Maroon Leaves (english)

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful words, but I'd rather choke than dance. Especially with you.
I gave him the courtesy and wanted to leave, but he held my wrist and turned me around again. With his other hand laying on my lower back, he pressed me against his strong body.
"You are holding me too tight," I breathed.
"You wanted to be choked. You said it yourself."
"Not by you."

Akiko Anne Ferrings, daughter of the not so honourable Earl of Ferrings and a Japanese courtesan, was raised in an orphanage near London. Her father took her in as a companion for his legitimate child Delilah when she was sixteen. Kiki wants nothing more in this world than to dance and help the children and their rundown place she used to call her home. Her father, however, has other plans. Disaster struck when her sister get's ill and she has to leave her mansion and privileges behind. But will this be the start of a life fully lived? Or will it end in disaster?
Not only does Akiko have to stand against retarded values of race and what it means truly call something home, but she also has to fight against her inner demons. And then there is the soon to be King and his brother, whom she despises but can't stop thinking about.
Can she truly become happy and find love in this aristocratic society?