Page 39 of Duke of Destruction
“David,” he muttered mutinously.
Catherine fought back against the scream that threatened to tear free from her throat.
When she had finally composed herself, she found Percy was wearing a careful mask. He smiled at the two other women.
“I think we have found all we needed to find for today,” he said. “Let’s return to the house, shall we?”
Miss Reid looked at him as though she would have followed him anywhere.
“Oh, yes, let’s,” she agreed, ignoring her partner’s crestfallen expression.
The two turned and headed back toward the house, leaving Catherine and Lady Cardew behind.
The matron and the spinster. It was how things were meant to be.
Not that this thought did anything to stop the jealousy roiling in Catherine’s gut.
“I am going to murder you.”
David leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced behind his head.
“You can get away with a lot as a duke,” he observed, “but murdering another duke is not one such thing. Also, you have threatened my murder many, many times. One starts to think you don’t mean it, Percy.”
“And yet you seem determined to test the limits of that restraint,” Percy countered. He felt that he likely looked like a madman. Hefeltlike a madman. His body thrummed with unspent desire.
Worse than that, however, was that he had found himself desperate to just talk to Catherine.
Talkto her. Like they were…friends.
He could not befriendswith Catherine. For one, she was a woman, an unmarried lady, and friendships between gentlemen and ladies were simply not the done thing. For another, she was a Lightholder. He might have let himself forget that briefly, but they had been in the blasted woods, about as far from Society as they could get.
This party was not their real lives. Soon enough, they would go back to London, and she would be surrounded by her powerful family, and he would be the usurper duke—desirable for his title and wealth, yes, but clearly inferior to anyone else of his rank, by virtue of his parents’ humble births.
“Oh, come now,” David said. “You cannot tell me that you didn’t enjoy yourself.”
It was true that Percy wasn’t going to actually murder his friend. But he might punch him. He really might.
“That’s beside the point,” he snarled. “Giving us that ridiculous list was unfair. And you might want to play your stupid little games with me—God knows why, but I suppose we’ve been friends long enough—but Catherine?—”
David’s eyes lit up, and Percy stopped himself, realizing his mistake at once.
“Catherineis it?” David asked, glee evident. “My, my. You see, I myself call her ‘LadyCatherine,’ but then again, I have not found myself drawn into her presencenumeroustimes during the past several days?—”
“Would you please shut up?” Percy asked, suddenly exhausted. He dropped into his own chair.
It always went like this. As annoying as David was, it was somehow impossible to stay angry with the man. Not because you wanted to forgive him, but because he found new and creative ways to be annoying until you broke down, like a trickle of water etching a canyon through rocks.
“You need to stop,” Percy said wearily. “I know you amuse yourself like this, moving people around like pawns, but you have to stop.”
David frowned. “You’re not apawn. Christ, Percy, is that how you really see me?” He shook his head sharply, then continued before Percy could respond. “I put you together because—well, you do like her, don’t you?”
Lord help him, hedid. That was the whole problem.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “She and I… We’re too different.”
David rolled his eyes, and that hint of woundedness vanished.
“Oh yes. You’re a duke. She’s the daughter of a duke. ‘Tis the kind of thing operas are made of, that kind of class divide. How shall the two of you ever find common ground?”
