willow leaves that indicated his title.
He’d attended the closed but vized FirstFamilies Council Sessions that judged those who’d attempted to murder her, had spoken in favor of death for the perpetrators. Had voted for death when most others had voted for banishment and incarcerationon a deserted island. Because of her?
Ever since that time, he’d been in the store on a weekly basis,buying gifts for his many female relatives.
What would he expect from her?
Everything, she sensed.
The meal ended, and T’Holly arrived to take them home. Passiflora didn’t want to press too hard this first ball. The Hollys had been seen, had socialized, that was sufficient.
A great weight seemed to roll off Dufleur’s shoulders as she left the Alder Residence and hurried into the Holly glider.
She was free of burdens only for an instant, as she noticed the movement in the shadows, felt an inimical stare. Agave.
He watched, then he followed, disappearing only when the Holly footman opened the door of Winterberry Residence for her.
She couldn’t sleep. Her eyelids felt heavy, her body weary from the unaccustomed exercise of dancing, but her mind nagged at the problems besetting her. The threat of Agave, her own fears about her work, the knowledge of her HeartMate and how he would want to change her entire life. Again.
What had he been thinking, sending his HeartGift out to circulatein the world? Wouldn’t every time someone touched it have sizzled back to him through his link with it? Yech. How horrible. How difficult to endure. Yet he had. Why?
How could she convince him she didn’t want a HeartMate? Didn’t even want a husband or love.
Her body and her emotions called her a liar.
But her mind dismissed that. She had no idea how to relate to a HeartMate. She didn’t think she could love or bond with a person, it wasn’t in her.
Love was a great distraction, she knew, and she yearned to continue her work on time.
How would such a relationship, and him, affect her and the wind of time?
She bathed, dressed in her nightshirt, and shoved a complainingFairyfoot from the middle of the bedsponge. Propping pillows behind her, arranging covers, Dufleur closed her eyes, summoned her Flair, and stepped into the gray landscape full of eddying wind that time ruled.
“Saille Willow,” she whispered and two smudges of light appearedon the flat plane, in two different directions. One a small red glow, one a strong, sparkling rainbow of light.
Dufleur blinked. Ah, the not-quite-dead old D’Willow still faintly showed on the landscape. Still in the Ship, suffering from the disease Dufleur’s father had been trying to reverse. One of the more simple but deadly viruses of Celta.
D’Willow had wanted to live and had been disappointed in Dufleur’s father’s experiments. That fact should have eased her disgust for the woman, but it didn’t. Life cycled. Who was even a GreatLady to ignore that simple fact? Even now she burned as a red glow on the horizon, dying and nearly dead, sending out streaks of black-red and able to affect Dufleur and T’Willow.
Turning away from D’Willow, Dufleur moved toward her HeartMate, wanting to see how he looked here. From a distance he was impressive.
As she drew closer, she noticed he wore all white silkeen: shirt, trous, boots, and pondered what that signified. Purity of emotion? Of purpose? She didn’t know, but a small thrill shiveredthrough her. The color suited him.
For the first time she looked down at what she herself wore and gasped. A sheath of brilliant, glittering gold covered her, like ancient supple metal armor. Incredible.
Saille opened his eyes and looked at her. “Dufleur.”
She just gaped.
He glanced around. “What is this place?”
She wasn’t about to tell him it was the plane of the Wind of Time. “A construct of my Flair.”
He nodded.
And she noticed something more. His garments flattened against him in the breeze, but his hair remained still. Here, he was not affected by time, no more than she was. He might even be able to manipulate time here, see into the future or the past, propel a wind in a specific direction to slow events or speed them up.
Setting his hands on his hips, he repeated, “A construct of your Flair. I wonder . . .” He swept his arm out in a wide gesture,an
d more people appeared on the plane.
Mouth flattening, he said, “The couples that my MotherDam matched in the last few years.”
Dufleur wondered why that mattered, but now he’d populatedthe plane, she turned and noticed a few people, too. Some were together, some apart but looking at each other, several had turned their backs on each other.
None of them fared well here. They shivered or shrieked, they pummeled the air as if they could hold back time and age, they were flattened on the plane, holding on tight.
“Not good,” Saille muttered, “but not as horrific as it could have been. My matchmaking divination tools must have helped some.” He frowned. “I have a lot of work to do to persuade them to get emotional counseling.” He looked up to find her watching him, and a smile curved his lips, but didn’t reflect in his eyes. He waved a hand. “Note the HeartBonded ones. See how their auras merge, or consist of the same colors.”
Once he said it, she could see the glow of the individuals, or the couples. It was mildly interesting.
He was fascinating. Standing here, casually, unafraid. Using her Flair and this place to experiment with his own Flair.
But the fact that he was here led to all too solid conclusions.
He was her HeartMate, matched well with her.
If she tried to use the Wind of Time to push him away from her life, it would take great effort and Flair and likely damage them both.
He knew her too well already.
Still, she stood up straight and lifted her chin to inform him of a few points. “I do not think I am a good candidate for a HeartMate.”
He stared at her, then laughed. “It is not something you applyfor. Either you have a HeartMate or not.” His face softened, he held out his hand and made to take a step forward, but couldn’t.
Interesting. Her heart picked up beat.
His gaze sharpened. “What is this place?”
"T’Willow—”
“Saille.” Now that she’d said his name, she realized how oftenshe’d thought of him that way, since the first few times he’d visited Dandelion Silk. How telling that was, and how unobservantshe’d been. “I’m not good with emotions. Definitely not good with love.”
Heart Dance Page 13
