Page 13 of Duke of Destruction
But that?—
It was wrong. It was so wrong, no matter how good it felt.
She should have felt grateful when he pulled away.
For the first moment, however, all she felt was disappointment.
And after that, blind panic.
What had shedone?
She blinked, her mouth dropping open in horror. The Duke of Seaton wore a matching expression. It was the first time they were in agreement.
And perhaps they could have come to an agreement over that—if not for the fact that Catherine, feeling like an utter coward, turned swiftly on her heel and fled.
CHAPTER 4
“Are you all right?”
Catherine tried to look cheerful and reassuring without emerging from behind a large tree in a pot. It seemed impractical to put such a large plant in anything other than the ground, but she was, at the moment, exceedingly grateful for the excesses of the aristocracy.
“Of course,” she told Ariadne brightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Ariadne’s brow furrowed. “Do…you want me to answer that question?”
Catherine didn’t have a good answer for that. Both options seemed inadvisable.
Her hesitation seemed to indicate that her younger sister ought to enumerate her causes for concern.
“You didn’t come back to my rooms after supper last night—you didn’t even come to the parlor.”
Catherine winced. “I am sorry, darling; I hope you don’t feel I abandoned you.”
Ari waved away this apology.
“No, it’s fine. I talked to Lady Reid, who, as it happens, had quite a storied youth. It’s just that you do rather tend to hover?—”
“I don’thover!”
“You do, but it’s part of your charm,” Ari said gently. “But then, this morning, you seemed rather cagey at breakfast.”
“I was notcagey!” Catherine protested.
“You were.” Ariadne spoke to her even more softly now, like Catherine was a wild animal liable to startle. “And now, Kitty—well, you’re hiding in a plant.”
“I’m not—” Catherine stopped herself. Her protests were not having much of an effect.
So, even though she very much did not want to, she stepped out from behind the tree.
“See?” she said brightly.
“Convincing,” Ariadne told her.
Catherine chose to ignore this, instead casting a furtive glance to check on the location of…
Everyone. She was looking for the general sense of the party. Not for anyone in particular.
Catherine had decided, somewhere between many hours after midnight and the first light of dawn—all of which she had spent staring at her ceiling—that she would simply…pretend nothing had happened the day prior.
