The girls watched from the bridge, biting their lips in anticipation, and Azalea found herself on Keeper’s hard arm as he half escorted, half dragged her to the middle of the gleaming dance floor. Azalea took the end of the long red sash with only one thought in mind: to get the dance over with and get out of there.
“Good luck, Mr. Keeper,” said Bramble as the girls sought for better views between each other. “Azalea’s never been caught. You can try, though.”
His dead eyes on her, Keeper produced Mr. Bradford’s watch from his silk waistcoat, clicked it open, and tossed it to the floor. Azalea cringed at the clatter.
“Three minutes,” he said. He snapped his long gloved fingers, and the music began.
The tempo was breakneck—faster than Azalea had ever gone before, and she was caught off her guard from the very first step. She whirled in and out and underneath the sash, dodging its tight snaps before it wrapped around her wrists with blinding speed. Keeper did not say a word. His mouth pressed tight, razor thin, and his eyes narrowed.
Azalea kept up with the furious pace of the music, but each breath burned, and sweat trickled down the front of her corset. Three minutes had to be up by now. Angry, Azalea ducked out of capture again, and kicked Keeper in the knee.
Keeper yanked on the sash, so hard it brought her in sharply. She stumbled out of the rhythm. Using one hand, Keeper spun her hard, pulled her arms up with the sash, and wound it around her wrists, like a spider wrapping up a moth.
Smooth. Tight. So quick, Azalea didn’t realize she had been caught until her wrists throbbed with the tightness, and she was pressed, hard, against Keeper’s chest. Her fingers pulsed red.
Keeper wound one arm around her waist, the other gripping the twisted sash at her wrists.
“She’s been caught!” The girls’ cry of disappointment echoed from the bridge.
Azalea tried to writhe free. Keeper held her firmly. The sash burned.
“Now, now,” he said, breathless. He turned his hands a touch, and the crimson sash dug into Azalea’s skin. “Excellent dance, my lady. You are the best I have ever danced with. You should take pride in that.”
“Let me go.”
“You have very pretty lips,” he said, keeping his hand at the pinching sash. “I’ve often wondered if you kiss as well as you dance….”
His fingers tightened about the sash, sending shoots of pain up her arms and making her knees weak. He brought his hand from her waist and entwined his long fingers into her hair, cradling and twisting at the same time.
And then, he leaned in to her neck, breathing against it. The hairs on the back of Azalea’s neck rose. Choking, she couldn’t cry out as his fingers gripped her hair, and his lips traced, just touching her skin, to hers—
In a jolt, Keeper jerked back, his head yanked at a full square angle. He made a strangled, inhuman noise.
Azalea caught a glimpse of an Adam’s apple a-bob, and shook free of the sash. Blood rushed to her fingers. She gathered her skirts and ran out the entrance, down the silver stairs, choking back something that was like sobs but not quite.
“Az!” Bramble caught Azalea before she collapsed onto the bridge. “Are you all right? You’re dead pale. Why wouldn’t he let you go? His back was to us. What happened?”
Azalea shook her head. “Nothing—nothing.”
“What—what happened to him? At the end?”
Azalea looked at Clover, uncertain.
“He…lost his balance,” said Clover. “Or…something.”
“It looked like his ponytail had revolted against him,” said Bramble.
“Look,” whispered Goldenrod.
They looked. In the pavilion, Keeper swept about, his cloak billowing behind him. He was prowling. His eyes glinted as he searched over each piece of the dance floor.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Azalea. “We’re not coming back.”
CHAPTER 24
Azalea’s wrists throbbed as she helped the girls undress and unpin, tugging slippers from their feet and tucking them in. She built up the fire and turned down the lamps. Then, with a candle, she slipped down the two flights of stairs to the ballroom. To her relief, it was unlocked. She slumped in front of the nearest pier glass, shaking. After a moment to breathe in the calming, familiar nutmeg-and-fabric smell of the ballroom, she pushed up her sleeves to examine her pulsing wrists.
They were swollen and red, a welt ringing each like a mottled bracelet. Azalea touched them and winced. Her eyes stung.
Keeper had guessed she had given up. She had. She felt as though a needle and thread was sewing her throat shut, piercing and winding. She buried her face in her hands, throat too tight, and quaking too hard, to even cry.
“Princess.”
Azalea jolted away from the mirror, nearly overturning the candle.
“I’m sorry…. It’s…only me.”
In the dim light, by the ballroom doors, stood Mr. Bradford, rumpled as always, but face sober with a deadly solemnity. He walked to her and knelt. Over his arm was slung an old, ragged piece of fabric. Azalea recognized the cloak that hung in his shop’s closet.
“Are you all right?” said Azalea. “Why are you—?”
“Miss Azalea, I followed you.”
Azalea’s brows knit together as he brought out his handkerchief. He unfolded it in his hand, and revealed an old gold pocket watch, with swirls about the cover, black inside the creases. He took Azalea’s hand and pressed the watch to it.