Page 52 of Five Ways to Bed a Duke

After some bouts of sobs, the Dowager Duchess seemed to acknowledge Catherine’s presence. Giving her a smile, she said,“You must be Catherine. Emmy wouldn’t stop writing about you in her letters.” Coming closer, she took Catherine’s hands in her own. “Thank you for being a good friend to her.”

Catherine nodded, at a loss for words. The Dowager Duchess’s hands were slightly damp, and she fought the urge to pull her hand away.

“Thank you so much for guiding my beautiful Emmy.” Releasing her hands, the Dowager Duchess turned back to Emmy, pulling her into another tight embrace. “I guess it is my punishment to miss so much of her life.”

“I don’t think you have been punished enough!” a masculine voice thundered.

They all turned and watched with absolute dismay as Richard marched towards them, volatile anger radiating from him in waves, his face like thunder. He dragged Emmy away from the Dowager Duchess.

“You think you can desert your family for years on end while you squander your life on the Continent and then come back, claiming to be some repentant prodigal mother?” he said, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper.

“Listen,” he hissed, his voice rising in anger. “I am only going to say thisonce. I never want to see you anywhere near me or Emmy. We do not have a mother, so your coming back after all these years is pointless. You are dead to me, do you understand? Dead!”

The Dowager Duchess burst into tears, and even Catherine had to admit that Richard had been ruthless in his rebuke.

“Your Grace…” she started.

She was taken aback by the blazing look in his eyes when he turned towards her.

“Andyou, I have always known that you are impetuous and sometimes behave in a manner that borders on indecent. I regret that I had once thought that you would be a good influence on Emmy. But you dared to connive with this woman,” he growled, pointing at the Dowager Duchess. “To corrupt Emmy and lead her astray. I never should have trusted you with her. I would warn you now to keep your distance from my family as well.”

With that scathing response, he stomped away, dragging Emmy along, leaving Catherine standing there in a state of shock.

Emmy kept turning back, shooting her remorseful looks, but Catherine was still reeling from the sharp pain in her chest, where Richard’s words had cut deep.

Chapter Sixteen

Richard had always thought he knew his sister best, and that delusion might have had something to do with the fact that he had watched her grow and carried her in his arms when she was just a tiny infant.

The events of the previous night proved that idea to be wrong because he never believed that his sister would ever conceive the idea of meeting their estranged mother all alone in a dark clearing.

When Catherine had finished dancing with Lord Livingston, Richard had been unable to tear his away from her. His eyes had followed her across the room unbidden until Simon had to tap him on the shoulder to draw his attention to another gentleman who had stopped beside them to exchange pleasantries.

Richard had greeted the gentleman absent-mindedly before unconsciously seeking Catherine once again. When he turnedback, she was no longer in the ballroom, and with that knowledge, his chest ached with a curious feeling of loss.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of the royal blue color of her dress at the edges of one of the ferns that their hostess had placed along the wall to complete the conversion of the ballroom into a woodland.

But then those ferns rustled, and he saw Emmy leading her out of the ballroom and into the hallway. He furrowed his brow in confusion. What were two women doing, wandering in a house that was not theirs?

He quickly rationalized it, assuring himself that they might have just gone to the powder room to freshen up. Women tended to do that a lot, and for some reason, they preferred to visit the powder room in groups. That reason eluded him, but then it was a generally accepted fact in the world of men that women were very mysterious creatures that could never be fully understood.

When time passed and they had not returned, he grew concerned and considered stepping out of the ballroom to find them. But he could hardly burst into the powder room, claiming he was looking for his sister. He would just be labeled a pervert, and he would rather save himself the embarrassment.

When he eventually became too distracted, he excused himself, heading to the balcony in the hope that the cool night breeze might ease some of his apprehension.

Imagine his shock when he sighted the figures of two women that he could guess were his sister and Catherine creeping along the hedges in the garden. He watched as they met a third lady when they got to the clearing.

Something about the newcomer raised his hackles, and he raced down the steps leading into the garden. His fears were confirmed when he found his sister embracing a slightly older version of his estranged mother.

He had thought he had grown numb to his mother’s infidelity and abandonment, but the ugly, twisting feeling of betrayal that had reared its head upon witnessing that embrace belied that belief.

He had been overcome with so much anger, and in some distant part of his mind, he knew he was reacting a little too harshly, but that was the only way he could suppress the overwhelming pain and betrayal that were constricting his chest.

The fact that Emmy and Catherine, the two most important women in his life, had somehow connived to bring back that faithless woman in some amateur attempt at reconciliation made it even more painful.

The creaking of the door to the study made him look up, only to see Emmy standing there, staring at him.

“We need to talk, Richie,” she said.

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