Bright eyes draw wide behind the hyaline surface of her spectacles, the sound of an elegant waltz bubbling up from the ballroom to fill her ears with it’s romantic beckoning. It’s muffled and soft.. unlike the throbbing of her heart as the other draws close, too close! His palm finds rest upon the dark lacquer of the wall at her back, against which she stumbles in a vain effort to gain distance. It only further entraps her, and soon he is but a hair’s breadth away, so near that she is overwhelmed with the clean, musky scent of his cologne and lost in the unnaturally soothing shade of his luminescent gaze. Who has eyes like this.. ? They can’t be real, she thinks, as he smiles down at her like a jungle cat pleased with the prey it had caught. She can hear the glasses clattering against the silver tray in her hands, and his visage is soon marred by a warm fog which smothers her glasses. Blood rushes through her ears, and between the muffled hammer of her heart and the lilting music drifting out from the next room, she can scarcely make out what he’d said -- something about a lady not being allowed to dance.. ? Or, committing a crime.. ?
-- Ah!! It’s a crime that a lady like you shouldn’t get to dance at the ball, just because you’re a servant. That’s what he said, yes it was! Her cheeks flare with chagrin as her knees begin to give way beneath her, throat dry as his fingers rise to gingerly support the bottom of the tray, ceasing the incessant trembling of the champagne flutes. It only served to make the sound of her heart so much louder, more obvious.. ! ❝ Ah.. I -- I-I.. I’m not.. --- I mean, I.. I sh-shouldn’.. -- I can’.. ! ❞ But that look in his eyes insinuates that he will not be taking no for an answer.