The River of No Return

acquaintance. Let us dance.” She turned on her beauty like stadium lights and opened her arms.
    “Ah,” he said, stepping back, all his offense at this situation recalled. “No. I do not dance. Besides, madam, we have not been introduced.”
    Her slight smile didn’t grow, but it seemed to deepen. Perhaps it was something she did with her eyes. In any case it was clear that she was laughing at him. “But how foolish that you refuse,” she said, and now he heard the faint accent. It was like the tiny bubbles that float up through champagne. “You are Lord Blackdown, and I am Alva Blomgren. We must play our parts. You have come here to . . .” She paused. Damn it if the palest, most delicious shade of pink didn’t stain her porcelain cheeks. “To dance with me.”
    He allowed his gaze to travel from her toes up to her eyes. “You should not listen to gossip,” he said.
    “Perhaps not.” Her blush had faded. “Still, I will dance with you.” She took his glass from his hand and set it down on the table behind him. “And I will call you Nick.”
    “Without my permission?”
    “Oh, come.” She put her long fingers on his shoulder and reached for his hand. “Dance this next waltz with me.” He put his right hand in hers and his left at her waist. He felt the warmth of her through her gown, and her scent was in his nostrils. Something bright. Not the smell of a bordello. “Yes,” she said softly. “Like that.”
    He allowed himself a moment to feel her in his arms before dropping them. “I have said I do not dance,” he said quietly. “And you may not address me as Nick.”
    “Oh.” He was surprised to see kindness and understanding in her eyes. “Then we will simply talk. And surely I do not need your permission to address you by your name, Nick.” She took his arm and began to stroll with him around the edge of the ballroom. “I shall address you however I choose. You don’t have to call me anything. But still we will be friends.”
    “I don’t like you,” he said bluntly, though he was beginning to suspect that perhaps he did like her.
    “Ah.” She peeked at him sidelong, out of those glorious violet eyes of hers. “You are very sure of yourself, my lord.”
    He looked over the heads of the people getting ready to dance, then back down at her, allowing a smile to touch his lips. “‘My lord’? I see you are learning your place.”
    “That sounds remarkably like flirtation . . . Nick.” Alva squeezed his arm. “Why don’t you like me? Is it because they told you that I am a courtesan?”
    “No.” He flushed and hated himself for it. “No. You may do as you wish. It is but a small matter to me.”
    The waltz began, and immediately the edges of the room became too crowded for strolling, as the circle of dancers colonized the floor. Nondancers began to spill out of the doors into adjacent rooms and onto the terrace. Nick found himself outside with Alva. She led him to a balustrade that looked down over the small garden. Others milled around them, and she spoke softly, close to his ear. “It makes no difference to you if I am a courtesan? A whore? But surely it must. You think that you could perhaps have me for a price. Or you think that I want you only for your money. It makes friendship seem impossible. You see, it comes immediately between us, this small matter of my profession.”
    Nick turned to her, and the crowd pressed him close. He could feel her breath on his face. “I did not come here seeking you,” he said. “I know that you have been told that was my intention, but it is not. I am not in need of a mistress.”
    She closed the space between them. Her left hand rested on his thigh, as lightly as a butterfly. She whispered, her champagne voice filling his head with a rush of bursting bubbles. “But what if . . . I am seeking a master?”
    Then his cock, goddamn it, was at attention. She smiled—he knew she smiled, because she was so close that he felt her lips, feather-soft against his cheek, as they curved. Her fingers moved—a single, delicate stroke, up the length of his poor, idiotic cock. “The notion seems to agree with you,” she whispered.
    “God.” He wrenched sideways to face the balustrade. “Leave me.”
    Her sigh was a soft sound, half regretful, half amused. “Well. ‘This is a brave night to cool a courtesan.’ I was only teasing you, my lord. If you do not want to be my lover, I understand.” Turning, she leaned forward