Now Marlowe seemed irritated. “How on earth am I supposed to know something like that? I was barely out of the womb myself then, and Blackmar here still had most of his teeth.” Blackmar gave a forced laugh, his wizened brow beading with sweat. “Saints, I don’t want to spend my evening discussing the history of a book that was published half a damn century ago.”
Effy’s palms were slick. She rubbed them against her bent knee, the silk of her dress bunching under her palms. She could feel the danger that spread from Marlowe like a mist, the same cold, paralyzing mist that had come over her when Master Corbenic had slid his hand up her thigh for the first time.
She drew a breath and gritted her teeth. She had not come this far only to be thwarted by her own memories, her own weakness. She moved farther forward to the edge of her seat and said, “Did you ever meet Mr. Blackmar’s eldest daughter?”
Blackmar spoke up at last, voice sharp: “Enough now, Euphemia. It’s a party, after all. Let the man breathe. You have all night to discuss our dear old friend Myrddin.”
Marlowe’s gaze grew suddenly clear and bright. Just like Ianto’s, it had a hard, broken-glass glint. He, too, shifted forward in his seat.
“I’ll tell you what, love,” he said to Effy, voice low. “Have a dance with me, and I promise—I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”
No. The word rose in her mind like a steep and powerful wave, one that darkened the whole shoreline. But it crashed against an invisible seawall, a barrier as stubborn and unrelenting as the face of a cliff.
The world was lost to her entirely, swept up in the snarling riptide. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she swore she could see the shape of the Fairy King over Marlowe’s shoulder. His cold white fingers curled, reaching for her—
And then, inexplicably, Preston took her hand. His touch wrenched her out of the black water, and the Fairy King vanished as quickly as he had appeared.
“My apologies if it wasn’t clear to you, Mr. Marlowe,” Preston said icily. He lifted their joined hands and gave a thin smile.
Marlowe leaned back, huffing in surprise. “Well. I didn’t expect . . . I mean, you don’t quite look the type—never mind. You ought to take the lady to dance, then. That’s what women want, isn’t it? Dancing and idle chatter. I’m sure she’s had enough of this men’s talk.”
“I will,” Preston bit out. “Effy, come on.”
He helped her to her feet and led her through the crowd into the middle of the room, amid the other swaying couples. She blinked furiously, still trying to make sense of it all. Her lost voice, the Fairy King. Through it all she grasped onto Preston like an anchor, her head held just above the foaming water, the drowning place.
Somehow, in that time, her other hand had found its way to Preston’s shoulder, and his had found its way to her waist.
“I’m sorry,” Preston said in a low voice. “I couldn’t think of another way to get Marlowe off of you. Men like him don’t seem to respect anything besides another man’s claim on a woman, and sometimes not even that.” His voice grew coarser, angrier. “He wasn’t going to give us a single goddamned answer anyway. He’s sloshed and useless.”
Effy managed a shaky laugh. “I’ve never heard you swear before.”
“Well, sometimes the situation warrants it.” The anger in his voice began to ebb, slowly. “I can’t believe we came all this way—forget it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to force you out here. Just one song and then I think we can slip away without Blackmar noticing.”
“Just one song,” Effy echoed. For some reason, it felt like a very sad thing to say.
She became acutely aware, in that moment, of Preston’s grip on her waist. The warmth of his palm through her dress. The silk was very thin and very tight; she was certain he could feel the curves of her body under it.
Her own hand could feel the taut muscles of his shoulder through his jacket, the sudden jut of bone. Their faces were close, closer than they had been even last night, lying chastely in bed together.
The song was slow, achingly so, the singer’s voice almost mournful. Effy knew it would end soon. She didn’t want it to.
She realized right then and there that she did not want Preston to let her go. If anything, she wanted him to pull her closer. She wanted to loosen the buttons on his shirt. She wanted to feel the pulse at his throat against her lips.
Miserably, and against her will, Effy realized that she was in a Romance after all. Pedestrian as it might be. She wished desperately that it wasn’t so—because what would a man like Preston Héloury want with a frivolous, flighty, untethered thing like her?—but this was the story she had found herself in, the narrative built up around her like the walls of a great house.