Page 49 of Duke of Destruction
CHAPTER 13
Catherine had a good deal of experience winning arguments.
With Ariadne, age six:
Why do I have to wear shoes?
Because if you don’t, you will step on something sharp, and it will hurt a great deal and you won’t be able to play outside for at least a week. Plus, it will ruin your favorite stockings, the ones with the lace on the top.
With Jason, age twelve:
Why do I have to go away to school?
Because if you don’t, you won’t learn things, and then everyone will think you are a ninny. They won’t call you a ninny becauseyou are the son of a duke, brother to a duke, but they will think it, and you will be too much of a ninny to realize it. Plus, all your friends will be there.
With Xander, age one and thirty:
Why should I give my bride of convenience another chance?
Because you secretly love her, you absurd, obstinate man.
Well, with that last one, she had moreledhim to the answer rather than telling him as much to his face. Elder brothers did require such a delicate touch, finicky creatures that they were.
Catherine was discovering, as she tried—really tried—to make herself go to sleep after the ball, that she was not nearly as good at winning arguments with herself.
Why should I let Percy walk away?
That one had an easy answer.
Because we made a bargain that this would be done with. Because I am not here to chase after a man. Because he wanted to go, and you should listen to that.
It was a good argument, a clear argument.
It didn’t work.
No sooner had Catherine answered her own mental query than another one popped up.
But what if Ididfollow him?
Follow him where, though? He had likely gone to bed, and she obviously couldn’t follow him there.
But what if Idid?
That was the thought that made her sit up in her bed, all hopes of sleep abandoned.
Catherine had always done the right thing, the responsible thing, the proper thing.
But what if she didn’t?
Tonight was the last night of the house party, something her mind couldn’t help but equate with her last chance. After tonight, she would return to London, where she would go back to her brother’s house and fill her days with helping Ariadne find a husband, with cooing over her young niece, and with the kind of social activities and charitable works that any proper, unmarried young woman undertook to while away the hours.
Put differently, she would drift even more inexorably toward spinsterhood.
All of which meant that tonight might be her last chanceever. Her very last opportunity, for all her days, to experience the kind of pleasure that Percy had brought her in those few stolen encounters.
One week of impropriety wasn’t so bad, compared to a lifetime of near-perfect behavior, was it?
Catherine got to her feet.
