"I'd like that, Sir Jorah, very much, but--" She was very aware of his hand resting at the small of her back, his warmth radiating through the silver silk gown. "--we'd have to have a chaperone." She hoped he would understand she did not mean her brother, or any of the acquaintance their host had introduced.

"Hmm. Of course.  One of my cousins is in town. I'm not exactly in her good graces, but perhaps I can persuade her to come with us."

Dany knew little of the Mormont family--only that they lived on the family estate in Orkney--and she was intensely curious to know what they were like, but too shy to ask. They could not be very nice, she suspected, if he was not in their good graces.

"Is your cousin doing the season with her family?" she ventured, taking Jorah's age into consideration.

He laughed, rather loudly, turning the heads of several of the other dancers. "Alysane? She has children, but they're too young. Even if they were of an age, she doesn't go in for this sort of thing. She's picketing for votes for women."

"A Suffragette!" Dany cried, stumbling a little in the waltz and stepping on Jorah's toes. He seemed hardly to notice, however; his steady arm at her waist, and the slight brush of his hips against hers at the turning, brought her back into step.

Ser Jorah's heavy eyebrows arched up high on his broad forehead beneath the receding line of dark hair. "Are you scandalised, Lady Daenerys?"

"No, I…" She darted her eyes sideways at Viserys, who was watching them darkly from near the refreshment tables, nursing a glass of champagne. Lifting her chin, she met Jorah's eye and spoke with as much conviction as she had ever mustered when giving voice to an opinion, "I think those women are very brave."

She'd said so once to Viserys after reading in the papers about imprisoned women undertaking hunger strikes and being force-fed semolina. He had threatened to do the same to her if she didn't shut up about female equality.

"Yes," Jorah agreed. "They are."

"Has Lady Alysane--"

"Just Alysane," he corrected her. "Or Aly."

"Has she ever been arrested for her protests?"

"Not Aly but my youngest cousin, Lyanna…" The muscles of his cheek twitched above his beard, and Dany thought he was struggling to conceal a grin. "She threw a hatchet at the Prime Minister's carriage in Dublin last July."

"God god!" cried Dany. "I remember reading about that in the papers."

"Yes, the bloody tabloids had a field day," Jorah said, looking cross. Then, as if realising he had used coarse language in front of her, he said, "but this is hardly suitable ballroom talk."

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and a few more bars of the Strauss tune brought the waltz to its end. Dany felt dizzy, not only from twirling about in the waltz, the hem of her skirt swishing about Jorah's legs with the final flourish, but even more from the abrupt end to the dance and their discussion. She clung to his hand and shoulder for a moment as the strains of the orchestra were swallowed up by the muted applause of gloved hands, wondering what had been her misstep, and then he led her off the dance floor.

But he put her anxiety to rest when he said, "Thank you for the honour, Lady Daenerys. You are the loveliest partner I have had since--" He stopped short, and instead lifted her hand, just grazing her knuckles with his lips and warm breath.

He did not ask her for another dance--that would have shown undue preference and made gossiping tongues wag--and of course she was obligated to dance with the other men who asked her. She had no shortage of partners, most younger than Jorah Mormont, and handsomer, and all better dancers. None pleased her so well as him, though, and all the more when she saw that he remained rooted to one spot at the edge of the dance floor until the interlude, and did not partner with any of the other ladies in attendance.

When she was free, he was immediately at her side to escort her in to supper, should she desire it. Dany found herself without appetite--although she couldn't say no to a slice of cake and a glass of champagne--and they took advantage of Viserys going off the billiard room to slip out to the veranda to enjoy the summer night. They were not alone--other couples, other individuals, had the same idea, seeking fresh air and solitude during the lull in the ball--so it was not truly improper.

Dany went to the ledge, resting her gloved fingertips against the stone as she looked down at the street below. Jorah stood beside her, close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushed her bare arm as he leaned on his forearms. The position put him almost at eye level with her, if she were to turn her head to look at him and meet his gaze, which she felt on her face as she watched the automobiles and pedestrians go by, people appearing suddenly in front of the hotel as they exited it, or disappearing from view as they stepped beneath the awning to enter.

"It never stops, does it?" she said. "Someone in London is always awake, always has the lights on, always out and about. I wonder if I'll ever get used to it."

"Quite the change from country life, isn't it?" Jorah said.

"Orkney is even more remote than my ancestral home."

Dany turned to him then, her smile vanishing with her surprise, though she had felt him close at her side, at how near his face was to hers. His gaze had dropped a little lower than her eyes, and she realised he was looking at her lips. Her cheeks prickled warmly. Did he want to…kiss her?

Surely not. She was so much younger, and he was only being kind. His eyes darted back up to meet hers, and she found her voice again.

"How do you like London, Sir Jorah?"

"My youth was spent in India, so I'm no stranger to big cities. My father was in the Army. Still is. I never actually lived in Orkney until I was married."

"Oh." Dany's voice caught in her throat as she looked once more out at the lights of the city. She ought to have been more interested in hearing about his childhood abroad, but it was his marriage that captivated her. "What was her name?"

"Lynesse."

Involuntarily, Dany laughed at that, and it loosened the strange knot that seemed to have been tied in her breast. She turned so that she leaned back against the ledge of the balcony, not caring that the rough stone and mortar caught at the fine silk of her gown.

"Your home is in Orkney and you married a lady called Lynesse? Like the tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney and Dame Lynesse?"

Jorah nodded, the lines of his face curved in a wry expression--though he scuffed his fingers over his beard in a self-conscious gesture, the signet ring on his small finger--a bear rampant with emerald eyes--glinting in the porch lights.

"At the time it seemed very romantic," he replied, "but in the end she turned out to be much more like the lady's sister in the story."

"Dame Lynette."

Dany knew the story of Sir Gareth well--it had always been her favourite, the young nobleman who had wanted so badly to prove himself a true knight that he had posed as a lowly kitchen boy, and embarked on Lynette's quest to rescue her captive sister from the wicked Sir Ironside. But though she bore the title Lynette had been no true lady, heaping abuse on Gareth for his lowly status. Kitchen Knave, she had called him, and Fair Hands, mocking the calluses that married his skin from his menial labour.

"What happened to her?" Dany asked, her voice quivering with sadness that this man, who had been so kind to her, had been subjected to that sort of treatment from a woman, and with anger toward the woman who had not seen his worth. Like Viserys and my books. "Did she…die?"

Jorah's broad shoulders slumped with his sigh. "She divorced me."

Dany had never known a divorced person before. She knew very little about it, except that it was nearly impossible a woman to appeal for a divorce against her husband, unless he had been very cruel, and she could prove it. Unable to conceive of cruelty in this man, Dany was sure that Lynesse must have destroyed his reputation to get her way. And given the resignation with which he spoke, he had let her.

Impulsively, she reached across her body with her left hand, and cupped Jorah's cheek in her palm. As his eyes darted up in surprise--along with some other emotion she did not recognise--the thought flitted through her mind that she wished she'd had some excuse to remove her gloves, so she might feel the scratch of his beard on her bare skin.

"I'm sorry, Sir Jorah, that Lynesse turned out not to be the lady you hoped she was."

He looked touched, she thought, and she saw his Adam's apple bob in his throat, disappearing into his high stiff collar. "You know, I wished she'd be a bit more like…"

His words trailed off and his gaze darted away, and Dany stroked her thumb over his cheekbone, encouragingly. "Like what, Sir?"