Page 48 of Duke of Destruction
He breathed in slowly, inadvertently sucking in a lungful of her light, almond and floral soap, then let it out again.
“No, Catherine,” he said, not quite looking at her. “You deserve to be complimented. You deserve…someone who can give that to you freely.”
She didn’t quite stumble—she was too practiced for that—but there was the slightest hitch in her step. He’d surprised her.
Well, good. He’d surprised himself, too. This entire confounded affair, he’d kept surprising himself.
She had kept surprising him.
“Percy, I—” she began, sounding a bit breathless.
But then—thankGod—the music came to a stop, the dancers, the ones Percy hadn’t noticed around them until now, all slowing, separating, politely clapping.
Percy released Catherine and pushed away from her.
He couldn’t hear what she was planning to say. It almost didn’t even matter what it was. Every possibility would wreck him.
“Goodnight, Lady Catherine,” he said, forcing himself to meet the confused and slightly wounded look on her face. “And—goodbye.”
It was early, but he didn’t care. He turned and left the ballroom without saying a single word to anyone else.
He retreated to his bedchamber, dismissed his valet far more curtly than the poor man deserved, and threw himself into an armchair to indulge in a proper sulk. He would have made it a drunken sulk, except he realized too late that there wasn’t any liquor in his room—he made a mental note to needle David about this later—and leaving the room felt like a great deal too much work.
So he just stared at the fire, trying to ignore the way his palms tingled still, just because he’d touched Catherine, held her close to dance. He ignored the way her smile made him feelhopeful.
It didn’t matter. It was over.
Tomorrow, he would either leave too early to see her or hide out in his room until he was certain she’d departed. He was no longer prideful enough to worry that this was a coward’s way out. He simply could not trust himself to see her again.
Not at this house, at least. He was certain that this was some sort of strange spell created by the house party. He’d always disdained people who got themselves embroiled in scandal at house parties, but he felt a great deal more sympathetic to them now. There was clearly some sort of evil alchemy afoot at these remote country estates.
He would return to London in the morning, and everything would befine. Yes, Catherine lived there, too, but he had spent nearly fifteen years residing in the city, and he hadn’t yet encountered her there. It would befine. It would be. It had to be.
“At least I didn’t do something I couldn’t take back,” he told the dwindling firelight peevishly.
His behavior had not been at all gentlemanly, but he hadn’t ruined her. That was something, some balm to his honor, certainly.
Christ, what had happened to him? How had he become a man who praised himself becauseat least he hadn’t defiled a virgin?
Maybe he shouldn’t return to London. Maybe he should go back to his country estate and quietly rot away, like the duke before his father had done. Yes, he wouldn’t beget an heir, and people would stop seeing him as a respectable man and instead wouldresume muttering about how his ignoble heritage really should have led them to predict this.
But he would be too far away to hear what they had to say. And some distant cousin could inherit when Percy finally faded away. It had worked before.
Except that would never work, because stupid, insufferable, interfering David would no doubt show up at his door, determined tobe a good friendor some other such drivel.
“David.” Percy muttered it like a curse.
This whole thing really was David’s fault, he decided.
Thus, when he heard a knock coming at his door late in the night, he sprang to his feet, even though his body protested the swift movement after sitting for so long. But it would have to be David at the door. Nobody else would come to see him at this hour.
And Percy was going to give that meddlesome, hedonistic scoundrel a piece of his mind.
He crossed the room, fury building in his feet, then wrenched the door open, heedless of any sound that his actions might produce.
And then he froze.
“May I come in?” said Catherine Lightholder.
