Their eyes met and, while Malou felt a blush warm her cheeks again, his grin forgave her all her faults. The lapse of attention and the desire to dance. So often men passed her over for a dance at such evenings. She didn't mind as the music often held her in its own company, but she did like to dance. Loved to feel the music in the lightness of her steps, the grace of her arms, the sweep of her skirts. Despite her love of music and dance Malou often consoled herself that she was often left on the edges of the ballroom with the fact that all the attention of the ballroom drew to the dancers on it, to their movements and their motions. And yet, Mr. Prewett was right. Despite the eyes of the crowd it was more open out there. She just had never expected him to ask. Never once had Mr. Prewett asked her to dance, never had they been in such a position to do so. Malou nodded, words caught in her throat as she placed her hand in his. "Thank you." Her words were softer with the sincerity in them as she forced herself to meet his gaze as they began their way to the dance floor.

The entire way to the dance floor she was overly aware of the heat of his arm through his coat jacket, of his presence beside. In a way she hadn't even been aware of at Sanditon. She remembered being aware of him in the box at the Symphony and then again at the dinner party, but still there was something of a ... thrill, perhaps, that nudged at her with every step. It did not matter that eyes would fall on them, that people would survey them, what mattered was that for a moment he was with her and the music would swirl around them.

They took their places and Malou gracefully curtsied to him. Then he was there, closer than he'd been since Sanditon, his hands around her waist, her hand on his shoulder. Her eyes met his and for a moment there was just him, even the music faded away, and then they began to move in the long familiar steps of a waltz.