Page 82 of Duke of Destruction
Even Jason—sweet, oblivious Jason—had said, on their walk through Regent’s Park, “Is everything well with you, then, Kit?”
Of course, Percy had literally beenright there, so Catherine hadn’t precisely been hiding it well. She had, instead, taken a brief trip back into being sad, because he had lookedsosad. But then she’d realized this, remembered that, if he was sad about something, that this was his own bleeding fault, and had careened directly back into furious.
It had been one too many feelings to adequately hide.
“Why wouldn’t things be well?” she’d asked her brother sweetly.
God bless Jason, so happy and unbothered in his newfound marital bliss. He’d just smiled at her.
“Oh. Good!”
And on they’d strolled.
And on Catherine had fumed.
Tragically, she lived with a group of people who were significantly more observant than her younger brother. Catherine assumed that she had Helen to thank for the fact that Xander hadn’t yet prodded her about her mood, but the lingering, thoughtful looks that he kept giving her suggested that she was running out of time on this period of grace.
She didn’t know if she was simply a spectacular judge of character or if she had some sort of secret, heretofore unknown mesmeric skills, but she’d no sooner had the thought than Xander appeared in the doorway, a mulish look on his face.
“Catherine,” he said, in his grand Duke of Godwin voice. Her eye twitched as she resisted rolling it. “We need to speak about this.”
“You don’t even know what ‘this’ is,” she countered. She wasn’t going to bother hiding that there wassomethingamiss; Xander wasn’t Jason. He wouldn’t be put off.
He narrowed his eyes. She appreciated the validation that she was a worthy combatant, though she would have preferred if he just…let her be.
“Then tell me,” he challenged.
She beamed at him. Her Society smile, intensified tenfold.
“No. ”
Catherine knew her brother wouldn’t actually shout at her; he hadn’t done so since before he’d gone off to Eton and had decided to be all mature and lordly about things. Even so, he was wearing an extremely shouty sort of expression.
“Catherine,” he repeated.
“Xander,” she mimicked.
Shehadn’t gone to a prim and proper school.Shedidn’t need to be mature.
Besides, she had spentso longbeing mature and responsible. She’d spent so long caring for her family.
For right now, she was going to be difficult. They owed her a little bit of that, after all these years.
And maybe Xander understood that—he had become the man of the family too early, too—because he heaved a deflating sigh.
“Kitty, I?—”
They were interrupted by a shout from downstairs.
“Would you please justgo away!”
Ariadne.
Whatever problems lingered between Catherine and Xander evaporated in an instant. They were the two elder siblings, and one of the younger ones was in distress.
They bolted out of the room.
Catherine didn’t draw a full breath until she saw that Ariadne was standing safely in the foyer, uninjured but looking downrightfurious.
