Page 10 of Duke of Destruction
His efforts to not stare at Lady Catherine were evidently in vain, however, for as the group retired from the dinner table, the ladies destined for the parlor while the men headed for the study for port and cheroots, a small, slender hand snagged at his sleeve.
“A word, Your Grace, if you will.”
Lady Catherine’s tone was polite enough, but it was very clearlynota request.
Percy did not think of himself as being particularly perverse. He was, by his own reckoning, a normal sort of man with the occasional, normal sort of vices. He was rather particular about his brandy to the point that people (by which he meant David) had called him absurd. He had his dalliances with the odd merry widow, though hewascareful to be discreet.
In short, you could not throw a stone in London without hitting a gentleman with worse habits than Percy.
ButLord,did it fill him with the most dreadful sort of satisfaction to see the narrowed glare and irritated blush on Lady Catherine Lightholder. Oh, it satisfied him tonoend.
It was enough that, for the very first time, he smiled at her.
“I cannot see that we have anything to discuss, my lady,” he said politely. Inside, he was as gleeful as a child with a sweet. It really was not at all flattering to his character, but he was enjoying himself too much to care.
“Respectfully, I must disagree.”
The cracks were showing in her perfect façade. She hadn’t raised her voice, and her posture was still as sanguine as ever. To an outsider, she would look perfectly poised. But there was a brittleness to her smile that said it threatened to break.
“Perhaps another time, my lady,” he said grandly.
And then shegrabbed him.
She reached right out and grabbed his wrist and used her hold on him to yank him into an offshoot of the main corridor of the house, a quiet little nook where nobody would interrupt them. He was so surprised by the gesture that he let her tug him along.
Well, it was a combination of his surprise and curiosity. What would this perfect little princess of a lady do when pushed?
He couldn’t help but note that she maintained some propriety even at her apparent breaking point. The small enclave was not so small that they had to stand inappropriately close to one another, nor was it so private that they could be accused of hiding away if someone encountered them.
This tempered his delight in prodding at her composure. Evidently, he hadn’t poked hard enough, not if she could still be so aware of matters of propriety.
He hadn’t beenentirelyineffective, however, for Lady Catherine pinned him with a glare.
“What iswrongwith you?” she demanded.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you?—”
“Save it,” she advised him. Apparently, the little kitten had let her claws come out to play, then. How delightful. “You’ve beenstaring at me all evening like I’ve insulted your mother, your sister, your entire family line.”
“My mother passed when I was a child and I don’t have a sister,” he offered her.
As for his family line…
Her face undertook the most fascinating journey as her anger warred with her good breeding. What would it look like, he wondered, if that anger won out? What would it look like if she let herself truly feel the emotions that were clearly roiling beneath the surface—without stifling them? He could only imagine her features in the most spectacular set of expressions.
Some small, perverse part of him desperately wanted to be the one to inspire those emotions. What would it feel like to be the man who could make the esteemed Lady Catherine Lightholder crack?
“I am sorry for your loss. I didn’t mean—it was just an expression. You know what I meant.” It was an accusation lobbed at him with deadly accuracy. “You’ve been glaring. And yes, everyone knows that, for whatever inane reason, the Duke of Seaton hates the Lightholders.” She shook her head, visibly disgusted. “Which is really rather absurd, if you think about it, since we haven’t done a single thing to you. Not one thing.”
Oh, well,thatwas rich.
Percy bared his teeth at her, more rictus grin than anything resembling a true smile.
“If you think that is true, Lady Catherine,” he said, his voice low and near trembling with rage, “then you knownothingabout your family.”
Catherine had never in her life intentionally struck someone. Even as a child, she had never been the kind to get into the kind of physical spats that were common among siblings. Once, when she’d been six and Xander thirteen, she’d kicked him in the head while he tried to help her down from an ill-advised climb into a too-tall tree.
Xander had been completely fine. Catherine had been horrified and had wept until he’d done a handstand to show her that he was unaffected.
