An old familiar grin crossed Wynn’s face. “You’re right. My wife is stunning. What say we shame all the other couples on the dance floor as well?”
Taking Svetlana’s hand, Wynn led her across the Stone Hall and into the Grand Hall with its polished dance floor and mirrored walls. The vaulted ceiling provided the perfect canopy to catch the orchestra’s swelling notes and float them back down to the dancing couples. Wynn swept her into his arms and around the floor to a minuet in A-flat. The last time she’d danced to this was with a Bayushevy prince from Moscow. He’d lumbered like a bear in the middle of hibernation. Wynn wasn’t the lightest on his feet, but her body moved as one with his as if it had been waiting for his direction all along.
The composition moved to Tchaikovsky’s waltz from
“I danced to this at my first ball,” Svetlana said as the hem of her gown floated around her ankles like flower petals on water, drifting her away to another time and place where memories misted with romance.
“You were enchanting.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be. Your beauty needs no bearing of witness for me to know the spell you wove.” He angled his head so his mouth brushed her ear. “If I’m not careful, your magical feet will carry me right out of here.”
His soft breath feathered along her ear and down her neck, encouraging her to brush her cheek against his, but it was his voice, low and raw, that spiraled through her insides until she hummed with every word.
The music bounced in the background as other dancers blurred around them. Her hand tightened on Wynn’s shoulder. “Carry you to where?”
“Let’s find out.”
He whirled her off the dance floor. Holding hands, they slipped between guests, who cast curious looks after them. Svetlana kept her expression serenely neutral despite the urge in her feet to take flight, to leave behind these people tethered to the earth and dance among the stardust with Wynn.
“Wynn. There you are.” Constance’s voice snagged them as they turned from the Stone Hall. Dressed in an ethereal half-mourning gown of mauve chiffon, she glided from the library with a rotund man on her gloved arm. “This is Mr. Dixon. He’s on the administrative board at Edinburgh Hospital and heard a great many things about you while serving in the African campaign during the war. Mr. Dixon, allow me to present my son and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Kilbride.”
“My dear Duke and Duchess. An honor.” Voice booming as if he were still in the war and trying to overcome gunfire, Mr. Dixon swept a low bow, or as low as he could, considering his protruding belly. With round, red cheeks and whiskers sweeping down his jaw, he resembled a Dickens character. “Fought in the war, did you?”
Svetlana tried to tug her hand back and stand in a more proper position, but Wynn held tight. “No, sir. I served as a noncombatant doctor in Paris. My brother, Hugh, fought.”
“Ah, yes. I recall reading about him in the paper. Wretched shame that. Too many fine losses. My condolences.”
Wynn’s mouth pressed tight for a second, a telltale of the sadness prickling him. “Thank you.”
Mr. Dixon sipped his port and waited a polite beat of silence. “Would have liked to have been in Paris myself, but the army sent me where they needed me. Hot, dry, and unintelligible languages thrown at me from all sides. Last time I put on an army uniform.” He laughed, straining the buttons down his waistcoat. It was a wonder he’d been able to don the uniform to begin with. “Then again, we medical men go where care is needed most. Am I right, Your Grace?”
“You certainly are.”
“While I was down there sweating my—” Mr. Dixon coughed at Constance’s raised eyebrow. “Well, being uncomfortably hot, I read about the surgery you performed on that lieutenant. Harper, was it?”
Wynn’s hand clenched. “Harkin.”
“Harkin, yes. What a revelation. A breakthrough that you credited in your write-up to having first been performed during the Battle of Cambrai. Do you realize what this means for the future of medicine? Components we long considered a mystery to science are finally being explored with the importance they deserve. You, my dear boy, are the tip of the spear.”
Dropping Svetlana’s hand, Wynn crossed his arms. An invisible shield lodged into place. “Aye, well, I can only hope that the field of cardiology pushes onward as misconceptions are broken.”