SHE DANCED ALONE IN THE EMPTY BALLROOM AFTER MIDNIGHT-UNAWARE THE DUKE WAS WATCHING

woman. He had grown up hard, but he stood in the dark hall outside the ballroom with a candle in his hand and wax cooling on his thumb, thinking, “I want to know her name.”

He did not go in and did not speak, for he did not want to frighten her, nor did he want her to know she had been seen. He turned around, walked back up the great stairs in his stocking continue reading …