Page 46 of Duke of Destruction
She was only middlingly confident of this, but she worried that Percy might follow the earl and murder him if she admitted to any discomfort.
And that would beso messy.
“You’re sure?” he demanded, his gaze darting between her arm and her face.
“Yes,” she said, putting enough emphasis on the word that he finally looked back up at her face. When she caught his eye, she flicked hers toward Ariadne, who was watching all this with theutmostinterest.
“Oh.” She’d never seen Percy so discombobulated. Not when she’d fallen into the lake, not when they’d run into one another in the hallway, nor during any of the unlikely things that had transpired between them in between.
They had never discussed the specifics of his family, but she considered this proof positive that he had no younger siblings.
“Good day!” Ariadne said happily. “I’m Ariadne, Catherine’s sister!”
Percy cleared his throat aggressively. “I, um. Yes. I know.”
“It’ssonice to meet you,” Ariadne gushed.
“Oh, look, Ari!” Catherine said pointedly. “Lady Margaret is waving at you.”
Lady Margaret was not. But Ari, for all her little sisterly sense of mischief, knew how to be decent when it counted.
“Of course, silly me,” she said. She stepped around Percy and then, from behind his back, shot Catherine a look that said they would be talking about this ingreatdetail later. “Thank you for your assistance, Your Grace.”
“You are, ahem, very welcome,” Percy responded, his eyes still fixed on Catherine.
Despite everything, Catherine felt a little bubble of laughter rise up inside her.
“Ask me to dance,” she told Percy.
He blinked. Goodness above, it was horrible how charmed she was by seeing him baffled.
“I beg your pardon?”
She tilted her head subtly to indicate the ballroom around them.
“It will give you a reason for coming over here,” she explained. “Nobody will talk.”
She was surprised to realize that this was not actually first on her list of concerns. It was a fair excuse, but it was just that—an excuse.
She just wanted to dance with him.
Wisdom be damned.
Their agreement be damned.
She just wanted it very, very badly.
He took a step back, and she worried that he would refuse her.
But then he bowed.
“Lady Catherine,” he said, the picture of gentlemanly propriety, “would you do me the honor of this dance?”
She worried that her smile might split her face right in half.
Percy was suffering from an intolerable excess of feeling.
He had been so certain he could manage to avoid any of this. He’d made his bargain with Catherine—to hell with calling herby her title; that clearly hadn’t worked—with only two days left in the house party. He could survive two days.
