Grace gave an uncertain smile, glancing once more at the jacket.
“You do not need to hide your wrists from me,” Jack said. He walked over to her, and tugged the tea towel out of her hands. “Want a hand with the dishes?” He thought she would flee if he suddenly demanded details of the attack.
She let the towel go, but with obvious reluctance. Jack had blocked her access to both jacket and door, and she leaned back against the sink, her face flushed.
“What are you doing here, Jack? My mother is out with—”
“I wasn’t looking for your mother. But what are you doing in here?” He smiled, infusing a jesting tone into his voice, trying to relax her. “Isn’t all the fun happening out there?” He tipped his head to the door leading back into the hall.
Another uncertain, unhappy smile. “I don’t know why I came. It’s stupid, really. I shouldn’t be here.”
No, thought Jack, you shouldn’t be here, at all. He had a sudden vision of Ambersbury Banks bathed in moonlight, and Grace standing there, still and waiting, her eyes wild with power.
“Grace, why did you come? At night. It’s too dangerous. You could have been attacked again—” Shit! Jack broke off, wishing he could snatch back the words.
“Stacey told you,” she said, very low.
“Yes, Stacey told me. Grace…Grace…”
“I am all right, Jack. They didn’t hurt me.”
Didn’t hurt her? Torn clothing? Bruises? Knife? Threats of appalling violence. “Oh, gods…what happened, Grace? Please, tell me.”
She drew in a breath, and he heard it shudder in her throat. “I was in Rotherhithe. It was late, I shouldn’t have stayed out so long. Two men grabbed me, threatened me with a knife. I got away. That’s all.”
“No, there’s more. Grace, those were the imps—you know that? Yes? By all the gods, they have been the ones doing the murders. Grace, what did they want?”
“Just to scare me, Jack. That’s all. It was just Catling, finding a new way to torment me. I am not frightened.”
And that was why she had come to this parish dance, Jack realised. To prove to herself and to the imps that she was not frightened. He was appalled at what could have happened.
Jack reached out his hands, resting them on her shoulders. “Grace, I can’t have you going out and—”
“Jack, please don’t ask me to stop helping you,” she said. Her voice was steadier, and her eyes met his without flinching. “If I stop helping you then Catling will have won.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I’ll be careful, Jack. Really.”
He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you, Grace.”
“I know you have my mother to help you now, but—”
“Your mother can’t do what you can. Noah cannot discover any more of the shadow. She can only sense what you and I are already aware of. Besides, Noah is not my life, whatever you think.”
She dropped her eyes, and Jack could see she didn’t believe him.
He tightened his hands fractionally on her shoulders. “Dance with me,” he said.
“No, I—”
“Dance with me, Grace. It is a lovely night, and the music is good, and I have no idea why on earth both of us are spending the night tucked away in this wretched kitchen. After all, you wanted to come here to defy Catling, yes?” Quite suddenly Jack found the idea of dancing with Grace very appealing.
“Jack—”
“Dance with me, Grace.”
Still she hesitated.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, “not of the dancing floor.” And with that he led her towards the door.
Once they reached the dance floor, Jack put his arm about Grace’s waist, and held her firmly against him. The music, frenetic when he’d first arrived, had calmed and slowed into a soothing ballad, and Jack led Grace into an unhurried, rhythmical ballroom dance. Grace held herself stiffly, uncertainly, and Jack had to coax her through every step.
The other dancers gave them their own space, not through any deliberate consideration, but because Jack and Grace’s arrival on the dance floor had caused a not-inconsiderable stir and most people wanted to be able to watch them. People had been gossiping ever since the handsome American major had arrived only to vanish into the kitchen to speak with the enigmatic Grace Orr, and now the talk, while muted, only increased in intensity. Jack was well aware that every eye in the hall was on them, and, from Grace’s rigid stance, knew that she was, as well.
“Dance with me,” Jack whispered, and smiled as Grace’s body finally leaned against his, and her movements loosened so that their dancing became much freer.
She was a good dancer, and Jack remembered that Noah had said that Weyland sometimes took Grace dancing in the Savoy’s ballroom.
But that was not the reason Grace danced well, was it? She was a trained Mistress of the Labyrinth, and she would have the rhythms and harmonies of the stars themselves sliding through her veins.
Jack relaxed, enjoying the feel of Grace in his arms. He thought again of what those imps could have done to Grace, and his arm tightened fractionally about her.
Grace responded by leaning most of her weight against him, and tucking her head into his shoulder, and he smiled against the loose, springy curls of her hair. This form of dancing, coupled together so closely, was unusual to him. For most of his long, long life, dancers had been segregated by sex and by distance. People danced in groups or lines or circles, not coupled together so intimately.
Jack wondered why it had taken so long for someone to think of this innovation.
Without thinking, the hand he had loosely clasped about Grace’s back began to move. At first randomly, gentle circles in the small of her back, the silken fabric of her dress no barrier to the warmth and softness of her skin, but then in more deliberate patterns.
Instantly Grace took a sharp intake of breath.
Before she could speak, Jack said, “Grace, you are a trained Mistress of the Labyrinth. But how good are you?”
Then his hand moved again, but far, far more deliberately than previously, and this time Jack underpinned its movements with his power as a Kingman. Using both his hand and his power, as well as the movement of their dancing, Jack began to trace out harmonies, over and through her body.
Both Kingmen and Mistresses of the Labyrinth used dance to control the harmonies that made up all life—the harmonies found in the movement of the stars and the tides, the turning of the seasons, the running of water over land. Controlling these, even a fraction of them, was what gave Kingmen and Mistresses their power. In her training as a Mistress of the Labyrinth, Grace would have learned to touch and manipulate these harmonies, but she had never danced with a Kingman previously. She had never combined her powers with those of a Kingman.
Jack had never once danced this way with Noah, and it had been three and a half thousand years since he had danced with Genvissa. It had been a long, long time since he had allowed his powers as a Kingman free rein.
He did so now, and he wondered how Grace would react—or even if she was capable of reacting. Would this terrify her? Would she run from him? Would she not be able to counter his power and—
Sweetly, gently, infinitesimally quietly, Grace entwined her power with his, embracing and complementing his as if they had danced together a thousand times previously.
Jack trembled. He had expected anything but this. When he’d danced with Genvissa their powers had been complementary, yes, and they had been more than good together, but this? No. This was…extraordinary.
“What a surprise you are, Grace,” Jack whispered. Then, his hold on her tightening, he said, “Trust me. Trust me.”
The parish hall about them vanished.
They danced across Ambersbury Banks in the thin moonlight. Jack wasn’t sure why he had brought Grace here, only that as soon as she had entwined her power with his he’d felt a need so powerful he’d been unable to resist it. They danced a little more wildly now, but still loosely entwined, and more wrapped in labyrinthine power than ever. Away from the parish hall, away from the stares, both could afford to expend a bit more power.
Music surrounded them, but the sound of the band had vanished, replaced by the music of the trees and the wind and the stars racing overhead.
Jack’s sense of unreality grew as he realised the full significance of what he felt from Grace. During his training as a Kingman he’d heard stories (rumours, really) that for every Kingman there was one perfect match somewhere, a Mistress of the Labyrinth who would so seamlessly complement his power (and he, hers) that whatever Game they danced together would be flawless and unassailable. It was a rumour only, a legend, or so Jack had thought until the past few minutes.