Chapter 115: THE DANCE

DIANA’S POV

By the time the Great Hall doors closed for the formal reception, Diana had prepared six explanations for why the Grand Duke might not dance with her.

Command matter. Treaty emergency. Vharos. An urgent courier. A change in Blackharrow protocol.

Sudden death.

The last was perhaps excessive. Diana kept it anyway.

The musicians waited along the eastern wall, along with everyone else.

That was the problem with an opening married set. Nobody could pretend not to notice whether the married hosts actually opened it.

Diana stood beside Mistress Hale near the edge of the cleared floor while Alma adjusted one fold of her sleeve.

"Stop looking at the Government doors."

Diana wrote: I AM NOT.

Alma looked toward the Government doors, then back at Diana.

"Of course."

Valence officials gathered beneath the southern banners. Lord Rovel, Lady Jessa, the commissioner, Secretary Pellor. All people who had spent several days measuring what kind of marriage existed around the substituted bride.

Diana looked toward Daric. He stood beside Captain Arven.

Raigoro was nowhere beside them.

Her stomach tightened.

Fine. Perhaps a command report had arrived. Good excuse. Very respectable.

Mistress Hale moved toward the senior musician, who looked to Diana for a decision.

Diana understood.

If Raigoro did not arrive, the household needed to know what to do. She could cancel the formal married set, claim fatigue, and begin directly with the general court sequence. Nobody could force her to stand alone in the center of the hall waiting for a husband who did not intend to cross it. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Diana reached for her slate.

She would tell Mistress Hale now. Better to choose than stand there until everyone understood why the dance had not begun.

Then Diana saw Raigoro.

He was walking toward her.

Every excuse Diana had prepared became useless at once.

Raigoro stopped in front of her. "Your Grace."

Formal.

Any hope she had allowed herself immediately became embarrassing.

Then he held out his hand.

He did not mention protocol or gesture toward the waiting floor. He simply offered his hand and waited.

Diana looked at it.

Everyone could see them. Valence. Blackharrow. Lord Rovel and Lady Jessa. The commissioner. The court that had spent days testing which princess stood inside her skin.

She placed her fingers in his.

His hand closed around hers, warm and steady. For the first time since approaching her, some of the severity left his face.

He led her onto the floor.

The musicians began the married set, and the first sequence belonged only to the host couple. Diana and Raigoro crossed the open floor alone. After the first full figure, the melody expanded and the waiting couples entered behind them.

Diana knew the shape of the dance. Years of watching Southern court rehearsals had taught her the figures, and yesterday’s practice had corrected the Blackharrow timing.

What she had not practiced was Raigoro.

The first turn brought his hand to her waist.

His touch was light, careful enough that Diana could have stepped away without resistance.

She placed her free hand on his shoulder.

The contact went through layers of formal fabric and still felt too direct.

They moved.

Raigoro danced well.

Diana immediately resented this.

He noticed.

"What?"

She looked at him.

An unnecessary question. Small enough that it should have meant nothing, except he had barely asked her anything unnecessary in days.

Diana shook her head.

"You expected me to step on you."

She considered lying, then nodded.

Raigoro almost smiled.

The warmth was brief, but it was the first he had given her in days. Diana had missed it enough to resent that too.

"You seem disappointed."

She was.

A little.

The formal sequence separated them, and Diana saw Lord Rovel watching from the edge of the floor.

Good. Let him.

The pattern returned her to Raigoro, and his hand met hers again without hesitation.

"You adjusted quickly yesterday."

Diana raised her brows.

"Valence uses nearly the same sequence."

Of course she knew.

He watched her through the next turn. "You have not looked at anyone else once."

Diana instinctively reached for the slate at her waist before remembering that she was dancing.

Raigoro noticed, and this time the amusement was unmistakable.

Diana narrowed her eyes.

"I said nothing."

That was the problem.

The set continued through another turn and return. Raigoro adjusted to her instead of moving her through the pattern like an object that should already know where to go.

Nobody else in the room would understand what the distance between them meant.

To them, Diana and Raigoro were married.

To Diana, the difference was in the way he held her. He never pulled her closer than the dance required or used the pattern to keep her there when the figure released them.

He never used the public expectation to erase the private distance between them.

Diana found herself wanting to erase some of it herself.

That frightened her.

Raigoro said, "You know the formal figures well."

A harmless observation.

Something inside Diana resisted it anyway.

Valence had spent days asking whether she remembered Selena’s cakes, Selena’s horse, Selena’s princes, Selena’s rooms. Raigoro had spent those same days refusing to ask anything.

Now he was giving Diana credit for knowledge he did not yet know how she possessed.

The next turn opened space between them. Diana pulled the slate free with one hand and wrote before she could reconsider:

I WAS A PRINCESS BEFORE YOU STARTED INVESTIGATING IT.

When the dance brought them together again, she turned the board toward him.

Raigoro read it.

Diana saw the sentence again through his eyes.

I was a princess.

She had written it herself.

It did not give him her name, but it belonged to Diana rather than Selena, the Duchess, or any title someone else had placed over her.

Too close.

Diana reached for the wiping cloth at her wrist.

Raigoro’s fingers closed a little more firmly around hers, enough for her to notice. He released the pressure immediately.

The choice remained hers.

Diana could erase the sentence.

She left it there.

Raigoro looked at the words again. He could ask whether she intended to correct the answer she had given him. He could finally use the opening she had offered voluntarily.

Instead, he looked at her.

"You dance like one."

Diana stared at him.

The next turn arrived before she could decide what to do with that answer. Raigoro moved, and Diana had to follow or collide with the Grand Duke of Blackharrow in front of half the delegation.

She followed.

Her heart was behaving annoyingly.

Raigoro never looked at the slate again. He let the sentence remain hers.

By the final sequence, Diana had managed to put it away.

The music slowed. Raigoro’s hand remained at her waist until the pattern required him to release her, and then he did.

They stopped to applause.

Raigoro bowed, and Diana inclined her head.

The opening married set was finished.

A second set began.

Raigoro did not automatically offer another dance.

He stepped back. "Thank you."

Formal again, though the coldness was gone.

Diana returned to the edge of the hall.

Tavia appeared beside her later.

She looked at her.

Tavia raised both hands. "I said nothing."

Diana pointed toward the other side of the hall.

Tavia went.

Across the room, Raigoro had returned to Daric and was listening to a report. Someone crossed between Diana and him.

Raigoro shifted enough to see around the person.

His eyes found hers.

Briefly.

Tavia said nothing.

Later, a Valence envoy offered Diana his hand for the final social set.

Diana declined politely. She had no political reason and no fear of dancing with him.

She simply did not want another dance.

One had been enough.

On the way back to her apartments, Alma walked beside her.

"You looked happy."

Diana looked at her.

Alma corrected herself. "For approximately six minutes."

Better.

Diana lifted the slate, but nothing came.

The problem was no longer whether the dance had been false.

Raigoro had offered his hand.

Diana had wanted it.