Page 32 of Duke of Destruction
“Are you feeling all right, Kitty?” she asked. “You’ve been upstairs for ages.”
“Quite all right,” Catherine reassured her little sister. “You were right about that dress after all. I was rather too warm today.”
Catherine had hoped that this admission would put Ariadne off the scent of the truth; like any younger sibling, Ariadne loved to hear that she was right.
Today, though, she did not look at all convinced—nor distracted.
“Does this have something to do with that duke?” she asked.
Catherine felt her eyes go wide. “What duke?”
It came out as a squeak.
“The Duke of Seaton,” Ariadne said slowly. “You and he keep…looking at one another.”
“No,” Catherine said too quickly, because apparently all sense of social grace had left her today. “We haven’t.”
Ariadne didn’t seemsuspiciousso much asincredulous, like she truly could not understand what Catherine was up to.
Well, that made two of them.
“You…have,” Ariadne said. “I saw the two of you.”
“He is in Parliament with Xander,” Catherine said. She’d mentioned this before, hadn’t she?
The lack of sleep was apparently starting to catch up with her.
“And that’s something you…needed to discuss with him?” Ariadne asked. Then realization lit her face, and Catherine felt something akin to panic. “Kitty, do you?—”
“Lady Ariadne. Good evening.”
Catherine had never been so glad to be interrupted in her life.
That was, until she saw that the newcomer was the Earl of Crompton, the second-to-last person that Catherine wanted to see just then.
Ariadne’s uncomfortable smile said she felt the same.
“Oh, good evening, my lord,” she said politely.
The earl smiled too broadly at this. “Good evening, Lady Ariadne,” he said again—and, again, left Catherine out. “I am so glad to find you here.”
At a house party that we’re all attending,Catherine thought sourly.
It was not at all difficult to understand what the Earl of Crompton was up to. If young ladies came to house parties to meet gentlemen in a setting that was less rife with pressure than the Season, gentlemen generally came to meet young ladies in a setting that had lesscompetitionthan the Season.
The earl needed that kind of help, if his total lack of social graces were anything to go by.
“I must say, Lady Ariadne,” he went on, not even sparing a glance for Catherine, “I was much diverted by our conversation the other day. I would very much hope to have more of the same with an esteemed young lady like yourself. I thought I might call upon you when we returned to London.”
Ariadne’s eyes went wide with alarm; even Catherine was shocked by the man’s audacity. Asking to call upon Ariadne in London wasn’tquitea declaration of formal courtship, but it was the next best thing.
And, Catherine noted irritably, he still hadn’t actually asked Ariadne if she wanted this. He’d just declared it so.
It was, she decided, time to intervene.
“There’s quite a lot of time left at the party, my lord,” Catherine interjected, stepping smoothly between Ariadne and the Earl.The man had been standing so close to her sister that the movement forced him to take a physical step back.
“I hardly see how that is—” the earl began, a flicker of anger appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. Catherine found that the dishonesty of that smoothed-over ire made her feel dirty, like she needed a bath.
