Page 42 of Duke of Destruction
But at least Catherine wasn’t there.
Or, at least, she wasn’tphysicallythere. To Percy’s intense annoyance—and occasional flares of arousal when his self-control slipped—she was persistently there in his head.
She was there, grinning up at him as she found a pinecone that was the exact color of the roof of her home. She was there, pursing her lips at him like she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. She was there, biting her lip as she chased her pleasure.
Percy slammed shut the book he’d been pretending to read.
This was not working in the least. He needed a drink. Or seven.
Fate was determined to make a mockery of him, however, for he had gone perhaps half a dozen paces beyond the doorway of the remote study when he turned a corner and practically crashed into?—
“Catherine,” he said, surprised. He cleared his throat. “Lady Catherine,” he amended.
The smile she gave him was awkward, and it made Percy itch like he wore a too-tight woolen sweater. From the start, he had never seen her be uncomfortable like this. This wasLady Catherine Lightholder, the most proper woman in theton.
And even when she’d let that slip, even when she’d been blazingly furious or lost to his kisses, she’d been so confident, so absolutely herself.
He felt as though he was now standing before another woman entirely.
Not that this affected the way his body still cried out for hers.
“Your Grace,” she said, her expression strained as she bobbed a curtsey. “I do beg your pardon. I did not intend to encounter you here.”
This was another sign that this was not his Catherine—or, rather, not thenormalLady Catherine. He could see through her polite words to the message beneath.She had been avoiding him, too. Had she been operating in her usual adroit manner, he likely would have been so turned around by her maneuvering that he wouldn’t have caught her true meaning until later.
At first, he had found this skill of hers to be repugnant, another sign that she was merely one more member of her treacherous clan.
Now, though, he saw it as a skill, one she had had to be extraordinarily clever to develop.
And hemissedit.
“It is I who must beg your pardon,” he said, cringing inwardly at how stiff he sounded. They were still a matched pair, apparently, even when they were being so bizarrely aloof. The idea would have made him laugh if it wasn’t so horrible. “I should have been more attentive to my path.”
“Do not worry about it another moment,” she said politely.
This would have been the time for him to take his leave. He should have stepped around her, or she around him. They could walk away, go on pretending like nothing had ever happened between them.
Percy genuinely thought, however, that one more day in the dusty, cramped study might actually kill him. Or worse, one more day listening to the ancient Lord Rolf tell lengthy anecdotes about his wayward youth while the Earl of Crompton blustered about his many outlandish ambitions.
He simply couldn’t bear it.
“It is ridiculous to avoid one another,” he said quietly, not quite looking at her. “We can be reasonable about this.”
He saw from the corner of his eye the way her head flickered toward him and then away again.
“We can,” she agreed. “What happened was—” He braced himself. “—unfortunate.”
He hadn’t braced himself hard enough for that. Still, he forced a nod.
“Indeed. But I am sure it is far more common that people give in to physical attraction at house parties than thetonwould have us believe.”
Her nod, too, felt forced.
“You are likely right,” she said.
“But that is all that this was,” he continued, the words tasting sour. “Just an attraction. Nothing else.”
Tell me I’m wrong, something inside him screamed. He had ever wanted to fight with anyone so badly in his life.
