Page 47 of Duke of Destruction
And then he would never have to see her again, a thought that never filled him with as much relief as it ought to have done.
He’d come down to the ball fully cognizant that this was liable to be the most difficult test of his resolve. And indeed, it had been; he’d seen her in her ball gown, looking far more beautiful than she had any right to look.
But still, he’d stayed away.
He’d done his best to avoid watching her, though he hadn’t been able to resist the occasional darted glance in her direction. She’d spent most of the first hour standing and quietly talking with her sister.
This shouldn’t have endeared her to him any further. He should have taken it as reminder that Catherine and her family were so closely intertwined as to be inseparable.
Butshould and shouldn’thad released their grip on him around the same time that he had first kissed Catherine Lightholder.
His responsibilities and promises to himself proved even less meaningful when he’d looked over and seen how that bastard earl haddaredto put his hands on her.
All forms of higher logic evaded him. He’d seen it, he’d reacted.
And now, somehow, he was dancing with her.
And it was…
It was wonderful and it was terrible. She was beautiful in his arms, and he wanted to bolt away from her. He wanted her desperately; he hated her; he never wanted to let her go.
Her smile looked happy. That was the very worst part of it.
“You’re a wonderful dancer,” he said, just to avoid saying something far stupider, like,let’s forget that cursed deal.
She bit her lip to curtail a smile. Damn her.
“I hope you do not expect me to return the compliment in kind,” she said, a sly look entering her eye. “Seeing as you’ve just trod on my foot.”
“Oh, Christ,” Percy said, breaking the cardinal rule of dancing and looking down at his feet, which only made him stumble anew.
Catherine was, alas, too adept to be misled by his fumbling; she kept her pace steady, and he found his rhythm with her. He tried not to see too much in this, tried not to envision her grandfather’s sneer at his ill breeding.
As much as Percy had put in intense effort to make sure that no member of thetoncould ever again accuse him of inadequacy, the kind of elegant dancing that so many men seemed to find second nature had always eluded him. He was, in a word,adequate—but no better. He’d told himself that was enough.
Looking down into Catherine’s smile, it didn’t seem enough at all.
I want to be good enough for her. The thought came unbidden.
He swallowed hard against it. He could not let himself think that way. That was what people like the Lightholders wanted him to think, and he absolutely would not, could not do it.
He cleared his throat, dug deep for some social grace.
“Then I am fortunate to have a partner like you,” he said cordially. “To help me along the way.”
This should have put greater distance between them, this vague politeness, but instead Catherine’s smile grew even more crooked.
“You’re more likely to hurt yourself complimenting me than you are dancing,” she teased.
The lightness in her words was a trick, one that Percy so desperately wanted to fall for. That casual tone said that perhaps they could be near one another like this without it turning into…anything else. But that wouldn’t happen. Even now, he wanted to kiss her with a ferocity that alarmed him, witnesses be damned.
Indeed, that insidious voice snaked back inside his head.
If you kiss her now,you will ruin her, and then you will be forced to marry her, for the sake of her honor and yours.
Dangerous, dangerous thoughts.
Temptingthoughts.
