Page 11 of Duke of Destruction
Staring at Percy Egelton, she wondered if now was the time to turn to a life of violence.
Howdarehe say he didn’t know her family?
If Catherine knew anything in this life, anything at all, it was her family. Catherine’s family was her life.
“And you do?” she snapped back. “You know about families? Because I seem to recall you very pointedly informing me that you didn’t have one of your own. So perhaps you ought to stick to matters that you understand, hm?”
The moment it left her lips, she knew she had gone rather too far. The man had told her his mother haddied, after all. When he was achild.
But instead of looking as though he were offended—or worse, genuinely hurt—the Duke of Seaton lit up with a sort of fervor. Angry fervor, certainly, but fervor, nonetheless.
“Ah, so the truth comes out, does it, Lady Catherine? You pretend to be so prim and proper but you are just like the rest of them.”
This time, Catherine was surprised to find thatshewas neither offended nor genuinely hurt.
She wasangry. And it felt…good.
“Oh dear,” she said, her tone dripping more sarcasm than she’d ever permitted herself in herlife. “Like the rest of my family? My loving, large family who always turns out to support one another? Howdreadful.”
“Indeed. I’m sure you support each other marvelously.”
His words were right, but the duke’s tone said that he did not consider this to be a positive at all.
“You know,” she told him, her voice sharp as razors, “it’s fascinating that you think you are insulting me. But really, what you are telling me is that you are jealous.”
“Jealous?” He reared back from the words as if they stung. “Ofyou?Are you insane?”
That stung the tiniest bit, though she was better at hiding it than he was. For once, her practice at feigning perfection paid off. She wanted him to think her unbothered.
“What else am I supposed to think?” she asked him, all innocent eye flutters and acid tongue. “You reveal yourself as opposed to me and mine from the very beginning—though we have so little to do with you that I scarcely recognized your name. Your obsession can therefore reveal only one thing; you are jealous that we have each other and you have…”
She trailed off suggestively. She was being vicious.
And it was dangerous to let this out. Terribly so.
Catherine Lightholder’s most deeply buried secret was that she was not, in truth, as prim and proper as she appeared. Nor was maintaining that appearance as effortless as she wanted everyone to think. This was one trick she pulled even on her siblings, not because she wanted them to think she was perfect, but because she didn’t want them to worry.
“My family is none of your business,” the duke snapped back at her. Good. She’d hit a tender spot, then.
“But my family is yours?” She gave him a pitying glance. “Sir, your hypocrisy is egregious. Perhaps you are too grandand self-important to hear that from anyone else, but I find myself remarkably unimpressed by your—” She waved at him derisively. “—status.”
Oh, she really needed to stop. This wasnotwhat she did.
Her brother was the head of the family. He tended to…countless responsibilities. Jason, too, was learning to manage his own household. And Ari had to focus on marital prospects.
Which left Catherine. Catherine, who could contribute in only one way.
By smoothing things over for the rest.
But today, she wouldn’t.
A muscle twitched in the duke’s face, which Catherine watched with a savage sort of triumph.
“Youwouldfocus on status, wouldn’t you, Lady Catherine?” he spat.
She bared her teeth at him. She couldn’t even pretend to call it a smile.
“You know nothing about me,” she reminded him. “And you are nothingtome.”
